Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
THE ROYAL CHILDREN
Buckingham Palace, 4th April 1843.
Dearest Uncle,—Many thanks for your very kind letter of the 31st, which I received on Sunday, just as our excellent friend Stockmar made his appearance. He made us very happy by his excellent accounts of you all, including dearest Louise, and the children he says are so grown; Leo being nearly as tall as Louise! En revanche he will, I hope, tell you how prosperous he found us all; and how surprised and pleased he was with the children; he also is struck with Albert junior's likeness to his dearest papa, which everybody is struck with. Indeed, dearest Uncle, I will venture to say that not only no Royal Ménage is to be found equal to ours, but no other ménage is to be compared to ours, nor is any one to be compared, take him altogether, to my dearest Angel!...
Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria.
Whitehall, 6th April 1843.
Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has this moment received your Majesty's note.
Sir Robert Peel will immediately make enquiry in the first instance in respect to the correctness of the report of the dinner. The omission of the health of the Prince is certainly very strange—it would be very unusual at any public dinner—but seems quite unaccountable at a dinner given in connection with the interests of one of the Royal Theatres.
The toasts are generally prepared not by the chairman of the meeting, but by a committee; but still the omission of the name of the Prince ought to have occurred at once to the Duke of Cambridge, and there cannot be a doubt that he might have rectified, and ought to have rectified, the omission.
Sir Robert Peel is sure your Majesty will approve of his ascertaining in the first instance the real facts of the case—whether the report be a correct one, and if a correct one, who are the parties by whom the arrangements in respect to the toasts were made.