Bedchamber crisis
The so-called Hofdamenaffäre (also Bedchamber plot) refers to the events in the court and the conduct of Queen Victoria in the wake of the election defeat of the Whigs in May 1839. The affair cost Victoria some sympathy among the population.
Due to the electoral defeat of the former Prime Minister Lord Melbourne Robert Peel resigned and was commissioned to form a government. The then 20 -year-old Victoria had an unusually close relationship with her Prime Minister and has come up in the first two years of its accession to the throne exclusively advised by him also in regard to the selection of her ladies. Thus, the situation had arisen, all the ladies were wives or relatives of most leading Whigs. Peel, a Tory, who had to form a minority government, urged by the Queen, that the court should be staffed neutral, which would have meant the dismissal of some ladies. Victoria, who saw their friends and close companions in her ladies, this request refused strictly, also she was unsympathetic Peel. As Peel under these circumstances refused to form a government, was Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftsbury, offered the post of prime minister, but he also refused under these conditions. Finally, the Whigs remained with Lord Melbourne in power. In this so-called " Hofdamenaffäre " Victoria moved with their strict refusal in a constitutional gray area that earned her much criticism.
From a policy perspective, the Whigs had at that time little to gain and little to lose the Tories. Peel had no desire to lead another minority government, as he had already done it from 1834 to 1835, and if his position at that time would have been stronger if he had not insisted on the changes in the queen's household.
When in 1841 again offing a similar situation, the matter without fanfare could be regulated by the diplomatic action of the husband of the Queen, Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha. Victoria even judged their behavior in this situation 60 years later with the sentence: " It was a mistake ."
The affair is also described in the film Young Victoria in 2009.