Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He has just received your Majesty's letter, and will wait upon your Majesty at half-past five. Lord Melbourne is sorry to hear that your Majesty has been at all indisposed. It will suit him much better to wait upon your Majesty at dinner to-morrow than to-day, as his hand shows some disposition to gather, and it may be well to take care of it.
Lord Melbourne is very glad to learn that everything went off well at Oxford. Lord Melbourne expected that the Duke of Sutherland55 would not entirely escape a little public animadversion. Nothing can be more violent or outrageous than the conduct of the students of both Universities upon such occasions; the worst and lowest mobs of Westminster and London are very superior to them in decency and forbearance.
The Archbishop56 is a very agreeable man; but he is not without cunning, and Lord Melbourne can easily understand his eagerness that the Queen should not prorogue Parliament in person. He knows that it will greatly assist the Tories. It is not true that it is universal for the Sovereign to go down upon such occasions. George III. went himself in 1784; he did not go in 1807, because he had been prevented from doing so by his infirmities for three years before. William IV. went down himself in 1830.57
Lord Melbourne sends a note which he has received from Lord Normanby upon this and another subject.
Footnote 55: Who was, of course, associated with the Whig Ministry.
Footnote 56: Archbishop Vernon Harcourt, of York, the Queen's host.
Footnote 57: The Queen prorogued Parliament in person on 22nd June.
Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
Buckingham Palace, 17th June 1841.
My dearest Uncle,—A few lines I must write to you to express to you my very great delight at the certainty, God willing, of seeing you all three next week, and to express a hope, and a great hope, that you will try and arrive a little earlier on Wednesday.... I must again repeat I am so sorry you should come when Society is dispersed and at sixes and sevens, and in such a state that naturally I cannot at the moment of the elections invite many Tories, as that tells so at the elections. But we shall try and do our best to make it as little dull as we can, and you will kindly take the will for the deed.