The Prince quickly made a favorable impression upon those with whom he was brought in contact. The most penetrating observer could detect in him no trace of coldness or resentment towards those who had taken an active part in the events detailed in the last chapter. He was particularly courteous to the Duke of Wellington, who was charmed by him, and said he had never seen better manners. Although he bore the rebuffs referred to with perfect good breeding, he did not forget them. Fourteen years later, after he had been on terms of the closest intimacy and friendship both with the Duke and Peel, he brought up the subject in a letter to Stockmar on the probable causes of an outbreak of hostility against himself, which was very noticeable in 1854. After enumerating the causes of his unpopularity with the Protectionists and the Horse Guards, he adds:-- “Now, however, I come to that important substratum of the people, in which these calumnies were certain to have a great effect. A very considerable portion of the nation had never given itself the trouble to consider what really is the position of the husband of a Queen Regnant. When I first came over here I was met by this want of knowledge and unwillingness to give a thought to the position of this luckless personage. Peel cut down my income, Wellington refused me my rank, the Royal Family cried out against the foreign interloper, the Whigs in office were only inclined to concede to me just as much space as I could stand upon. The Constitution is silent as to the Consort of the Queen, even Blackstone ignores him, and yet there he was, and not to be done without.” There can be no doubt as to the difficulties of his position: the least indiscretion, the least appearance of the usurpation of an authority he did not legally possess, would have been both exaggerated and bitterly resented. He was emphatically the wife’s husband, a position which, it appears, requires more than an average share of magnanimity for a man to occupy with dignity and ease. His position was one very frequently occupied by a woman, but very rarely by a man. A bishop’s wife, for instance, may be a Mrs. Proudie, and goad the most gentle of human beings into insult and revolt by her arrogant assumption of power; or she may be her husband’s helper and confidential adviser, and his right hand in all his work, making friends and winning over enemies in all directions; to do this needs a good heart, good sense, and tact. These qualities stood the Prince in good stead; he was, moreover, strengthened by the aim which he had ever before him, of establishing the English monarchy on a foundation so firm that the coming storms of revolution would be unable to shake it.