The Letters of Queen Victoria/Volume 3/Chapter 23/From Earl Aberdeen 17 January 1854
The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria.
LONDON, 17th January 1854. . . . With respect to your Majesty’s custom of seeing the French Royal Family, Lord Aberdeen humbly thinks that there is no good reason for making any change. It has always taken place without parade or ostentation; and knowing, as Lord Aberdeen does, that no political object is in view, he would feel ashamed to advise your Majesty to do anything at variance with that sympathy which your Majesty has been careful to keep within the bounds of prudence and moderation. . . .
Lord Aberdeen hopes that he may venture to congratulate your Majesty on the commencement of a change with respect to the newspaper attacks upon the Prince. He observed the article, to which your Majesty refers, in the Morning Chronicle of yesterday; and he believes he may certainly say that it was written by Mr Gladstone, although he would not wish it to be known. There was also a very sensible letter in the Standard of last night, signed D. C. L. This is the signature always assumed by Mr Alexander Hope,[1] in his contributions to the Press, and Lord Aberdeen does not doubt that it is written by him. It is only a wonder to find it in such a quarter; and it shows some disposition on the part of that scurrilous paper to alter its course. There is perhaps no great objection to the papers dealing with the subject as they think proper, before the meeting of Parliament, provided the Tames takes no part at present; for as this paper is supposed to be influenced by the Government, this belief would injure the effect of anything that might appear in its columns.[2] . . .
- ↑ Mr. A. J. Hope (afterwards Beresford-Hope), at this time out of Parliament, had written over the signature "D. C. L." a series of letters to the Press on the Papal claims.
- ↑ On the re-assembling of Parliament, the charges against the Prince were at once refuted by the Prime Minister and Lord John Russell; and his right to assist the Queen completely established by those Ministers, with the concurrence of Lord Derby and Mr Walpole, on behalf of the Opposition, and Lord Campbell, the Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench.