The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-01-27 00:00:00

THE PRINCESS ROYAL OF ENGLAND.

The Times has an interesting article in allusion to
the Silver Wedding of the Crown Prince and Princess
of Germany, the celebration of which has had to be
abandoned in conEequence of the death of Prince
Charles of Prussia. Our readers may be reminded
that the marriage of the Princess Royal of England
with Prince Frederick William of Prussia took place
In London on Jan. 25th, 1858. The Times article,
from which we make th 3 following extracts, gives
some interesting reminiscences of the event, and
some pleasing details of the subsequent life of the
Princess

To the Crown Princess of Germany's British coun-
trymen and countrywomen the date of her marriage,
though unfeasted, will bring back not a few
pleasant and affectionate recollections. Many
will find it hard to realize that it is actually more
than a quarter of a century since Earl Granville,
then, as now, the leader of the House of Lords,
brought to the Peers the Queen's message informing
them that the Princes Royal had been betrothed to
Prince Frederick William, son of the Prince Regent
of Prussia. The news excited an immense amount
of loyal interest in the country, for there had not
been a Royal wedding since the Queen's own mar-
riage with Prince Albert in 1840; and the general
desire that there should be very grand nuptials
found expression in letters that were addressed to
The Times from all parts of the kingdom. Never-
theless, the motion for a grant to the Princess It Jyal
was not carried through Parliament without oppo-
sition. Constitutionally the Sovereign enjoys a
special prerogative in regard to the marriage of an
eldest daughter, for whose dower an " aid" may be
levied as a matter of right; this, however, was not
insisted upon by Lord Palmerston when he moved that
her Royal Highness should receive 240,000 in money and
an annuity of £B,OOO. In the Commons Mr. Roebuck
attacked the proposal for an annuity, and Sir G.
Corns wall Le wis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made
the statement, which has had to be renewed 13 times
since on the occasion of Royal marriages and establish-
ments, to explain the position of the Crown with respect
to its Civil List. Mr. Roebuck withdrew his amend-
ment, but the motion, at different stages, was
opposed—always temperately and with loyal expres-
sions—by Sir John Trelawny, Mr. Coningham and
Mr. Maguire, till it was eventually carried by 328 votes
to 14. Of the statesmen who sat in Lord Palmerston's
Cabinet at that time only two, besides Lord Granville,
are still alive—the Duke of Argyll, who was Postmas-
ter Get oral, and Viscount Halifax (then Sir Charles
Wood), who was First Lord of the Admiralty. The
monev_question was disposed of in May, 1857, and the
.-„wkidiakt•waist aliPOinted--1444ilre' place on'the' 25th- of
January, 1858, in the Chapel Royal, St. James's, the
original idea of a wedding in Westminster Abbey having
been abandoned, somewhat to the public oisappoint
ment, on the ground that it would cost £60,000.
The small size of the Chapel Royal made it scarcely
fit for a great Court ceremonial A certain
door through which the bridalaprocession was to pass

