The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume I Part 51

[Pageheading: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _12th January 1840._

This letter will be handed you by Torrington personally. I recommend you not to leave late, so as to make the journey without hurry. I did not go to church to-day; the weather is very cold, and I have to be careful not to catch cold before the 16th, because I open Parliament in person. _This is always a nervous proceeding, and the announcement of my marriage at the beginning of my speech is really a very nervous and awful affair for me. I have never failed yet, and this is the sixth time that I have done it, and yet I am just as frightened as if I had never done it before. They say that feeling of nervousness is never got over, and that Wm. Pitt himself never got up to make a speech without thinking he should fail. But then I only read my speech._

I had to-day a visit from George[2] whom I received _alone_, and he was very courteous. His Papa I have also seen.

[Footnote 2: Prince George of Cambridge.]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _17th January 1840._

... Yesterday just as I came home from the House of Lords,[3] I received your dear letter of the 10th. I cannot understand at all why you have received no letters from me, seeing that I always wrote twice a week, regularly....

I observe with horror that I have not formally invited your father; though that is a matter of course. My last letter will have set that right. I ought not to have written to you on picture notepaper, seeing that we are in deep mourning for my poor Aunt, the Landgravine,[4] but it was quite impossible for me to write to you on mourning paper....

_But this will not interfere with our marriage in the least; the mourning will be taken off for that day, and for two or three days after, and then put on again._

Everything went off exceedingly well yesterday. There was an immense mult.i.tude of people, and perhaps never, certainly not for a long time, have I been received so well; and what is remarkable, I _was not nervous_, and read the speech really well. The Tories began immediately afterwards to conduct themselves very _badly_ and to plague us. But everyone praised you very much. Melbourne made a very fine speech about you and your ancestors. To-day I receive the Address of the House of Lords, and, perhaps, also that of the House of Commons.

[Footnote 3: The Queen had opened Parliament in person, and announced her intended marriage.]

[Footnote 4: The Princess Elizabeth (born 1770), third daughter of George III. and widow of the Landgrave Frederick Joseph Louis of Hesse-Homburg. _See_ p. 195. (Ch. VIII, Footnote 65)]

[Pageheading: TORIES, WHIGS, AND RADICALS]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _21st January 1840._

I am awaiting with immense impatience a letter from you. Here hardly anything to relate to-day, because we are living in great retirement, until informed that my poor Aunt has been buried. With the exception of Melbourne and my own people, no one has dined for the last week.

We are all of us very much preoccupied with politics. The Tories really are very astonis.h.i.+ng; _as they cannot and dare not attack us in Parliament, they do everything that they can to be personally rude to me.... The Whigs are the only safe and loyal people, and the Radicals will also rally round their Queen to protect her from the Tories; but it is a curious sight to see those, who as Tories, used to pique themselves upon their excessive loyalty, doing everything to degrade their young Sovereign in the eyes of the people. Of course there are exceptions._

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _31st January 1840._

... You have written to me in one of your letters about our stay at Windsor, but, dear Albert, you have not at all understood the matter.

_You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that business can stop and wait for nothing. Parliament is sitting, and something occurs almost every day, for which I may be required, and it is quite impossible for me to be absent from London; therefore two or three days is already a long time to be absent. I am never easy a moment, if I am not on the spot, and see and hear what is going on, and everybody, including all my Aunts (who are very knowing in all these things), says I must come out after the second day, for, as I must be surrounded by my Court, I cannot keep alone. This is also my own wish in every way._

Now as to the Arms: _as an English Prince you have no right, and Uncle Leopold had no right to quarter the English Arms, but the Sovereign has the power to allow it by Royal Command: this was done for Uncle Leopold by the Prince Regent, and I will do it again for you. But it can only be done by Royal Command._

I will, therefore, without delay, have a seal engraved for you.

You will certainly feel very happy too, at the news of the coming union of my much-beloved Vecto[5] with Nemours. It gives me quite infinite pleasure, because then I can see the dear child more frequently.

I read in the newspaper that you, dear Albert, have received many Orders; also that the Queen of Spain will send you the Golden Fleece....

Farewell, dearest Albert, and think often of thy faithful

VICTORIA R.

[Footnote 5: The Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg, cousin of Queen Victoria.]

[Pageheading: THE PRINCE'S GRANT]

_The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria._

BRUSSELS, _31st January 1840._

MY DEAREST VICTORIA,--I am most grateful for your long letter of the 27th and 28th inst. I send a messenger to be able to answer quite confidentially. I must confess that I never saw anything _so disgraceful_ than the discussion and vote in the Commons.[6] The whole mode and way in which those who opposed the grant treated the question was so extremely _vulgar_ and _disrespectful_, that I cannot comprehend the Tories. The men who uphold the dignity of the Crown to treat their Sovereign in such a manner, on such an occasion! Even in private life the most sour and saturnine people relax and grow gay and mildly disposed on occasions like this. Clearly, as you are Queen Regnant, Albert's position is to all intents and purposes that of a male Queen Consort, and the same privileges and charges ought to be attached to it which were attached to Queen Adelaide's position. The giving up the income which the Queen-Dowager came into, and which I hope and trust Albert would never have, or have had, any chance of having had himself, was in reality giving up a thing which _custom_ had sanctioned. That Prince George of Denmark[7] was considered to be in the same position as a Queen Consort there can be, I think, no doubt about, and when one considers the immense difference in the value of money then and now, it renders matters still more striking.

I must say such conduct in Parliament I did _not expect_, and the less when I consider that your Civil List was rather curtailed than otherwise, perhaps not quite fairly. I rejoice to think that I induced Lord Melbourne to propose to you not to accede to the giving up of the Duchy of Lancaster. Parliament did not deserve it, and by good management I think something may be made of it.

Another thing which made me think that Parliament would have acted with more decency, is that I return to the country now near 40,000 a year, _not because_ I thought my income _too large_, as worthy Sir Robert Peel said, but from motives of political delicacy, which at least might be acknowledged on such occasions. I was placed by my marriage treaty in the position of a Princess of Wales, which in reality it was, though not yet by law, there existing a possibility of a Prince of Wales as long as George IV. lived. I can only conclude by crying _shame, shame_!...

I hope and trust you will not be too much worried with all these unpleasant things, and that Albert will prove a comforter and support to you. And so good-bye for to-day. Ever, my dearest Victoria, your devoted Uncle,

LEOPOLD R.

[Footnote 6: The Ministers proposed an income of 50,000 a year for the Prince--the Conservatives and Radicals united on an amendment reducing it to 30,000, which was carried by a majority of 104.]

[Footnote 7: The Consort of Queen Anne.]

[Pageheading: THE PRINCE AT BRUSSELS]