New-York tribune., 1905-07-09
OF THE HOUSE OF WETTIN.
What King Leopold and Duke
Charles Celebrate This july.

| ceased to be the cockpit of EurOpe-the place
where Mars, to use the quaint expression Of the
historian Strada- has his home-it has been
mainly due to the sagacity of her two rulers.
Leopold I and his son, Leopold II. the
reigning monarch. Both of these kings belong
TO that historic house of Victim which, de-
scended from the Saxon hero Wittektnd the foe
/ Of Charlemagne, now occupies no less than ten
Of the thrones of the Old World namely, those
Of Great Britain, Portugal, Saxony, Belgium,
| Sake -Weimar, Bulgaria, -AItenburg. Sake
Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha- The
| sovereigns of these various independent states
bear, in addition TO their other titles that OF
Duke of Saxony, well the heraldic devices
of Count Conrad of Victim, Who in the year
1928, first founded the fortunes of their house,
and. bound together as they are by ties Of kins-
manship and of dynastic policy, they constitute
a very important unit in the so-caIled concert OF
nations.
! For two Of their number this month Of July,
1905. means much Ten days hence the former
Eton schoolboy now known as Duke Charles
Ernest OF Saxe-Coburg and Gotha will attain
his majority and assume the reins Of the gov
ernment Of his two duchies which have until
now been administered by his cousin. Prince
Ernest Of Hohenohe. King Leopold. the
| other hand, has during the last week tnau-
gurated the festivities which have been organized
I
fifth anniversary of her independence
| With the possible exception of Duke Emil
| Augustus Of Saxe-Coburg, who daft on
! the subject of China that he insisted on donning
| the ceremonial robes of a mandarin all state
| occasions and of of his immediate prede-
cessors, who in his declining years affected the
attire of a nice old lady, all the rulers Of the
house of Victim have been men Of the most
lightened and progressive character, under the
sway of whose sceptre their people have pros
pered Especially has this been the case with
| the Belgians, who owe deep debt of gratitude
to their two Kings Leopold. For hundreds OF
years their country was the battle-ground lar
excellence Of the Old World, and fully justified
its title OF the cockpit of Europe" Few years
passed without their lands being devastated and
their cities pillaged by beligerents whose prefer
ence for Flanders as the scene of their wars
was due to the richness of the country and to
the consequent opportunities which it afforded
/ in the way of supplies and of loot. This condi-
ton Of affairs may be said to have lasted until
the third decade of the nineteenth century, when
the Belgians, emancipating themselves from the
obnoxious rule of the house of Orange, imposed
upon them against their wishes by the great
powers at the Congress Of Vienna in 1915, pro-
claimed their independence and elected as their
king Prince Leopold OF Saxe-Coburg, the SON.
in-law Of George " Of England His first wife,
Princess Charlotte of Wales, had died without
issue after less than a years marriage her de-
mise having the effect Of bringing to the British
throne some eighteen years afterward her
cousin, Queen Victoria The latter as the child
| Of his widowed sister the Duchess of Kent, was
his niece, and he acted as her de facto guardian,
nay, almost as her father, as long as he re-
nained in England and until he left that coun-
| try to assume the throne of Belgium seventy
| five years ago. His bearing toward her was in
every sense admirable. He proved himself the
most sagacious of mentors and the wisest Of
counsellors and in those Of her letters and
diaries that have been published Queen Victoria
gave frequent and eloquent expression to the
sense of all she owed him, both in her domestic
happiness-for it was he who Influenced her
selection of a consOrt in the person of Prince
Albert Of Saxe-COburg-and in respect to her
knowledge of that statecraft Of which he was SO
| acknowledged a master.
| Belgium continued to be the battle ground OF
Europe until well on into the nineteenth century
Waterloo, Quatre Bras and Ligny were all
fought Belgian soil Nor it until after
| Leopold had taken possession of the throne at
Brussels and a Franco English force had driven
the Dutch out of his kingdom and compelled them
| to surrender to him the stronghold Of Antwerp
that the nation began TO enjoy the blessings Of
/ q neace which has been maintained UirhOut in