The Roman See, it is said, satisfied Mrs. Fitzherbert’s scruples by considering the marriage legal. That See never considered any other marriage between such (religious) parties, so celebrated, legal. Had there been issue of such an union, grave peril might have arisen. There was, indeed, a claimant to such honour, but he disappeared. He lacked the power of lying since manifested by Orton and some of the Orton gang. The monument to Mrs. Fitzherbert’s memory at Brighton asserts the legality of her marriage with the Prince by the three rings on her finger. That she was as much respected as if her last marriage was as legal as the preceding two there is no shadow of doubt. As little doubt is there that the Prince of Wales was never legally married except to his wayward and unhappy cousin—Caroline of Brunswick.
ADELAIDE OF SAXE-MEINENGEN,
WIFE OF WILLIAM IV.
The pocket Duchy—Old customs—Early training—The Father of the Princess Adelaide—Social life at the ducal court—Training of the Princess Adelaide—Marriage Preliminaries—English parliament—The Duke of Clarence—Arrival in London of the Princess—Quaint royal weddings—At home and abroad—Duke and Duchess of Clarence at Bushey—‘State and Dirt’ at St. James’s—William IV. and Queen Adelaide—Course of life of the new Queen Consort—King’s gallantry to an old love—Royal simplicity—The Sovereigns and the Sovereign people—Court anecdotes—Drawing-rooms—Princess Victoria—The coronation—Incidents of the day—Coronation finery of George IV.—Princess Victoria not present—Revolutionary period—Reform question—Unpopularity of the Queen—Attacks against her on the part of the press—Violence of party-spirit—Friends and foes—Bearing of the King and Queen—Duchess of Angoulême—King a republican—His indiscretion—Want of temper—Continental press adverse to the Queen—King’s declining health—Conduct of Queen Adelaide—King William’s death—Declining health of the Queen—Her travels in search of health—Her last illness—Her will—Death—And funeral.
The little Duchy of Saxe-Meinengen was once a portion of the inheritance of the princely Franconian house of Henneberg. The failure of the male line transferred it in 1583 to the family of reigning Saxon princes. In 1680 it fell to the third son of the Saxon Duke, Ernest the Pious. The name of this son was Bernard. This Duke is looked upon as the founder of the House of Meinengen. He was much devoted to the study of Alchemy, and was of a pious turn, like his father, as far as may be judged by the volumes of manuscript notes he left behind him—which he had made on the sermons of his various court-preachers.
The law of primogeniture was not yet in force when Duke Bernard died, in 1706. One consequence was, that Bernard’s three sons, with Bernard’s brother, ruled the little domain in common. In 1746 the sole surviving brother, Antony Ulrich, the luckiest of this ducal Tontine, was monarch of all he surveyed within a limited space. The conglomerate ducal sovereigns were plain men, formal, much given to ceremony, and not much embarrassed by intellect. There was one man, however, who had enough for them all: namely, George Spanginburg, brother of the Moravian bishop of the latter name, and who was for some time the Secretary of State at the court of Saxe-Meinengen.
Antony Ulrich reigned alone from 1746 to 1763. He was of a more enlightened character than any of the preceding princes, had a taste for the arts when he could procure pictures cheaply, and strong inclination towards pretty living pictures, which led to lively rather than pleasant controversies at court. His own marriage with Madame Scharmann disgusted the young ladies of princely houses in Germany, and especially exasperated the aristocracy of Meinengen. They were scarcely pacified by the fact that the issue of the marriage was declared incapable of succeeding to the inheritance.
The latter fell in 1763 to two young brothers, kinsfolk of Antony, and sons of the late Duke of Gotha, who reigned for some years together. The elder, Charles, died in 1782. From that period till 1803 the other brother, George, reigned alone. He had no sooner become sole sovereign than he married the Princess Louisa of Hohenlohe Langenburg. At the end of ten years the first child of this marriage was born, namely Adelaide, the future Queen of England.
Eight years later, in the last year of the last century, A.D. 1800, a male heir to the pocket-duchy was born, and then was introduced into Meinengen the law which fixed the succession in the eldest male heir only. Saxe-Meinengen was the last country in Europe in which this law was established.
The father of the Princess Adelaide, like his brother Charles, was a man of no mean powers. Both were condescending enough to visit even the burgher families of Saxe-Meinengen; and Charles had so little respect for vice in high places that when a German prince acted contrary to the rights of his people the offender found himself soundly lashed in paper and pamphlet, the pseudonymous signature to which could not conceal the person of the writer—the hasty Duke Charles. If this sometimes made him unpopular over the frontier, he was beloved within it. How could the people but love a sovereign Duke who, when a child was born to him, asked citizens of good repute rather than of high rank to come and be gossips?