PRINCESS VICTORIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12429, 19 February 1901, Page 6

PRINCESS VICTORIA.

Princess Victoria, the only remaining unmarried daughter of the King, has finally, according, to report in London, dismissed her patient suitoi’, Prince George of Greece, who has proposed to her every year for fifteen years. Her reason as a strange one among Royalty, where marriages, are of earthly planning. She does not love her handsome cousin. This is all the reason,' Princess Victoi'ia could name. She sees no stigma in the title “ old maid.” It is less terrible to her than a loveless marriage. She is a sentimental princess, and in that respect she resembles her sisters, Prin,cess Maud of Wales, now the wife of Prince Karl, of Denmark, and Princess Louise of Wales, now Duchess of Fife. Both married for love in preference t'o sitting on thrones without it, and their maiden sister has vowed that if she may not marry for love she will not marry at all. In the past her wishes were baulked by Royal prejudice. She is past thirty now, and can look back on more lhan one sad experience of the heart. In her girlhood she fell in love with a penniless lieutenant. He was a younger son of a noble family—a family far.- older, -than that of the Duke of Fife (destined to be the husband of her sister Louise)—but there was no prospect of his ever succeeding to the title or owning anything that he did not earn with his own hands. It was true that hia character was’ irreproachable and that he loved the princess no less ardently than she loved him; but character and love don’t count for much in the eyes of Royal match-makers, and Queen Victoria took urgent steps to put an end to the romance of her -granddaughter. The lieutenant, was summoned to Windsor, and after ,an interview with the Queen found himself with a captain’s commission under orders for India. And that was the last of him so far as the Princess Victoria was concerned. The Princess proved very stubborn after that. She would Hot hear a word from the various Royal suitors whom her grandmamma and papa wished her to‘favour. Her attitude was that if she -were not allowed to choose a husband for herself she would not marry at all. [ A couple of years ago she exhibited more than ordinary interest in Lord Revelstoke, the industrious chief of the House of Baring. Horrified as aristoci’ats of the old school were at first at the idea of a daughter of Royalty marrying a banker, the admirable, behavions of Lord Revelstoke in slaving for the restoration of his family’s fortune and the sincere attachment between himself, and the Princess softened criticism and awakened much sympathy. ‘ But the Prince of Wales remained unmoved, and his daughter ceased to meet Lord Revelstoke. Indeed, she ceased tp appear in society at all. Among the many eligibles with whom rumour associated’ her name was the Earl of Rosebery and the Czarewitch of Russia, now Czar. Meanwhile gallant Prince George, of Greece, now Governor of Crete, most athletic and picturesque of Europe’s Royalties, has been paying court to. his English -cousin from boyhood. And he, according to this latest report, has received his final dismissal. -