I beg my most affectionate love to dearest Louise and the dear children. The Queen-Dowager is recovering wonderfully.
I beg you to forgive this letter being so badly written, but my feet are being rubbed, and as I have got the box on which I am writing on my knee, it is not easy to write quite straight—but you must not think my hand trembles. Ever your devoted Niece,
Victoria R.
Pussy is not at all pleased with her brother.
Footnote 158: His Majesty King Edward VII., born 9th November.
Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
THE INFANT PRINCE
Trentham, 1st December 1841.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has had the honour of receiving here your Majesty's letters of yesterday, by which he learns with sincere pleasure and satisfaction that your Majesty is so much recovered as to go to Windsor on so early a day as your Majesty names. Lord Melbourne hears with great concern that your Majesty has been suffering under depression and lowness of spirits.... Lord Melbourne well knows how to feel for those who suffer under it, especially as he has lately had much of it himself.
Lord Melbourne is much rejoiced to hear so good an account of the Heir Apparent and of the Princess Royal, and feels himself greatly obliged by the information respecting the intended names and the sponsors. Lord Melbourne supposes that your Majesty has determined yourself upon the relative position of the two names, but Edward is a good English appellation, and has a certain degree of popularity attached to it from ancient recollections. Albert is also an old Anglo-Saxon name—the same, Lord Melbourne believes, as Ethelred—but it has not been so common nor so much in use since the Conquest. However, your Majesty's feelings, which Lord Melbourne perfectly understands, must determine this point. The notion of the King of Prussia159 gives great satisfaction here, and will do so with all but Puseyites and Newmanites and those who lean to the Roman Catholic faith. His strong Protestant feelings, and his acting with us in the matter of the Syrian Bishop, have made the King of Prussia highly popular in this country, and particularly with the more religious part of the community.