Like luzula, I find this fascinating, thank you! Would a mistress also have had some sort of ladies that would have given jobs to other women?

Huh, that story about Queen Victoria does rather make it evident how political the whole thing is! Interesting that Melbourne got the job of explaining it to her; makes sense that he'd be the one who could actually do it. But it seems like that would have been a funny conversation between Peel and Melbourne, or whoever convinced him to do it.