Lacock
27 March 1848
My Dear Horatia –
There are accounts from Palermo of the 12th in the newspapers and your last letter from any of you, is of the 24th of last month – Seventeen days you have allowed to pass without writing! ah cattiva! <1> days crowded I have no doubt with events of interest! We took amazing pains to understand and follow the series of events which have befallen you, and I think succeeded pretty well, that is I think we have a tolerably correct notion – We happen to have a view of the Palazzo Butera, indeed 2 views in opposite directions which serve to support each other. Upon my word your King’s behaviour to Messina is abominable, far worse than to Palermo, inasmuch as hopeless and useless – I said sometime ago in a letter to Aunt L. <2> “when gd news of ye Paris affair reaches Palermo, Sicily will declare itself independent of Naples and place itself under the protection of England” – The last part seems not yet verified. – Nothing would surprise me in these days, we agreed the other day that we should not be surprised if Ld Mt E. <3> were to be elected King of Sicily, especially as Caroline <4> would make an admirable and most ornamental Queen. –
You never mention Val <5> lately – I suppose Study is discarded at present – And yet I bethink me that Minerva was very warlike, so that arts & arms can progress together.
The world is turned topsyturvy and inside out – all the wise heads and the long heads, the statesmen of fifty years experience, are puzzled and confounded – Their calculations predictions & expectations are not better – not so good – as those of the ordinary bystander, the simple looker on. Whatever may be in reserve for England, it is a most glorious thing that She has stood unmoved the first shock of such an earthquake, which has laid thrones in ruin on every side – The fall of Metternich <6> is almost the most portentous event of modern times – We have had a very sickly winter – Today for the first time since many weeks, all the family appeared at their early dinner. Have you thought at all about returning home? Shall you venture thro’ France, risk the journey thro’ Italy, or attempt to come by Trieste thro’ Austria? All these ways have their embarrassments – I almost think you had better all repair to Malta and take your passage by long sea in the Oriental or some other of the large steamers.
Yours affly
Henry
Horatia
Notes:
1. Naughty girl.
2. Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), wife of Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838; WHFT's aunt.
3. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
4. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
5. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
6. The fall of Prince Klemens Wenzel Lothar Metternich-Winneburg (1773–1859), chancellor of Austria (1821–1848). Metternich helped restore Austria as a leading European power after the fall of Napoleon I and upheld autocracy in Europe. He resigned from his leading political position in March 1848. The 33 year period (1815–1848) after the end of the Napoleonic Wars are called the ‘Age of Metternich’.