When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies. In 1836 he made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to Kensington. He failed in both these objects; and the only result of his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who, forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant letter on the subject to his niece. 'I am really _astonished_,' he wrote, 'at the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of the Prince of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very extraordinary.... Not later than yesterday I got a half-official communication from England, insinuating that it would be _highly_ desirable that the visit of your relatives _should not take place this year_--qu'en dites-vous? The relations of the Queen and the King, therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule the land, when _your relations_ are to be _forbidden_ the country, and that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very dutiful and kind to the King. Really and truly I never heard or saw anything like it, and I hope it will a little _rouse your spirit_; now that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not comprehend _why your lot alone should be to be kept a white little slavey in England_, for the pleasure of the {42} Court, who never bought you, as I am not aware of their ever having gone to any expense on that head, or the King's ever having _spent a sixpence for your existence_.... Oh, consistency and political or _other honesty_, where must one look for you!'[36] Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington. 'To hear dear Uncle speak on any subject,' the Princess wrote in her diary, 'is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so enlightened, so clear. He is universally admitted to be one of the first politicians now extant. He speaks so mildly, yet firmly and impartially, about politics. Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a pattern for its organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the finances are in the greatest perfection. Uncle is so beloved and revered by his Belgian subjects, that it must be a great compensation for all his extreme trouble.'[37] But her other uncle by no means shared her sentiments. He could not, he said, put up with a water-drinker; and King Leopold would touch no wine. 'What's that you're drinking, sir?' he asked him one day at dinner. 'Water, sir.' 'God damn it, sir!' was the rejoinder. 'Why don't you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water at my table.'[38]