Victoria to the King of Denmark._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _4th January 1852._

SIR, MY BROTHER,--I received the letter which your Majesty addressed
to me on the 24th of August last, and in which, after referring to the
necessity for establishing some definite arrangement with regard
to the eventual succession to the Crown of Denmark, your Majesty is
pleased to acquaint me that, in your opinion, such an arrangement
might advantageously be made in favour of your Majesty's cousin, His
Highness the Prince Christian of Gluecksburg,[1] and the issue of his
marriage with the Princess Louisa of Hesse, in favour of whom the
nearer claimants have renounced their rights and titles.

I trust I need not assure your Majesty of the sincere friendship which
I entertain for you, and of the deep interest which I feel in the
welfare of the Danish Monarchy. It was in accordance with those
sentiments that I accepted the office of mediator between your Majesty
and the States of the German Confederation, and it afforded me the
sincerest pleasure to have been thus instrumental in re-establishing
the relations of peace between your Majesty and those States.

With regard to the question of the eventual succession to both the
Danish and Ducal Crowns, I have to state to your Majesty that although
I declined to take any part in the settlement of that combination,
it will be a source of great satisfaction to me to learn that an
arrangement has been definitely determined upon equally satisfactory
to your Majesty and to the Germanic Confederation; and whenever it
shall have been notified to me that such an arrangement has been
arrived at, I shall then be ready, in accordance with what was stated
in the Protocol of the 2nd of August 1850, to consider, in concert
with my Allies, the expediency of giving the sanction of an European
acknowledgment to the arrangement which may thus have been made.

I avail myself with great pleasure of this opportunity to renew to
your Majesty the expression of the invariable attachment and high
esteem with which I am, Sir, my Brother, your Majesty's good Sister,

VICTORIA R.

[Footnote 1: Prince Christian of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg was named successor
to Frederick VII., King of Denmark by a Treaty signed in
London on the 8th of May 1852; and by the Danish law of
succession (of the 31st of July 1853), he ascended the throne
under the style of Christian IX., on the 15th of Novembe