Apart from the political strife and Ministerial embarrassments which so severely taxed the nerves of the Queen, life at Court was not very eventful. Indeed, it centred chiefly round the Prince and Princess of Wales, who were discharging vicariously and with great popular acceptance most of the social duties of the Crown. This fact was recognised by the Queen herself in a curious indirect kind of way. The Prince of Wales, though very far from being a spendthrift, has never shrunk from incurring expenditure which, in his judgment, was necessary to maintain the dignity and _prestige_ of the Crown in a manner worthy of the great nation whose Sovereignty is his heritage. But he has always refrained from appealing to Parliament for subsidies and subventions, either for himself or his family, other than those to which he is equitably and legally entitled by his official position in the State. This was all the more creditable to him, for two reasons. He was surrounded by companions, some of whom did not scruple to take advantage of his generosity. A considerable section of the public during the controversy that raged over the Princess Louise’s dowry had expressed a strong opinion in favour of limiting future Royal grants to an additional allowance to the Heir Apparent, for the purpose of meeting the unanticipated expenditure which he had incurred by taking the Queen’s place as the head of English Society. Sandringham, moreover, had not turned out a remunerative property, and the Prince was therefore under strong temptations to give a favouring ear to unwise counsels on this delicate subject. These, however, he put aside with manly common sense, and his affairs were arranged on a business-like basis, which would have met with the approval of his father, who was always of opinion that matters of the sort were best managed inside the family circle. The only public indication that was given of arrangements which must necessarily be spoken of with great reserve was afforded by Mr. Gladstone when, on the 21st of July, he introduced a Bill enabling the Queen to bequeath real property to the Prince of Wales, so that he could alienate it at will. The obvious advantage of such a measure was that it imparted a fresh elasticity to the financial resources of the Heir Apparent. For he had discovered a fact hitherto unrevealed in the history of his dynasty in England, namely, that though the Sovereign could bequeath to the Heir Apparent alienable personality, such as hard cash, land or real property so bequeathed, became, when vested in his person on ascending the Throne, the property of the State, and therefore inalienable. In fact, supposing the Queen had left Balmoral, an estate which she and her husband bought out of their private purse, to her eldest son, then, though it had been her own private property, it must become public property whenever the Prince of Wales became King. The state of the law on the subject was inequitable and inconvenient.