The Monitor-register., 1896-09-04
ANCIENT SALIC LAW.
IT PREVENTS WOMEN FROM BEING
QUEENS IN SOME COUNTRIES.

O-@'NS Nv SS"- SSOfN tieOs
No Other Law Has Caused So Much Blood
shed-Through This Code the Kingdom
of Hanover Lost It's Independence and
Was Absorbed by Prussia.
A relic of prehistoric barbarism, of
times when women were regarded as
Boulless beings but one remove superior
to the brute creation, is that Sallc law
which debars the fair sex from all rights
Of succession to most of the thrones OF
Europe. No one knows with any degree
Of certainty the origin of this law, al
though many theories and arguments
have been advanced regarding it, yet
there is no law that has been the cause
of SO much bloodshed and desolation
throughout the last 500 years.
Nearly all the historic wars that have
taken place in Europe since the days of
the first crusade may be attributed to
the existence Of this law, and wen in
the present century s%anguinary struggles
have taken place on its account. Great
Britain and Russia are the only two
countries where it has never secured any
foothold.
Spain. Portugal and Holland nave
within the last 100 years erased the
law from their statute books, and have
! benefited by the change, while since the
! reign of Maria Theresa and the seven
| years wal it exists only in a modified
form i'll Austria, and, perhaps, not at
all in the kingdom of Hungary.
But it is still in force i'll Denmark, in
Sweden, i'll Prussia and all the other
| federal states of the German empire, as
well as i'll Belgium, Italy, Roumania,
Servia, Bulgaria and Greece, the ma
tional constitution of which, being of a
more mushroom character and drawn
| up by enlightened statesmen of the pres
ent century, might reasonably be ex-
| pected to be more up to date and free
from such narrow medieval prejudices
| and doctrines.
1t is precisely in the three countries
which are now ruled by women-Eng-
land, Holland and Spain - that the
greatest degree of peace and prosperity
prevails. the three royal widows dis
playing far more common sense, en-
lightened craftsmanship and political
sagacity than any of their brother mon
archs.
Under the circumstances it must be a
matter of regret that the Salic law
should debar a number of beautiful,
charming and clever p1incesses from
succeeding to thrones. Thus there is
| +Io 1,o+@- D,i,aocc D,,1s,o Df IN,rttn,,
berg, the only child of the present king
and a young girl whom it is no eXag-
gerati0n to describe as the national idol.
Yet, NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that all
the affection of the people is conferred in
her, she is compelled by the Salic law
to stand aside and to permit her fathers
crown to descend 10 a distant cousin,
born and bred not in Wurttemberg, but
in Austria, and who, in addition to be-
ing regarded as a foreigner, has the su-
preme disadvantage, in the eyes of the
Lutherans and Protestants, constitute
ing the vast majority of the nation, of
being a Catholic.
Although King Oscar of Norway is
Il of the most enlightened and accom-
plished of man, endowed with a char
acter hat can only be described as un-
blemished, he has not prov ed q success
full ruler.
The fact is that the king, i'll spite of
all his talents and his projections, moral
and otherwise, is entirely wanting in
that personal magnetism, and, if l may
be permitted to coin the expression, that
public tact which distinguished his
homely, genial and by no means s O in
tellectual brother, King Charles XIV.
The latter had only one daughter,
Princess Louisa, who inherited his quail
tiles, and who, in spite of her pla1nness,
was Just as much the idol of both the
Norwegians and Swedes as Princess
Pauline of Wurttemberg is at Stuttgart.
Over six feet high, and far from being
endowed with intellect above the aver
age, she possesses the best temper i'll the
world and an inexhaustible fund Of
merriment and good humor, and a heart
as big as her laugh, which has been
compared to that of a horse.
Had she been permitted to succeed
her father as queen regent of Sweden
and Norway it is doubtful whe ther the
present conflict in the sister kingdom
would ever have arrived at the acute
stage, and certainly the 10y atty to the
throne ON both sides Of the border would
not have reached its present low ebb.
But, being debarred from her fathers
throne by the Salic law, she married the
crown prince of Denmark, carrying out
of the country of her birth all the vast
wealth which she had inherited, partly
from her father, and partly, too, from
her Dutch grapduncle, which is esti-
mated at e5, 900, 900.
1t is to the Salic law that the king
dom of Hanover is indebted for the loss
of its independence aud for its absorp-
ton by Prussia, with all the disad-
vantages which that entails, economic,
political and social. Had Queen Vic
toria not been barred by this statute
from succeeding to the throne of Han
over at the time when she assembled that
of Great Britain there is no doubt that
Hanover would have been enjoying at
the present moment the same CONNER
cial prosperity and manifold advantages
which have fallen to the lot of the Eng
lish since. the beginning of the Victorian
era.
But instead the Salic law made
necessary the separation of the crown
of Hanover from that Of England, and
it passed in 1887, not to Victoria, but
to the Duke of Cumberland. His very
6rst act on succeeding to the throne was
10 repeal the grant of all the popular
liberties conceded by his younger broth
er, the Duke of Cambridge, who had
been acting as viceroy, and until 1886
Hanover, although free from the obliga-
ton of compulsory military service and
unhampered by any Prussian ~restric-
tons upon trade, remained a hotbed of
feudalism and one of the most retrogade
states i'll Europe. Cincinnati Enquirer.