Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/76

 with his nephew on the subject of the projected marriage, and found that he looked at the whole question from the "most elevated and honorable point of view." "If I am not mistaken in him," wrote the King to Stockmar, "he possesses all the qualities required to fit him for the position which he will occupy in England. His understanding is sound, his apprehension clear and rapid, and his heart is in the right place." The young Prince said he was quite ready to submit to any delay in the marriage which the Queen might desire, but that he felt that he had a right to demand some definite assurance from her as to her ultimate intentions. He had no fancy to play the ridiculous parts so often forced upon Queen Elizabeth's numerous suitors, of hanging about her for years, having his matrimonial prospects talked of all over Europe, in order at the end to learn that the lady had never had the least intention of marrying him.

It was either to obtain this definite assurance from the Queen herself, or to withdraw entirely from the whole affair, that he came to England, again accompanied by his brother, Prince Ernest, on October 10th, 1839. On the 15th he was the Queen's betrothed husband. All the Queen's reasons for desiring the postponement of her marriage with her cousin vanished in his presence; they were overwhelmed by the irresistible feeling inspired by the Prince. In the memorandum by the Queen previously quoted in part, she had stated that no worse school for a young girl, or one more detrimental to all natural feelings and affections, could be imagined than that of being Queen at eighteen. Very few persons are qualified to express an opinion on the point, but it is quite certain that being Queen at eighteen had neither destroyed Her Majesty's capacity of loving, nor her power of inspiring love. The letters of the two young lovers to their