The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1: 1837-1843

The Letters of Queen Victoria,
Volume 1 (of
by Queen Victoria

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Title: The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) A
Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence Between the Years 1837
and 1861
Author: Queen Victoria
Editor: Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Esher
Release Date: December 5, 2006 [EBook #20023]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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A Transcriber's Note is at the end of the book.
* * * * *
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA RECEIVING THE NEWS OF HER
ACCESSION TO THE THRONE, JUNE 20, 1837
From the picture by H. T. Wells, R.A., at Buckingham Palace
Frontispiece, Vol. I.]

THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA
A SELECTION FROM HER MAJESTY'S CORRESPONDENCE
BETWEEN THE YEARS 1837 AND 1861
PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING
EDITED BY ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, M.A. AND
VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.V.O., K.C.B.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.--1837-1843
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1908
Copyright in Great Britain and Dependencies, 1907, by H.M. THE
KING.
In the United States by Messrs LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
All rights reserved.

PREFACE
Entrusted by His Majesty the King with the duty of making a selection
from Queen Victoria's correspondence, we think it well to describe
briefly the nature of the documents which we have been privileged to
examine, as well as to indicate the principles which have guided us
throughout. It has been a task of no ordinary difficulty. Her Majesty
Queen Victoria dealt with her papers, from the first, in a most
methodical manner; she formed the habit in early days of preserving
her private letters, and after her accession to the Throne all her official
papers were similarly treated, and bound in volumes. The Prince
Consort instituted an elaborate system of classification, annotating and
even indexing many of the documents with his own hand. The result is
that the collected papers form what is probably the most extraordinary
series of State documents in the world. The papers which deal with the
Queen's life up to the year 1861 have been bound in chronological
order, and comprise between five and six hundred volumes. They
consist, in great part, of letters from Ministers detailing the proceedings
of Parliament, and of various political memoranda dealing with home,
foreign, and colonial policy; among these are a few drafts of Her
Majesty's replies. There are volumes concerned with the affairs of
almost every European country; with the history of India, the British
Army, the Civil List, the Royal Estates, and all the complicated
machinery of the Monarchy and the Constitution. There are letters from
monarchs and royal personages, and there is further a whole series of
volumes dealing with matters in which the Prince Consort took a
special interest. Some of them are arranged chronologically, some by
subjects. Among the most interesting volumes are those containing the
letters written by Her Majesty to her uncle Leopold, King of the
Belgians, and his replies.[1] The collection of letters from and to Lord
Melbourne forms another hardly less interesting series. In many places
Queen Victoria caused extracts, copied from her own private Diaries,
dealing with important political events or describing momentous
interviews, to be inserted in the volumes, with the evident intention of
illustrating and completing the record.

[Footnote 1: A set of volumes containing the Queen's letters to Lord
John Russell came into our hands too late to be made use of for the
present publication.]
It became obvious at once that it was impossible to deal with these
papers exhaustively. They would provide material for a historical series
extending to several hundred volumes. Moreover, on the other hand,
there are many gaps, as a great deal of the business of State was
transacted by interviews of which no official record is preserved.
His Majesty the King having decided that no attempt should be made to
publish these papers in extenso, it was necessary to determine upon
some definite principle of selection. It became clear that the only
satisfactory plan was to publish specimens of such documents as would
serve to bring out the development of the Queen's character and
disposition, and to give typical instances of her methods in dealing with
political and social matters--to produce, in fact, a book for British
citizens and British subjects, rather than a book for students of political