THE BETROTHAL OF 'THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.
THE marriage of an English Priuce who is really within the succession—for we have a heap of Princes and Princeives who for practical purposes are not within it at all—is always a matter of some interest to the English public, and the Duke of Edinburgh is closely within the succession. He stands next to the Prince of Wales and his children, that is, to a single household who might be swept away by an attack of scarlet-fever or other wide-spread malady. The English law of succession is marked by one peculiarity not to be found, we believe, in the House-Law of any other monarchy, but, except in certain specified cases, it un- doubtedly makes the Duke of Edinburgh the head of the first cadet branch. Its general principle is that which governs the descent of our most ancient baronies, and nearly all Scotch digni- ties, namely, descent to heirs general, male or female,—the males, if there be more than one, being exhausted before the females' right accrues. For instance, if Queen Victoria had had a brother, he would have reigned before her, but her right as daughter of the 'Nike of Kent, eldest surviving son of George Ill., accrued before that of her uncles of the Cumberland and Cambridge branches. Had she died unmarried, however, the Duke of Cumberland would have been the next heir, though he probably would have been barred by Parliamentary enactment. In the same way, if the Prince of Wales's family were reduced to one daughter, she would ascend the throne, and her descendants ; but failing all his children, the Duke of Edinburgh stands next. This is the regular descent of baronies, but three specialities have been introduced either by prescription or statute into the English law of succession, one being that the Throne cannot lie in abeyance as the barony may lie between two girls, the eldest always taking ; another being that profession of Catholicism, or marriage with a Catholic, strikes out the Prince or Princess so offending ; and the third, and most important of all, being that under a statute of Anne, any Prince or line of Princes can be legally barred out by an Act of Parliament. This remarkable provision, which might under certain circumstances make the English Monarchy elective—though the candidates would be con- fined to the decendants of the Electress Sophia—might, as we have said, been applied to bar the Duke of Curaberland, who was, probably without reason, an object of passionate hatred to the people; but as it is never likely to touch the Duke of Edinburgh, unless he assumed some exceptional position in Germany, he must be regarded, as we have said, as the head of the cadet branch. As such his marriage is an object of some interest, and we believe, as well as trust, that we shall not have a repetition of the popular riots about the dowry granted to the Princess Louise. The Northern Members were quite in a quandary about that vote, which became the Republi- can war-cry, but we think they need not be uncomfortable this time. The electors outside the clergy will not be hypercritical. The previous marriage was not a popular one in England, —the instinc- tive sense of the people having now, as ever, decided on preserving the separateness of the Royal caste,—but the present one will be regarded as, in ordinary parlance, a good match. The pains of the Daily Telegraph to tell its readers that the English House is the oldest in Europe--which it is not, the Mecklenburger going much farther back—and to write the usual stuff about a" marriage of affection," which, true or otherwise, it cannot know, are all pretty much thrown away. The average British elector thinks the Emperor of Russia a very big man indeed, and a marriage between Prince Alfred and that Emperor's only daughter a most becoming alliance, and will vote any reasonable sum the Govern- ment may fix on as necessary or as liberal. That is the way average fathers of families behave, and the British elector stands to the children of the House of Brunswick very much in that posi- tion. There is not the slightest dislike of the Duke of Edinburgh, though we should not claim for him his next brother's popularity, and no distaste for a Russian connection. If there had been, we should have had all that matter of the creed brought up by a hundred incisive pens. The Grand Duchess belongs to a Church which accepts transubstantiation and " picture-worship" just as much as the Catholic, though it stops short of images, and scolded Titian because "his scandalous pictures stood out of the canvas so ;" but the Greek Church does not curse us at all, allows its priests to marry once, does not persecute anybody except fools and Catholics, and does not forbid the reading of the Scriptures, and Englishmen will be quite content to consider it a Ritualistic variety of Protestantism or some creditable division of Dissent. Indeed, that numerous section of the Clergy, which is never at peace unless it is offering to some old Church or other that communion with the British Establishment which it does not offer to Wesleyans, will be apt to celebrate the occasion as a special providence. For the rest, the electors think that if we have to fight Russia a royal alliance will not hinder us—an opinion always repeated with a certain quaint pride, as if the liberty of killing were the first of rights to be protected—and that if we do fight, we shall fight all the more genially bee.ausesthe Russian House has intermarried with the English one. That the lady is rich will be a distinct reason for enriching her husband—" just out of pride, you know, so that be shouldn't be beholden "—and there will be no hustings' cry about the matter.
It may help to prevent one if we show that, apart from politics— though the marriages of the Romanoff Princes are political events, as French papers will delightedly announce—the betrothal concluded on the 11th is a wise one in the interest of Monarchy. All recent events have tended to show that the European States have the greatest difficulty in replacing the royal caste by any device of election—though there is of course one remarkable ex- ception, the Success of the Bernadottes,—that the usefulness of the caste depends on its separateness—all morganatic marriages end in mischief,—and that it is essential to keep the range of choice as wide as possible. It has been far too closely confined to the States of Germany. When the Prince of Wales married, his choice was of necessity limited to six possible persons—too limited a number, lucky as all England pronounced him to be—and the extension of the right to princes of Greek faith is a very perceptible and advantageous addition to the number of eligibles. It adds to the list not merely two thrones—those of Russia and Greece—but two families, one of which is extensive, and the other may become so. That extension is not, of course, so wide as that created by the last precedent, but it is a wide one, and one more in consonance within the habitual opinion of the masses of the people. When they cease to wish their sovereigns to be of a caste divided by an imperceptible but irresistible line from all others, even the greatest nobles, they will be at heart Republicans, and a good deal besides the Monarchy will silently disappear. That may be very foolish, indeed is so, but Brahminism has lasted very long, and Brahminism exists only by its separateness.
We presume the Ministry will be wise enough to insert a proviso in their Annuity Act providing that it shall cease to be paid if ever the Duke of Edinburgh succeeds to his German throne. The precedent of allowing the Prince to keep his money or return it at will did not work well in the case of Leopold, who was believed by the commonalty to have kept his pension to the day of his death ; and though the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg Gotha is not now a very attractive one, having to take orders from Bismarck and snubs sometimes from the Emperor, still it is not likely to be renounced, particularly as in the present temper of the Germans and the Guelphs the Duchy of Brunswick might by possibility accompany it. There will be trouble enough about that throne when it falls vacant, and the Gbelph who is already a German Sovereign may be preferred both to the Hanoverians who will not recognise accomplished facts and to a family which has become so thoroughly English as that of Cambridge. We do not therefore regard the appanage of Prince Alfred as one of the many remaining troubles of the Session.
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