Source:
The letters of Queen Victoria: a selection from Her Majesty's correspondence between the years 1831 and 1861: published by authority of His Majesty the King, edited by Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Reginald Baliol Brett Esher, 1907
Above: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Ireland, drawn by William Corden the Elder.
Above: Leopold I, King of the Belgians, painted by Auguste-Alexis Canzi after Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
The letter:
3rd July 1837.
MY DEAREST UNCLE, — I had the happiness of receiving your kind letter of 30th June yesterday, and hasten to thank you for it. Your dear and kind letters, full of kind and excellent advice, will always be of the greatest use to me, and will always be my delight. You may depend upon it that I shall profit by your advice, as I have already so often done.
I was sure you would be of my opinion relative to Lord Melbourne. Indeed, dearest Uncle, nothing is to be done without a good heart and an honest mind; I have, alas! seen so much of bad hearts and dishonest and double minds, that I know how to value and appreciate real worth.
All is going on well at present, and the elections promise to be favourable. God grant they may be so! I had a very long and highly interesting conversation with Palmerston on Saturday, about Turkey, Russia, etc., etc. I trust something may be done for my sister Queens. They have got a Constitution in Spain at length, and the Cortes have done very well. We hope also to conclude a treaty of commerce with the Spaniards shortly, which would be an immense thing.
If you could get my kind and dear friend Louis Philippe, whom I do so respect, and for whom I have a great affection, to do something for poor Spain, it would be of great use.
I am quite penetrated by the King's kindness in sending good old General Baudrand and the Duc d'Elchingen over to compliment me; Baudrand did it very well, and with much good feeling. In Portugal, affairs look very black, I grieve to say. They have no money, and the Chartists want to bring about another counter-revolution, which would be fatal to the poor Queen's interests, I fear.
That you approve my plan about Stockmar I am delighted to hear.
I hope to go into Buckingham Palace very shortly after the funeral.
Now, dearest Uncle, I must invite you en forme. I should be most delighted if you, dearest Aunt Louise, and Leopold (j'insiste) could come about the middle or end of August. Then I should beg you would stay a little longer than usual, a fortnight at least. You could bring as many gentlemen, ladies, bonnes, etc., etc., as you pleased, and I should be too happy and proud to have you under my own roof. ...
Notes: In accordance with the nobility's ideals in the early and late modern era, kings, queens and other monarchs considered themselves siblings.
en forme = in form.
j'insiste = I insist.
bonnes = maids.
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