TOEICS OF THE DAY.
THE PRUSSIAN MARRIAGE.
ENGLAND, it seems, is about to form a connexion with Prussia by marriage. If the union between a Princess of our Royal Family and a Prince of the. House of Hohenzollern were simply a matter of personal inclination, it certainly would not be for us to forbid the bans ; but the Royal Marriage Act has removed all such unions from the ordinary laws, and the appeal which will be made to the country to provide a dowery for the Princess, would seem to give the country some right of advising, if not of veto in withholding consent. Besides, the uses that are made of these unions render it imperatively necessary to consider them with reference to policy. And from antecedent circumstances, which have not been unobserved, it will not be readily assumed by the public that the proposed union was dictated simply by spontaneous affection. It must have been suggested by some supposed advantages in this alliance ; and if the alliance is recommended in one aspect by advantages, it may also have its disadvantages.
Let us see, then, with what royal family we are about to be more closely connected. During the last ten years there is no state in Europe which has been more conspicuous for perverse policy and bad faith than Prussia. It urns uniformly thwarted the general interest, even when it proposed originally to engage on the side of that interest. The general combination of the Powers against the encroachment of Russia may be said to have originated in the suggestive proceedings of Prussia ; who afterwards, through jealousy of Austria, or family affection, became the colleague of Russia. The King of Prussia had previously encouraged the revolution in Germany, but to betray the revolution. Then, he supported the people of Schleswig-Holstein against their King ; now, he is maintaining mere shadowy royal rights of his own against the people of Switzerland. ew men have been more constantly before the public since his accession to the throne than Frederick William King of Prussia; but we prefer to take his portrait as it is painted this week by the Conservative and Ministerial Morning Pest. Under the pressure of the German Democracy in 1848, says our contemporary, he gave to Prussia a constitution one of the most democratic in Europe: it accorded equality of Prussians before the law with guarantees for freedom—liberty of the press, abolition of feudal tenures, family entails, and privileges of rank, and a wide taxpaying suffrage. But as soon as he saw that he should not gain his object by speculating in revolutionary constitutions, the reform was forgotten. He has been as false to his brother monarchs as to his own subjects. He was willing to become the head, of a German Empire from which Austria was to be excluded. He revenged himself on Denmark for not joining the Prussian Zollverein by his attack on Schleswig-Holstein; which was also designed to enhance his own popularity, to increase his power and territory, and to secure him a seaport.
" The same Frederick Williams who clamours now so lustily for his saered and divine rights as Prince of Neuchkel suit Valengin, is the selfsame King who, in the streets of Berlin, bellowed forth Roar ! for the saered cause of German nationality. Hoch! for a German empire of whirl, he was to ho himself the head. Hoc/4 ! for a German fleet, of which this land-lubber representative of Teuton turgidness was to have the guide, usufruct, and direction ; the actual command to be intrusted to a Prussian Adiniral,—such a thing being unknown in nature or art, on land or at sea."
But, it may be said, King Frederick William is not the Royal Family of Prussia—he is an individual, and a singular individual ; his brother, the heir-presumptive to the throne, is a much moro ordinary man. Indeed we believe so, in the usual acceptation of the term. The latest occasion upon which the Prince of Prussia has been conspicuous was in the military demonstration again st Switzerland, and he studiously endeavoured to identify hinislf with a. movement adverse alike to justice and to European policy. It may be pleaded that the young Prince his son is milike young princes in general ; that he is a much more meritorious pursuit than his family have generally proved themselves to be. The character is often claimed for young princes, but seldom substantiated. by the same persons when they grow to be old kings. We must in the first instance suppose Prince Frederick William to be, lu the main, very much like the rest of his family. it is indeed no more than fair to assume that he is a person whose views, habits, opinions, and objects in life, are Prussian, and not English; that he will think it right to promote those principles anet rules of conduct which we see embodied in the actual condition_ of Prussia, political and social,—the very condition which we of England would most especially eschew. But what is all this to us ? 'Whatever may be the character of the Prussian dynasty, why is it that we should have any necessary connexion with it ? The reason is, that a certain act of Parliament, passed in the reign of our Queen's grandfather, imposes restrictions on the marriage of the Royal Family, the Sovereign excepted ; and in its origin and practice it has created a custom of seeking especially German marriages. The object of the act was to restrain the marriages of branches of the Roy al Family with British subjects. It ordains that no member of the Itpyal Family shall contract a marriage without the consent of the Sovereign. In order to retain chances of succession to the throne, it is necessary that the marriage thus contracted should be with a Protestant family ; and in the state of the Continent for some time past, and probably for some time in the future,, marriages for our Primes will necessarily be formed principally ii germany, The Protestant states beyond the German being few and comparatively unimportant have but a small proportion id the distribution of chances. Since the Royal Marriage Bill was introduced to Parliament, and since it has been passed into an act, we have had some experience of its working ; 'and is there is a prospect of -its revived application in the present reignl-probably in a rapid succession of instances—it is interesting to inquire how the act has worked. It was enforced by George the Third, but, upon the whole, the matrimonial history of his children is not happy. In one instance there was a marriage which was positively illegal—direotly against the statute in that case made and provided—ab initio null and void ; yet it was viewed with popular liking because it was native, and it was not liked the less because of the leniency which it called for. Not dissimilar arrangements appear to have been confirmed as a usage. The popular Duke having become a widower, he was a second time united to a British subject, and the lady was made a Peeress in her own right by the present Queen. It is generally understood that the statutory prohibition has been enforced in the present reign ; and the consequence has not been commendable. George the Third's eldest son -had two wives, and undoubtedly the balance of social respect went with the lady who was not his "lawful" wife. Although we cannot agree with those who uphold Mrs. Fitzherbert as the model of a princess de facto, she would have adorned a drawingroom better than the average of most royal ladies ; and if she had been acknowledged as the head of the Prince's household, it is probable that the household of George the Fourth as King would have been more decorous than it was, and a better example of English life. The history of the Royal Marriage Act and its working does not present any other strong facts in its favour.
