St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-06

the Hon. Anne Horton. These marriages
were not made public until 1772. King
| George on hearing OF them, was furious,
and Immediately had the royal marriage act
passed by parliament, according to which alb
surd document no member of the royal
family under twenty-five years Of age can
marry without the consent of the crown. The
marriages already contracted were not inter
fered with; indeed, the social standing Of the
Duchess of Gloucester was such that the
king did not dare to offend her family. Her
son succeeded to the dukedom, and subse-
quentiy married one of king Georges daugh-
tiers. George ~. was the first to violate the
royal marriage act, by his marriage to the
beautiful and excellent Mrs. Fitzherbert in
! 1887 This marriage was declared void by
the ecclesiastics Immediately, and the royal
reprobate lost his last chance of becoming a
respectable member of society. In like man
ner the marriage of the Duke of Sussex, the
sixth son of George III. in 1898, to Lady
Augusta Murray, was annulled by the eccles-
iastical court. Eminent jursts, however,
declared the annulment OF these marriages
far more illegal than the marriages them
selves; that a penalty might be adjudged, ii
desired, for the violation OF an act OF parIla-
ment, but the marriage in itself was entirely
legal. The eldest son of the last mentioned
marriage was the famous Col. D'Este. He
served in the army for a number of years,
then, as several successive deaths of his
uncles opened the way, he put forward his
claims in 1880 to the
! HANovERIAN SUCCESSION.
The interest excited by his action was
great, both in England and Germany. He
employed two able lawyers to bring his claim
before the Frankfort diet, but at hint from
Prussia that body dropped the matter. The
duke of Cumberland, who became king of
Hanover in 1884, had but one son, who was
blind. Col. D'Este now took his demand be-
fore the Hanoverian chamber of mobiles. Be-
ing threatened with assassina alton he went to
Berlin in 1886 anG laid his claim before
Frederick William Ill, himself morgantical
ly married. The king received him as a
prince, but did nothing for him. The Colon
ell is dead, but his descendants are to-day
the hope of the Liberal party of Hanover.
The morgantic marriage OF Frederick Will
liam I'LL, occurred Nov, 9. 1924 His bride
was the beautiful Countess Augusta Won
Harrack. She exercised great influence over
the king, so much so that, being Roman
Catholic, she was obliged to abiure her faith
to remove public suspicion that she was de-
sirous of enticing the old Kaiser into Papacy.
He had made her countess of Leignitz and
insisted upon her always appearing in public
as his escort. After the kings death in 1910
she was treated with the greatest consdera-
ton by the royal family, and actually got in
to the Almanach de Gotha in their company.
Decorously placed after the others, of course,
and recorded as Ueuve naory0nGtiq,te.
In 1925 the duke of Sussex again married
subject, this time Cecilia, the
daughter of the earl of Arran, Ireland
She was not received as his lawful wife, but,
as in, the case of Mrs. Fitzherbert, the yer
dict of society was in her favor. The queen,
recognizing this, after the dukes death,
made her duchess of Iverness, and the young
Guelphs have always treated her as quasi
member of the royal family.
Some of the paratively recent morgan
tic marriages of royalty are worth notice for
the spice of romance in them. For instance,
the famous
ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA.
was in January, 1927 taking solitary ex-
cursion through the mountains and stopped
at the little village of Aussee to get carriage
to take him over the hills He was directed
to the house of the postmaster, Herr Plachel,
but arriving there found the head of the
house away, and no conveyance available
but two-wheeled cart. The postmaster's
daughter, Anna, sprightly damsel of sew
enteen, supposing the stranger to be pill
grim, volunteered to drive him to his destin-
alton. So they set out, the prince silent
and preoccupied as was his wont, the young
girl chatting and singing all the way. She
was said not to be beautiful, but very attract
7 J).....
preciated her attractveness. At parting he
shook her hand warmly, with many kind
wishes, and the next day, to her great amaze
ment, appeared again at Ausse. Here he
made three days visit and at its close
asked the postmaster for his daughter. The
old gentleman naturally wanted to know
who and what this eager sutton was, but when
he announced himself as ''John Archduke,
/ late field marshal, but now out of ''employ-
ment," he was angrily hidden to take him
self and his lies elsewhere. So the Prince
had to bring some one to identify him, and
so far placated the father that in just three
weeks after that eventful ride he welded the
sprightly Anna and carried her to Vienna to
present to the king and queen. He gave
her titles and castles and a magnificent in
come and always treated her as his full con-
sort She bore him several sons and it is
just within the bounds of possibility that a
descendent of this humble servant girl may
some day sit on
THE AUSTRIAN THBONE.
The principle of the morganatic marriage
that wife Of lower rank cannot be admit
ed to the title of her husband-has excited
much wrath among the English nobility 1t
does seem absurd that the queen of Eng
f., lcl,A i,,r, fIo o1I =
lest of her noble subjects by making them
yield precedence to some German prince
whose paternal estate is not much larger
than fair-sized farm. For instance, Prince
Edward, of Saxe-Weimar, married Lady Len
nox the sister of the Duke of Richmond, a
family undoubtedly possessed of as many
hera!dic honors as Saxe-Weimar can show
and far more worldly wealth. Yet this lady
cannot be presented at the English Court by
her husbands title, but only as the Countess
of Dornberg, petty title given her as her
part of the Sake Wemer estate Another
German prince, Victor of Leireingen, who
welded the beautiful and accomplished sis
ter of Gen. Francis Seymour, and learned
that she being commoner could not be in
troduced at court as his full consort said
that he should certainly never take her there
to be insulted. He therefore laid aside his
princely title and assumed that of count on
ly, and he and his wife live in retirement in
Germany, avoiding as far as possible contact
with those who would vex their happy lives
with petty distinction.
The morganatic marriage, though it has
been made the instrument of royal Injustice
and cruelty, has yet been of inestimable
benefit to royalty by infusion of pure blood
into its stagnant veins. And in the pres
ence of the enlightened democracy of late
times, the custom is unquestionably doomed
to extinction. But revolution as well as a
revelation may may be needed to give the
preiudiced European monarch the right
which is not denied to the meanest of his