Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel.
Windsor Castle, 13th August 1843.
The Queen is desirous that whatever is right should be done, but is strongly of opinion that the King of Hanover's threat (for as such it must be regarded) not to leave this country till the affair53 is decided upon, should in no way influence the transaction, as it is quite immaterial whether the King stays longer here or not.
Footnote 53: Of the Crown jewels; ante, p. [439].
Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen.
THE SPANISH MARRIAGE
Windsor Castle, 13th August 1843.
The Queen sees with great regret, in Sir Robert Gordon's despatch of 4th August, that Prince Metternich has resumed his favourite scheme of a marriage between the Queen of Spain and a son of Don Carlos, and that King Louis Philippe has almost come to a secret understanding with him upon that point.54 The Queen is as much as ever convinced that instead of tending to pacify Spain this combination cannot fail to call new principles of discord into action, to excite the hopes of a lost and vanquished party for revenge and reacquisition of power, and to carry the civil war into the very interior of the family. The Queen is anxious (should Lord Aberdeen coincide in this view of the subject, as she believes he does) that it should be clearly understood by Sir Robert Gordon, and Prince Metternich.
Footnote 54: Since the Quadruple Alliance (of England, France, Spain, and Portugal) in 1834 to expel Don Carlos and Dom Miguel from the Peninsula, the question of the marriage of Queen Isabella (then aged four) had been a subject of incessant consideration by England and France. The Queen-Mother had suggested to Louis Philippe the marriages of the Queen to the Duc d'Aumale and of the Infanta (her sister) to the Duc de Montpensier: such a proposal, however gratifying to the French King's ambition, would naturally not have been favourably viewed in England; but Guizot promoted warmly the alternative project of a marriage of the Queen to her cousin Don Francisco de Asis, Duke of Cadiz, son of Don Francisco de Paula, the Infanta being still to marry Montpensier. It was believed that, if this marriage of the Queen took place, there would be no issue of it, and Louis Philippe's ambition would be ultimately gratified. To Palmerston's protest against this scheme (before the Melbourne Ministry fell), Guizot replied, "La Reine aura des enfants et ne mourra pas." The other possible candidates for the Queen's hand from the French point of view were Count Montemolin, the son of Don Carlos, the Count de Trapani, son of Francis I., King of the Two Sicilies, and thus brother of Queen Christina, and the Duke of Seville, a brother of the Duke of Cadiz. Other candidates also favoured by the Queen-Mother were (while he was unmarried) Prince Albert's brother, and his cousin Leopold, brother of the King of Portugal; but the French King was bent upon a marriage of the Queen with some descendant of Philip V., and equally determined to prevent the Infanta's marriage either with Leopold or any other Prince not a descendant of Philip V. The view of Prince Albert and of Lord Aberdeen was that it was a matter for the young Queen herself and the Spanish people. See ante, p. [485].