ROYAL FAMILY QUARRELS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1210, 11 September 1874, Page 2

ROYAL FAMILY QUARRELS.

[AUCKLAND STAlt's LONDON COIiItESPOXDENT.] Probably your readers are not a whit belter than their neighbors in their likes and dislikes, and certainly I am not a scrap more scrupulous than any other newspaper correspondent, so the first thing to be dono this .month is to give you all (bo gossip about the Royal Family. There has boon a sort of freefight amongst that saintly crew. It arose out of a question of precedence, and the entente was first displayed at the drawing-rooms which have lately been held. First of all the Princess Louise has always been a little sore about her Marquis. She can't for tho life of her sec why she should not have her husband by her side, as the rest of the family. Then the daughter of the Emperor of all the llussias thinks she ought to rank above certain others whose fathers don't own nearly aa many

acres ; and so it has conio to pass that first one would not attend the levees and another until people began to ask what was the matter, and the Times came to the rescue with a fearfully and wonderfully-made paragraph, the sum and substance of which amounted to what I told you a mail since—that the Duchess of Edinburgh was in a fair way to be brought to bed of a little dukeling. At this all the other papers pretended to be very much abashed, and metaphorically put up their hands to hide their faces. Thoy were out of their minds with jealousy at the idea of being done out of such a bit of news, and they all said the announcement was exceedingly snobbish, and that the Duke wished it to be clearly understood that he had no hand in it. However the mine was sprung, and everyone knows now that the Queen is shortly expecting her twenty-third grandchild. When the Czar was in England the matter of precedence must have been tallied over and settled in some way, for now it is announced that in future the Duchess ilarie is to be known as " Her Imperial Eoyal Highness." What an unctions title ! Piling it on, isn't it ? So everything is comfortable again—except the Duke of Edinburgh when he rides on horseback. It is very seldom that he does so, but when he happens to have been perched outside of a quadruped he docs look the most unhappy of mortals, and the spectator really becomes quite anxious for him. He looks every moment as if he were going to fall off. At the Woolwich review he road with his father-in-law, the Duke Alexis and the Prince of Wales, all three splendid horsemen, and the contrast was shocking. However, we must remember that sailors are not usually expert equestrians ; the only wonder is that horsemanship was not included as part of his education in view of the position which he was destined to occupy in the future. I have not yet quite done with the Eoyal Family. It is said that both. the Prince of Wales and Ins brother the Duke of Edinburgh are newspaper proprietors, and Vanity Eair is named as the journal in which they arc interested. A sop has becu thrown out to the Irish people by the conferring on Prince Arthur of the title of Duke of Connaught. It is also said that he will shortly be made Lord Lieutenant of the sister island, and that the Queen will visit Dublin this year. Whispers are abroad as to the betrothal of the Princess Beatrice, and almost every eligible sprig of Eoyalty on the Continent has been named from time to time as the happy man. So much for the correspondent. There is another tale of precedence, which may be made to hang thereby. It is said the Queen, now that the Prince Yon Bismarck is turning German dukes into mere peers, and rather poor peers, wishes to have the Princess Beatrice, like her siater of Lome, married to the heir of a British Duke; I am informed than an intimation was accordingly conveyed lately to a noble and very opulent duke, to the effect that her Majesty would regard an alliance with his family as not unbecoming the Eoyal dignity. His grace's reply was not wanting in ducal dignity, nor, of course, in all due courtesy of expression ; but it amounted to this—that if the young lady were to become a member of his family, she would be so to all intents ami purposes, and be content to be recognised simply by her husband's rank; that btdng understood, his grace added, there was no young lady in the United Kingdom to whom he should prefer to see his son married. Put here, it is said, the negotiations dropped.