The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-07 00:00:00

ky.Z
THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
It was well observed by a morning contemporary,
on the occasion of the late Royal Marriage, that the
late Princess Charlotte was the first Royal personage
who broke the old custom of marrying for freereas
of State policy, thereby exercising her own
choice in marriage, and not being fettered by the
tyranny of political and compulsory marriages.
We all know how happily her marriage with the
present King of the Belgians turned out, and the
reasonable prospect there appeared, had her life
been spared, we should have had an illustrious raced
of kings. The recent national calamity cause
too much recurrence to the melancholy and no-
timely death of this illustrious Princess for us to
say anything further about it here. Suffice it to
say, it was speedily followed by the marriages of
three of her Royal Highness's uncles, which were
entirely State marriages, they all having
Throne.
as it was said, for the sake of an heir to the
That the aforesaid royal weddings turned out
happily, and that one of them has been the weans,
givingunder God's blessing, of us one of the best,
purest, and most virtuous Monarchs that ever sat
on the throne of these realms, is a too-well-11°w°.
fact to be further alluded to. married,
The Prince Consort, whose premature death last
winter was so justly and universally deplored, has
left a numerous progeny behind him, many of wil°sl„
have not yet emerged from childhood, and only two
have as yet entered upon the lottery of wedlock:
titers,
There are as yet four sons and three dau
g matrt-
it is to be hoped, destined to enter into holy
to be-
mony. Now it is not, we entreat her Majesty
lieve, with an idea or intention of furtheringanols 1"
_
Price
proper flirtations of any of our young
Princesses, when we ask whether they may
not be one and all advantageously
release o
from the cruel fetters and restrictions
in
the Royal Marriage Act. That Act was passel/
ib gote"'
1772, during the reign of an obstinate and
ll
Well-
though it must always be remembered, we
tioned, well-meaning, and virtuous monarch' „ths
And, as we said in a former article, some olei".0
ago, it was passed in consequence of the Itola'ki e;
dignation at the respective marriages of the
of Gloucester and Cumberland, the King's
(at that time) two surviving brothers,".-0
not long previously contracted marriage Nvith 1
then
dividuals not of blood royal. Luckily it Was
there
too late to annul these aforesaid marriages, but ou
was then as now a rising young Royal faun'''. tiPA et
whom the fetters of the said Royal Marriage ['of
fell most cruelly upon. And it is with a vie
preven
ting a similar state of things in the preseai
Royal family that we' advocate an unconditia%
and total repeal of that most iniquitous measure. •
every walk of life it is, and has always been, c°11,.:
sidered one of the choicest privileges of life to
allowed to choose one's own partner in inarriagal
Why, in the name of common sense, is the goy ?
family to be the only exception to this rule
Why should they be debarred from a Privi.l,gst
which is allowed to the humblest and olea:',"6o
of the Queen's subjects? Her Majesty hersell has
ever shown every desire not to follow autiquii
rules
and worn-out precedents, and to act up to the te
of reason and common sense, although those State
marriages which took place in 1818 for the salreeii
an heir to the throne, turned out happily and vies "
and gave us three most excellent royal duobessi is
one of whom after wards became our Queen, se
admitted on all hands to have been the best aaeea
Consort as well as Queen Dowager Eligia%
ever saw. Yet it must be rememberg°eau
they, on the other hand, put the ;
try to a serious expense which could at 01,1.10
time ill be spared, as we were suffering from the
pressure of a return to a state of profound Peacd
from a war of nearly a quarter of a century, a%
the transition from the former to the latter stati
of things almost reduced us to a state of natieoat
bankruptcy. And it is, moreover, well known tha
our late King William IV., when Duke of Clarence,'
wished to have married, and could have married
Clarence'
different times of his life three great rich heiresses:
all of whom were willing to have become royal
duchesses, only the Royal Marriage Act pre
vented him. Now, surely it should be the deverutyi
'
and object of the Legislature to prevent, by
means in its power, any return Moved a state
tae
of
things as we had at the time to in
days of our late Royal family. It has been said that
as wel!
the marriages, both of the Queen herself,
as those of her two daughters, the Princesses Roe,
ant Alice, were all marriages of affection, and 00,1'
of mere State policy, and therefore we shoula
imagine it to be her earnest desire 'to allow the
same privilege to her younger children that she
a
herself and her two eldest daughters have enjoye.
S
before them. Bygones are bygones, and the 104,1
past never to be recalled ; but the great use of log;
tory is as a precedent for the future, to be folloWeu
when it has been good, and to be avoided whenit
has been bad.