The political crisis approached rapidly, and Ashe's name was less
and less to the front. Lady Parham was said to be taking an active part
in the consultations and intrigues that surrounded her husband, and it
was well known by now to the inner circle that her hostility to the
Ashes, and her insistence on the fact that cabinet ministers must be
beyond reproach, and their wives persons to whose houses the party can
go without demeaning themselves, were likely to be of importance.
Moreover, Ashe's success in the House of Commons was no longer what it
had been earlier in the session. The party papers had cooled. Elizabeth
Tranmore felt a blight in the air. Yet William, with his position in the
country, his high ability, and the social weight belonging to the heir
of the Tranmore peerage and estates, was surely not a person to be
lightly ignored! Would Lord Parham venture it?
* * * * *
At last the resignations of the two ministers were in the
Times; there
were communications between the Queen and the Premier, and London
plunged with such ardor as is possible in late July into the throes of
cabinet-making.
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