who believed that Eden could survive as Prime Minister until the summer recess if his health held up. However, there is circumstantial evidence that Butler may have colluded with Eden's doctor, Sir Horace Evans, to exaggerate the state of Eden's health to encourage him to resign. Evans wrote Butler an ambiguous letter about "your help and guidance over my difficult problems with AE" and added, "Here we have made, I have no doubt, the right decision". Anthony Howard observes that any interpretation of the letter is "purely speculative" and that there is "no concrete evidence" of what actually occurred. Succession to Eden Eden resigned as Prime Minister on Wednesday 9 January 1957. At the time, the Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for determining a new leader, but Queen Elizabeth II received overwhelming advice to appoint Macmillan as Prime Minister instead of Butler, rather than wait for a party meeting to decide. Churchill had reservations about both candidates but later admitted that he had advised her to appoint "the older man", Macmillan. In the presence of Lord Chancellor Kilmuir, Lord Salisbury interviewed the Cabinet one by one and with his famous speech impediment asked each one whether he was for "Wab or Hawold". Kilmuir recalled that three ministers were for Butler: Walter Monckton, Patrick Buchan-Hepburn and James Stuart, all of whom left the government thereafter. Salisbury himself later recorded that all of the Cabinet were for Macmillan except for Patrick Buchan-Hepburn, who was for Butler, and Selwyn Lloyd, who abstained. Salisbury may not have been an entirely impartial returning officer, as Butler had replaced Salisbury (Lord Cranborne as he had been at the time) as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1938, who when the latter had resigned over policy towards Italy. Julian Amery, who was not a member of the Cabinet at the time, alleged that Salisbury interviewed ministers in the order of their loyalty to Macmillan and kept the tally in plain view on the table so that waverers would be more inclined to plump for the winning candidate. Heath (Chief Whip) and John Morrison (Chairman of the 1922 Committee) advised that the Suez group of right-wing Conservative backbenchers would be reluctant to follow Rab. The whips rang Boothby (pro-Macmillan) in Strasbourg to obtain his views, but there is no evidence that they were very assiduous in canvassing known pro-Butler MPs. Butler later claimed to have been "not surprised"