Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon

MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL

Windsor Castle, 25th October 1857.

The Queen returns these letters. It would be well if Lord Clarendon would tell Lord Bloomfield not to entertain the possibility of such a question as the Princess Royal's marriage taking place at Berlin. The Queen never could consent to it, both for public and private reasons, and the assumption of its being too much for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry the Princess Royal of Great Britain IN England is too absurd, to say the least. The Queen must say that there never was even the shadow of a doubt on Prince Frederick William's part as to where the marriage should take place, and she suspects this to be the mere gossip of the Berliners. Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian Princes, it is not every day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The question therefore must be considered as settled and closed....

Footnote 50: The marriage took place at the Chapel Royal, St James's.