His brothers were more fortunately situated. Prince Arthur, who had been created, in May, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex,[76] was able to devote himself quietly to his military studies, and lead a life of dignified simplicity. “Many thanks,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to the Queen (May 4th, 1874), “for your last dear letter, written on dear Arthur’s birthday, of which, though late, I wrote you joy. Such a good, steady, excellent boy as he is! What a comfort it must be to you never to have had any cause of uneasiness or annoyance in his conduct! He is so much respected, which for one so young is doubly praiseworthy. From St. Petersburg, as from Vienna, we heard the same account of the steady line he
[Illustration: ALEXANDER II., CZAR OF RUSSIA.]
holds to, in spite of all chaffing, &c., from others, which shows character.”[77] Prince Leopold was equally fortunate; indeed, his delicate health would of itself have compelled him to shun the exhausting gaieties of London seasons, when Society was worn out with _ennui_ every year ere the rosebuds burst into bloom. When Parliament voted him an income of £15,000 a year, Mr. Disraeli described Prince Leopold as an invalid student of “no common order,” and to the Queen it was an increasing source of delight to watch in her youngest son the growth of the same pensive nature, the same studious habits, and the same refined and cultured tastes which, in the Prince Consort, Mr. Disraeli averred somewhat effusively, “gave a new impulse to our civilisation.”
With the exception of the grant to the Duke of Edinburgh on his marriage, this was the only Royal grant voted by Parliament which was not made a matter of controversy. But it must be noted that in 1874 the spirit of Republicanism in the country was almost dead. Mr. Chamberlain, by his writings and speeches, made an ineffectual effort to keep it alive, but even he had to bow his austere knee to the popular idols of the time, who were undoubtedly the Prince and Princess of Wales. As if to throw out a jaunty challenge to the enemies of the Monarchy, the Prince and Princess paid a visit to Birmingham in November, where it was the duty of Mr. Chamberlain as Mayor to receive them, and where they met with a welcome from the populace, the significance of which he was quick to recognise. Mr. Chamberlain, who had not been expected to make pleasant speeches to his guests, behaved to them with the tact of an astute if not an accomplished courtier. His undisguised appreciation of the Prince’s visit to his mansion, and of the Princess’s delight in his conservatories, famed for their priceless exotics, recalled the devotion of the Lady Margaret Bellenden in “Old Mortality,” when Charles II. accepted the hospitalities of her castle.