The Duke of Wellington and his Ministry resigned office in November, 1830, because the House of Commons wished to appoint a Select Committee to examine the Civil List. King William IV., according to the words of a letter written by him to Earl Grey, on December 1st, 1830, felt considerable "alarm and uneasiness" because Joseph Hume and other Radical members wished to put some check on the growing and already extravagant royal expenditure. He objects "most strenuously," and says, referring in this especially to the Duchy of Lancaster: "Earl Grey cannot be surprised that the King should view with jealousy any idea of Parliamentary interference with the only remaining pittance of an independent possession, which has been enjoyed by his ancestors, during many centuries, as their _private and independent estate_, and has now, as such, lawfully devolved upon him in right of succession. That he should feel that any successful attempt to deprive the Sovereign of this independent possession will be to lower and degrade him into the state and condition of absolute and entire dependence, as a pensioner of the House of Commons; to place him in the condition of an individual violating or surrendering a trust which had been held sacred by his ancestors, and which he is bound to transmit to his successors. The King cannot indeed conceive upon what plea such a national invasion of the _private_ rights, and such a seizure of the private estates, of the Sovereign could be justified."

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