The men who uphold the dignity of the Crown to treat their Sovereign in such a manner, on such an occasion! Even in private life the most sour and saturnine people relax and grow gay and mildly disposed on occasions like this.

Clearly, as you are Queen Regnant, Albert's position is to all intents and purposes that of a male Queen Consort, and the same privileges and charges ought to be attached to it which were attached to Queen Adelaide's position.

The giving up the income which the Queen-Dowager came into, and which I hope and trust Albert would never have, or have had, any chance of having had himself, was in reality giving up a thing which _custom_ had sanctioned.

That Prince George of Denmark[7] was considered to be in the same position as a Queen Consort there can be, I think, no doubt about, and when one considers the immense difference in the value of money then and now, it renders matters still more striking.
I must say such conduct in Parliament I did _not expect_, and the less when I consider that your Civil List was rather curtailed than otherwise, perhaps not quite fairly.

I rejoice to think that I induced Lord Melbourne to propose to you not to accede to the giving up of the Duchy of Lancaster.