MIXING ROYAL BABES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2513, 18 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MIXING ROYAL BABES.

A Strange Story. I Pkixcb Albert, before his marriage A'ith Queen Victoria, was married morganatically to the Countess Rcuss in Germany. In November 1840, Queen Victoria and the Countess give birth to female children almost at the same time. The Countess, under a threat of exposure, compelled Prince Albert to rxohange the two infants, a substitution which was effected through the intervention of the royal \ nurse. The Queen's child was taken to I France in charge of Lady Ann Campbell, , and was brought up in her care until her eighth year at Poisy, near Paris, a Bavarian servant named Peter Soidd I being their protector The Queen's child [ was called Sophia Adelaide. The Coun- | tess' child remained in the royal house- [ hold in England, was brought up as a ; princess, and is now the wife of the . Crown Prince of Germany. In 1848, or , thereabouts, Sophia Adelaide, then about eight years old, was sent to a convent 1 near Munich in Bavaria, where she was . educated for a few years. She afterj wards was taken to Schleswig-Holstein, i where she and Lady Ann Campbell lived ; 'for some time in the house of a friend and i agent of Prince Albert, named the Count Do Lundi, who passed as "uncle to Sophia i Adelaide. In his charge aud that of Lady Ann, Sophia Adelaide went to Italy and France, and afterwards, when about , 12 years old, to tho Isle of Bourbon, in I the Indian Ocean. They soon removed to Quito, in South America, aud thence to New Orleans, the date being about 1854. The cholera was making great ravages, and they removed for precaution to Dayton, Ohio, whore her protector, the Count De Lundi, died. Before his death he disclosed to Sophia Adelaide the mystery of her birth, aud gave her a medallion with a portrait of her mother. Queen Victoria. The death-bed disclosure was made in the presence and hearing of Dr Bradbeck, the attending physician, and Father Hahn, or Hahnemdn, the officiating priest. Iu order to give Sophia Adelaide the protection of his'name, the Count De Lundi married her ou his death-bed, Father Hahn performing the ceremony. Afew months later, Lady Ann died, and Sophia Adelaide, now the widowed Countess of Lundi was left alone iu a strange country. She then went to live at New Orleans with the family of a Colonel Pierce, whose acquaintance she had previously made. She was in receipt of a handsome pension from England. Her father wrote, urging her to return thither, but she was afraid of being immured in a convent, and declined, and left New Orleans for Dayton, by the Missisippi steamer Raiubow, which, however, was burned on the trip, and sunk, about 100 lives being lost. Sophia Adelaide, though severely scalded by steam, was saved, but all her papers and trunks were lost. She reached Dayton, and afterwards, in 1859, married an Americau physician of Kentucky. In 18G1 her father died. In 1870 she obtained a divorce from her husband and returned to Europe, travelling there for several years. All this time her pension had been regularly paid to her through the Rev Edward Bouverie, of Coleshill, England. About 1876 it was suddenly stopped. She had become acquainted with John Brown, Queen Victoria's Highland servant, and appealed to hiin regarding her pension, and he sent her money on two or three occasions ; but he died in ISB2, and she has since been without regular means of support. She states that she appealed to her royal connections for justice and recognition, but in vain, and she has now returned to America to appeal to public opinion here to see if she cannot get justice in that way. She is now in New York superintending the publication of the story of her life, which is expected to be out in a few days, and to create a sensation. She certainly bears a most remarkable resemblance to Queen Victoria, whom she claims to be her real mother.