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tragic turn of fate which laid you low… There is no doubt that you took the only possible course after the
doctors had given you their verdict, but one can only guess at what it must have cost you to do it. I want to
thank you not only for the loyal and distinguished service you have given to me, first as Foreign Secretary
and then as Prime Minister, but for the many years’ work, both in and out of office, which you have devoted
to the greatness and prosperity of our country.
Much has been said and written during the last week about your record in the House of Commons and as a
Statesman; I am only anxious that you should realize that that record, which has indeed been written in
tempestuous times, is highly valued and will never be forgotten by your Sovereign. 19
Eden replied that he was ‘more grateful than I can express’ for her ‘generous words’,
touching briefly on the ‘odious’ decision to retire and his disappointment at not getting
the Americans to act in concert with the British against Russian designs in the Middle
East. He continued:
But it is not of all this, with which Your Majesty is only too familiar, that I want to write. It is rather to try
to express what my Sovereign’s understanding and encouragement has meant at a time of exceptional ordeal.
It is the bare truth to say that I looked forward to my weekly audience, knowing that I should receive from
Your Majesty a wise and impartial reaction to events, which was quite simply the voice of our land.
Years ago Baldwin told me that the post of Prime Minister was the most lonely in the world. That may be
true in respect of colleagues. That I have not found it so is due to Your Majesty’s unfailing sympathy and
understanding… as I pursue health across the world I can never forget Your Majesty’s kindness to me, and I
count myself proud and happy to have served as your First Minister…
The aftershock of Suez, Eden’s resignation and the manner of his replacement were to
have serious repercussions for Elizabeth, making her for the first time the target of
criticism more direct than any aimed at a monarch since the wave of carping against
what was seen as Queen Victoria’s selfish and self-imposed isolation in the 1870s. Eden
himself took no direct part in the choice of his successor; he believed scrupulously in the
Queen’s right of choice in the matter, but his suggestion that Lord Salisbury should take
soundings from the Cabinet led afterwards to accusations of an establishment ‘fix’.
Eden’s resignation came as a total surprise to the Cabinet as a whole. Harold
Macmillan, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the two principal candidates, had
been told personally by Eden that afternoon, in an emotional meeting in which both
had recalled their cathartic experience of the Great War and their subsequent political
careers. ‘I can see him now on that sad winter afternoon, still looking so youthful, so
gay, so debonair,’ Macmillan recalled, ‘– the representative of all that was best in the
youth that had served in the 1914–1918 War.’ The subsequent Cabinet meeting in which
Eden announced his decision was short but emotional. Salisbury was almost in tears as
he spoke of his lifelong friendship with Eden; both Butler and Macmillan said a few
words, then left the Cabinet to deliberate the succession. ‘It was all over,’ Macmillan
wrote, ‘a dramatic end to an extraordinary and, in many ways, unique career. What
seemed so dreadful was that he waited so long for the Premiership, and held it for so
short a time.’ 20