The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-12-12 00:00:00

teat ofTbe Ring of•te 33eigians.

The King of the Belgians—the Prince Leopold of
our fathers—the widowed linsbana of one who was to
have been our Queen, the uncle of Her Majesty md
the late Prince tionsort, died on Sunday morning at
a quarter to lg o'ittuirk, at the age of 75 years, and
after a reign of 34i years. Some three or four years
ago he was affiicted with a cruel malady which
threatened his life, but from which he was relieved
by the skilful treatment of an English surgeon. rh,
had since c 0../ iyed tolerable health until the present
year, when his strength again failed, and, although
he afterwards rallied more than once, the unfavour.
able reports al the last few days have prepared all fur
the news of his death. When the last moment*
arrived, he was eurrounded by the Royal Family,
and his Majesty was conscious up to the time of his
dissolution. The Burgomaster of Brussehi publish
an official notification of the death of the King im.
mediately, which after eulogieing the virtues of the
deceased monarch says :

_
" The country places ite destinies with confidence in
the hands of the worthy on of • model Xing, of •
Prince who, born upon Belgian soil, enters into oar
sentiments and our wishes, as we share his profenod
grief."

Everywhere in the city marks of mourning were
shown. The streets were thronged by silent crowd;
and the calamity which has fallen upon the country
appeared to be universally and deeply felt.
The Court Circular says : Her Majesty received
at Windsor Castle, this (Sunday) afternoon, with
profound sorrow, the announcement of the loss which
has fallen on Her Majesty and the Royal Family by
the death of the King of the Belgians—Her Majesty's
last surviving uncle, and the last of his generation of
the House of Saxe-Coburg. The loss, though not
unexpected, is not lest felt by the Queen, who, in
the King of the Belgians, has lost a meet affectionate
relation and a most sagacious adviser, a friend and
eounsellor of the Prince Consort, to whom he was
warmly attached, and whom from childhood the
Queen has looked upon in the light of a father,
whose interest in the Queen'. welfare was unceasing,
and whose kindness the Queen will never forget.
The Time* says :—lf Leopold was not a great
King, he possessed, in no ordinary degree, those
qualities which command admiretien and deserve
gunmen Whatever he undertook he did well, and
proved himself par negoeiie in every' phase of his
checkered career. He was reputed a gored piker,
he added to a handsome person that °borne Of
manner and address in conversation which are seam%
the highest of social gifts, and he showed himself in
State aftaire a skilful administrator, an adroit diplc.
matist, and the wariest of constitutional Sovereign,.
If he had no heroic: virtues, he was free from the
affectation of them, and from most of the vices to
which they are cognate. If he did not possess the
egotistical ambition which cannot rest till it he. Jig.
grandized itself at the expense of neighbours or
subjects, it was because he had too much good seee.
not to know, and too much good faith not to act osi
the knowledge, that he was limited by his own'
character, as well as by the origin of
Monarchy, to the functions of a chief magistrate.
Instead of aspiring to commanding influence in the
councils of Europe, he was content to develop° the
immense resource, of thoescitiee which were the glory
of Charles V.'s Empire, and the inhabitants of
which no one has ever succeeded in governing
without deferring to their humour. Ile connected
all parts of his kingdom with a network of rallwajs
the most perfect on the Continent, and was not
deterred by some natural jealousies from can.
eluding a Commercial Treaty with France. From
the first he accepted his constitutional position cheer.
folly, and he at once strengthened it and committed
himself afresh to it when he offered to resi3n
power in 1848. Like Louis Philippe, he claimed to
be little more than a Citizen King, of the P'renely
rather than the English type, bat, unlike Louis
Philippe, he was well aware that • venal majority ns
the Chambers was a very different thing from the
support of the country. He recognised that the
recognition of which is the chief difference between
ancient and modern statecraft—public,. opinion.
He never forgot the solemn pledge whicb he gess
on ascending the throne,—that he would beeome
Belgian in heart and conduct, and on this priseeple,
