The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-01-06 00:00:00

TWO ROYAL MOTHERS.

t'nder the above heading, "Nineteenth Century
write', to the Daily 2'elograph :
louring the agony iif suspense to which fierier the second
id last month the alit:ming illness ot the Prince
xvales ..i.lijected Englishmen of all classes, one con-
w. not wanting which brought with it
at ~to. vestiges of relief Poe the first time within
the last it-story vied a quarter it became evident that
the existence of deep affeelion between a Prince of Wales
an.l his Royal parent or parente is not—as was often
alleged daring previous reigns—an impossibility la the
annals of the House of Ilanover. It is just one hundred
and twenty years Once the vilest son of George If. was
struck down by pleurisy, contracted by walking at midnight
in his garden at Kew. "Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales,"
says Mr. Massey, the most recent, and by no means the
worst historian of Georgie the Third's reign, "leaf, from
his earliest years, endure.% the rancorous hatred if both
his father and mother. lie reciprocated the animosity
of his parents, and, on one occasion hazarded the
life of Ids purer consort and the existence of his
yet unborn child merely for the purpose of wreaking
his filial spite. lie caballed against the King's Govern-
ment, and coniforted the avowed C11P11111,3 of his dynasty
at a moment when the Mouse of ilioniver was imperilled.
The court of Lib-ester Molise maintained a rivalry with
that of St. James anti the azpiraets to Court favour
wire perplexed by the necessity of making election be-
tween the present awl tile futnre reign. Every man
who paid his respeets to the Heir was excluded from
employ tient under the Sovereign ; in like manner the service

gd the h ins was disonalification for that of the Prince.
Eleven )..ars bet, re the I lemlae of his father, and at a time
when neither the I: Imes rate nor hie state of health offered
iyis lope of its tally apkroach, the Prince of Wales bad taken
. . . . „.._.

the trmilde to arrange the detaiis of his coming Administra-
tion. 'The death of the Heir Apparent, Liston' of being •
calamity to his family and to the notion, was, in truth, a re-
lict toilet!, It won i,i, it Rail reverae to the worshiping, of
the Hate,. ,it ti y gregt proniptude not deci-
sion in repairlint their Ini fortune. Of the 111411 y great and
. . . . . .

noble persons sr hi hail Leen devoted to the Prince of Wales,
itet • single lirit Joh r or, tompoiralot spiritual, except those
APPelattil to carry the pail, vc t nrcil to attend la, rtinitivs
tn the Vero, of tliii it i) Family were premetit at
the funeral, and the othre of chief inourner was discharged
by the Doke lit sone riot. alth mg!. the 'lila:ifs younzer
lirnther. the Duke iif 4 ninlorlanil, was in Lozolon..

lint let those who wish to realhe more vividly the contrast
bite e, in Kew in 17:.1 and S oldrhigham in 1871 commit
tine Wooden of Lord Hervey," and read for them-
ne,!ves the following extract from • letter addressed
to his lordship by tlionen Caroline of Anspach, the
Wit' of George li. it is hardly necessary to remind
student. (if history that Caroline of Anspach enjoys
the reputat!on of has-jog boon one of the shrewdest
and ablest nineen-conmrts that ever occupied that position.
The many wise and exemplary Churchmen whom she
selected to till F.inglish Secs live, under the name of
the Caroline !Undoing," in every history, secular or eccley
Mastics!, which treats of I Gorge H.'s reign. And yet the
terms In which • Royal mother of the eighteenth 'century
could write of her eldest Ben ought to remind us that
even the sick bed of the Royal sufferer at Sandringham
was not wholly unsincrestlve of comforting thonghts.
" My 4lenr lord," writes Queen Caroline to Lord ilervey,
I will give It you under my hand, if yon are in any fear
of my relapaing, that my dear first-born is the 'treated
ass, awl the greatest liar, and the greatest eneaille, and
the gn eatest beast in the whole world ; and that I headily
he was out of it.'' NOI many monthn after these
words were writti in the death of the arm whom she thus
,10,e40.1 save effect to the vindictive aspirations of
his unnatural mother. line death if Cieero IL's Heir
scent, in his forty.fiftli year, was, says Mr. Massey, "a
relief both to his funnily and to the nation." The extinction
of the life of Queen Victoria's Heir Apparent in his thirty-
first year would, on the contrary, have beep the heaviest
blow that the Royal Family and tine nation have anstaineil
sine,. the premature death of the eldest and only daughter
of (Aorta IV. In Intl.
Ent, in addition, the chamber of inArtal shlineni at
SaLdrlngliam preached a moral frainglit with instruc-
tion for every household, from the highest to the
lowed, that the British Empire contains. Within

that darkened room were assembled the mother, the wife,
the brothers, and the sisters of the prostrate son, hus-
band, and brother. In the humblest of England's
cottages, or in the proudest of her palaces, never
yet was a more harmonious or loving family sum-
moned, by a common anguish, to the bedside of a beloved
sufferer. Nor can I conceive any two public documents
which more emphatically contrast the petty jealousies and
mercenary wit-seeking* of George IL's family with the pure
atmosphere of Queen Victoria's home than the letter from
Caroline of Anspach which I have jut quoted, and that
which, on Saturday last; met the eyes of your reader. The
words of the Queen go straight to the hearts of all, because
their simplicity and reality proclaim that she and her "dear
son and beloved daughter" are veritably one. From under
the gl.omy shadow of the second great trial of her life, her
Majesty emerges, with a firmer and stronger bold than ever
upon the affection of her children and her subjectA.