ROYAL ROMANCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 19, 4 November 1935, Page 8

ROYAL ROMANCE

QUEEN VICTORIA PROPOSES DIFFICULTY GOT OVER Probably the only well-brought-up young lady of the Victorian era. who ever asked a young man to marry her was Queen Victoria, states a writer in the “Melbourne Age.” This reverse of the ordinary procedure of courtship was the result of the exalted position of Victoria as Queen of England. “Albert would inevelr have presumed to take such a liberty as to propose to the Queen of England,” she said to her aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester. If he had done so, he would have been

sharply reprimanded for his temerity, notwithstanding the fact that she was passionately in love with him. The story of Victoria’s courtship and marriage is dealt with in the various biographies of the Queen. Prince Albert, the younger son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was her first cousin. Ho had been selected as a candidate for her hand some years before she ascended the throne, by her uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, and as a boy in bis teens he bad accompanied his elder brother Ernst on a visit to England, as the guests of Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of

Kent. King William IV favoured the candidature of Prince Alexander, the younger son of the Prince of Orange, but the King’s death a month after the eighteenth birthday of Princess Victoria, left the field open for prince Albert, the nephew, of her mother. Liked 1 Him as a Boy. Princess Victoria had liked her cousin Albert as a boy, but when she ascended the throne she was so occupied with the great privileges and responsibilities of her position as Queen that she wanted the question of her marriage to be deferred for some years. “Even if I should like Albert, I can make no final promise this year, for at the very earliset any such event

could not take place till two or three years hence,” she wrote in a letter to King Leopold of Belgium. And if she found that she liked Albert “as a friend, and a cousin, and a brother, but no more,” she intended to refuse him “without being guilty of any

breach of promise, since, she had not given any.” When she passed her twentieth birthday, pressure was brought to bear on her regarding her marriage, in view of the necessity of the nation having an heir to the throne, and a few months later Prince Albert came to : St. James’s Palace as her guest. Even then she had not given up the idea of postponing her marriage for two or three years. In a memorandum' she wrote after the death of the Prince Consort, she said: “Nor can the Queen now think without indignation against herself, of her wish to keep the Prince waiting for probably three or four years, at the risk of ruining all his prospects in life, until she might feel inclined to marry.” On the other hand the Prince, who. was her junior by three months had decided that he would not be kept in suspense while she made up her mind whether she would marry or not. If she could not

decide, he was going back homeland that would lie -the end of the business as far as he was concerned. “The Delicate Moustachiios.” But as soon as the Prince arrived at

the .Palace the Queen was captivated by his good looks, and his charming manners. She noted his • blue eyes, “the smile of that lovely mouth,” the

“exquisite nose,” “the delicate nioustachios, and slight, but very slight, whiskers,” and “his beautiful figure, broacl in the shoulders and fine in the waist.” And he was “so amiable” and “so good-natured.” He arrived on a Thursday and on the following Sunday the Queen told her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, that she had “a good deal changed her opinion as to marrying,” and on Monday morning she told him that she had made up her mind to marry Prince Albert. O’n Tuesday morning she sent for the Prince and received him alone. “After a few minutes I said to him that I thought lie*must be aware why 1 wished liim to come here—and that it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished,” she wrote. “Then we embraced each other, and he was so kind and so affectionate.” She told him that she was quite unworthy of him, and that it was a great sacrifice on his part to marry her. She felt “the happiest of human beings” when she saw Lord Melbourne later in the day. At first she heat about the bush, and talked of the weather and of indifferent subjects. At last, summoning up her courage, she said: “I have got well through this with Albert!” “Oh, you have?” replied Lord Melbourne.