DUKE OF KENT A BIGAMIST.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 185, 17 August 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

DUKE OF KENT A BIGAMIST.

REVIVAL OF AN OLD SCAN bA..

This is considered, by a correspondent in Quebec affecting to be a devout Roman Catholic, a fitting time for the revival of the old refuted scandal that Queen Victoria's father was a bigamist. He says:—A baptismal entry discovered in the parish registers of Beauport, noar this city, is thought to demonstrate that the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria', father, had two wives at the time of her birth, and to prove beyond any question that the amiable lady, who for upwards of a quarter of a century, Including the period spent by the Duke In Quebec, presided over his domestic arrange ffitnts, possessing to the fullest extent his confidence, esteem, and affection, was his wedded wife.

Mme. Alphonsine Therese Bernurdlne Julie de Montgenet de St. Laurent, Baroness de Fortlsson, accompanied the Prince to Canada from Malta in 1791. She had already lived with him for some years, and was the ruler of his household for a total ptriod of 2S years. She left him to retire into a convent only upon the eve of his marriage to Queen Victoria's mother. Thia marriage was forced upon him for reasons of State when fears arose of the failure of the direct line of succession In the house of Brunswick.

No certificate of the Duke's marriage to Mme. de St. Laurent is known to exist, but iv the registers of the parish church of Beauport, tinder date of July 2, 1792, there is an entry of tlie baptism of one of the children of Colonel de Saiaberry, father of the victor of Chateauguay, at which the DUKE OF KENT WAS ONE OF THE GODFATHERS and Mme. de St. Laurent godmother. The ceremony was performed by no less a per sonage than Mgr. Ballly. Bishop of Capse and coadjutor to the then Bishop of Que bee. This is deemed.by Roman Catholic authorities, as well as others acquainted with the rules of the Church, to be satisfactory evidence that the officiating Bishop at least had satisfied himself of the marriage of the Duke and Mme. de St. Laurent, for nothing would be more repugnant to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church than the acceptance as sponsor at a baptism bf a woman living in open concubinage.

There were many reasons why the Duke should refuse publicly to admit his marriage. In the first place, it could not be recognised under existing English law. By the provisions of the Act referred to the male descendants of George 11. are render od incapable of contracting marriage without tlie consent of the King or his successors, signified under the great seal and declared in council. The protesting peers, when the bill was under discussion, declared that If it passed into a law It would be void, and eminent British jurists are on re cord as declaring that an Act of Parliament repugnant to the law of God is void. It is well understood that George lll.,then King suggested the bill because of the marriage of his second brother, the Duke of Cumberland, to Mrs Hortpn, and of the private marriage of the Duke of Gloucester to the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave. The constant financial embarrassments of the Duke of Kent, owing to the Inadequate allowance made him, necessitated every effort on his part to keep on as good terms as possible with his father, the King. Any declaration of his morganatic marriage would have ruined all his prospects. DEVOTEDLY ATTACHED TO EACH OTHER. Evidences are plentiful that the Duke and Mme. de St. Laurent were devotedly attached to each other. He treated her with the utmost deference and respect, and there Is no reason to suppose that they would ever have voluntarily separated but for the State reasons for his marriage with the mother of the late Queen. While he was colonel of a regiment of Fusiliers in Quebec the couple lived together at Haldiinand House, the palatial residence still overlooking the Falls of Montmorency. They drove together to the city every morning behind fat Norman ponies.

In communicating with their Canadian friends they always, spoke of each other as belonging to the same household. Almost invariably In writing to his great friend, Colonel de Salaberry, the Duke terminates by saying:—"Mme. de St. Laurent joins me iv sending compliments to Mme. de Salaberry and your charming family." Mme. de St. Laurent, immediately upon hearing of the birth of the little de Salaberry, to whom she stood as godmother, wrote to its mother, saying;—"l have this moment sent the news to our dear Prince."

In a letter from Halifax, written to Col. de Salaberry in 1794, the Duke says:—"Accept my thanks for the obliging manner in which you and Mme. de Salaberry congratulate me upon the happy arrival of madame. She enjoys here much better health than she did in Quebec, and we are assured that the winter is much less severe and disagreeable, and I flatter myself in consequence that she will continue to be equally well during the whole winter." Mme. de St. Laurent appears to have been AN ACCOMPLISHED LETTER WRITER. In one of her letters to Colonel de Salaberry, dated-at Kensington Palace on April 5. ISOS, she says:—"Nothing could be more delightful than your letter but its author.

. . . I am very happy to learn that Mine, de Salaberry (alias 'Ma Souris') enjoys such goon health. . . Adieu, dear and ever .dear de Salaberry, I have only a minute left to dress and go out. It is go and come from morning to night. Ah, London, I will not call you a hole—the greatest and most beautifn' city in the world—but every place has Its drawbacks."

The Duke, writing from Kensington Palace to Colonel de Salaberry on September 28, 1814, makes this interesting reference to Mme. de St.- Laurent, the last of which there is any knowledge:—"My life continues to be very domestic, and-1 see as little of the great world as possible, and, having sad this to you, I am sure you will be glad to learn that what our life was when we were beside you, that It has continued to bo during the twenty years that have passed since we left Canada, and I love to think that twenty years hence it may be the same." It was on May 20. I§. 8, that the Duke, by the advice of the Queen, MARRIED THE MOTHER OF THE LATE QUEEN Victoria. A member of the late de Salaberry 'family is authority for the statement that the last letter written by the Duke to the old colonel was written shortly before the b'rth of the late Queen. It dwelt upon the expected happiness in store for the writer, but also expressed a natural.anxiety as to the issue of the expected event. Unfortunately,this letter cannot now be found. But there Is in existence a letter written about the same time to Colonel de Salaberry from Bath by General de Rottenburg, dated March 3, 1819, and containing this paragraph:—

"The Duke of Kent has gone to bury him.

self in some part of Germany. Mme. de St. Laurent has retired to a convent."

The date of Mme. de St. Laurent's death 'a unknown. It is probable that she survived for some time the Duke, who died when his little daughter Victoria was only a few months old. The Abbe Bois is authority for the statement that the French Government, after she had entered a convent in that country, allowed her a pension in consideration of the kindness shown by her to the French refugees who fled to. JSngland during the Revolution.

A local historian who prepared a short history of the Duke's stay in Canada sent a copy of it to Sir Arthur Helps, then private secretary to Queen Victoria, for the I Queen's acceptance, together with inquiries 'as to the latter history of Mme. de St. Laurent. Needless to say, he received no response.