My Queen, my dearest Love...

I do not know if I'll ever send this letter and whether you will ever read it but I write it anyway. I am aware that my time is running out and I can not go without telling you how much I love you and how much our time meant to me.

Do you remember...once I told you that after the death of my boy I did not know how and whether I would continue. It is against nature to survive his child, and it tears your heart. Any loss hurts but to carry his own child to the grave...it's disgusting and I was ready to give up. Government affairs tired me more and more, life in London became too hectic, too meaningless. The only thing I wanted at that time was to go home. Back to Brocket Hall. To the house where my son had spent his childhood, to the house where many beautiful but also many painful memories hang.

Caroline, for example, is one of the painful memories. When you came to Brocket Hall to tell me you gave me your heart, I told you I had no use for it. I told you: "Like a rook I mate for Life" and you thought I was talking about Caroline. I do not blame you because it was what I wanted you to believe. You should believe that I would still love my dead wife and therefore not love you. That was easier than to tell you that I put the crown and everything else about us and our feelings.

If I had not done it now he would not hold your hand and kiss you but I know it was right what I was doing then. It has hurt you that I've seen. But the tears for which I was to blame were dried by him and you could laugh again and smile. You came over it. You came over me and that killed me almost even if I knew it had to be so.

It is not always easy to do the right thing, especially if love is in the game, but I could never have forgiven myself if you had lost your crown and your birth right because of me. Victoria you're not Elizabeth. Elizabeth, though she was an excellent ruler, was embittered. Her mother had been wrongfully sentenced to death by her father and, for fear of losing her crown to a man, she decided not to marry. She had her companion but how can you be happy with the man you love when you have to hide this love because it could destroy everything? I can not imagine she was happy and that's why I did not want you to live the way she did. You should marry someone whom you love and who loves you, you should get children and be the best ruler that Britain ever had. Better than Elizabeth.

Victoria...since I first met you at Kensington Palace I just wanted the best for you and I would not have been the best for you. Albert is the best for you. He is the man who can give you all that I could never have given you. Stability for your crown and your kingdom, children...a long, happy life together with the man whom you love and who loves you.

If this letter ever reaches you, be sure of my endless love, loyalty, and admiration. The moment you smiled at me the first time, you took my broken heart in your hands and put it together with every further smile, flattery, every ride and dinner, and the many conversations that we led together. You became the center of my life and gave me so much togetherness and happiness that it would have been for a lifetime and I thank you for all this.

You wanted my heart while you had it all the time. It belonged to you from the beginning.

Caroline was the first love of my life and you ... you were the last and the most intense. I wish we would live in another time...a time when what we have is not dangerous and forbidden.

But it is like it is and it is up to us to accept it and live.

I really hope Albert is not a fool and appreciates you. You deserve only the best.

In endless love and respect,

William