KING LEOPOLD'S MORGANATIC WIFE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 305, 3 February 1910, Page 3

KING LEOPOLD'S MORGANATIC WIFE.

SOME INTERESTING NOTES. (London M.A.P.) Late King Leopold's morgan tic wife, Baroness Vaughan, who was one of the few persons admitted to the tiny pavilion in Laeken Park in which his Majesty died, has had a strange earee/. She was of very humble birth, and began matrimony by becoming the wife of a working laborer, and ended by 1.0-ing ing the morganatic wife of a monarch. Her first husband, from whom slid was divorced, is still living, and is a Socialist member of the House of Representatives in Belgium. In this capacity he made many fierce oratorical ,t----tacks on King Leopold, his successor as the recipient of Baroness Vaughan's affections, These speeches always aroused some disrespectful merriment in the House, and were fully reported by all the Belgian newspapers. King Leopold's marriage with Baroness Vaughan was solemnised in a Roman Catholic Church, but was, nevertheless, never legal in Belgium, where the civil ceremony alone is necessary to establish validity. A religious ceremony without the civil ceremony does not suffice to join man and wife in matripiony. ' lii the eyes of the Chureli and the priesthood, Baroness Vaughan was thus the King's wife, but in the eyes of the Btigij.m law she was not married t-; iiliii. It is surmised that King Leopold left matters thus to avoid possible complications in the succession to the throne. According to the Beligan law and constitution, there is no such thing as morganatic marriage for the King of that country. Any marriage which the King of Belgium contracts is valid, and vhe wife becomes the Queen of Belgium. The performing of the civil ceremony would, therefore, have transformed Baroness "Vaughau into Queen of Belgium, and the King, with all his disregard for the conventionalities of life, did not venture to take this step. Moreover, such a marriage wo'it 1 have made King Leopold's sons, of ■whom Baroness Vaughan is the mother, the next heirs to the throne, as they would have taken precedence of the prosent King, who was his predecessor's nephew. * Tile elder of Baroness Vaughan's two sons would have become King of Belgium on his Royal father's death. His half-brother, son of the Socialist deputy, is working in a factory near Liege. Baroness Vaughan possesses many letters and documents which, when published."will throw muclTTiglit on various matters of recent and contemporary history. Among other information, she has* a list of the newspapers in all .parts of the world which have drawn subventions from the Press Bureau of the Congo Free State to suppress the truth about atrocities perpetrated there ly Belgian officials. Fearing that she might lie arrested on some trumped-up pretext and that her papers would be seized at tliis opportunity, Baroness Vaughan had then .all removed to France when it became evident that King Leopold's end was isurelv approaching. They are now safely milder lock and key in a Paris safe-de-posit.