although a Protestant himself, he educated his,
children as Roman Catholics. Therefore it was that
he weathered the storms in which other Royal
pilots made shipwreck. He had to des}
with every difficulty which can perplex le
King,—war with a nation lately united to his
own, the patronage of two foreign Powers, of
which France was one, the disoontent of Belgisak
patriots at the dismembennent of Ltexeerburg ami Lim.
burg, the jealousies of the Liberal and catholic party,
frequent ch.inges of Ministers, a enanelal and a relight].
crisis. All these he surmounted, net by forte of area
or policy, but by devotion to public duty. The temp r
of the Belgian Parliament was often turbulent enough,
and the latitude allowed by the contattation quite
petal:nut enough to frighten a half-hearted King into
reaction. But Leopold was able to distinguish between.
the realty and the semblance if • popular movemest;
he lived down the double suspicion of subservience to
to the priests and subservience to the Tuileries. If to
did not attain the dazzling but flimsy popularity which
fixed the title of "well-beloved" on the worst am
weakest of French Kings, he was deeply esteem: d, and
will be long lamented by hi, people. Whether he sill Is,
hereafter known as the founder of a permanent dynasty,
in other words, whether Belgium will maintain its plate
as an independent kingdom in the future map of Euror....
is a very different question, and one which neither per-
sonal genius nor personal interest will have mush stare
in determining. Nothing, however, can deprive him it
the fame which the world
.attaches to splendid forkuust
achieved by individual merit. He, a mere cadet of an,
obeoure House, has lived to fill • patriarchal position
among hereditary Princes, and to be mourned at hie
death by the greatest Conrte in Europe. By the mare
riage of his sister he was related to the reigning House
of Russia, by his own two marriages to our Royal
Family and to the Orleans Princess, and by that of his
son, the Duke de Brabant, to the Hapsburgs. His
daughter is now Empress of Mexico, his great nephew
now reigns in Portugal, and, but for the unscrupulous
ruse of Louis Philippe, another member of the same fa-
mily might be the consort of the present Queen of Spain.
Throughout Europe he was highly respected, and he wag.
more than once selected as arbitrator in grave intei.
national disputes. It ,is in this country, however,
next to Belgium, that his memory will be chiefly helo
in honour. It is still remembered that in the profligate
days of the Regency he maintained a character above
all reprosoh. The most parsimonious Reformers never
grudged him the pension of £50,000 a-year settled on
him in the event of his surviving the Princess, which he
waived in 1831, but held himself ready to resume in
1848. In later days he was always a privileged guest at
Windsor and Buckingham Palace, and when his erns.*
was announced in the Court Circular we scarcely thought
of it as a "Royal visit" Nor can we forget bow on
a recent 000•11i0J3, when our Queen was called Rpm
to undergo the greatest trial that eau beta! a
woman, the eyes of the nation were turned te
King Leopold, and the hope that his health might
enable him to come overildf H
an speak comfort to er.
Majesty was on every one's lips. The generation that
has grown up since he left Claremont for Brussels
may perhaps have read or heard but vaguely how be wee
made Duke of Kendal, how completely he adapted.
himself to the position of:an English!subject, which the,
Prince of Orange had objected:to :assume, or how re-
sponsible a position he was once expected to fin Op
the Duchess of Rent's natural adviser. Few, how-
ever, can have failed to feel thst he was, as it
were, a family friend of our nation, • and most.
are aware that his influence, whenever it was
exercised in the affair* of England, was exercised in
favour of wise and moderate counsels. One or two only
of our living Statesmen can have the same acquaintance
with the secret history of four successive reigns; Done
perhaps, have had so varied an experience of European
politics during a period pregnant with political lessonp.
This experience, in every stage, was strangely mingled
with our own, and, while the Belgians dwell gratefully
on the last thirty-four years of his life, we, who knew
him long before the revulution of Brtussells Fiera that,
another link between ourselves and the past *broken.

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