The household at Bushey was admirably regulated by the Duchess, who had been taught the duties as well as the privileges of greatness. The fixed rule was, never to allow expenditure to exceed income. It is a golden rule which, when observed, renders men, in good truth, as rich as Croesus. It is a rule which, if universally observed, would render the world prosperous, and pauperism a legend. It was a rule the more required to be honoured in this case, as the Duke had large calls upon his income. When those were provided for, old liabilities effaced, and current expenses defrayed, the surplus was surrendered to charity. There was no saving for the sake of increase of income,--economy was practised for justice-sake, and the Duke and Duchess were so just, that they found themselves able to be largely generous. With the increased means placed at their disposal by the death of the Duke of York, there was but trifling increase of expenditure. If something was added to their comforts, they benefitted who were employed to procure them; and, if there was some little additional luxury in the rural palace of Bushey, the neighbouring poor were never forgotten in the selfish enjoyment of it. In 1824, the Duke and Duchess of Clarence had apartments in St. James's Palace, where, however, they seem to have been as roughly accommodated, considering their condition, as any mediaeval prince and princess in the days of stone walls thinly tapestried and stone floors scantily strewn with rushes. The Duke cared little about the matter himself, but he gallantly supported the claims of his wife. In a letter addressed to Sir William Knighton, the King's privy purse, in 1824, he thus expresses himself--from St. James's Palace:--