The government suggested £50,000 as a likely figure for the consort's annual allowance. Joseph Hume, the radical member for Kilkenny, thought it was too much. "Are you aware," he asked his Tory colleagues, "of the danger of setting a young man down in London with so much money in his pocket?" The House of Commons took a vote and decided that £40,000 a year was ample for Victoria's Prince Albert.
That was in 1840. Last week, as Britain's Princess Elizabeth and her husband returned from their Scottish honeymoon, members of the House of Commons were once again deep in debate over royal...
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