e
mourning will be taken off for that day, and for two or three days
after, and then put on again._

Everything went off exceedingly well yesterday. There was an immense
multitude of people, and perhaps never, certainly not for a long
time, have I been received so well; and what is remarkable, I _was
not nervous_, and read the speech really well. The Tories began
immediately afterwards to conduct themselves very _badly_ and to
plague us. But everyone praised you very much. Melbourne made a very
fine speech about you and your ancestors. To-day I receive the
Address of the House of Lords, and, perhaps, also that of the House of
Commons.

[Footnote 3: The Queen had opened Parliament in person, and
announced her intended marriage.]

[Footnote 4: The Princess Elizabeth (born 1770), third
daughter of George III. and widow of the Landgrave Frederick
Joseph Louis of Hesse-Homburg. _See_ p. 195. (Ch. VIII, Footnote 65)]

[Pageheading: TORIES, WHIGS, AND RADICALS]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _21st January 1840._

I am awaiting with immense impatience a letter from you. Here hardly
anything to relate to-day, because we are living in great retirement,
until informed that my poor Aunt has been buried. With the exception
of Melbourne and my own people, no one has dined for the last week.

We are all of us very much preoccupied with politics. The Tories
really are very astonishing; _as they cannot and dare not attack us in
Parliament, they do everything that they can to be personally rude to
me.... The Whigs are the only safe and loyal people, and the Radicals
will also rally round their Queen to protect her from the Tories;
but it is a curious sight to see those, who as Tories, used to pique
themselves upon their excessive loyalty, doing everything to degrade
their young Sovereign in the eyes of the people. Of course there are
exceptions._

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _31st January 1840._

... You have written to me in one of your letters about our stay at
Windsor, but, dear Albert, you have not at all understood the matter.
_You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that
business can stop and wait for nothing. Parliament is sitting, and
something occurs almost every day, for which I may be required, and it
is quite impossible for me to be absent from London; therefore two
or three days is already a long time