DAUGHTERS OF KINGS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 2 May 1922, Page 8

DAUGHTERS OF KINGS.

ROMANCES OF LONG AGO

(London Times.) When, more than fifty years ago, the Duke of Argyll married' the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, he wa.. reverting to a precedent last followed more than five centuries before, for the last occasion on which a subject had married the daughter of the reigning Sovereign in England had been in 135'j, when King Edward 111 gave hi., youngest daughter Margaret to John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke. The first time on record after the Conquest that the marriage of a King's daughter to a subject in this country took place was when King Henry Ill's sister was the bride. The Lady Eleanor had been promised to the ill-powerful William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, in hopes of securing his support for the young King, whose throne had been menaced by a French Pretendei and factious barons, and when the wedding took place she was only 10 years old. Widowed at 16, the Countess of Pembroke, who was on the point of becoming a nun, was suddenly married by the King in 1235 to a young and handsome French favourite, Simon de Montfort, who was soon invested with the Earldom of Leicester. He afterwards became a most important figure in the Constitutional development of Parliament, and finally was killed when in arms against'his brother-in-law at the Battle of Evesham. The first occasion on which the reigning King gave his own daughter to a subject was in 1290, when King Edward I married the Lady Joan, w rho had been born at Acre, in Palestine, while hec parents were on a crusade, to Gilbert of Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford. The Princess was 19, and had been bethrothed to the King of the Romans, son of the Emperor Rudolf of Hapsburg. The Austrian had, however, died, and King Edward, by means of this new marriage,' hoped to secure the loyalty and support of the formidable Gloucester, who had been in arms against him and had but recently divorced the King's niece Alais de Lusignan, and at times refused to pay taxes. The wedding, although successful, did not entirely tame the great nobleman, and we learn that in the following year the King found it necessary to fine his son-in-law very heavily (about £150,000 of our money) for having conducted a private war with his neighbour, the Earl of Hertford, devastating Breeonshire in the process. When the Countess of Gloucester became' a widow at the age of 23 she secretly married Ralph de Monthermer, a handsome squire who had been in her husband's service. The King was furious as soon as he knew of this, and imprisoned his now son-in-law, but, after a little, yielded to his daughter's persuasion and not only released the young man, but summoned him to Parliament in his wife's Earldom, made him. a Privy Councillor, and invested, him with a variety of lucrative appointments. So useful had the Gloucester marriage been to the King's policy of getting control of the great fiefs that in 1302 he gave his daughter, the Lady Elisabeth of Rhuddlan,'the 20-year-old widow of the Count of Holland, whom she had married when 15, to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex and Lord High Constable of England. As in the case of Gloucester, all his honours and estates were surrendered, to be regranted to him and his wife jointly and their children. The Earl was somewhat unfortunate in war, being taken prisoner by the Scots (to be exchanged against King Robert Bruce's Queen, held captive by the English), and was killed in battle at Boroughbridge in 1322 when in arms against his brother-in-law, King Edward 11, and that Prince's favourites. King Edward II did not reign long enough to see either of his daughters married, although the second, the Lady Joan of the Tower, found a husband at the age of seven! The wedding of the Lady Margaret, fifth daughter of King Edward 111, to John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, in 1359 failed to turn the bad luck of that unfortunate hut gallant warrior. He lost his 13-year-old Countess before she was 15, was defeated by the French, taken prisoner by the Spaniards after a long sea fight, and is believed to have died of poison a few days -p.fter the payment of the first substantial instalment of a heavy ransom.

THE SIRE DE COUCY. The next Royal marriage bad mar-v . foments of romance. When King John 11 of France, taken prisoner by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356 returned to France in 1360 he sent hostages for the due fulfilment of the conditions of release. One of these was Enguerrand, Sire de Cou-y, whose mother was a Hapsburg. King Edward developed a strong liking for the French hostage and did his best to persuade him to become one of his own subjects. He gave him his daughter, the Lady Isabella of Woodstock, to wife in 1365 foL inv«sted ,him with the Garter in LJ66 and made him Earl of Bedford later m the year. The Sire de Coney politely acquiesced in the wishes of his father-in-law, but when Richard II became King he renounced his English: honours and left his wife and one! d£ u£hter. who was to become Countess ' ot Oxford and Duchess of Ireland in England, while he returned to his native country. There he rose to be a Marshal of France, embarked on a cru- . sade against the Turks, was taken prisoner at the battle of Nicopolis, and died in captivity in Brusa, then the Ottoman capital, in 1397. Thereafter until the reign* of Queen Victoria no. Sovereign's daughter was married to a subject during the reign but it fell to the careful King Henry VII to marry off his three sisters-in-law, daughters of King Edward IV, to discreet and unambitious men who would not be likely to aspire to a Crown Matrimonial V.-' !Y of their wives