For if the Queen wished to aid her eldest son in meeting expenses which he was every day incurring on her behalf, she had either to sell her private estates, endeared to her by a thousand tender family associations, or appeal to Parliament for a grant, a course which was as objectionable to her as to the Prince. On the other hand, if these private estates, when inherited by the Prince at her death, could be treated as private property, the Heir Apparent could easily obtain any additional subsidies he might need, by mortgaging his expectations. And yet the generous intentions of the Queen, and the honest purposes of the Prince which formed the motives for the Bill, were snappishly and churlishly misrepresented by several Radicals, and by at least one aristocratic Whig. Mr. George Anderson opposed the Bill because Sovereigns kept their wills secret. Sir Charles Dilke objected to it because he said it allowed the indefinite accumulation of private property in the hands of the Sovereign. His argument, in fact, came to this, that profligacy in the Monarch should be encouraged by the posthumous confiscation of his private estates. As for Mr. Bouverie, he asked what business the Sovereign had to possess large private means? The Bill, however, passed, and an incident which at one time threatened to be unpleasant for the Queen and her children was discreetly closed. In March, the Queen’s refusal to permit the persons who represented England at the French Exhibition of 1867 to accept decorations, was made the subject of debate by Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. Her Majesty’s prejudice against introducing Foreign Orders and titles into England had often given offence to naturalised stockjobbers and pushing _parvenus_. She never even took kindly to the use of the title of “Baron” by the Rothschilds, though she tolerated it for reasons of an entirely exceptional nature. But if the Orders were admitted the titles must soon follow, and society might be inundated some day with Russian “Counts,” who, as the French say, had “a career behind them,” or with Austrian “Barons,” who had bought their honours out of the profits of financial gambling. The English Court, for this reason, has such strong opinions on the point that even English nobles, inheriting foreign titles, conceal them so successfully that few people ever suspect that the Duke of Wellington is a Portuguese prince, the head of the House of Hamilton a French duke, or Lord Denbigh a Prince of an uncrowned branch of the Imperial House of Hapsburg. It need not be said that Lord Houghton’s complaints were generally admitted to be frivolous, and that the Queen’s feeling that she must be the sole fountain of honour in England, was shared by the nation. If the services which an individual has rendered abroad have benefited England or mankind, or if it is possible to form a correct estimate of their value in England, the Queen held she must either reward them herself, or retain the right to