THE MISTRESS OF THE ROBES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 69

THE MISTRESS OF THE ROBES.

Queen Alexandra is, (says a wellinformed paper), possessed of a determination Avith Avhicb few people save those who knoAV her intimately are disposed to credit her, and she usually manages to get her way. Thus she has just Avon, a quiet though signal victory over the Noav Liberal administration. When the new ministers came into office a few weeks ago they took it for granted that the Duchess of Buccleuch, whoso husband' is a great Tory leader, would, in accordance Avith the custom that prevailed in the threescore years or more of Queen Victoria’s reign, resign her office as Mistress of the Rohes of the Queen, which is the highest feminine dignity at court, and carries Avith it the control of all of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and, indeed, of the entire feminine portion of the royal household.. In fact they were discussing among themselves as to which Liberal peeress they would nominate as successor to the Duchests, when Queen Alexandra suddenly, but very quietly, intimated that under no circumstances would she part with the Duchess of Buccleuch, and that she intended to retain her in office as Mistress of the Robes, no matter what' administration, happened to he in power.

There were some wlio, on receiving this news, imagined that the so-called “bed chamber question,” which gave rise to a ministerial crisis in the third year of Queen Victoria’s reign, was about to re-occur. When Sir Robert Peel, in 1839, Avas summoned to form a Cabinet, he demanded that Victoria should dismiss her Mistress, of the Robes and her ladies-in-waiting, who Avere all of them the wives or sisters of his most bitter political foes. To this the Queen refused to consent, and Sir Robert Peel and his Cabinet thereupon tendered their resignation®. Finally the matter was compromised by the Duke of Wellington, Avho induced her to give way by pointing out to her that the spirit if not the letter’ of the constitution required it, that in previous reigns the lords-in-Avaiting and the chief dignitaries of the King’s household had changed AAith each outgoing Cabinet, their successors being nominated by the new ministers, and that as Queen Regnant she Avas much in the same position as her uncles and grandfather had been, and that under the circumstances her principal ladies-in-waiting were amenable to> the same rules as the male dignitaries of her predecessors on the throne. It is difficult. to convey any idea of the bitterness excited by the controversy at the time. There Avere parties for and against the Queen in the matter, the majority of public, however, being disposed to condemn this attempt to “Peel the Queen’s belles.” When Queen Alexandra, however, was approached the other day about' the appointment of a new Mistress of the Robes in the place of the Duchess of Buccleuch, she expressed herself in much the same fashion as her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria, nearly seventy years ago, declaring that she would not part with the duchess, and on being asked for her grounds for taking such a stand in the matter, she proceeded to point out a fact which had until then been forgotten, namely that sire was not a. Queen Regnant, like her illustrious mother-in-law, but a Queen Consort, and that therefore the rules which had been invoked by Sir Robert Peel in 1839 did not in any way apply to her case. Further consideration of the case led to the discovery that the Queen Avas entirely right in the question, and, accordingly the ministers withdrew their pretensions and left with, the best grace possible the victory to Queen Alexandra, for, although Lord Grey, in the reign of King William IV., insisted upon Queen Adelaide’s dismissal of Lord Howe, Avho Avas her chamberlain, on the ground of his public demonstration of lio-stility to the Reform Bill, then before Parliament, yet the Premier was generally considered to have exceeded his authority, and it is recognised that the Cabinet has no say in the appointment of the numbers of the household of a Queen Consort, the only rule binding upon the latter being that her ladies should be of English birth, which of course, debars any American born peeress from ever being appointed to any position in connection Avitli the Queen’s court.