A ROYAL ROMANCE. THE PRINCE AND THE HOSPITAL NURSE. A Love Story Ending With Mesalliance. (FROM OUR SPICIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 246, 14 March 1888, Page 9

A ROYAL ROMANCE. THE PRINCE AND THE HOSPITAL NURSE. A Love Story Ending With Mesalliance. (FROM OUR SPICIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

London, January 26. Do you remember Prince Otcar oi Sweden ( the handsome young sailor royalty who visited your pail of the woikl with his ship not many years back ': If you do, the pretty love story with a happy ending which 1 am about to relate should be considerably the more interesting. Here, the Swedish Prince's coming mairiago is quite the topic of eonvei.-ntion for the time being. I don't know vhv. but theie is. nothing English ".society"' likes bettei than a downright. mc-cUUawe. So long as the catastrophe is not in its own particular family, it can invariably make what ate called " allowance*-. ' This, too, though people are perfectly well awa.e that nob one mesalliance m icn turns out featisfaetory. Recall if you can the oceans of gubh -wasted over the marriage of the Marquis of Lome to the Princess Louise. Nothing, dcclaied everyone (outride the Koyal Families of Europe), could bo moie suitable. They were to many and lhe happily ever after •wards. The first pai b of the programme was carried out, bub the second ? The net> results of that union are a disappointed man and a soured woman. Had Lord Lom e married in his own rank of life, he would now have been a prominent politician, with a fairly biilliant futuie befoie him. The Princess /foolishly enough, considering her German bringing-up) seems to lnne expected to be able to raise her husband to her own le^el. She began by claiming for him loyal rank and piecedence. Where she went the Marqui* of Lome must go too. That all right, but practically it was impossible. Middle-clasb folkt>, unaware of the iron laws of etiquette in ■vogue amongst royalties, blamed the Prince of Wales for t-nubbing his brother-in-law. I used to niystU till 1 learnt that H.R.H. xnight ju.*-t as well have slapped the face of a Geiman Grand Duke as sent him inco dinner behind Lord Lome. The insults would be about the same. The Prince's advice to his M'ster v»hen s-he protested against Loid Lome being forbidden to enter the private door at Buckingham Palace, reserved e.\olu&i\ely for royal personages, was veiy much to the point. *'My dear sifter, as you have made your bed you must lie on it. I advised against this match, and you ignored my advice. Understand at once, the rules of precedence which govern the Courts ol Europe neither can nor will be turned topsyturvy because you have made a mesalliance. The best thing for you to do is to srive up the vain struggle and become your husband's wife — the Marchioness of Lome." Had the Princess possessed the self-sacrifice and common tense to do this, endless trouble might have been avoided. But she had no>\ Difficulties were avoided for a time by sending Lord Lorne to Canada as Viceroy. There of course he and his wife were socially equal. But the young man was not strong enough for a colonial Governorshipof ihehrstimportance, and to offer the husband of the Queen's daughter a lesser one was scarcely feasible. They, therefore, came back, and are now a more or less unhappy couple. The Princess has her own private circle at Kensington Palace, but goes out hardly anywhere. Lord Lorne lives rao&tly in Scotland. j Prince Henry of Bafctenberg's marriage with Princess Beatrice has also led to much heart- burning. The Queen hopes by treating her son-in-law as an H.R.H. to carry things with a high hand, but «he has really no influence in the matter outside Osborne, Balmoral and Windsor. The case of Prince Oscav is not on all fours with either of the foregoing mesalliances. The two English Princesses hoped to get their own way without paying the penalty, to break the rules governing the marriages of Royal personages without suffering for their tetaerity. Prince Oscar, on the contrary, gives up everything. With him at any rate 'tis a case of " All for love and my ' Royal Highness ' well lost." But to our story, which is told rather prettily by the " Daily Telegraph " :— " Once upon a time "—not long ago, however—the granddaughter of a mighty Monarch, herself wedded to the Heir-Ap-parent to the legal throne, numbered among her maids of honour a young lady, of bourgeois extraction and dowerless, but enowned for her rare beauty, graceful oearing, and fascinating charm of manner. This highly attractive "demoiselle d'honeur" was an orphan, and her deceased father, Colonel Munck, of the Swedish army, had left her no other inheritance that* a spotless name, borne by a long line of gallant soldiers. Anxious- to establish her in life, her friends persuaded her to accept an offer of marriage tendered to her by a wealthy cavalry officer, and her weddingday had been fixed, when she discovered that her fiance's affections had been bestowed upon another lady ; whereupon she forthwith broke off her engagement. 1 Shortly afterwards, while Miss Munck was still sufferingr from the depression of spirits consequent upon this painful incident, 1 the Duke of Gotland — a sailor Prince, the second son of Ofccar 11., King of Sweden and Norway— returned home from a two years' cruise round the world, and promptly fell in love with hie sister-in-law's , lovely attendant, who proved by no means insensiblo to the marked attention paid to her by a young officer of exceptional good looks and amiability, and a Royal Highness to boot. Prince Oscar, like a true-hearted bailor, wooed the fair-maid of honpur'^pdur le*bon motif ;." but grave difficulties stood in the way of his htfnest and manly suit. As may ,well be „ imagined, there' were family objections to be surmo anted j but the chief obstacle to his wishes was the r formidable fact thd f the Swedish Constitution prohibits any Prince of the - Blood , from marrying outside the circle, of Royalty, under, pain of forfeiting hia rights of succession to the Throne, his titles, predicates, andappanriges, and. all his prerogatives m a member of the reigning House. Qf,thie

