of Private Secretary and Comptroller of his household. In those offices he
had spent the greater part of his time in this country from 1816 to 1834.
He had accompanied his master on his ascending the Belgian throne, but had
returned to England in a few years in order to serve him better there.
Baron Stockmar was thus an old and early friend of the Princess's. In
addition he had a large acquaintance with the English political world, and
was therefore well qualified to advise her with the force of a
disinterested adviser in her difficult position. In the view of her
becoming Queen, although her three predecessors, including George III after
he became blind, had appointed and retained private secretaries, the office
was not popular in the eyes of the Government and country, and it was not
considered advisable that the future Queen should possess such a servant,
notwithstanding the weight of business--enormous in the matter of
signatures alone--which would fall on the Sovereign. Without any recognised
position, Stockmar was destined to share with the Prime Minister one
portion of the duties which ought to have devolved on a private secretary.
He was also to act as confidential adviser.

Baron Stockmar, [Footnote: "An active, decided, slender, rather little man,
with a compact head, brown hair streaked with grey, a bold, short nose,
firm yet full mouth, and what gave a peculiar air of animation to his face,
with two youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and
fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and
conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought,
so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a
certain purpose was never lost sight of in his remarks and
illustrations."--_Friedrich Carl Meyer_.] who was at this time a man
of fifty, was no ordinary character. He was sagacious, warm-hearted,
honest, straightforward to bluntness, painstaking, just, benevolent to a
remarkable degree; the friend of princes, without forfeiting his