KING AND QUEEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15764, 15 May 1913, Page 8

KING AND QUEEN.

.*_ COMING VISIT TO BERLIN. WEDDING OF THE KAISER'S DAUGHTER. (Enou Oub Own Cobbespoxdent.) LONDON, April 4. The Secretary of State tor Foreign Altairs has issirscj the following notice: - "lne King and Queen have received an invitation from trie German jimperor to attend tire wedding of his Royal rtiglmcss Prince hmest Augustus of Cumberland and her Royal Ilignuces Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, on May 24, -which their .Majesties have accepted. The engagement of tho Prince and Prin cess was announced on February 11, and on Marc'n 18 a supplement of the London Gazette contained the announcement that King George had been to give his consent to tho contract at' matrimony. Tins was necessary because l-'rince Ernest is a Prince of Great Britain and Ireland. The engagement, and the wedding which is now to take place, mean that a complete- reconciliation lias been arranged between the Houses of Guolph and Holienzollern. The formal announcement by the Foreign Office is intended, not so much to make known the fact that their Majesties are about to visit; Germany, as to set at rest various rumours which have been in circulation regarding Royai visits to tho Continent, audi to explain what may have been understood to ■be an official announcement that the King and Queen were not [laying any Continental visit this year. Their Majesties are going to Germany in a strictly private and family capacity, and eo far, no state visit either to Germany, Franco, or Austria has been arranged. It is understood that in tho present state of Uncertainty and anxiety in Europe, visile of a ,: state" or' "official" eharaoter arc impracticable. The King and Queen will probably leave town some few days before the date fixed for the wedding,. but their absence from England will be brief. Their Maiest'cs' last visit to Germany was as Prince and Princess of Wales in 1908. It is natural that tho King and Queen should bo present at the in every respect it will bo as simple as possible owing,to the death of the Greek King brother of the Duohcss of GumberlaiKMor both bride and bridegroom are cousins of different degrees, of the King. If ho wished to do so, Prince Ernest might legitimately call himself the Earl of Armagh. ... The wedding will bo not only an interesting but an important event. The Duke of Cumberland, son of the last King of Hanover, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland, lias never given his consent to. Prussia's annexation of Hanover. For this reason he was excluded from the Throne of Brunswick, and in 1906, when tho Regent of Brunswick died, he was again excluded, as ho still adhered to his attitude towards Prussia. The Kaiser Ims repeatedly endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the two Houses, but his efforts always failed in. consequence of the Duke of Cumberland's hostility. After the tragic death of his eldest, son last May-he was .thrown from his automobile and killed—the Duke's opposition roomed to have been softened. The German Emperor's sympathy with tho sorrowing Duke found .moving expression in a letter his 'Majc6ty wrote to him, and afterwards the surviving son, Prince Ernest Augustus, who is tho bridegroom-elect, naid several visits to the Gcrrmn Court at Potsdam and Berlin.