ENGLISH GIRL NOW RULING PRINCESS

Shannon News, 26 April 1929, Page 4

ENGLISH GIRL NOW RULING PRINCESS

MET HUSBAND AT RODEO. ! , ■ LONDON, Feb. 25." Miss Shelah Brunner, who in 1925 married Prince Andreas Ferdinand, of Liechtenstein'at Brompton Oratory, has become "queen" of the little principality owing to the death yesterday of its ruler, Prince Johann. . , Princess Andrea-! is a daughter of the late Mr and Mrs. Roseoe Brunner. Her marriage was one of the events of the season, Miss Brunner being known as '{the golden bride." Prince Johann was the only ruling Gei-man left from the debacle of 1918. He died at Schloss Feldsberg, Czechoslovakia, one of his many Central European castles, aged eighty-jiine. 'He began to reign in 1898 over the tiny principality of sixty square miles, with a population of 10,000. At the outbreak of war Liechstenstein, which had a Customs union with Austria, declared its neutrality and mobilised its' army of 500 men to defend its fron« tiers.

Prince Andreas is well known in England. His wedding to Miss Brunner was the outcome of a pretty romance. They met at a dinner after one of the rodeo performances at Wembley, and their engagement was announced shortly afterwards. They were then twenty-four and twenty-five years of age respectively. The tragic death of Mr and Mrs. Brunner in 1926 was a great blow to their daughter, and for some time she lived in almost complete retirement in Torosay Castle ,on the west coast of. the Island of Mull. , /Prince Johann for fifty years was never seon within the borders of his country. He was reputed to be a millionaire. He contributed a large part of his fortune to a national fund when vast bank frauds carried out by corrupt members of the government depleted ' the Liechtenstein finances last vear.