apparently insuperable bar to hex* union with the "Duke 01 Gotland, Miss Munck, us a member of the Swedish Crown Princess's household, was only too well aware. Obedient to the dictates of what she considered to be her duty, she accordingly resigned her appointment at Court, formally intimated to her relatives that she had made- up her mind never to marry, and, assuming the garb of a professional nurse, took charge of a ward in one of the large charity hospitals at Stockholm. Princo Oscar, however, knew Ins own mind, and was resolved not to allow the folicity of two young lives to be frustrated by any act of 1 enunciation, no matter how magnanimous, and praiseworthy, on the part of the highminded girl whom he had vowed to make his own. He sought hor out in the hospital, and pleaded nis cause so eloquently that ho eventually induced her to confess her lovo for him. Further than this she would not go, but steadfastly refused to marry him secretly, although ho pasbionately urged her to do so ; nor was it until lie was able to prove that his Floyal mother had given her consent that she at length yielded to his entreaties. Despite the Queen of Sweden's approval, supiemcly important as must have been that maternal concession to her son and to a young lady of such lofty principles a& Miss Munck, the pair of lovers were by no means at the end of their troubles. Ere they could hope to reap tho reward of their loyal and up. iuhb conduct, the King's sanction to thru* union had co be obtained. To proem e hU Majesty's consent proved an enteipiisc of no slight difficulty. Prince Os-car's appeals to his father were at lii^b met by a flat refusal. In vain did the Royal sailor plead that the succession was hilly assured by the lives of his eldes biother tho Crown Prince, and of the latter's two son?, the issue of tho Duke of Wermoland's marriage with Prince^r Victoria of Boden ; that his own chances of ascending the throne wereinlinitosimally small, seeing that Piince Gustavus was only one year his senior, and that tho youthful Dukes of Scania and Sudermania weie strong, healthy boy;?, with every piospeet of lons life before them ; and that, taking all these facts into consideration, he, the King's second son, might with pe'fect safety to the state be permitted to i enounce his contingent rights, and to become a pri\ ate citizen. For some time Oscar 11. remained inexorable to pleadingsand arguments alike ; but finally, finding that the Duke of Gotland persistently declined to taWe "No" for an answer, his Majesty gave way. In so doing it appears that he was chietly influenced by tho. intervention of his august consort, Queen Sophia, who was dangeioutly ill, and about to undergo a suiaical operation which pho was not expected to survive. Fearing that he might lose her, or at the very least aggravate her peril by thwarting a purpose upon which she had manifestly set her heart, the King granted her request. " Thus," observes our Vienna correspondent, " for the first time tor three hundred years a Prince of Sweden will espouse the daughter of a private gentleman." On his weddingday, in virtue of the constitutional prescriptions above alluded to, Prince Charles Augustus will be deprived of hisprosumptive rights to tho twin thrones of Northern Scandinavia, his title of " Duke of Gotland,'' his predicate of "Royal Highness.'' his appanage, with which he was endowed by the Swedish Diet on attaining his majority, and his stately palace at Stockholm. He will take the family name of Bernadotte, and will retain his position in the Swedish Navy, in which he has already men to the rank of Commander, fairly earned by good service, and conferred upon him in the ordinary course of promotion. It has been arranged that "Prince Bernadotte" and Miss Munck shall accompany the Queen of ! Sweden to England a few days hence. Her Majesty has rented a house for some months at Bournemouth, where, in all propability, her gon's wedding will take place. learn, moreover, that it i« the young couple's intention to reside permanently at Karlskrona, in Southern Sweden, theseat of an important naval establishment to which Prince Oscar will be officially attached. Everybody in this as well as their native country will wish bride and bridegroom health and happiness, and we may be sure that throughout the sister- realms the joyful conclusion of a "Royal Romance " will be greeted with hearty shouts of "Skoal !"