Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/580

 accompany him on a Mediterranean tour on the yacht Osborne. They embarked at Marseilles on 22 Oct. 1862. A most interesting itinerary was followed. A first experience of the Riviera was obtained by a landing at Hyeres. Palermo, the capital of Sicily, was visited, and thence a passage was made to Tunis, where the ruins of Carthage were explored. Owing to an accident to the paddle-wheel of the royal yacht, the vessel was towed by the frigate Doris from the African coast to Malta. On 5 Nov. the party reached Naples, and there the prince's twenty-first birthday was passed without ceremony. There was some incongruity in celebrating so interesting an anniversary in a foreign country. Yet the experience was not out of harmony with the zest for travel and for foreign society which was born of the extended and varied wanderings of his youth. Before leaving southern Italy he ascended Vesuvius, and on the return journey to England he revisited Rome. From Florence he made his way through Germany by slow stages. At Lille on 3 Dec. he met Princess Alexandra on her way from England. He reached home on 13 Dec. By far the greater part of the year had been spent abroad on three continents America, Asia, and Europe. Although he was barely turned one and twenty, the prince was probably the best travelled man in the world. There was small chance that he should cultivate in adult life any narrow insularity.

A separate establishment was already in course of formation at home. On reaching his majority he had come into a substantial fortune. The duchy of Cornwall was his appanage, and provided a large revenue. Owing to the careful administration of the prince consort the income of the duchy had risen from 16,000l. a year at the time of his son's birth to 60,000l. hi 1862. The receipts had been allowed to accumulate during his minority, and these were now reckoned to amount to 700,000l. Out of these savings, the sum of 220,000l. was bestowed with the prince consort's approval on the purchase for his son from Spencer Cowper of the country residence and estate of Sandringham in Norfolk. The transaction was carried out in 1861. The estate covered 7000 acres, which the prince subsequently extended to 11,000 ; and the rental was estimated at 7000l. a year. The existing house proved unsuitable and was soon rebuilt. A London house was provided officially. Marlborough House had reverted to the crown in 1817 on the lapse of the great duke of Marlborough's long lease. It had since been lent to the Dowager Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, on whose death in 1849 it was employed as a government art school and picture gallery. In 1859 it was decided to fit it up as a residence for the Prince of Wales. During 1861 it was thoroughly remodelled, and in 1862 was ready for his occupation.

For the next three months preparations for his marriage absorbed his own and the country's attention. Simultaneously with his return to England the 'London Gazette' published an official list of his first household. General Sir William Knollys, the prince consort's close friend, became comptroller and treasurer and practically chief of the establishment ; Earl Spencer was made groom of the stole ; the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe and Lord Alfred Hervey lords of the bedchamber ; Robert Henry Meade and Charles Wood, afterwards Lord Halifax, grooms of the bedchamber; and Major Teesdale, Captain G. H. Grey, and Lieut.-colonel Keppel equerries. Herbert Fisher, his Oxford tutor, who had resumed his work at the bar, was recalled to act as private secretary, and he held the office till 1870. Mr. Wood was a very early companion, and all save Earl Spencer, General Knollys, and Lord Alfred Hervey had been closely associated with the prince already.

On 14 Dec. 1862 the prince was at Windsor, celebrating with his mother the first anniversary of his father's death. The queen refused to relax her habit of seclusion, and on 25 Feb. 1863 the prince took her place for the first time at a ceremonial function. He held a levee in her behalf at St. James's Palace. The presentations exceeded 1000, and severely tested his capacity for the fatigue of court routine. At a drawing-room which followed at Buckingham Palace (28 Feb.) the prince was again present ; but his sister, the crown princess of Prussia, represented the sovereign.

Parliament opened on 5 Feb. 1863, and the prince took his seat for the first time in the House of Lords with of Lords, due formality as a peer of the reamlm. He was introduced by the dukes of Cambridge and Newcastle. He showed his interest in the proceedings by staying till half-past nine at night to listen to the debate, which chiefly dealt with the cession of the Ionian islands to Greece,