These are the concluding words of the Speech from the Throne read by Victoria, the girl-Queen, to her first Parliament, on November 20, 1837. “Never,” wrote Mrs. Kemble, “have I heard any spoken words more musical in their gentle distinctness than the ‘My Lords and Gentlemen’ which broke the breathless stillness of the illustrious assembly, whose gaze was riveted on that fair flower of Royalty.” It was a new Parliament, fresh from the country, after the General Election which, as the law then required, followed the demise of the Crown owing to the death of William IV. The scene on that historic occasion in the old House of Lords was most brilliant. To the right of the young Queen stood her mother, the Duchess of Kent. On her left was Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister. At the foot of the Throne were grouped other great officers of State. The benches were crowded with peers in their robes—amongst whom Wellington, Brougham, Lyndhurst, were distinguished figures—and with peeresses in Court plumes and diamonds. At the Bar were assembled the Commons, Mr. Speaker Abercromby at their head, and in the throng might be seen such eminent statesmen and notabilities as Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Daniel O’Connell, Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), and two young Members, Gladstone, who already had four years’ experience of Parliament, and Disraeli, just returned at the General Election for Maidstone, who were destined to become the two greatest political protagonists of the nineteenth century. Writing to his sister on November 21, 1837, Disraeli thus comically describes how the Commons went to the House of Lords, and what they saw there: The rush was terrific; Abercromby himself nearly thrown down and trampled upon, and his macebearer banging the Members’ heads with his gorgeous weapon and cracking skulls with impunity. I was fortunate enough to escape, however, and also to ensure an entry. It was a magnificent spectacle. The Queen looked admirable; no feathers, but a diamond tiara. The peers in robes, the peeresses and the sumptuous groups of courtiers rendered the affair most glittering and imposing.