[147] The history of the Protectorate is as follows:—After the downfall of Napoleon I. in 1815, England held six of the Ionian Islands. Austria offered to undertake their government, because she said that their position enabled their population to disturb her Adriatic coast. Count Capo d’Istrias, on behalf of Russia, objected, and at the time the voice of the Czar Alexander was all-powerful. He was a strong partisan of Greece, and avowedly so because he believed that the spirit of Greek nationality would be repressed under Austria, whereas it would be fostered under England. He insisted on the Ionians being placed under a British protectorate, so that they might have the benefit of free institutions.
[148] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 228.
[149] In 1795 the Prince of Wales was voted £138,000 a year. In the reigns of the Queen’s predecessors the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall were absorbed by the Crown. But when the Prince of Wales was born, the Prince Consort, finding these revenues sadly encumbered, set them apart for the use of the Heir-Apparent. During his minority they had been so ably administered by Prince Albert that in 1862 they yielded a free income of £60,000 a year. This enabled the Government to cut down the Parliamentary vote to £40,000.
[150] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294.
[151] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294
[152] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 86.
[153] This letter did not satisfy all the clergy. Several of them challenged sharply Wilberforce’s doctrine of the Archepiscopal dispensing power, and indeed entangled him in controversial correspondence on the subject. Those interested in the matter will find Wilberforce’s argument more fully elaborated in a letter quoted in his “Life,” Vol. III., p. 87. He says he had discovered in his muniment box at Lavington such a dispensation to one of his own predecessors granted by Archbishop Laud.
[154] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., p. 132.
[155] Miss Tucker, of Branscombe, near Sidmouth, was the designer.
[156] Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, who, as usual on such occasions, wore the picturesque Highland dress.