NEWS OF THE WEEK
IN these days of the general eclipse of monarchs the enthusiasm the Duke of Kent's marriage has aroused is remarkable: Of the place the royal family in this country holds in the hearts of its citizens no new evidence was needed. Perhaps it is as a kind of sub- conscious demonstration to the detractors of monarchy elsewhere that the people of Britain have saluted this royal marriage with a warmth and spontaneity even greater than marked their tributes to the Princess Royal and the Duke of York. But there is an element of romance here—in the betrothal in the heart of the mountains of Jugoslavia, the journey of a Greek princess to London to be an English prince's bride, the resolve to cut the engagement short and get married with the least delay—that stirs the imagination and the sym- pathy of the most prosaic. One inevitably recalls the signally auspicious precedent set by the English prince who two generations ago brought a Danish princess to these shores. Swiftly, and by unquestioning instinct, the people of England and Scotland have formed their own impression of Princess Marina herself. May it be confirmed and deepened through many decades of peace and happiness.
