ANGLO-GERMAN BLOOD ROYAL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3069, 3 May 1917, Page 5

ANGLO-GERMAN BLOOD ROYAL

-« — ■ THE DUCHY OR. SAX&COBURGGOTHA. " v ! A Bill has been, introduced into tho Diet of tho Duchy . of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha' "whereby the members of the ducal house who belong to a non-Ger-man Stat© shall loso tho right of succession to the ducal throne if their 'home State' makes War 011 the German Empire." It looks like retaliation on us for our action with, regard to enemy princes. It is all the more interesting -because tho present ruler is tho soii of the Duchess of Albany, and King Edward was Ilia undo. At one time he was an Eton boy, and ho" is still remembered at Esher, where his mother lived, as "the little fellow who was always asking questions." Transported as a boy to Germany, he came under the direction of the. Kaiser, and, removed from the care of his mother, was plunged into tho endless round of German military duties, while German, tutors worked hard to eradicate his English sympathies and turn him into a whole-hearted German. They succeeded, for when war-broke out ho chose to stand hv Germany; and it lias been stated tliat he, has been in arms, against us—though he has always been more a student and a country gentleman than 0. soldier. Tho ruler of tho Duchy has to 'make no oath of allegiance to tho Kaiser, and ho can veto the legislation of his-Diet. One wonders if he will veto this new legislation.

Had not the Duke of Connaught preferred England ,he might now have been ruler of ,Saxe-Coburg-Gothn. Shortly aftor his father's death, King Edward renounced 011 behalf of himself and his descendants all rights to his paternal grandfather's dukedom.'Thus when; the Prince Consort's elder N brother, Duke Eriiest 11, died in 1893 ho was succeeded by his second-ne-phew, the Duke of Edinburgh. Tho latter's son died whilo his father was on the throne, and the Duko of Connaught, who thus became heir, followed King Edward's example and extended tho renunciation to his son Prince Arthur of Connaught conditionally upon the succession of tho. new heir-presumptive, the Duke of Albany, who was tho son of tho last'nephew of Duko Ernest. Thus did the Duke of Connaught ajjd Prince Arthur escape an unpleasant fate.