Queen Victoria writes to her Prime Minister on the threat of war, January 1864
The relationship between Palmerston and Queen Victoria was an uneasy one. The archive has 1,200 letters from the Queen, and she was especially interested in foreign affairs. On 5 January 1864, amid the tensions of Prussian and Austrian military action against Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein, she tells Palmerston: ‘It is because she feels strongly her responsibility as Queen of these realms that she is anxious to avoid their being hurried into an unnecessary war — and no feelings for Germany could ever make her view an international question otherwise than as it might affect the interests of the people of England ...’
