Yet in a sense the relation between old Mr. Dilke and the son whom he unconsciously slighted was strangely intimate and confiding. For in 1853 the elder man gave up his own house in Lower Grosvenor Place, made over all his money to his son, and came to live under the son's roof in Sloane Street for the remainder of his life. His confidence in the patriarchal principle justified itself. 'My father,' writes Sir Charles, 'for eleven years consulted his father--dependent on him for bread--in every act of his life.' To the world at large, Wentworth Dilke was a vastly more important person than the old antiquary and scholar. After his services in organizing the Great Exhibition of 1851, he declined a knighthood and rewards in money; but he accepted from the French Government a gift of Sèvres china; from the King of Saxony, the Collar of the Order of Albertus Animosus; from the King of Sweden and from the Prince Consort, medals; and from Queen Victoria, a bracelet for his wife. These remained among the treasures of 76, Sloane Street. But he acquired something far more important in the establishment of friendly relations with persons of mark and influence all over the Continent; for these relations were destined to be developed by Charles Dilke, then a pretty-mannered boy, who was taken everywhere, and saw, for instance, in 1851, the Duke of Wellington walk through the Exhibition buildings on a day when more than a hundred thousand people were present. He could remember how the Duke's 'shrivelled little form' and 'white ducks' 'disappeared in the throng which almost crushed him to death' before the police could effect his rescue. Wentworth Dilke's association in the Prince Consort's most cherished schemes had brought him on a footing of friendship with the Royal Family; and on July 25th, 1851, his wife wrote that the Queen had come over and talked to her in the Exhibition ground. Long afterwards, when the pretty- mannered boy had grown into a Radical, who avowed his theoretical preference for republican institutions, Queen Victoria said that "she remembered having stroked his head, and supposed she had stroked it the wrong way." [Illustration: Sir Charles as a child from the miniature by Fanny Corbin.] CHAPTER II EDUCATION The earliest memory that Sir Charles Dilke could date was 'of April 10th, 1848, when the Chartist meeting led to military preparations, during which I' (a boy in his fifth year) 'saw the Duke of Wellington riding through the street, attended by his staff, but all in plain clothes.' In 1850 'No Popery chalked on the walls attracted my attention, but failed to excite my interest'; he was not of an age to be troubled by the appointment of Dr. Wiseman to be Archbishop of Westminster. In 1851 he was taken to a meeting to hear Kossuth.