OF QUEENS' NAMES.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 87

OF QUEENS' NAMES.

By Jessis Mackat. 'Again, in the fulness of time, a Mary fiits on the throne of Britain. No princess of the name has sat there since 1694, when Mary 11, third Queen Regnant of England, died after a brief reign of six years J in conjunction with her famous husband, William of Orange. It is a curious fact, considering the amazing hold the name 'has upon Europe, that the consort of George V is only the fourth Mary who has worn the diadem of England. The ■Saxons held to their own names ; Elfridas, Ethelburgas, Ediths shared in modified fashion the glory of their warlike spouses, the highest and dearest name in Christendom did not win its way _ into England till the Middle Ages had well begun. True, there was a Mary Bohm who shared the early lot of Henry IV, but she was dead before he seized on the Crown of England. True, again, the name appears on the accession of the French bride of Charles I. But it is <b*cured under the alien and more pretentious " Henrietta," that bespoke her birth as the daughter of Henri Quatre. Henrietta Maria never ranked as a Mary in English regard; and' it is only late historians who have shown us a wiser, gentler impression at all of the ill-starred wife of him who in High Anglican circles is still called the Martyr King. The first royal Mary left such an impression of horror en the nation that a feminist age can almost read in it a valid apology for Knox's thundering polemic, "The Monstrous Regiment of Women." And it was not for three hundred years that an English poet cared or dared to lift the smoky pall from the wasted effigy of Mary Tudor and find below it the record of a pitifully thwarted life and broken heart—the heart on which "Calais" was but the last of other fated words which spelled the life tragedy of Catherine of Arragon's daughter. More than a hundred years later came the lesser tragedy of Mary of Modena, the second wife of James, last and worst of Stuart Kings. The poor, plain little Italian princess found no welcome from Protestant England, and it is difficult to believe her domestic happiness with the inconstant James was sufficient to console her for dethronement and exile. It- was her owr stepdaughter, Mary 11, who took her place, and much more. It is time to render a belated apology to" the memory of this gentle Queen, whose great services to her native land have been obscured in the blaze of her husband's warlike fame. Both England and Europe owed much more to Mary Stuart than most people imagine. So little in touch were William of Orange and the English people that the weight of a straw would have caused an open rupture. Had the proud Prince of Orange gone back offended to Holland, it is difficult to see how Emg-~ land could have effected the enormous changes of the Revolution. Had William been deprived of English support, on the other hand, it would have been humanly impossible for him to put that check on Louis XIVs dangerous ambition which no other leader in Europe was capable of achieving, and all Protestantism might have lain at the feet of that despotic monarch. But Mary threw oil on the troubled waters. She wielded William's sceptre as well as her own during the long Irish rebellion, and so pleasing were her manners and so wise was her rule that the catastrophe was averted, England was pacified, and William was set apart to fight the battles of freedom. Art and letters had little scope or hearing in Mary's brief reign, but these six unquiet years were fated to mould the whole afterdestiny of Britain, covering, as they did, the fundamental Declaration of Rights, and it is not too much to say that Mary •Stuart's blameless life was the pivot on which the fate of Britain turned at that great juncture. And thus at least a Queen Mary "wrought her people lasting good, leaving a fair tradition, which a later royal Mary is likely to endow with a yet brighter lustre." For number the An-nes head the list of English Queens. Six of the name have reigned in as many centuries, and had Anne Hyde, the first wife of James 11, lived some years longer she would have been the seventh. The first was the dashing Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard 11, The second was the unhappy Anne of Warwick, widow of Edward of Lancaster, who was forced into a marriage with her husband's murderer, Richard 111, and reported to have been poisoned by him later. The next of the name was the illstarred Anne Boleyn, who went to the •block by the order of her jealous and fickle spouse, Henry VIII. Not very longafter Henry experienced another matrimonial episode in his brief "union with Anne of Cleaves. Anne's Protestant upbringing was her one charm, and it was not of a sufficiently personal nature to kindle the affection of the first Defender of the Faith. Doubtless the subsequent divorce was as great a relief to the stolid German Princess as it was to Henry. Anne of Denmark's alleged beauty and grace must have accorded strangely with the uncouthness of the shambling James I. Theni came the crowning record of Good Queen Anne, who, little brilliant as she was herself, showed in the midst of a galaxy which shone with equal lustre in. the field of letters and in the fields of arms. More shine than, warmth there was, but that was not the fault of the homely opinionated Queen, who was stronger in the heart than in the head. Next in number come the five Catherines. Their record has been, on the whole, a sorrowful one. It is hardly probable that Catherines shared his throne: one was the circumstances of her bridal with the conqueror of her country, Henry V. Then when the charm of the youthful warrior's prowess and affection had broken

