The preliminaries of the marriage were carried out amid so much opposition that at one moment the accomplishment of the marriage itself wore a very doubtful aspect. The difficulty was of a pecuniary nature. The Dukes of Kent and Cambridge were content, on the occasion of their respective marriages, to accept an addition to their income of 6,000_l._ The Duke of Cumberland was compelled to rest content, or otherwise, without any addition at all--save the expenses of a wife. With the Duke of Clarence it was different. He already possessed 18,000_l._ per annum, and ministers resolved, after a private meeting with their supporters, to request the Parliament to allow him an increase of 10,000_l._ On the 13th of April, 1818, a message from the Prince Regent to that effect was submitted to either House by Lord Castlereagh and the Earl of Liverpool. In the Commons the first-named Lord hinted at the dependence of our Princes on the liberality of Parliament since the time when the crown had surrendered its long uncontrolled disposal of revenues. But the House was not to be ‘suggested’ into a generosity which might be beyond justice. Tierney, the gadfly of his period, complained of the previous meeting of the friends of ministers, and the communication to them, before it was made to the House, of the amount to be applied for. Methuen insisted that before the Commons would grant a farthing they must be made acquainted with all the sources from which the King’s sons derived their present revenue, as well as the amount of the revenue itself. Finally, Holme Sumner met the proposal of an additional 10,000_l._ by a counter-proposal of 6,000_l._ This was carried by a narrow majority of one hundred and ninety-three to one hundred and eighty-four, and when this sum was offered to the Duke he peremptorily declined to accept it. Things did not progress more in tune with marriage-bells in the House of Lords. There, when Lord Liverpool stated what his royal client would be contented to receive, Lord King started to his legs and exclaimed, ‘That the question was not what it might please the Duke of Clarence to take, but what it might please the people to give him!’ They were not willing to give what he expected, and for a time it seemed as if there would consequently be no marriage with the Princess of Saxe-Meinengen. But only for a time.