Footnote 19: King George V. of Hanover.
Footnote 20: Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had insisted that the disputed points as to the guardianship of the Holy Places, and the Russian demand for a Protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Sultan, should be kept distinct. After the former had been arranged and the latter had been rejected by the Porte acting under Lord Stratford's advice, Menschikoff abruptly quitted Constantinople, and the Russian troops, crossing the Pruth, invaded the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (now united as Roumania). In England, meanwhile, a military encampment had been established at Chobham.
The Earl of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria.
DEATH OF LADY DALHOUSIE
12th July 1853.
Lord Dalhousie presents his humble duty to your Majesty, most gratefully acknowledging the gracious words which your Majesty has addressed to him in the time of his great affliction.21
Your Majesty has been pleased for many years to honour him with frequent marks of personal distinction. He is indeed most keenly sensible of the favour which bestowed them all. But his deep gratitude must ever be given to the goodness which dictated the touching assurance he has now received of your Majesty's interest in the piteous fate of one who for eighteen years has been all the world to him, whose patient, gentle spirit, and whose brave heart had turned aside so many perils, and who yet has sunk at last under the very means on which all had securely reckoned as her certain safety.
Lord Dalhousie ought not perhaps to have uttered even this much of his sorrow, but your Majesty's truly gracious words have melted it from his heart; and still encourage him to believe that your Majesty will not regard it as obtrusive.
Lord Dalhousie will not mingle the other topics, on which it is his duty to address your Majesty, with this respectful expression of the enduring gratitude, with which he has the honour to subscribe himself, your Majesty's most obedient, most humble, and most faithful Subject and Servant,