traordinary meeting of the privy council. No less than eighty-three members were present. The queen wore on her arm a bracelet enclosing the prince's miniature ; although her hand shook, she read her short and simple speech without hesitation, and accepted the congratulations of her councillors with composure.
The news was received by the public with mixed feeling. Daniel O'Connell, when he Reception of the news. spoke of it at a meeting at Bandon, gave vent to ludicrous hyperboles of joy. But there were ominous murmurs amid the popular applause. Little was definitely known of the prince, excepting that he was German and very young. The tories took for granted that he was of 'liberal' opinions an assumption which did not please them and while some agreed that he owed his good fortune to his distaste for affairs of state and his fondness for empty amusement, others credited him with perilously stirring ambitions (Peel Papers, ii. 408-9). Although it was notorious that the Saxe-Coburg house was staunchly Lutheran, two of its members, King Leopold and Prince Ferdinand, had lately married catholics, and a foolish rumour circulated that Albert was a papist. At foreign courts, and even in his own domestic circle, it was felt that the prize the prince had won was above his station. The queen, who saw the situation only through the haze of true womanly affection, deplored the sacrifice of family and country which she regarded the prince as making for her sake. She pressed her ministers to secure for him wellnigh every honour that she enjoyed, in order to compensate him for his expatriation. Like Queen Mary, she entreated that her husband should be created a king consort. The ministers pointed out that Prince Albert's rank, as well as his household and emoluments, must correspond with those accorded the last prince consort. Prince George of Denmark, and she was galled by the comparison of her lover with ' the stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne,' as she called him. The final decision rested with parliament, and Melbourne made no effort to force its hand. The session opened on 16 Jan. 1840, and the queen, in the speech which she read from the throne, spoke of her approaching marriage. Melbourne found himself in a critical situation. While the queen demanded a far higher status for her future husband than precedent warranted, a majority in both houses of parliament showed signs of a resolve to grant far less. Stockmar, who had resumed residence with the queen in order to watch the position of affairs and give her private advice, wisely recommended a consultation between whigs and tories so as to avoid public disputes, but he gained no hearing. The ministers proposed to grant Prince Albert an annuity of 50,000l., the sum granted to the queen consorts of George II, George III, and William IV. Joseph Hume moved an amendment to reduce the sum to 21,0001. on his favourite ground of economy. This was negatived by 305 to 38 ; but Colonel Sibthorp, a tory of a very pronounced kind, who echoed the general sentiment of dissatisfaction, moved another amendment to reduce the sum to 30,000/. He received exceptionally powerful support. Sir Robert Peel spoke in his Attacks on prince by parliament. favour. Sir James Graham denied prince by that the parallel with the position of the queen consorts could be sustained ; the independent status of the queen consort, he said, not very logically, was recognised by the constitution, but the prince consort stood in no need of a separate establishment. On a division the reduction was carried by the large majority of 104, the votes being 262 to 158. Sir Robert Peel and his friends made emphatic protests against insinuations of disloyalty, and denied that the tories were ' acting from a spiteful recollection of the events of last May.' Lord John Russell insisted that the vote was an insult to the sovereign. Colonel Sibthorp further proposed in committee that, should the prince survive the queen, he should forfeit the annuity if he remarried a catholic, or failed to reside in the United Kingdom for at least six months a year. This motion was disavowed by Peel, who agreed that it implied a want of confidence in the prince, and it was rejected. But the whole proceedings deeply incensed the queen, and King Leopold wrote that the action of the commons was intolerable.
The House of Lords was in no more amiable mood. The Duke of Wellington carried an amendment to the address censuring ministers for having failed to make a public declaration that the prince was a protestant and able to take the holy communion in the form prescribed by the church of England—a point on which Stockmar had already given the ministers satisfactory assurances in private. When, on 27 Jan., the bill for the naturalisation of the prince was introduced into the upper chamber, it contained a clause giving him precedence next after the queen. The royal dukes of Sussex and Cambridge had agreed to accept a position below the queen's husband; but the king of Hanover, who was still Duke of
