Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1896-05-28
ROYAL WIDOWS.
One or More In Nearly Every Country In
Europe.

Dne or More In Nearly Every Country In
Europe.
1t is just a thought astonishing to
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 enc 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 queens
youngest son, and the Princess Of Bat
tenberg.
Upon the continent there are q pair
Of widowed queens 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
Epired 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 a little
queen Of Holland to cheat the anticipa-
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-
cance in Russian names, just as the
sufix witch" means always ''son Of. Z
Thus Alexandrovitch Il "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 no means discon-
solate, as the 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 for long years widowed in
all but name
Besides Empress Eugenie, widowed,
childless, a withered shadow Of her beau
tiful self, France has a Duchess Of Or
leans, whom the Legitimists rank AZ
queen dowager-nOt to mention the wife
of her murdered president, Carnot. And
there is more than q 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