Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1896-05-13
ROYAL WIDOWS.


One or More In Nearly Every Country In
Europe.
It is just a thought astonishing tc
reckon the number Of royal widows,
regnant or uncrowned, now more or less
! in public view. First, of course, comes
her majesty, Victoria, empress Of In
dia, queen Of England, Scotland and
Ireland. Next to her one must rank her
eldest child, Victoria, empress dowager
Of Prussia, more commonly known as
Empress Frederick Then, in the same
family circle, there are the Duchess of
Albany, born Princess of Waldeck-Pyr-
mont, and widow of the English queen s
youngest son, and the Princess of Bat
tenberg.
Upon the continent there are pair
of widowed quee.ls regent Christine of
Spain and Emma of Holland. Both
have won golden opinions from those
they govern, no less than from impartial
onlookers. Queen Emma is, by the
way, sister to the Duchess of Albany,
who is said to have been the first choice
Of the gay old reprobate, King William
Of Holland. She refused him, but her
sister threw herself into the breach, in
spired doubtless by the knowledge that
reigning sovereigns, even though some
what battered and the worse for wear,
were not likely to come often a-wooing
in starveling if princely households. So
they were married, and there is little
~ Ho11 70 ol, 1n ov,%.o
tions Of the house Of Cumberland.
But none of the queens or expresses
can put out Of court Dagmar, sometime
Of Denmark, now the widowed czarina,
Marie Feodorowna. 1t must have gone
hard with her, in spite Of the splendors
the change implied, to give over her
Danish name. which means "day DAWN
for an appellation so cumbrous. Feodo-
rowna means, by the way, daughter of
Theodore, :" as does Paulovna daughter
Of Paul" The termination "ovna," or
"owna,' has in all cases that signifi-
canoe in Russian names, just as the
suffix "vitch' means always "son of. !"
Thus Alexandrovitch is "the son of
Alexander -
Austrian royalty has two widows out
right, between whom it is hard to say
which has the more tragic story. All the
world still remembers the tragedy of
Meyerling-how the Crown Prince Ru-
dolph shot himself and the beautiful
Marie Vectsera, leaving his wife, Ste-
phanie Of Belgium, by 10 means discon-
solate, as tho pair had been on the point
Of judicial separation. Still the shock
and shadow of it all for the time over
whelmed her. But she has no continuing
sorrow such as has driven to madness
Carlotta, once empress Of Mexico, who
missed seeing her husband, Maximilian,
shot only because she had gone to Eu-
rope asking help for him, where no help
was. Yet it is question if, in spite of |
all, she is not less unhappy than her sis |
ter, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, |
who has been fer long years widowed in
all but name.
Besides Empress Eugene, widowed,
childless, awithered shadow cf her beau |
tiful self, France has Duchess of Or
leans, whom the Legitimists rank as |
queen doWager-nOt to mention the wife !
of her murdered president, Garnet. And |
there is more than Gallo trace in the |
youngest of royal widows, the Bonaparte |
princess, who married her uncle, the |
Duke d'Aosta, and since his death has |
set the Italian court wild with her |
freaks. New York Journal