"
The amiable Prince is said never to have cherished resentment towards Sir
Robert Peel and others who had voted to cut down his allowance, or the
Duke of Wellington, and Lord Brougham, who had argued that those tiresome
old gentlemen, the Royal Dukes, should have the right to walk and sit
next to _his_ wife on State occasions; but Victoria confesses that
she long felt "most indignant." She was hurt not only in her wifely love,
but in her queenly pride.
Greville says of Kings: "The contrast between their apparent authority
and the contradictions which they practically meet with, must be
peculiarly galling--more especially to men whose minds are seldom
regulated by the beneficial discipline of education, and early collision
with their equals." It must be yet more "galling" for Queens, because
they always have been more flattered, and are imaginative enough to fancy
that in grasping the symbols they hold the power.
But I do not believe that the royal lovers took deeply to heart these
disagreeable matters at this time. I hope they didn't mourn much over the
L20,000 they didn't get. I hope that Love lifted them far above the murky
air of party strife and petty jealousy into a clear, serene atmosphere of
its own.
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