TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE QUEEN'S DEMAND FOR. PRINCE ALBERT'S " ESTABLISHMENT."
Tim Royal Speech plunges in inedias res as regards marriage and money- m`v Lords and Gentlemen—Since you were last assembled, I have declared my intention of allying myself in marriage with the Prince Albert, of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. 1 -humbly implore that the Divine blessing may prosper this union, and render it conducive to the interests of' my people as well as to my own domestic happ!ness ; and it will be to me a source of the most lively Satisfaction to lind the resolution I have taken approved by my Parliament. " The constant proofs which I have received of your attachment to my per- son and family, persuade me that v011 1611 enable me to provide for such an establishment ta may appear suitab,2 to the rank Of Mc Prince anil the dignity of the CrOleli."
There is no mtaking the stringency of this, "my Lords and Gentlemen." To recur to the practice of the last of the Tenons- " The Queen's Majesty liketh of such a matter ; whosoever speaketh against it, she will be much offended with him." Never- theless, we think the Queen's :\lajesty has been ill-adyised, not merely in the substance of the demand, as we endeavoured to show last iveck, but in the term used, and the semblance of reasons put forward.
We say nothing of the tone, approaching to what Falstaff (of himself) calls " no honourable boldness :" but what is meant by " establishment ? Constitutionally, Prince Asistacr of Saxe Coburg and (lothit can have no " establishment." A Queen's jlusband is not in the position of a Queen Consort. The Queen Consort takes precedence de jure of all the ladies in the realm; and by custom holds a crust and maintains a State Household. Prince ALBERT has no status of any kind. Parliament may vote hint an allowance front the taxes ; and with it he may provide himself a separate house, and separate pleasures and separate ser- vants ; but lie can have no " establishment " ;he proper meaning of the term.
The words assigned for reasons are equally weak. As much money is demands.:1 as may be " suitable to the rank of the Prince and the dignity of the Crown." It had been more proper to have taken the dignity at the Crown first ; and doing so, we will ask, is not the dignitv of the Crown already provided for ? Is not a Civil List of all buf10e;o0o/. a year ample provision, besides 75,000/. for pensions, to be applied to such matters as the MONTEARLE- NEWPORT job ?
In one of CRUI s: SHAN K's'li near satires, an overfed, lounging is aris- tocratic menlak asks of' his hhiow, "What is taxes ? " We, plebeian and uncannily as we are, may inquire, What nis rank? especially in juxtaposition with the re:gaing tinnily of Great Britain. Does it mean the son of an imperial or a kingly house ? Prince ALBERT is neither one lux the other. A German princedom, supposing that he had one, instead of being the scion of a German princely house, confers no equality with kings, or, in the eye of reason, any pretence to it. The hundred Princes of Germany, or whatever the number be, arc in reality feudal lords, whom circumstances, in- jurious to the general weal, enabled to retain jurisdiction. The noble of Hungary till very lately had this jurisdiction entire—he has it now in civil eauscs: the Barons of England possessed it ; we also had cur Princes rid stine, but they were destroyed in the advance of a superior civiliziqion. Lord Mr.snounxii talked boast- fully of the Saxe Coburg descent from an Elector of' Saxony of the sixteenth century. lint if long descent confer " rank," there is better blood in England than the family of Saxe Coburg. We have, for instance, the house of COURTENA " The purple of three Etnperots," alliances and possessions from the Euphrates to the Devon, and an origin as ancient as any in Europe, if not more an- cient than any c::ccpting the house of' France, induce the illus- trious author of th Decline and Fall to pause upon the subver- sion of' the Latin Empire of the East, and the effects of the Cru- sades, and to sts.p..sd his narrative of the approaching doom of the Roman Empire. whilst he traces, in the "Digression on the Family of Courte:w■S' t!le IA.:niches and the fortunes of that noble house.
It' blood s- confer " rank," and " rank " confers a right
to public ii. v, a y nt:t vote an " e:qahlishment" for the Earl of DEvoN ? or it' 11,2 ,hould decline it, there is the Right Honourable TuomAs Pitain,: i sit COCILTENAY, a worthy brother Of the quill. Let it not be supposed that we dispute the constitutional power of Parliament to enact an " estaldishment " for Prince ALBERT. Whatever doubt limy properly be held as to its right to change " the fundamental Is VS " it the commonwealth, its power over the crown is supreme. It can settle the order of succession, not by a stretch of pa wsr, but by an inherent right to be exercised at dis- cretion : it isal, on !Iting cause, put asiJe the reigning family : on the precc.1ents of 11 it .,1.‘ an the Second and is ES the Second, it can dethr,its the ...`lon:trch. We admit that Parliantent, by a
special act, ean (Issue a status fim Prince ALBERT to entitle him
to have an estalilislintent." It can, " if that it dare," make him King conjointly with the Queen, or sole Monarch with the con-
joint title of' Ammer and Vs sroatA he might hold the crown for the joint lives of their Majesties, or occupy the throne during the term of his natural life With reillailidel* to the Queen's right heirs. We also fully allow, that if the two factions unite together in an
excess of lo alt', they may impose upon the people any allowance for Prince ALBERT that they please. What we do is to deny its necessity ; to doubt its mural and domestic propriety ; and to dis- pute its political prudence, at a time when the people are suffer- ing from want, and are galled by the failure of the Reformed Par. liatnent and by the severity of the Poor-law Bill ; when armed Chartism, momentarily put down in one place, starts up in an- other ; and when the masses exhibit a" sullen hatred against the existing order of things," and seem moved by the same spirit which prompted WAT TYLER'S followers to ask- " When Adam delved and Ev6 span,
Where was then the gentleman?"
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