A 100 YEARS AGO.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1922, Page 1

A 100 YEARS AGO.

(Sydney “ Herald.”)

The whole world of women is still agog with excitement over the Royal wedding, and from the tenor of the King’s message issued on the evening of the ceremony everybody can plainly see that Pa lade people are just as anxious to let all ranks know how the popular kindness and sympathy for tlie newly-wed-ded couple are appreciated as the whole Empire is to show affection for the family of George V. This is really a wonderful state of affairs* which it may not be without interest to compare with matters connected with Royalty exactly ono hundred years ago. In 1822 .Royalty was at such a very ,low ehb in England tiliat had any prophet suddenly hurst forth into a rhapsody, and, looking “into the future far as any e\e could ■ see,” described Princess Mary’s wedding in 1922, such a warlock would have been immediately clapped into Bedlam.

In 1822 the King had fallen dotvn on his job so completely that, not only was lie himself unpopular to the.extent .that his subjects loathed linn, but lie. had .made the monarchy a thing of no account. Tt used to he openly.discussed.whether the nation could stand much more of . such behaviour. George IV . was thoroughly despised as well as.hated. The great Westminister Abbey ceremony of the previous year—not a wedding with the hearts of an Empire all throbbing in sympathy with th© bride, but a coronation to which the King’s wife was refused admittance—had just about put the cap on the popular disapproval. Following the scandal of the divorce, the sight of the door of the Abbey being slammed in the Queen’s face was too much both for the Queen—she died a few days afterwards—and for the people. Politics, too, had got into such a hopeless muddle in 1822 that Lord Castlereagli, after whom our street was named, committed suicide. Then to carry on the succession who was there? A little baby girl, not three years of age. Most women who read at all have lately been interested in Lytton Strachey’s biography of Queen Victoria, and even his brilliant cynicism cannot belittle the importance of early training. Out of that seemingly hopeless wreck of a Royal house in 1822 lias arisen the House of Windsor of to-day, easily the most popular institution in the British Empire. Just here the temptation to preach ; little homily is great. It is to good women that much of the success is due. To the efforts of the statesmen working on constitutional lines were added the inside domestic influences of the Duchess of Kent and of Queen Adelaide, who was a most loving-hearted woman, and put the simple homely virtues of affection and unselfishness above everything else. Without a heart beating behind it all the most impressive ceremony is just a death mask. And so, by little and little, an edifice was built up which - lias sheltered our Empire from who knows what storms of revolution and Bolshevism? Let us never forget that women played a great part in this, not less great because it was the old-fash-ioned home-part of daily life. The House of Windsor has shown that it can move with the times, and to end this little homily, although modern wavs are different, as long as they are “ true to the kindred points of heaven and home,” there can be courage and faith for the future.