SANS SOUCI: 6th August.
'My hope of being with you as soon as the 15th is at an end. It is with feeling of the greatest sorrow that I feel I am compelled to make a sacrifice of a few days and arrive later. This evening we all went, that is the King and Queen, and Prince Charles of Prussia with his wife, to drink tea in one of the beautiful spots of this most lovely place. The King called me to his table. When we sat down he said, "Pray, when do you mean to leave me?" I said, "I intend to do the only painful thing I have done since I've been in Prussia, and that is to ask His Majesty's permission to take my leave on Monday." He said, "I will not ask you to do what is contrary to your duty, but I must beg you to stay with me a little longer. I must ask you to remain with me at least till after the 15th." This was said in so kind a manner, with the Queen looking me full in the face, that I at once said, "So much honour was done me by the desire expressed that I could not refuse."
'They both at once expressed most unfeigned pleasure, but it is a sacrifice. I now leave Berlin on the 16th, and shall be in London on the 21st, please God, without fail. You cannot conceive how affectionately I am treated by this great family. I never have received so much real attention from out of my own family in my life. I feel sure you will approve of what I have done, and think after all this kindness I was bound to make a sacrifice, if asked. The King said to me at supper this evening, "I cannot think what became of you one morning on board the steamer. I went three times to your cabin to look for you, and could not find you. I asked for you, and no one had seen you; and then the horrid idea came over me that you had fallen overboard or were ill." I mention this to show the sort of feeling he must have for me. I believe I was asleep on the sofa with a table before it, and he did not see me, being very nearsighted. I am most charmingly lodged here, the walls of my room are all marqueterie and they have put sofa and bed, &c., as the Chamberlain told me "like it is done at Windsor."'
It is clear from these letters that Lord Hardwicke's character and personality were much appreciated both by the King of Prussia and by the Emperor Nicholas. He was indeed so great a favourite with the latter that when the Emperor paid a visit to Queen Victoria in 1844 he was appointed to attend His Majesty, and took command of the Black Eagle steam yacht which carried the Czar from Woolwich to Rotterdam on his leaving this country. As a memento of this service and of his esteem, the Emperor presented Lord Hardwicke with a snuff-box of great value, bearing his Majesty's miniature mounted in brilliants.
In 1843 Lord Hardwicke had the honour of receiving Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort at Wimpole, upon the occasion of the Prince's visit to Cambridge to receive the degree of LL.D., and the following mention of the event occurs in one of the Queen's letters to the Queen of the Belgians:
'We returned on Saturday highly interested with our tour, though a little done up. The Royal party went by road from Paddington to Cambridge, and stayed at the Lodge at Trinity. On the following day Prince Albert was made LL.D. The party then went to Wimpole. At the ball which was given at Wimpole, there was a sofa covered with a piece of drapery given by Louis XIV. to the poet Prior and by him to Lord Oxford, the owner of Wimpole before its purchase by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.'
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Lord Hardwicke rode out to meet her Majesty at Royston at the head of a large cavalcade which included the gentry and yeomanry of the county. After an inspection of that little town, the party started for Wimpole, and on arriving at the House in the Fields the Queen's escort of Scots Greys filed off at Lord Hardwicke's request, their places being taken by a troop of the Whittlesea Yeomanry Cavalry, the Lord-Lieutenant roundly declaring that 'the county cavalry was well able to guard her Majesty so long as she might stay in Cambridgeshire.' On the following day Lord Hardwicke gave a dinner in honour of her Majesty, followed by a ball, of which the Queen makes mention in her letter, to which three hundred guests were invited.
I may perhaps print here another reference by Queen Victoria to my father. Writing to Lord Melbourne in 1842 her Majesty said:
'Lord Hardwicke the Queen likes very much; he seems so straightforward. He took the greatest care of the Queen when on board ship. Was not his father drowned at Spithead or Portsmouth?'