EVERY ROYAL BIRTH IS FRAUGHT WITH GREAT IMPORTANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 October 1948, Page 7

EVERY ROYAL BIRTH IS FRAUGHT WITH GREAT IMPORTANCE

Just over 130 years ago an heiresspresumptive to the Crown of England was expecting her first baby and wrote to her mother that she was “so utterly happy as to be almost afraid.” Then, as now, the Princess’ marriage had been a popular love match with a foreign-born Prince, and her countrymen awaited the happy tvent of the autumn with pleasure and interest. The four-page newspapers of the day described handsome Prince Leopold as having “a manly openness with no false prid’e,” but there, one hopes, ends the parallel between 21-year-old Princess Charlotte of the year 1817 and 22-year-old Princess Elizabeth of 1948. Princess Charlotte died in childbirth with her infant, and at a stroke the nation was plunged into mourning. ADVENT OF VICTORIA. That unhappy event was to have vast consequences George IV had no other child. When he died the Crown passed to his younger brother, who reigned as William IV. He in turn had two daughters, but th’e first lived barely three hours and the second only a few months. Thus the Crown passed to his younger brother’s only child, Victoria, and so an astonishing chain of natal circumstances set the stage for her long and brilliant reign and the rise of the House of Windsor. There are the “ifs” and “buts” of history, yet they hinge every Royal birth with momentous consequence. What would have happened if George V, for instance, had never been born? Since there were no younger brothers in the line of succession, the Crown would have passed to Edward VIPs eldest daughter, Princess Louise, the Duchess of Fife, and Britain would have been reigned over by a woman throughout the First World War, and by her daughter, Princess Arthur of Connaught, today. Or supposing George VI had been a girl? The Duke of Gloucester would now be King and seven-year-old Princ'e William would be Prince of Wales. And if the Duke of Gloucester had been a girl also we should see the Duchess of Kent reigning as Queen Regent for a 12-year-old King Edward! STRANGE EVENTS. These are mere possibilities on the fringe of history, but the actual events are just as strange. The birth of Queen Victoria cheated the hopes of her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who wo.<d otherwise have come to the joint thrones of England and Han* over, setting a remote German princeling in Buckingham Palace today. Still earlier there is the remarkable instance of Queen Anne, last of th'e House of Stuart. She had 17 children but only one lived beyond infancy, and even this delicate little fellow died just after his 11th birthday. Queen Anne was a younger sister. To Mary, daughter of James 11., the relationship was much the same as that of Princess Margaret to Elizabeth. They had a brother who died. Mary came to the throne, but was childless. The birth of a son could have wiped out the subsequent reigns of Queen Anne, the Georges, Queen Victoria, and all her successors.

Incidentally, it is from this period that there dates the tradition of a Royal birth compelling the Home Secretary to be present at the parents’ home and be the first person, apart from doctors and murses, to see the baby. He is tfcere on behalf of the people to see that the child is not a changeling, and former Home Secretaries sometimes Interfered with doctors and midwives in their anxiety to be sure.

Perhaps the most unorthdox birth of recent years was when Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, was skating at Frogmore House in Windsor Park. Suddenly she fell and had to be carried from the pond. The child, later the Duke of Clarence, elder brother to George V., was born before doctors or nurses could be summoned, and a lady-in-waiting wrapped the infant in her petticoat. Barely 18 months later came the birth of another baby Prince, later George V. For nearly 30 years he was second in succession, following the Duke of Clarence, who died in 1892. If Princess Elizabeth’s baby is a boy he will be in direct line of succession, potential future King, displacing Princess Margaret. A girl will similarly be in line, but she would be displaced if a boy were born later. In any event, Princess Elizabeth’s baby will be the first to be born in direct succession to the throne since the birth of the Duke of Windsor 54 years ago.