ROMANCE OF THE QUEEN’S PARENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 1 February 1901, Page 4

ROMANCE OF THE QUEEN’S PARENTS.

There is something of romance in the story of how the Duke of Kent came to marry the widowed Princess of Leiningen. She was a sister of that Prince Leopold who had married the ill-fated Princess Charlotte, and thus the powerful familyinfluence of the sma’l German duchy of Saxc-Coburg came into English history. The Duke of Kent had seen a long military service in the English forces in Canada, at Gibraltar, and elsewhere. He bad the reputation of a man of liberality and justice. Eventually the

burdens of his rank and position overwhelmed his small income ; he retired to Brussels, and either in the course of a visit to Saxe-Coburg or on a special journey to Leiningcn he made the acquaintance of Victoria, daughter of Duke Franz of Saxe-Coburg, the widowed Princess of Leigingen. She was born in 1786; and her husband’s death left her with two children. The wooing seems to have been ardent, for soon they were married and took up their residence at the Castle of Amorbaeh, in Bavaria. The Duke of Kent was firmly convinced that his child would succeed to the throne, and the Duke and the Duchess came to England for her accouchement, which took place at Kensington Palace on the 24th May, 1819 the child being a daughter. A month later she was baptised, when her name gave rise to a quarrel. The Prince Regent having been piqued that the name “Georgina’! should not come first, declared he would not have it second to any, and said : “Give her, her mother’s name after that of the Emperor”; and Alexandria Vick ria she was named, after the Emperor of Hus-ia, her sponsor, and her mother. Soon the first name was disused, and the the Princes Victoria became the accepted stylo of the little maiden. THE COLCHESTER TRAGEDY. In connection with the extradition of Lillywhite, charged with the Colchester tragedy, the revival of the story of the crime should at this moment, prove interesting. Alfred AVelch, the victim of the murder, was the proprietor of a large outfitting establishment in Colchester. He was past the prime of life, a leading townsman, a prominent Freemason,_ a patron of the arts, good-hearted, genial, and refined. On the night of the crime he remained behind at his shop, avowedly to meet a former porter in his employ named Arthur Blatch, who desired to see him. Two hours later the buildings were destroyed by fire, and in the morning "Mr Welch’s charred remains were discovered. A theory of suicide was accepted, but the persistence of a young surgeon ultimately resulled in the discovery that a dastardly murder had been committed, and that Mr Welch had been killed by blows which fractured his skull. The murderer, to hide his diabolical work, had dragged the victim, by a rope fixed round the neck, upstairs, set the building on fire, and then disappeared. Blatch was traced to Stratford, where he left the train and disappeared into the vortex of London’s seamy side. Several times he was almost captured, and on one occasion it was discovered, when too late, that while tne landlady was giving the officers false information, concerning him, Blatch was watching them from the window. Eventually he got right away, but he forgot to take with him one effective piece of evidence. He left at these London lodgings a cap belonging to a lad employed by Mr. Welch, and left by him in the shop at Colchester on the night of the murder. So impressed were the Watch Committee of Colchester with the importance of the Wellington arrest that they despatched a police officer and the keeper of the Colchester Town Hall to New Zealand, for the purpose of identifying the accused, and on their evidence the Magistrate decided to extradite Lillywhite.