There could hardly have been a better man than Lord Melbourne for the difficult position of adviser to a young woman who was also a queen. He was three times her age, and while his manner to her was always one of most profound respect, he showed an almost fatherly feeling for the fatherless young girl. He was her Prime Minister and was also her trusted friend. Before she became Queen, he had won her confidence in a remarkable way, by opposing her desires and those of her mother. In one of those constantly recurring differences between King and Duchess, he had stood firmly for the King's wishes, because he was the King's servant, although he knew that in a few months at most the Princess would be on the throne. Victoria was wise enough to see that the man who would be faithful even at the probability of his own loss was the man whom she might safely trust, and she did trust him implicitly. Another member of the Queen's household was the honest Baron Stockmar. He had been sent by King Leopold, as soon as his royal niece had attained her eighteenth birthday, to guard her interests and advise her if it should be necessary. With people in general he was quiet and reserved. At table he "ate nothing and talked less," according to the description of one who was at the court; but all felt that the Queen was especially frank with him, and that he and Lord Melbourne were in perfect agreement. One other duty he had at the English court which was known only to himself and King Leopold and that was to prepare the way for the marriage that the King hoped would come about between his niece and his nephew. The two young people were really in training for sovereignty. King Leopold kept Prince Albert with him for nearly a year after Victoria's accession He saw to it that the young man should acquire a good knowledge of English and of the English constitution. Baron Stockmar was in the meantime teaching the Queen the rightful position of the sovereign of England. "The sovereign must belong to no party," he said. "Whatever party is in power has been put in power by the nation, and has a right to claim the loyalty of the Queen." Of course the devoted Baroness Lehzen had followed her beloved pupil, for one of the first acts of the Queen was to appoint her private secretary. The Baroness said: "I copy all her private correspondence just as I used to do when she was my Princess, and she is as frank with me as when she was a child; but she has never shown me a state document or said a word to me about any state business. She knows that such matters should go to her advisers, and not to me or any other woman."