THE STORY OF THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 306, 10 December 1936, Page 5

THE STORY OF THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR

ORIGIN AFTER FLIGHT OF KING JAMES THE SECOND. • • RULE BY BIRTHRIGHT AND ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

The accession of the House of Windsor to the throne of Eng-' land had its origin in the flight of King James-L, alter which the direct line of descent of the House of Stuart was cut off by Act of Parliament and the line of succesion settled upon Mary (elder daughter of James II) and her husband, William, of Orange. After their death the succession was settled upon Anne, Queen Mary’s younger sister, and her heirs. Thus the House of Windsor rules by right of birth, supported by Act of Parliament. All the many children of Queen Anne had died before she came to the throne, necessitating an Act of Settlement, by which the crown was to pass on her death to a distant branch descended from Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. The beautiful Princess Elizabeth, who had inspired the poets of her day, had married Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who for a short time, during’the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War, became King of Bohemia. v The romance and beauty of the “White Queen of Bohemia” was hand-, ed on to her son, Prince Rupert, the dashing cavalry leader who fought so gallantly for his uncle, King Charles I, and also to'her daughter, Sophia, who married the Elector of Hanover. Sophia very nearly became Queen of England ,for she died only two months before her niece, Queen Anne, and thus lost the great dei sire of her life. It was said that she declared that she would die happy if “Queen of England” could be engraved on her coffin.s It was, however, her son George who succeeded peacefully to the throne of England, becoming the first ruler of the House of Hanover. He was entirely German in his upbringing, and inspite of the fact that it had been known for some time that he would probably become King of England, he had never learnt a word of English. Owing to this disability he was unable to preside at Cabinet meetings or to understand the nature of. new Bills which were proposed, and thus the Government of the country passed from the King to the Cabinet. - George I was succeeded by his son George 11, also a German, though he could speak English, even if it were very ungrammatical and with a strong German accent. Both the first two of the line of Hanover were aliens in England, loving their German homeland far more than the greater inheritance which had fallen to them. The eldest son of George II died before his father, and so the third George was the grandson of the second. In 1818 there was no living legitimate grandchild to ascend the throne, for the Princess Charlotte, the only child of George, the Prince Regent, had died in 1817. This serious state of affairs made the Duke of Kent, the fourth son, hasten to marry, as his three elder brothers seemed unlikely? to have children. The rigid liniitations of the Royal Marriage Act would not allow him to regularise his long association with Madame St. Laurent. He therefore married Victoria, the sister of Prince Leopold of Coburg. » /His only child became Queen Victoria, _who had the rare good, fortune to see, before she died, three generations in direct descent*—her/stin (Edward VII), her grandson (George V), and her great-grand-son, the present King Edward VIII.