The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-08
The Remarkable Calmness of Queen Amelie, Whose Conduct the House of Lords mended-Ancient
 and Modern Conditions.

1 calmness of a woman.
 | One recalles many instances, scat tered through history of royal consorts
 who have stood the test of chises. Queen Amelie is woman of France.
 whose muster roll of heroines. royal and humbly born, is unrivalled The l widowed Queen and her son, the pres ent youthful King, are paralleled by | Anne de Beaujeu A daughter of that wiliest of soverigns, Louis the Elev- enth, she assumed direction of the king dom during the minority of her broth CT. the little Charles the Eighth. The l quaint old historians record with pride, l how clever and able she was: La Grande Dame" as she is called in the | chronicles of the day, opposed the pow l erful Due d'Orleans. her most dan ] gerous rival; outwitted him in every 1 point of statecraft and war, and re- | tired to well-earned rest upon the marriage of Charles to Anne of Brit tany, an alliance that brought cessa- tion of hostilities. And this princess l was but 23 when her regency began | No Louis was ever more carefully
 shielded in youth and assisted in man hood by women than was the one who wore the we'll deserved tft'e of Saint | Crowned at the age of Il, IL was l Blanche of Castle who played Wlrl singular skill and courage the role or
 regent With only an alien princess guardian of a helpless boy, to com 1 bat, the naughty and rebellious parons 1 fancied they saw tn cir opportunity 'o aco1ire control of the kingdom.
 Rut they reckoned without taking into l consideration the blood of that prouoest 1 of Spanish houses, or the deVouon oi
 the mother and Queen. In a score or pat, | ties she reduced them to submission anu | turned over to her son. whose character | IA1 of 1 A Kingdom intact. Later, when, hred py | the zeal of the crusader, the young King | led his knights to the Holy War, It was | his wife, Marguerite of Provence, WHO
 joined him in the perilous enterprise, | shared his privations, and encourages the army by her fortitude.
 Lance and Sword Days Gone.
 All in vain the would-be heroines of to- l day sigh for lance and sword, good
 warhorse and glittering armor. The near 1 est approach to a weapon Portugal s | Queen could wield was a bouquet Of | roses. It stirs the blood to read of Jeanne | de Monfort in her husbands absence, defending Hennebon against the English l army, leading the women as they car | ried stones to the castle rampartS to nurl l upon the enemy beneath, and, hnally on her mail-clad charger, heading an att
 tack on the English baggage trains and | diyerting the besiegers until relief came ! But after all when one has analyzed | the two situations, 1t is borne In upon | the thoughtful that the calm, resolute, l daily meeting of emergencies, with the
 war of statecraft and diplomatic intrigue, l requires more of splendid courage than | the excitement of single deed of be- | roism.
 Pre-eminent among royal women who l have ruled nations wisely at times or stress and storm stands Maria Theresa, | rNFl nTlu hNr a1-
 ic sanction on the death of her father, | Karl VI To some extent, conditions in | Portugal today suggest those which ex- | isted in TAO, in Germany, when she came | to the throne. She found the monarchy l exhausted, the finances embarrassed, the | people discontenteo, and the army weak, while rival claimants were ready to dis 1 pute her right to the throne. Her own resolute spirit brought her needed al- | lies in Britain and Hungary, and, after | seven years, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle | gave the distracted kingdom rest Her l deeds of peace were no less worthy.
 Financial reforms were effected; com-
 merce and agriculture fiourished, the bur 1 den of taxation lessened
 Germanys lllustrlous List.
 Germany's list of great women in royal
 circles is interesting. Undoubtedly the
 deeds of many women of the earlier leg
 endary times have been lost in the scat l tered history of group of divided states; | and so it is to Thusnelda one marks back, l when thinking of the heroic wives of the | days of ancient Gaul The right hand in
 council of her husband. Hermann, the l Queen is a spectacle of dignity and pathos | as she graces, in days of evil fortune, the | triumph of the Roman Germanicus. It is l to these days one must go, or only slight 1 ly later at least, to find the story of those rival Queens, Brunehild, wife of Sigebert of Neustria and Fredegunda, l wife of Chilperic of Australasia The 1 first, patrcian of long lineage, the sec ond of peasant origin, they opposed each l other for years, and the story reads like l a romance. Stronger than their husbands, | they led in every enterprise, in war and
 in council, and determined the destiny of
 a whole people while they lived.
 | In the days when Germany was torn by | the ferocities of religious warfare. one | queen was supremely courageous. When | the Hussite army threatened to overrun l the whole country, Queen Sophia, widow l of Weneeslas, opposed the troops of the | reformers and stopped them And if all
 other names are forgotten, who of loyal l German strain could overlook the story of | Queen Louise and her meeting at Iilsit
 with the arrogant young conQuerer, Ma ! poleon?
 visit to Charlottenburg and the story
 comes back so wildly! It is impossible to pass through the doofway and gaze at
 the lovely marble effgy of heroic queen | and mother, and not feel resentment at l the thought that any one so amiable 1 should have been forced to submit to n- suit at the hands of a triumphant foe. And yet it adds to the lustre of her fame. | With justifiable pride the English | statesmen who eulogized foreign queens | courage. might have pointed to Englands | annals. Every school girl has responded to the heroism of Boadicea, daring war rior queen; and Matilda, in her night
 across the snow, to lead her own army | against Stephen, recalls picture that
 every student of history knows well. But | many do not recall that, after Matildas
 successful campaign, 1t was stephens | queen who raised re-enforcements Tor her
 defeated husband and eventually restored
 the crown to him. But so decisive was
 Matilda's victory at Lincoln that new title, 'Domina\ \Anglorum." was devised
 to meet the sitthtion. and compromise
 was effected thafypded the war.
 PhiIlppa aYs Margaret.
 Philippa and MarsaSt of Anjou also l belong to the array oS brave women