King Edward had now emerged from boyhood, and his loving parents set themselves to make the arrangements suitable for his growing years. What these arrangements were will be clear from the following passages in the Prince Consort’s letter to Baron Stockmar of 2nd April 1858:-- “Next week he [the Prince of Wales] is to make a run for fourteen days to the South of Ireland with Mr. Gibbs, Captain de Ros, and Dr. Minter, by way of recreation. When he returns to London he is to take up his residence at the White Lodge in Richmond Park, so as to be away from the world and devote himself exclusively to study and prepare for a military examination. As companions for him we have appointed three very distinguished young men of from twenty-three to twenty-six years of age, who are to occupy in monthly rotation a kind of equerry’s place about him, and from whose more intimate intercourse I anticipate no small benefit to Bertie. They are Lord Valletort, the eldest son of Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who has been much on the Continent, is a thoroughly good, moral, and accomplished man, draws well and plays, and never was at a public school, but passed his youth in attendance on his invalid father; Major Teesdale, of the Artillery, who distinguished himself greatly at Kars, where he was aide-de-camp and factotum of Sir Fenwick Williams; Major Lindsay, of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who received the Victoria Cross for Alma and Inkermann (as Teesdale did for Kars), where he carried the colours of the regiment, and by his courage drew upon himself the attention of the whole Army. He is studious in his habits, lives little with the other young officers, is fond of study, familiar with French, and especially so with Italian, spent a portion of his youth in Italy, won the first prize last week under the regimental adjutant for the new rifle drill, and resigned his excellent post as aide-de-camp of Sir James Simpson, that he might be able to work as lieutenant in the trenches. [Illustration: THE KING IN 1859 _From a Painting by G. Richmond_] “Besides these three, only Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Tarver will go with him to Richmond. As future governor, when Gibbs retires at the beginning of next year, I have as yet been able to think of no one as likely to suit, except Colonel Bruce, Lord Elgin’s brother, and his military secretary in Canada, who now commands one of the battalions of Grenadier Guards, and lives much with his mother in Paris. He has all the amiability of his sister, with great mildness of expression, and is full of ability.” Of these early companions of the King, Lord Valletort succeeded to the Earldom of Mount Edgcumbe in 1861, Major Teesdale was afterwards well known as Sir Christopher Teesdale, while Major Lindsay was appointed extra equerry to the Prince of Wales in 1874, and was created Lord Wantage of Lockinge in 1885.