Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

====Succession====
While recovering in hospital, Macmillan wrote a memorandum (dated 14 October) recommending the process by which "soundings" would be taken of party opinion to select his successor, which was accepted by the Cabinet on 15 October. This time backbench MPs and junior ministers were to be asked their opinion, rather than just the Cabinet as in 1957, and efforts would be made to sample opinion amongst peers and constituency activists.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=566–567}}

Enoch Powell claimed that it was wrong of Macmillan to seek to monopolise the advice given to the Queen in this way. In fact, this was done at the Palace's request, so that the Queen was not being seen to be involved in politics as had happened in January 1957, and had been decided as far back as June when it had looked as though the government might fall over the Profumo scandal. [[Ben Pimlott]] later described this as the "biggest political misjudgement of her reign".{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=569–570}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Pimlott|first=Ben|author-link=Ben Pimlott|title=The Queen : A Biography of Elizabeth II|year=1997|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc|location=New York|isbn=047119431X|page=335}}</ref> 

Macmillan was succeeded by Foreign Secretary [[Alec Douglas-Home]] in a controversial move; it was alleged that Macmillan had pulled strings and utilised the party's grandees, nicknamed "The Magic Circle", who had slanted their "soundings" of opinion among MPs and Cabinet Ministers to ensure that Butler was (once again) not chosen.<ref>the "soundings" and the accompanying political intrigues are discussed in detail in [[Rab Butler]]'s biography</ref>

He finally resigned, receiving the Queen from his hospital bed, on 18 October 1963, after nearly seven years as prime minister. He felt privately that he was being hounded from office by a backbench minority:

{{quote|Some few will be content with the success they have had in the assassination of their leader and will not care very much who the successor is. ... They are a band that in the end does not amount to more than 15 or 20 at the most.<ref>Anthony Bevins, 'How Supermac Was "Hounded Out of Office" by Band of 20 Opponents', ''The Observer'' (1 January 1995), p. 1.</ref>}}