ROYAL SURNAMES.
[To THE BDITOR OF THE " ErEaTATOR."]
Sin,—Allow me to point out that there is nothing in Royal rank to deprive its holders and their families of any advantage derivable from having a surname. Bourbon, Romanoff, Wit- telsbach, Nassau, Braganza, Wasa, Hohenzollern, Habsburg, Valois, Stewart, Jagellon, and Hohenstauffen are all cases in point; and as regards Queen Victoria's children, their family name is their mother's, not their father's, as her rank was so much superior to his, and she was the heiress of a greater family. And her family name is Gwelf.
When a late Duke of Brunswick was outlawed for debt in this country, I remember that the proclamation of outlawry was directed against "George William Frederick Gwelf, Esq., com- monly called Duke of Brunswick."
There are, no doubt, Sovereign Houses whose members do not use any surnames, but in some of these cases they possess them. That of the Saxon House, for example, is Wettin, the surname of that Elector Frederick who was grandfather of the Ernest and Albert from whom the two main branches of the family are named. And the Royal House of Italy has used Savoy as its family name for many centuries, from Bonifaee of Savoy, Arch- bishop of Canterbury in the thirteenth century, down to "Eugenio von Savoye," the colleague of Marlborough,—I am,
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