A ROYAL MARRIAGE

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3421, 18 February 1936, Page 6

A ROYAL MARRIAGE

ORDEAL FOR PARTICIPANTS.

A Royal bride must needs, because of tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, undergo a far more searching test of nervous control and stability than any ordinary girl about to marry.

Lady Alice Scott, though unhappily deprived by the recent death of her father, the Duke of Buccleuch, of that awe-inspiring ceremony, a wedding in time-hallowed Westminster Abbey, none the less required inflexible selfcontrol when, in" the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, she became the wife of Henry, Duke of Gloucester, third son of the late King George V. In this richly decorated building, its golden altar service being a memorial to Queen Victoria, there was room for just one hundred people, but its veiy intimacy must have heightened the stress for an already highlystrung young woman.

Other brides of princes and sovereigns have quailed and blanched before the overwhelming magnificence of their crowning hour. In these days, too, the bride’s ordeal is intensified by the blinding light of modern publicity, weeks of wedding chatter in the Press, and the tireless clicking of cameras every time she goes trous-seau-shopping or visits the studio of a fashionable portrait painter. Let us glance for a moment at a few of Lady Alice’s glamorous predecessors as they tread their historymaking paths to the High Altar, adorned, not as many people imagine, with an effusion of blossoms, but with two slender vases of white lilies —the one note of simplicity in a ceremony of pomp and grandeur. Though destined to prove herself the most imperious of the nation’s queens, this rosy-cheeked, girlish figure, wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter across her flawless white satin wedding gown is, as she kneels with her tall, handsome prince before the altar of the Chapel Royal., St. James’, trembling like a leaf. The orange blossoms in her headdress shake violently. The Archbishop looks anxious. But the ceremony continues. White as a sheet, the Queen faces around to lean on the arm of her husband, but now she is perfectly composed and quiet. “She walks very slowly, giving ample time for all the spectators to gratify their curiosity, and certainly she was never more earnestly scrutinised before.!’

Thus with characteristic fortitude did Queen Victoria, barely twentyone years of age, conquer her emotion when on that memorable day, February 10, 1840, she wedded her heart’s choice, the elegant Prince Albert. London again became tumultuous with happiness when, twenty-three years later, the Prince of Wales, King Edward VII. to be, wooed and won the enchanting sea-king’s daughter, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, perhaps the most radiantly beautiful of all Royal brides to set foot on English soil. The City Corporation devoted £40,000 to decorations, spluttering gaslike illuminations, and triumphal arches. But the happiness of the young bride was marred by an ugly scene on Ludgate Hill, where, owing to the crush, four women and two men lost their lives. The Princess herself rescued a boy whose head had become stuck between the spokes of her carriage. On returning from their Isle of Wight honeymoon the first care of the Royal couple was to provide for the dependents of these unfortunate spectators. Married before a brilliant assembly of kings and notabilities in St. George’s > Chapel, Windsor, on March 10, 1863, the lovely Alexandra uttered her responses in a tone so low as to elude even the ears of her bridegroom but when the union was consecrated many heard her deep sigh of relief. Royal brides suffered immeasurably greater burdens in bygone centuries. Consider, for example, the fretful Princess Sophia Charlotte, sister of George I. of England, who on her marriage to Prince Frederick of Prussia endured a ceremony lasting sixteen hours! To add to her miseries, tradition forced the Princess to wear a silver w'edding gown that weighed a hundredweight, while her massive crown of diamonds and gold made it nearly impossible for her to stand with her head erect. Before the ceremony was an hour old the deathly pale bride scandalised the entii’e assembly by taking copious pinches of snuff to prevent herself irom fainting. And when this failed to sustain her she gallantly discarded her silver garment and crown, finishing the wedding en deshabille!