WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 157, 12 October 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

ROYAL PRINCES WHY SHOULD THEY NOT MARRY BENEATH THEM? It is always a (Klicate matter to discuss the matrimonial affairs ol Royal persons (says a writer in M.A.P.), and I desire at'the outset to d ; .>,e!a.in any j idea of reviving those rumcs which an- ' noyed Prince Arthur of by associating his name with thai of a young daughter in one of our most eminent ducal families. But I wish none the less frankly to attack a certain tradition of the Royal house which I believe to be an antiquated tradition—of foreign, rather than Bntfsh origin—a tradition contrary to nature and cruel in its effects upon the Happiness of princes. It is fully recognised that a princess: mar lie suitably married to some noble-1 man outside the Royal house, but the I same liberty has not been extended to | I princes. Queen Victoria made a match between Princess Loui=e and the Duke of Arc 11, ar.! there can be no happier union than Lhat of King Edward's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, with the Earl of Fife, who was created Duke for the occasion. These weddings were apparently eon sidered to be quite proper. Why, tlvn, mav not an English lady, if well descended, gifted, and 'beautiful, be married to a prince ? A; thinjrs stand, it would have to be a morganatic marriage. The wife woul 1 be denied the husband's rank, and the daughters would be, like the granddaughter of the Duke of Cambridge, plain Miss FitzGeorge, or some such name. An alliance on such terms is an insult to the wife's family and pedigree. THE CASE OF PRINCE ARTHUR. It may be argued that princes are of necessity nearer the succession than princesses, but this it not the fact. Take the case of Prince Arthur of Connaught himself. All the descendants of King Edward must succeed to the throne before Prince Arthur's claim is even considered. If we exclude the Queen of Norway and Prince Olaf. there would be " the five sons and one daughter of King George, the Duchess of Fife and her two daughters, also Princess Victoria (unmarried) —all lying between Prince Arthur and the Crown. Actually, the Princesses Alexandra and Maud Duff, descended from a father who was born neither duke nor marquis, but only a simple earl, are now nearer the Crown than our most prominent unmarried prince. Why, then, limit his choice of a bride? This barrier between Royalty and the peerage did not exist in Tudor days. Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn, and Catharine Parr; Queen Elizabeth nearly married the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Leicester, and several other nobles. To this day a peer is always described as a "cousin" of the Sovereign, and few of them in the old days lacked l a strain of Blood Royal. Who were the Medici but bankers? Yet their daughter ascended the tihrone of France. The Royal caste, as at present maintain-, ed, is historically an importation from Germany. The system teems •with anomalies and tragedy. Take Sweden. The King of Sweden is great-grandson of Marshal Bernadotte, a soldier of fortune under Napoleon. He is the last of Napoleon's kinglets to retain u ithrone. Now, the eldest brother of King Gustav is Prince Oscar Bernadotte, who married a Court lad|y, Ebba Munck, of great piety and the •highest character. This lady, with all her many benevolent works, is not considered goo"d enough to share her husband's rank, nor may their children succeed to the throne. BRILLIANT ALLIANCES. Here is another case. Until recently the Prince of Montenegro had not assumed even the comparatively modest title of "Royal Highness." Years ago lie married a daughter of one of his senators, a lady obviously beyond ithe dimmest horizon of Royal rank. Yet the family has since contracted brilliant alliances, one daughter being the lovely Queen Elena of Italy. (Still, it is suggested that King Victor, who thus wedded the granddaughter of a Montenegrin senator, -will be embarrassed if his cousin, the Duke of the Abruzzi, should take to wife the far wealthier and equally born Miss Elkins. Princess Vera of Montenegro is now twenty-thr.ee years old and unmarried. • It would be reckoned quite suitable for her to be wedded to a British prince, whose status she <wo<uld share as a matter of course. But the daughter of a Britislh marquis—we forbid the banns! Tlaw many of such eases there arel Napoleon 111. married a Spanish countess whose mother was an untitled Scottish lady—beautiful, doubtless, but quite beyond the ring. Yet the Empress Eugenie is to-day, even in her retirement, accepted everywhere as Royal. Her 1 name was bestowed upon the Queen of Spain, and her son, had he lived, would have always been the Prince Imperial,' and eligible for any bride. If Napoleon's countess was accepted, why decline to accept ladies of far more ancient British nobility? J The problem is growing the more seri- '; ous because the children of King George include no fewer than five princes. In habit and thought the Roval House becomes more English and "less German with every generation. Are these five prmces to be compelled, when the time comes, to look abroad for wives whom they will have scarcely seen, and who will come to this country as complete I strangers ? RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. Broadly, the reigning families of Europe are divided into three categories— Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek Catholic, so that difficulties of relitrion at once arise. The Protestant families are already terribly intermarried and the association of the British House with Russia and Greece is equally close. Let us suppose that matches were made between some of King George's five sons and some of the Czar's four daughters » It is true that they would" be only

second cousins, but the point is that they] would be second cousins twice over. The Czar and Kiug George are first cousins through their respective mothers—the Danish sisters. The Czarina and King George are also first cousins, through King" Edward and Prince Alice. From the standpoint of nature it would thus be better for British princes to ally themselw-s with more distant Roman Catuolic princesses, and at. least one love match has been stopped because the Greek Church forbids first cousins to marrv.

And how many of those carefully arranged Royal marriftgss end in avowed disaster. Princess Louise of SchleswigHwlstein and Prince Aribert of Anhalt—marriage dissolved, HiMlO. Again, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, a daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh —why was she forced to wed the. Grand Duke of Hesse? Here also there was a divorce, and after infinite difficulty the Princess was permitted to marry the Grand Duke Cyril of ! Russia, whom she had always preferred. i ILL-FATED ROYAL WIVES]

The Belgian House has suffered with especial severity. The late King's eldest] daughter, Princess Louise, was for years -hut up as a lunatic because she sought escape from Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg Gotha—that paragon of a husband. Her escape was a romance 'worthy of Dumas. Her sister, Princess Stephanie, was the ill-fated wife of Prince Rudolph, the heir to the throne of Austria, who blew out ;>h 'brains in consequence, leaving a daughter, who in ;;;irse of time married

morganaticall •. The aged Empeur's heir is thus the Archduke Frenz Ferdinand, and he also has married morganatically. His wife, the Countess Sophia Ohotek, is a lady of blameless character, who has borne an excellent family of children, yet all of them are, as tilings stand, excluded from the throne.

I repeat that the system is breaking down at every point. It is monstrous that in these days it should be imposed so rigorously upon the Royal House of England. If a British prince desires to ally himself with some lady of position and title, surely he should be allowed so to do, and in that .event who could defend an attempt to exclude her from the precedence which every other wife always shares with her husband?