BETROTHAL OF TEE PRINCESS BEATRICE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1481, 6 March 1885, Page 2

BETROTHAL OF TEE PRINCESS BEATRICE.

‘ Morning Post,’’ December 31.

The announcement that the Queen has given her sanction to the marriage of Princess Beatrice with Prince Henry of Battenburg will be received with universal satisfaction by Her Majesty’s subjects. Comparisons are invidious, but we may say with confidence that not one of Her Majesty’s children is held in more affectionate regard by all classes in the United Kingdom than the Princess who is now about to pass from stogie to wedded life. Owing to circumstances she has for many years been the * close companion of the Queen, and has shared, whilst she has done so much to alleviate, the. sorrows of the bereaved widow. The marriage of all the other children of the Queen threw upon the Princess Beatrice what was to her a labor of love, and it needs not the language of hyperbole to say that she has done as much as the most affectionate daughter could have done by her fib'al love and unremitting attention to her mother to make her forget, so far as it was possible, the partial severance of the ties which unite her to her other children. Of her grace and her accomplishments we need not speak, for they are known to all, bat, to borrow the homely ' language employed in everyday life, we may say that so affectionate and excellent a daughter cannot fail to make as equally affectionate and excellent a wife. To the Queen we can readily understand that the marriage to which she has given her consent will necessarily cost a severe pang. For several years past the lives of the and daughter have been so completely entwined that the partial severance which the marriage of the latter almost necessarily implies must be a cruel wrench. There is no one who can replace the Princess Beatrice in the Queen’s home, and it is therefore not improbable that, though the Princess marries, the Queen will nut entirely lose her companionship. With respect to the choice made of her husband —a choice to which we may be sure the mutual affection and esteem of the now affianced pair almost exclusively contributed—little remains to be said The House of Hesse once more supplies a husband for one of our Princesses. The present Grand Duke is the widower of the lamented Princess Alice, whose devotion at the deathbed of her father and whose subsequent affectionate solicitude for her bebreavod mother still lies in the warm recollection of the English people. Prince Louis of Batteaberg, the oldest son of Prince Alexander, who is uncle of the Grand Duke, married the Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of the Princess Alice, only a few months ago; and now Prince Henry of Batten berg, his third brother, is about to wed the Princess Beatrice, fie is an officer'ln the Prussian Guards, and, having been born in 1858, ie very nearly the same age as the Princess, who was born in the preceding year. The marriage is, therefore, in every sense of the word suitable, and we heartily echo the prayer that, like all the other marriages of the Queen’s children, it may prove felicitous. Wheu Parliament meets some six weeks hence the betrothal will be duly announced in the Speech from the Throne, and though under similar circumstances there are always a few captious dissentients, the House of Commons will ungrudgingly vote the necessary provision for the maintenance of the new household.