had to be widened; and there was a lamentable
outcry among the ladies invited to the Chapel when
the Earl of St. Germans, Lord Steward, decided
that the sitting room allotted to each lady should only
be 2ft.—that is, but 41n. more than was allowed to
gentlemen. A marriage licence for the Princess Royal
was applied foe to the Archbishop of Canterbury as
in. the case of ordinary persons, and it was carried to
Buckingham Palace by the Queen's Proctor. It was
a very beautiful document, richly engrossed on vellum,
and the Primate's seal was suspended to it by favours
of white silk. As the wedding day approached pre-
sents were sent to the bride in a profusion that
was almost embarrassing, and many were of great
value. Six thousand maidens of England had sub-
scribed for a Bible, which in point of type and
binding was a thing of rare beauty; King Leopold
of Belgium gave a lace dress worth £2,000, and
of such delicate texture that it could be enclosed
in a small ivory card-lox. The Maharajah Dhuleep
Singh offered a little opera-glass all encrusted with
diamonds, which was said to be the loveliest thing
of its kind ever seen, and the bridegroom brought
a necklace of 32 pearls the finest of which, large
as hazel-nuts, were declared to be matchless. Prince
Frederick William also presented to the Bishop of
London a German folio Bible, which was a wonderful
specimen of typography. It had been got up by the
firm of Decker, of Berlin, in 1840, at the fourth cen-
tenary of the invention of printing, the type having
been cast specially for the occasion, and the initial
letters to the chapters all being illuminated by the
best artists in Prussia after designs by Kanlbach.
This noble work, with its binding of blue velvet and
massive silver clasps, weighed 771 b. . . .
The wedding day was ushered in by a series of fes-
tival performances at Her Majesty's Theatre, for the
last of which Mr. John Oxenford and Mr. Howard
Glover had composed a cantata which was executed
worse than poorly, according to contemporary critics.
However, the ceremonies of the wedding day itself
went off without the slightest hitch. Lord Pal-
merston valiantly carried the heavy Sword of State
in the procession. Dr. Sumner, Archbishop of
Canterbury, wore for the last time the powdered
white wig, which has now become obsolete as part
of the episcopal costume ; Dr. Tait, Bishop of London,
and Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, officiated as
assistants at the service; and the bridesmaids, who wore
wreaths of white roses (almost as much out of date now
as Bishop's wigs), were deservedly admired. The brides-
maids were eight in number, and six of them are liv-
ing. . . . It was akindly thing on the part of the Queen
that immediately after the return of the Royal party from
St. James's to Buckingham Palace she should have
spontaneously shown her daughter to the enormous
crowds massed in the Park. Although the day
was a bitterly cold one, the Princess Royal, hold-
ing her mother's hand, appeared on the balcony in
her bridal dress and bowed again and again in
answer to deafening acclamations. The last scene
in the events of this memorable day was enacted at
Windsor, where the newly-wedded pair arrived
towards five o'clock, travelling by the Great Western
line. The Eton boys, some seven hundred strong, were
all crowded on the platform with the late venerable
Provost, Dr. Hawtrey, and the Head Master, Dr.
Goodford. Before the train reached Windsor a tele-
gram had been sent to the Queen asking permission
for the Etonians to draw the bride's carriage to the
Castle, which leave having been granted, the four
grays were quickly unharnessed, and when the Prince
and Princess seated themselves in the landau it was
whirled away from the station at an astonishing pace
by about 100 agile youngsters, some tugging, some
pushing. . • .
In leaving England the Princess Royal never ceased
to be an Englishwoman. Of sunny disposition, bright-
witted, vivacious in conversation, she has always had
a fondness for the peculiar characteristics of English
life, and has shown a playful sturdiness in asserting it.
On two great occasions, during the wars of 1866 and
1870, when she placed herself at the head of committees
formed for the relief of the wounded, she turned, as by
naturnal instinct, towards England for the contributions
to aid her in her work, and her appeals were answered
in a way that showed how heartily her claims to be i
still regarded as one of us were acknowledged. Yet
she has accommodated herself to the circumstances of
her adopted country, and has entered into her duties
as a German princess with a spirit which forbade the
most susceptible of Prussians to look upon her as an
alien. Count von Moltke, who himself derived affec-
tion for England from an English wife, well said of
her :—" She has shown how one can love two countries,
and be true to both—as she loves Mother and Hus-
band." The wedded life of the Crown Princess, united
to a man of gentle character and commanding abili-
ties, has, indeed, in all respects been singularly happy.
Eight children have been born to her, of whom
six survive. Two of them are already married and
have had children in their turns; what is more, the
education of her sons and daughters has been to the
Princess such an engrossing concern that it may be
said her children have learnt the beat part of what they
know from her. This is no mere conventional phrase.
There are Princesses who are said to superintend the
education of their children when they rustle into the
schoolroom for a few minutes every morning flurry-
ing tutors and governesses and interfering sadly
with lessons. The Princess Royal has always regarded
lessons as a serious business the could hardly
do otherwise at a Court which is itself as a
first class in one vast national schoo'—a Court
where no Prince is suffered to be idle. Anyone who
has noticed the Crown Prince at a review of troops may
have perceived that he does not attend such parades
only to show himself off in uniform. He watches the
step of every regiment as it passes; he knows every
colonel; the evolutions favoured by different Generals
are so familiar to him that he could tell with his eyes
closed, by the mere noise of columns marching and
wheeling, what officer is in command. The same atten-
tiveness characterises him in the pursuits of private
life. He studies as if he were about to publish a book
or pass a competitive examination ; when conversing
with natives or strangers, with eminent men or
nonentities, he is more anxious to listen than to ad-
vance opinions of his own; even at the opera, where
he sits in a large central box exposed to the full view
of the audience, he appears to be pondering over every
note he hears as though it would be his business to pass
judgment on the performance by and by. For all this,
no man could be less of a pedant. A genial gentle-
man, with quiet polished manners, and a fatherly
smile for those who come to him in friendship, he has
in his eyes that good humoured twinkle which reveals
a shrewd knowledge of men as well as books.
The life of the Princess Royal in her homes at
Potsdam and Berlin has been one of great sine-
plicity. The Prussian Court is like to no other in
the primitive orderliness of its arrangements. Gala
dinners take place at 5, ordinary dinners at 4; per-
formances at the opera are generally over by 10,
and the last dance at State balls is ended not long
after mi inight. These early hours, which suit the
convenience of Princes having military duties, have
enabled the Crown Princess to sit by her children
daily while they took their morning lessons, to learn
what they learnt, and thus to master subjects beyond
the ken of most ladies. For her own amusement she
paints, and paints well, listens to music, keeps herself
acquainted with what goes on in England by reading
English books and newspapers, and is not afraid to dip
into revolutionary literature and try to find out what
the Socialists of Germany definitely want. . . .

It has only been possible here to allude to a
few of the duties and occupations of the Princess
Royal's well-filled life ; but there is one particular
set of duties which circumstances have thrown
upon her and her husband, and which both have
discharged with Boyer, in tact. It is, perhaps,
due more to their winning characters than to their
position that they have gradually become the
peacemakers in all disputes that arise amid the
vast family of German princes. Wars, complica-
tions of diplomacy, Royal marriages, and other
things produce misanderatandings between Courts
of which the public sometimes hears little, but which
are, nevertheless, serious things enough. Ambassadors
cannot heal them; nor, when some pleasant piece of
business has to be transacted, can a professional envoy
always succeed so well as a Prince who has access to the
innermost circles of Royalty and to its closest secrets. .
In all these missions, whatever they were, the
Prince has been ably and devotedly seconded by his
wife. The Court official who receives the bags of the
King's, Queen's, and Imperial messengers at Potsdam
must now and then have marvelled at the number of
her Royal Highness's correspondents, and, doubtless,
at some future time an indiscreet writer of Court
memoirs may let the world know what was con.
tamed in the letters of a few of these correspondents.
Meanwhile, it is safe to predict that they will dis-
close a very pleasing story of how much good our
Queen's daughter did and tried to do, showing
herself ever in great things and small worthy of her
mother and her mother country.