Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians

DEATH OF KING OF PORTUGAL

Windsor Castle, 12th November 1861.

My beloved Uncle,—I hardly know how to write, for my head reels and swims, and my heart is very sore! What an awful misfortune this is! How the hand of death seems bent on pursuing that poor, dear family! once so prosperous. Poor Ferdinand so proud of his children—of his five sons—now the eldest and most distinguished, the head of the family, gone, and also another of fifteen, and the youngest still ill! The two others at sea, and will land to-morrow in utter ignorance of everything, and poor, dear, good Louis (whom I thought dreadfully low when we saw him and Jean for an hour on Friday) King! It is an almost incredible event! a terrible calamity for Portugal, and a real European loss! Dear Pedro was so good, so clever, so distinguished! He was so attached to my beloved Albert, and the characters and tastes suited so well, and he had such confidence in Albert! All, all gone! He is happy now, united again to dear Stéphanie, whose loss he never recovered.... Ever your devoted Niece,

Victoria R.

Footnote 51: King Pedro of Portugal died of typhoid fever on the 11th of November; his brother Ferdinand had died on the 6th; and Prince John, Duke of Beja, succumbed in the following December.

Footnote 52: The young Queen Stéphanie of Portugal had died in 1859.