John Russell made it sound nice, but Victoria did not believe a word of it. Britain's decline over the years was plain for all to see; anyone who could still believe such words could only be called supernatural.
Victoria, as Queen, felt it even more keenly—for instance, the falling income from the royal estates, and Parliament's fervor for slashing the royal annuity.
The royal annuity in George III's day had been more than twice the 385,000 Pound Sterling Victoria received when she ascended the throne, and Parliament had not spared her in recent years either.
Almost every year, some member of Parliament proposed cutting the royal annuity. Such proposals were always met with thunderous applause, then passed unanimously.
Whenever a party wanted to put forward a new candidate, it would pull this stunt to raise its standing. But while they were doing so, Queen Victoria was the one suffering bitterly.
Not only was her annuity docked, she also had to take the initiative to reflect on her own sins.
Worst of all, there were always people watching her. The slightest act by the royal family deemed extravagant or wasteful would be denounced in the newspapers.
And the mockery grew ever more blatant; at times, it could even be called an insult. Members of Parliament led by Joseph Hume had, for decades without change, subjected every royal expenditure to relentless, root-digging interrogation in Parliament.
Historically, this near-inquisitorial questioning had angered several royal stewards. Now, with Britain's finances strained, such conduct was even more enthusiastically embraced.
At this time, Joseph Hume's actions drove several royal stewards to resign one after another, because no one wanted their privacy stripped completely bare.
Joseph Hume had drawn inspiration from a chance experience and assembled the first paparazzi squad in modern British history.
To obtain the