The Portland daily press., 1891-12-24
ENeL AMOS ruTuRg QUEEN.
The Fianoee of Wales Eldest Son Was
Once Tilted by the Son of a Peer.
rc,..s.1 ftor-resnonderoo

NEW YORK, D6cs 1asTI Ilnc6SS MARY Oh
Teck, whose engagement to the eldest
son Of the Prince of Wales has Just been
officially announced, and who is destined
at some future period, that cannot
possibly be far distant, to become queen
of Great Britain and empress of India,
is Young damsel fair of feature and
amiable Of character whose existence I'M
til now has not been altogether of roses.
For she has been subjected to the
slight of being deliberately Tilted, not
by prince of the blood, but by a young
man who, although he bears the cour-
tesy title of Viscount Weymouth, is
nothing but mere commoner in the
ewes of the law. He is the eldest son
and heir of the Marquis of Bath, and it
was in Difference to the latter's wishes,
and even commands, that he deliberately
broke off his engagement to be married
to Princess Mary of Teck.
The objection raised by the marquis
to the match were of peculiar character
and likely to rankle for many a year
in the hearts of the royal family of Great
Britain in general, and in that Of the
Duchess elect of Clarence in particular;
nor is it probable that when the latter
ascends the throne of England as Queen
Mary, that the ancient family whose
chief Lord Bath is win be very cordial
ly welcomed at court. 1t appears that
the marquis, who is famed throughout
the kingdom not only for his wealth
but also for his intense pride and AFRO
gance, regarded Princess Mary's birth as
not sufficiently good to admit of her be-
coming the mistress Of Longleat. For
although her mother, the Duchess Of
Teck, sister of the Duke of Cambridge,
is of English blood royal, yet her father,
the Duke of Teck, is, like Prince Henry
of Battenberg, merely the issue of +.
morganatic or left hand marriage be-
tween a Wurtemberg princeling and an
Austrian countess.
The slight to Princess Mary was rem
dered all the more fragrant by her faith
less lovers marriage year later to Vio-
let Mordaunt, the girl whose inopportune
birth in 1869 led to the great Mordaunt
divorce case in 1870, a divorce case in
which the Prince of Wales, together
with his friends, Sir Frederick tombstone
and Lord Cole, were cited by the plain
tiff, Sir Charles Mordaunt, as correspond
ents. What the inducements may have
been by which the marquis was led to
give his consent to the match l am I'M
able to say, but they must have been OF
an extraordinary nature.
While the family of Princess Mary is
liked in England, it cannot be said that
it enjoys any particular respect or esteem
on the part of either the classes or the
masses. The brothers of the future
queen have already acquired an unenvi-
able reputation both in the regiments to
which they belong and in society gen.
orally for their stupidity and for their
extravaganza. Indeed, both of the elder
boys have already got into the hands of
the money lenders, and quite number
of sixties" bearing their princely sigma
lures are flying about London. This is
all the more inexcusable in view of the
exceedingly straitened circumstances
of their parents, who on one memorable
occasion were reduced to such predica-
rnent as to render it necessary that
public sale of their effects, including
many heirlooms, should be held.
Moreover, Princess Mary's father, the
Duke Of Teck, has been the hero Of quite
number of escapades which have given
great offense to the royal family, and es-
pecially to Queen Victoria. No less than
twice has his brother-in-law, the Duke
of Cambridge, been obliged to follow
him to the Continent, to which he had
eloped with either the one or the other
of his daughters governesses, and the
old Duke of Cambridge has often been
heard to remark in times now happily
gone by that the work of excepting
Brother-in-law Frank straight was al.
most as difficult as that entailed by his
duties as commander in chief of the
British army.
Moreover, the Duke of Teck has, per-
haps in consequence of the studied hau-
teur and even insolence of the British
aristoeracy toward him, been in the
habit of seeking his associates among
those hangers on of society who are
looked upon askance and with undis-
guised contempt by those within the
sacred circle, and l myself have been
the witness of the grossest rudeness to-
ward the father of the future queen of
England on the part of an English peer
and his friends. 1t was on the occasion
of the wedding of the peers daughter
and the duke, who was acquainted with
both the bride and the latter's parents,
called at the house for the purpose of
offering his good wishes and congratula-
tions in person. s
On the groom of the chambers an
nouncing his name, the peer ordered
aloud the servant to inform the duke
that neither himself nor his wife, nor yet
the young bride, were sat home" These
directions, given amid hum of appro-
baton on the part of the guests, were re-
ceived with an i'll concealed litter by his
servants down stairs, and it was with a
face betraying signs of humiliation that
the duke re-entered his carriage.
Moreover, when he volunteered his
services at the time of the Anglo Egyp-
tian war in 1882, instead of being in
trusted with an active and responsible
command such as his war record as a
brilliant Austrian cavalry officer should
have entitled him to obtain. he was