Queen Victoria to the King of Denmark.
ENGLAND AND DENMARK
Windsor Castle, 4th January 1852.
Sir, my Brother,—I received the letter which your Majesty addressed to me on the 24th of August last, and in which, after referring to the necessity for establishing some definite arrangement with regard to the eventual succession to the Crown of Denmark, your Majesty is pleased to acquaint me that, in your opinion, such an arrangement might advantageously be made in favour of your Majesty's cousin, His Highness the Prince Christian of Glücksburg,1 and the issue of his marriage with the Princess Louisa of Hesse, in favour of whom the nearer claimants have renounced their rights and titles.
I trust I need not assure your Majesty of the sincere friendship which I entertain for you, and of the deep interest which I feel in the welfare of the Danish Monarchy. It was in accordance with those sentiments that I accepted the office of mediator between your Majesty and the States of the German Confederation, and it afforded me the sincerest pleasure to have been thus instrumental in re-establishing the relations of peace between your Majesty and those States.
With regard to the question of the eventual succession to both the Danish and Ducal Crowns, I have to state to your Majesty that although I declined to take any part in the settlement of that combination, it will be a source of great satisfaction to me to learn that an arrangement has been definitely determined upon equally satisfactory to your Majesty and to the Germanic Confederation; and whenever it shall have been notified to me that such an arrangement has been arrived at, I shall then be ready, in accordance with what was stated in the Protocol of the 2nd of August 1850, to consider, in concert with my Allies, the expediency of giving the sanction of an European acknowledgment to the arrangement which may thus have been made.
I avail myself with great pleasure of this opportunity to renew to your Majesty the expression of the invariable attachment and high esteem with which I am, Sir, my Brother, your Majesty's good Sister,
Victoria R.
Footnote 1: Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg was named successor to Frederick VII., King of Denmark by a Treaty signed in London on the 8th of May 1852; and by the Danish law of succession (of the 31st of July 1853), he ascended the throne under the style of Christian IX., on the 15th of November, 1863. He was the father of His Majesty Frederick VIII., the present King of Denmark, and of Her Majesty Queen Alexandra of England; King Christian died in 1906, Queen Louise having predeceased him in 1898.