the strangeness of her new environment, lie was suddenly lost to her by death. Though she found consolation in a secret marriage with the courtly Owen Tudor, she was never able to wear her new happiness with the full approval of that curious thing, the Royal conscience, feeling she had stepped beyond the allotted bounds of queenship. Henry VIII's whole idea of domestic continuity seems to have lain in the names of his wives. Three Catherines shared his throne; one was divorced, one beheaded, and the third, the wise and comely Catherine Parr, was once in imminent 'danger of execution for heresy. Tire last Catherine who was called Queen by England was the Portuguese wife of Charles 11, whose blameless fife was darkened by the shameless neglect of her husband. One is pleased to know that she lived to find appreciation and glory as a royal widow when she returned' to Portugal and ruled it wisely and well as Regent. Little either she or her late subjects thought that the dowry of Bombay, which she brought to Charles, was to be the earnest of English Empire in India.

Far back in the Middle Ages three royal Matildas figure with grace and power. Matilda of Flanders was the roughlywooed but faithfully loved bride of William the Conqueror, a royal lady of much accomplishment. Matilda of Scotland, the pious and cultured wife of William's son, Henry I, was a reconciler and a peacemaker. As a princess of the royal Saxon line she was eagerly hailed by the conquered people, who loved her later for her own. good deeds and lovely life. Matilda of Boulogne was the wise and capable wife of the over-weighted Stephen. Three Isabellas figure in Plantagenet annals. Two brought war to England—one, Isabella of Angouleme, the wife of John, who, as a widow, embroiled the country in strife for her second husband's sake; the other Isabella of France, the infamous murderess of Edward 11, whose alleged right to the French Throne gave English ambition an excuse for the Hundred Years' War. But the last Isabella, the French child-bride of Richard 11, left only the memory of a pathetic and charming royal idyll. The imperious traditions of Elizabeth came in with Dame Elizabeth Woodviile, the lovely widow who captured the fickle heart of Edward. Little joy did the conquest bring her ; she was doomed to suffer the jealousy of the nobles all through her reign, and to see her brother and her two sons done to death afterwards by her unnatural brother-in-law, Richard 111. But she had the satisfaction of seeing her daughter, Elizabeth of York, Queen in her stead, joining for ever the roses of York and Lancaster, her lord, Henry VII, being the only possible royal Lancastrian left to'reign. And then came Good Queen Bess, in the hearing of whose glories and vanities England has not wearied for three centuries.

Two Janes have left brief record —Jane of Navarre, second wife of Henry IV, and Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, who had the forethought to die young lest a worse thing befell her. Two Carolines belong to the Guelph period, one the shrewd and tactful consort of George 11, the other the indiscreet and ill-fated Caroline of Brunswick, the exiled wife ot George IV. . Two Eleanors held sway in the Plantaeenet period. The first, Eleanor of Acquitaine, brought to her youthful spouse, Henry 11, much beauty, a great dower, and a poor reputation. ine second, Eleanor of Poitou, exercised, indirect influence on English history. bo many of her countrymen found place, and power under the weak Henry 111 that English- jealousy hastened the beginnings of Parliament in Simon de Montfort s U One Adelais reigned for six months as the girl-wife of Henry I. One Berengana was wooed a France by Richard I, wed at Cyprus, and fated to travel wxdely over the Holy Land and Europe. But she never set foot in England One noble Philinna added lustre to the record of IS Ill's reign One craret coming from the South of liance, l -ecipitTted the Wars of the Roses by her pride, and.saw her son and husband removed by treachery and violence One Sophia, a lovely German captive, faintly touched the pity of the unknown country that her dour gaoler, George I, was called to rule over. One Charlotte, good but uninspiring, shared the Throne ot George In tfie fulness of time one glorious Victoria joined the splendour of Elizabeth with the home-keeping virtues of the Stuart queens regnant, Mary and Anne. And, lastly, one lovely and gracious Alexandra has cast a romantic> lustre, aof her Northern Lights, over the Throne of England. Never was a Princess of Wales more admired, never was a Queen of England more adored than she who * now the centre of all sympathy as the mourning Queen Mother.