The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1893-10-21
BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY.

The recent royal English wedding
may with almost a certainty of accuracy
be spoken of as the marriage of the
future king and queen of England. If
to rule is desirable then the position OF
Prince George and Princess May is
most enviable. The queens position al
the wedding was unique. 1t was the
fifteenth marriage of IL direct de-
scendant which has occurred during
her reign.
Nature has not been over-gcnerous in
its gifts to the family of Queen Victoria.
1t would be a stretch of courtesy to call
any of the female descendants beauti-
full, and while some of the men are good
looking not one of them would be
chosen by sculptor as a model for
Apollo In no instance can it be said of
Queen Victoria's daughters that their
faces were their fortunes, or would
have been had they been penni less. 1t
must in fairness be admitted, however,
that the daughters of the British
queen have higher gifts than beauty.
Their vomanly qualities would make
them desirable wives in any station in
life. But Prince Charming would never
have offered any of them a throne had
he met them milking cows Or tossing
hay in the field. or in any other capacity
Of humble life. Had Queen Victoria
not been the monarch of Great Britain
and her children born to royalty there
is not the rcmotest proba bility that the
family would have achieved. dis
tinction in any form. Yet there is
the patent fact that this naturally
humdrum, mediocre house is today
the most powerful family on earth; that
two European thrones are already oc-
cupicd by Victorias offspring, and that,
in all proba bility, the crowns of the
three great empires of Britain, Ger
many and Russia will yet be worn at
the same time by grandchildren of the
British queen. The German emperor
is Queen Victoria's grandson: it is as
certain anything in human affairs
that the royal crown of Great Britain
and the imperial crown of India will
devolve, if not to the prince of Wales,
then to Prince George, who welded the
Princess May Il few days ago, and it is
stated that the betrothal of the czaro-
WITT, heir to the throne of Russia, to
the Princess Alice. of Ilesse, grand
daughter of Queen Victoria, will short
ly be announced.
The Princess Alice is sister of the
Grand Duke Ernest Louis, of Hesse-
DarmStadt, one of the sovereign states
of Germany. Another granddaughter
of Queen Victoria, the Princess Sophia,
of Prussia, is married to the Crown
Prince Constantine, of Greece. An
other granddaughter, the Princess
Charlotte, of Prussia, is married to
bernard, the hereditary prince of Sake
Meiningen. AS the rcigning Duke Ern-
est of >;ixe-Coburg-Go tha, has no chill
dren, that sovereignty will fall to Quee n
Victoria's family on account of the
brother of Duke Ernest, and Prince
Alfred, duke OF Edinburzg, second son
of Queen Victoria, will presume bly, oc-
cupy the throne.
Queen Victorin's descendants will,
therefore, in the natural course of
events sit on the following thrones,
either already occupied to be occu-
pied by them: Great britain and India,
Germany Prussia), Hcsse- Darmstadt,
Sa ~eCoburg- Gotha, Sake Meiningen,
Greece.
Assuming that the czarowitz really
intends to marry the Princess Alice the
vast empire of Russia will also be added
to the list. 1t may be stated here that
in addition to the countries named
Queen Victoria is closely connected by
family relationship with the king Of
the IsclgianS, and that she is also con-
nectcd, through the marriages of her
children and otherwise. with the ruling
houses of Russia. Holland, Denma rl<
and through Denmark with Sweden,
Norway and Baden, and also with other
European sovercigntieS. Her near rela-
tive. the duke of Cum bcrland, is claim
ant to the throne of Hanover. and it is
proba BILE that there is hardly Il non
sovereign mouse with
which Queen Victoria is not related
either by blood marriage. And the
same may be said, more remotely. of
Catholic royal houses. The late Dom
Pedro, emperor of Brazil, was also re-
lated to Queen Victoria through the
Coburg family.
AS King Leopold, of the Belgians, is
sovereign of the Congo Free State in
Africa. and Queen Victoria is empress
of India, it may be said that before the
of Dom Pedro Queen Veto
ria, besides ruling in two quarters of
the globe herself, was related to rulers
in the two other continents of America
and Africa. 1t may be mentioned that
Queen Victoria is connected through
the royal houses of Belgium and Dem
mark with the Bourbons, and that
means with nearly all the reigning
and non-regnant Catholic families of
Europe.
To trace these various genealogies
would be an interminable task. for
enough has been stated to show that
the aged widow who sits on the throne
of Great Britain is indeed u mother of
of Europe and that her prog
eny are ruling or destined to rule u con-
siderab BILE portion of the earth.
One of the chief and perhaps the chief
reason for the family spreading itself,
as it were, over the face of Europe is
the modern custom, amounting to law,
whereby the members of royal houses
seek their spouses only among royal
houses. In oldcn times kings often
married subjects, and it is to be noted
that ENGLAND never. had such WIG