Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/419

 discharged by the consolidated fund, and that of the income allotted to King William only a very small proportion should be applied to aught outside his household and personal expenses; the sole external calls were 75,000l. for pensions and 10,000l. for the secret service fund. On these conditions King William was content to accept 460,(XXV. instead of 850,000l. which had been paid his predecessor, while an annuity of 50,000l. was bestowed on his queen consort . His net personal parliamentary income (excluding pensions and the secret service fund) was thus 375,000l., with some 25,000l from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. Radical members of parliament now urged Melbourne to bring the whole of the crown lands under parliamentary control, to deprive the crown of the control and income of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, and to supply the sovereign with a revenue which should be exclusively applied to her own purposes, and not to any part of the civil government. Treasury officials drew out a scheme with these ends in view, but Melbourne rejected most of it from a fear of rousing against his somewhat unstable government the cry of tampering with the royal prerogative. In the result the precedent of William IVs case was followed, with certain modifications. The queen resigned all the hereditary revenues of the crown, but was left in possession of the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, of which the latter was the lawful appanage of the heir-apparent. The duchy of Cornwall therefore ceased to be the sovereign's property as soon as a lawful heir to the throne was born. It and the duchy of Lancaster produced during the first years of the reign about 27,500l. annually, but the revenues from both rose rapidly, and the duchy of Lancaster, which was a permanent source of income to the queen, ultimately produced above 60,000l. a year. (The duchy of Cornwall, which passed to the prince of Wales at his birth in 1841, ultimately produced more than 66,000l.) Parliament now granted her, apart from these hereditary revenues, an annuity of 385,000l., being 10,000l in excess of the net personal income granted by parliament to her predecessor. Of this sum 60,000l. was appropriated to her privy purse, 131,260l. to the salaries of the household, 172,500l. to the expenses of the household, 13,200l. to the royal bounty, while 8,040l. was unappropriated. The annual payment from the civil list of 75,000l. in pensions and of 10,000l. secret service money was cancelled, but permission was given the crown to create 'civil list' pensions to the amount of 1.200l. annually, a sum which the treasury undertook to defray independently of the royal income ; this arrangement ultimately meant the yearly expenditure of some 23,000l., but the pensions were only nominally associated with the sovereign's expenditure. Repairs to the sovereign's official residences and the maintenance of the royal yachts were also provided for by the treasury apart from the civil list revenues. Joseph Hume, on the third reading of the civil list bill, moved a reduction of 50,000l., which was rejected by 199 votes against 19. Benjamin Hawes vainly moved a reduction of 10,000l., which was supported by 41 members and opposed by 173. Lord Brougham severely criticised the settlement on the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords. He made searching inquiries respecting the incomes from the crown duchies, and objected to the arrangement being made for the queen's life. Although numerous additional grants, approaching a total of 200,000l. a year, were afterwards allotted to the queen a children, the annual sum allowed her by parliament on her accession was never altered during her reign of nearly sixty-four years, and proved amply sufficient for all her needs. At the same time as the civil list bill passed through parliament, the queen's mother, at the sovereign's instance, was granted an annuity of 30,000l. ; she formerly received 22,000l. a year, of which 10,000l. was appropriated to the care of her daughter while princess. On 23 Dec. 1837 the queen went to parliament to return thanks in person for what had been done. Christmas was spent at Buckingham Palace, and next day the court withdrew to Windsor.

The liberal allowance enabled the queen to fulfil at once her resolve to pay on her father's debts. By the autumn pays her of next year she had transferred to the late Duke's creditors from her privy purse nearly 50,000l., and on 7 Oct. 1839 she received their formal thanks. Meanwhile the queen's sympathy with her ministers increased. Through 1838-9 she followed their parliamentary movements with keen anxiety lest their narrow majority might prove inadequate to maintain them in office. Disturbances in Canada during the early months of 1838 roused differences of opinion in the House of Commons, which imperilled their position, but the crisis passed. 'The queen is as steady to us as ever,' wrote Palmerston on 14 April 1838, 'and was in the depth of despair when she thought we were iu danger of being turned out. She keeps well in