I am, Dear Sir,
Your most affectionate and sincere friend,
William Henry.
There is nothing more astonishing than the manner in which the letters of the late Queen Victoria have got into the autograph market on either side of the Atlantic. Mr. Joline gives a very startling instance of this, and I believe all her late Majesty's correspondence with Mr. Gladstone went to America, and that for a very inadequate consideration. The examples I give of the writing of living members of the Royal Family are only fragments reproduced as specimens of calligraphy. I can never quite understand how the Royal letters came to figure in dealers' catalogues, notwithstanding in many cases the confidential nature of their contents. In his "Collections and Recollections" (1898) Mr. George W. E. Russell gives the following autograph anecdote:—
"Like many other little boys, Prince Alexander of Battenberg ran short of pocket-money and wrote an ingenious letter to his august Grandmother, Queen Victoria, asking for some slight pecuniary assistance. He received in return a just rebuke, telling him that little boys should keep within their limits and that he must wait till his allowance next became due. Shortly afterwards the undefeated little Prince resumed the correspondence in something like the following form: 'My dear Grandmama, I am sure you will be glad to know that I need not trouble you for any money just now, for I sold your last letter to another boy here for thirty shillings.'"
A.L.S. OF QUEEN ALEXANDRA TO MRS. GLADSTONE, DECEMBER 7, 1888.
QUEEN VICTORIA'S ORDER ON A LETTER OF SIR HENRY PONSONBY, APRIL 26, 1894.