Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. Since he wrote to your Majesty, he has seen Mr Fox Maule,17 who had been at the house in Norfolk Street. He says that it is a most mysterious affair. Lord William Russell was found in his bed, quite dead, cold and stiff, showing that the act had been perpetrated some time. The bed was of course deluged with blood, but there were no marks of blood in any other part of the room; so that he had been killed in his bed and by one blow, upon the throat, which had nearly divided his head from his body. The back door of the house was broken open, but there were no traces of persons having approached the door from without. His writing-desk was also broken open and the money taken out, but otherwise little or nothing had been taken away. The police upon duty in the streets had neither heard nor seen anything during the night. In these circumstances strong suspicion lights upon the persons in the house, two maids and a man, the latter a foreigner18 and who had only been with Lord William about five weeks. These persons are now separately confined, and the Commissioners of Police are actively employed in enquiring into the affair. An inquest will of course be held upon the body without delay.
Lord Melbourne has just received your Majesty's letter, and will immediately convey to Lord John your Majesty's kind expressions of sympathy.
Footnote 17: Under-Secretary for Home Affairs; afterwards, as Lord Panmure, Secretary for War.
Footnote 18: Courvoisier.
The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria.
MRS NORTON
Laeken, 22nd May 1840.
My dearest Victoria,—I received yesterday a most kind and dear letter from your august hands. Charles,19 who wanted to cross yesterday, will have had very bad weather. He is prepared not to make too long a stay in England. He dined here on the 19th. Louise was prepared to come to dinner, but was not quite equal to it; she therefore came after it. He came also to see me on the 20th, before his departure for Ostende. It is very gracious of you to have given him subsidies, but in fact poor Feo stands more in need of it. She really is too poor; when one thinks that they have but £600 a year, and that large castles, etc., are to be kept up with it, one cannot conceive how they manage it. It was a very generous feeling which prompted you to see Mrs Norton, and I have been too much her friend to find fault with it. True it is that Norton was freely accepted by her, but she was very poor, and could therefore hardly venture to refuse him. Many people will flirt with a clever, handsome, but poor girl, though not marry her—besides, the idea of having old Shery20 for a grandfather had nothing very captivating. A very unpleasant husband Norton certainly was, and one who had little tact. I can well believe that she was much frightened, having so many eyes on her, some of which, perhaps, not with the most amiable expression.
PRINCESS CHARLOTTE
I was delighted to learn that you meant to visit poor Claremont, and to pass there part of your precious birthday. Claremont is the place where in younger days you were least plagued, and generally I saw you there in good spirits. You will also nolens volens be compelled to think of me, and maybe of poor Charlotte.