The Dean of Westminster, in his encouraging article on the Queen’s visit to Pope Francis (“A Common Bond”, 5 April), wrote of Queen Victoria’s visit to Italy in 1879 and how she was thanked by the Italian government for her government’s support for the abolition of the papal states. When I was on a course in Rome many years ago, the participants were shown some unusual documents in the Vatican archives. One of these was a letter from Queen Victoria to the pontiff,