Reference has already been made to his convictions upon the necessity of preserving the purity of the young Queen’s Court. This was no effort to himself personally, for he was one of the natures born with a strong preference for whatsoever things are pure. But in the light of the scandals of former reigns, he knew the importance, not only of being free from taint, but of preventing the invention and circulation of scandalous stories relating to himself and his associates. His first request about the gentlemen selected to form his household was that they should be men of good character. He and the Queen always stipulated for this in regard to those household appointments which were part of the political patronage of successive Governments. We hear of this from Greville in his account of the filling of the household appointments in Sir Robert Peel’s Administration of 1841: “As to the men, she,” the Queen, “had said she did not care who they were, provided they were of good character.” A side-light is thrown on the efficacy of this stipulation by an extract from Lord Shaftesbury’s Journal, where we read that Peel pressed a household appointment on the then Lord Ashley, on the express ground that he must fill these places with men of unblemished character. Lord Ashley grimly records that Lord ----, the hero of a recent scandal, who had himself remarked, “Thank God, my character is too bad for a household place,” had received a similar compliment from Peel. Therefore, notwithstanding the express wishes of the Queen and Prince, it is evident that the aim they had set before themselves was by no means easy of accomplishment. In order, not to protect himself, but to protect the throne from the breath of scandal, the Prince laid down for himself a line of conduct which must have been very irksome through the degree to which it infringed his personal freedom. He never went anywhere alone. He was always accompanied by his equerry. He felt he must not only be irreproachable, but be able to produce witnesses, if necessary, to prove that he was so. Mr. Anson, the Prince’s secretary, says that it was remarked to him in 1842, “by a keen observer of character and by no means a good-natured one” (possibly Greville), “that it was most remarkable that the Prince should have been now nearly two years in his most difficult position, and had never given cause for one word to be said against him in any respect.”