THREE PRINCELY ROMANCES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3135, 18 September 1922, Page 7

THREE PRINCELY ROMANCES.

(By Felix Moreton). The marriage of Lord Louis Mountbatten and Miss Echvina Ashley to-day recalls the romantic histories of the bridegroom's father, the late Marquis of Milford Haven, and of his two uncles, the late Princes Alexander and Henry of Battenberg. No story in a novel ever equalled in romance the hisstorv of these three handsome men. They were the sons of Prince Alexander of Hesse, who, obeying the dictates of love rather than the rules of his order, married the Countesa von Hauke. Since the lady was non-royal birth the marriage was "morganatic"; neither Uie wife nor the children had any official roy&J =An<-iis. and the children could not: succeed to tiveir father's royal honors, nor take his ntrnv.>. TVget over this difficulty the then Grand Duke of Hesse created Countess von Hauke Princess of Battenberg, with the title of Serene Highness, the name and rank borne by her sous. When Queen Victoria's daughter, the Princess Alice, married the heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, she became on most friendly terms with the Princess of Battenberg. Princo Alexander and his wife were poor; there seemed little opening in Germany for their morgantic children, and it was chiefly upon Princess Alice's suggestion and upon her strong recommendation to Queen Victoria, that the eldest boy, Louis, the father of to-day's bridegroom, came over to England and entered our Navy as a naturalised British subject. He became one of our most brilliant officers, and it is common history now that his prompt mobilisation of the Fleet in July 1914 changed the history of the war. Sixteen years after he entered the Navy as a midshipman he married a daughter of this kind friend, Princess Alice, a sister of the murdered Czarina, a cousin of the King, and now the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, When the King wisely decided to abolish all German titles amongst members of the English Royal Family. Prince Louis of Battenberg, as he then was, took the title' of Marquis of Millord Haven, with the family name of Mountbatten. For the second son, Alexander, Fate held a more brilliant, if a more tragical . fate. He> was chosen to- he Prhice of Bulgaria, exchanging the life of a German officer for that thorny throne in the Balkans. His election brought him the implacable enmity of Bismarck, who saw in the Bulgarian choice o? their ruler only another instance of Queen Victoria's power. Queen Victoria made no secret of her affection for the three Battenberg princes or of her interest in their careers, but Bismarck wronged her when he talked of her "machinations" in Bulgaria, Alexander made a brave fight in an impossible position, and finally was crushed between Russian and Aiistriau intrigues, and died shortly after his enforced flight from Sofia. The third son, Prince Henry, Queen Victoria chose as the husband of her favorite daughter, Princess Beatrice. He died whilst serving in the Ashanti campaign. His only daughter is the Queen of Spain, his eldest and only surviving son is the Marquis of Carisbrooke. AH of the three Battenberg princes «ore fine, strikingly handsome men: each was talented in bis own special way, but there is no other record of three morganatic sons of a small German prince achieving positions of such brilliance and consideration .