Ct Cgurt.
SINCE the death of the Duchess of Kent, the mother of her Majesty, which took place on Saturday morning, her Majesty and the royal family have lived in the strictest retirement at Windsor Castle. It was on Friday evening that the Queen was summoned to the death- bed of her mother. She was accompanied by the Prince Consort and the Princess Alice, and the Duchess expired while they were with her on Saturday morning.
The Prince of Wales and the younger children joined her Majesty at Frogmore, and they did not depart for Windsor Castle until the evening of Saturday. The usual notice directing all persons to go into decent mourning has been issued, and the Court mourning is specially described. The remains of the late Duchess will be temporarily buried on Monday in the Royal vault of the Chapel Royal of St. George at,Windsor Castle, sold will afterwards be removed to a mausoleum in the grounds at Frog- more, whither also those of the late Duke of Kent will be carried.
The Duchess of Kent died on Saturday morning, at Frogmore House, in her seventy-fifth yrear. For some time she had suffered from cancer, but it was only during the last week that danger seemed imminent. On Friday evening the Queen was drawn to the side of her mother by a bulletin of her health, and with her Majesty went the Prince Consort and the Princess Alice. The Duchess passed a tranquil night, and the next morning she quietly passed away, in the presence of herdaughter, her son-in-law, and granddaughter. Victoria Mary Louise, Duchess of Kent, was the daughter of Ernest Duke of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, now Saxe Coburg Gotha. She was the sister of Leopold, King of the Belgians, and the aunt of the Prince Consort. In 1803 she married the then reigning Prince of Lein- ingen, and the issue of that marriage was two children, one of whom recently died a commander in the British Navy. In 1814 the Prince of Leiningen died, and in 1818 the Duke of Kent married his widow. Straitened in circumstances, the Duke lived in the palace of his, Duchess at Anorbach, but ere the Princess Victoria was born they hastened to England, that the expected child might be born in a land over which it was not impossible she would rule. The Princess Victoria was born on the 24th of May, in Kensington Palace, and eight months afterwards her father died. The Duke dying deeply in debt, the Duchess "gave up all his property to the creditors ; she was without furniture or outfit ; she had only her jointure of 6000/. a year, and through some defect in the Act of Parliament she could not touch even this scanty provision for months after the Duke's death. Her
• ehief support and adviser amid these trials was her brother, Prince Leopold, who allowed her an additional 30001. a year out of his income. Nor did he take away this allowance when, in 1825, the Princess Victoria, being six years of age, it was necessary to obtain from Parliament a further sum of 60001. a year to be applied to her edu- cation as heir-apparent to the throne. It was not, indeed, stopped until 1831, when the Prince, being made King of the Belgians, felt it his duty to forego the allowance of 35,000/. which he derived from this country, and when the House of Commons saw the wisdom of giving the Duchess of Kent another 10,000/. a year." The Duchess "could boast of having kept aloof from party ; and, combined with this freedom from party bias, the wisdom with which she had trained her daughter obtained for her a recognition of the highest value in 1830. It was necessary to determine who should be Re...ent in the event of King William's decease during the minority of the Princess Victoria. It was decreed in Parliament that in that case the Duchess of Kent—a comparative stranger, who had lived among us not more than a dozen years—should be sole Regent." She was never Regent, because King-William died one month after the Princess Victoria had attained her majority.
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