a letter from my brother Kalākaua, telling me that he was engaged to the Princess Victoria, and asking me to come to Honolulu...[B]ut upon my arrival I found that the engagement was broken, for the Princess Victoria had gone to Wailua, and my brother had heard nothing from her for a fortnight." Liliʻuokalani, remaining silent on the royal scandal, mentioned that the match was ultimately terminated when the princess decided to renew her on-and-off betrothal to Lunalilo. Historian Kīhei de Silva noted that Kalākaua was willing in the union, but Kamāmalu refused the match. For the last few years of her life, she was rarely seen in public. She remained a spinster for the remaining part of her life. Crown Princess Victoria was an expected heir to the throne throughout her life because both her brothers were unable to leave surviving issue of their own. In fact, she was appointed as Heiress Apparent and crown princess by her brother King Kamehameha V in 1863. She would have become queen of Hawaii upon her brother's death, but she predeceased him. Considered pro-American, the princess had a close friendship with the American missionaries. Musically gifted, she was an accomplished pianist and vocalist, and she sat at the melodeon and led the choir of Kawaiahao Church for many years. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Crichton Wyllie, considered it improper that a royal princess would sing in a choir and tried to convince her to stop, but she stayed loyal to the American missionaries at Kawaiahao. When the royal family switched from the Congregational Calvinist faith to the Anglican Church of Hawaii (originally known as the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church), Victoria refused to abandon her previous faith. She was also a poet and chanter and composed chants and mele in the traditional Hawaiian style including many on her nephew Prince Albert Kamehameha. In 1863, Victoria founded the Kaʻahumanu Society, an organization concerned with the welfare of the ill and elderly Hawaiians, originally to nurse the victims of the smallpox epidemic. Death Kamāmalu became ill during a party given at the Bishop's residence in Haleākala, Honolulu, in February 1866. The illness continued and resulted in paralysis in early May. She became bedridden for the last three weeks of her life. The physicians Seth Porter Ford and Ferdinand William Hutchison were consulted although not much hope was given to her recovery. Her brother Lot wrote