In more than one quarter the marriage, which all members of the Coburg family felt to be so eligible, and in which their feelings were so much involved, met with a considerable amount of opposition. By a curious coincidence, a Prince of Orange had been the suitor favoured by George IV. for the hand of his daughter; but she selected the man of her own choice--Leopold, a Coburg Prince. And a Prince of Orange (nephew of the rejected aspirant to the hand of the Princess Charlotte) was the man thought by William IV., as long as he lived, to be the best future husband of his niece and successor; and his niece, too, selected, like her cousin Charlotte, as the man of her choice, a Prince of the House of Coburg. King William did all in his power to discourage the attachment between Victoria and Albert. He was so strongly set against this match that he did all that he could even to prevent Prince Albert's visit to England in 1836; and although he never spoke to his young niece on the subject himself, she afterwards learned that he had devised no fewer than five matrimonial alternatives for her selection--that of the late Prince Alexander of the Netherlands always having the preference and priority. In justice to the memory of King William it must, however, be stated that the Dowager Queen Adelaide afterwards told her niece that her uncle would never have striven to control or restrain her affections if he had had any idea that they had been strongly bestowed in any particular quarter.