It would lead into a very extended disquisition if we were to inquire how far the policy from which it grew belongs to the present time. An apprehension of the dangerous political power to be created for individuals in this country by union with the Royal Family, was not unnatural when adventurous men were likely to have more dangerous ambitions, because more dangerous opportunities, than they could find now. In our time, indeed, the greatest danger would probably be that such matrimonial connexions might be used as a means of exalting the wealthiest individuals, and adding to the power of wealth the power of high influence ; for the aristocracy of money is becoming far more powerful than the aristocracy of birth. If there were any fear lest connexion with the Royal Family should procure something like a monopoly of advancement in official rank, it is tolerably certain that any such abuse would in our time call forth more than sufficient public reprobation to counteract it ; and on the other hand, a closer connexion of the Royal Family with the business relations of English life might help to render it more useful and more decidedly English.
Amid all the discussion to which the Royal Marriage Act has given rise in past times, perhaps one point needed remoteness of view in order to bring out its full foree—it is the difficulty of working the act. The necessity of seeking foreign unions is in its very nature attended by tins objection, that it introduces alien blood, ideas, objects, and influences, into the highest family of the realm. The compulsion to seek for a Protestant connexion debars the matchmakers from making their selection where England might find relations more suited to her interests and sympathies ; and the limitation of choice renders it difficult in many cases even to make a suitable selection of persons. Mr. Harris was sent abroad to bring home a wife for George the Fourth, then Prince of Wales ; and every one knows the account he has left of that most unfortunate selection. Who might not have foreseen as its consequence the wretched married life which followed ?
In marrying into a German family, an English Prince finds, as the Englishman does in Ireland, that he marries all the collateral branches of the family ; and in a union with the Prussian house, connected as it is by its own marriages with Russia, Holland, Saxe Weimar, Bavaria, and the whole network of German intermarriages, the union forms a new tie between England and the immensely ramified royal stocks of Germany. The fruits of such connexions are in some instances obvious enough. A portion of the consequences remains always unseen, though not unfelt. How much management must be employed in the getting-up of such marriages—in smoothing away impediments, in obviating disagreements ! Indeed, it is impossible to say how far English views and, interests during the late diplomatic discussions on Europe may not have been moderated or avoided from the apprehension of breaking off a contemplated match. The policy of England must necessarily be to a certain extent rendered subservient to the family policy of the marriage. If such is the case before the wedding, the same tendency must have its influence after the wedding. It is true that the royal class of Europe has shown a great facility in forgetting its family relations when interest or ambition dictated ; but in the intermediate stages between critical events, such family connexions inevitably tend to draw the reigning sovereign of each country into the joint action of the whole class. How far might it not have operated against English interests, opinions, and feelings, if the Queen of Prussia in 1856 had been an Englishwoman, sister of our King? Some inconveniences have arisen from the introduction of German ideas into the Royal household, but they are paltry trifles in comparison with the grave objections against drawing England more completely into the network of German politics on the Continent. It might be assumed that when Queen Victoria gave her daughter away in marriage, we should take our leave of the Princess, and the eon nexion with Prussia would go no further. Experience, however, has not confirmed this supposition. On the contrary, remote as the contingency might seem, marriages of this kind have resulted in bringing back a foreign succession for the English throne. Our James the First might equally think that he was bidding farewell to his daughter Elizabeth, little anticipating that some day the Electress Palatine would return, in a descendant, as King of Great Britain and Ireland. Thus it is not impossible that a consequence of the marriage projected for the English Princess Royal might be to introduce into our constitutional history a King of Prussia "by divine right." And whatever disadvantages may attach to the marriage now contemplated, it does not stand alone. The Princess Victoria has already three sisters and four brothers ; all of whom, we presume, according to the present practice, must ultimately seek husbands and wives in Germany.
The marriage-arrangement now in question has perhaps gone too far to be annulled ; but it does not follow that the appeal to Parliament needs be necessarily an empty form. On these occasions there are doweries to be provided; and since there will be an application to the House of Commons for the means, practically Parliament is called upon for its consent. The considerations at which we have glanced might well weigh in the debates on the subject. If the proposed marriage has gone too far for the bans to be forbidden, it might at least furnish occasion for raising the question, whether it is to be the first of a new series or the last of an old series.
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