The Duke of Edinburgh had not concealed from the Sovereign the fact that the Fleet was effective solely on paper. Indeed, had Admiral Hoskins, who was ordered to hold himself in readiness to proceed with his squadron to the Baltic, attempted to carry out his instructions, he would have found himself paralysed, simply because he had neither efficient guns nor transport. On the 2nd of May the Queen, returned to Windsor, where she held an anxious consultation with Lord Granville next day. On the 12th of May her Majesty held a Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, but as on previous occasions, she stayed only a short time, leaving the Princess of Wales as usual to complete the function. On the 14th of May, Mr. Gladstone carried a resolution in the House of Commons that an annuity of £6,000 a year should be granted to the Princess Beatrice on her marriage; and, by way of conciliating the House, promised that in the next Parliament a Committee would be appointed to consider the plan on which what he called “secondary provisions” for the younger members of the Royal Family, should be made.[228] The proposed annuity was opposed on the old ground that the Queen was rich enough to support her own family, and Mr. Labouchere argued that as she never had a right to the hereditary revenues of the Crown, the plea that she had given up her income for a Civil List was invalid. But it is certain that in the Royal Speech, at the opening of Parliament in 1837 the Queen said, “I place unreservedly at your disposal those hereditary revenues which were transferred to the public by my immediate predecessor,” and in the Address the Queen was then not only thanked for her generosity, but promised an adequate Civil List in return. It was also forgotten that at least four impecunious princely families--those of the Duke of Albany, Prince Louis, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and Prince Christian--must be a charge on the private income of the Queen.[229]