1772. ROYAL INTERMARRIAGES WITH SUBJECTS. 111

duced no effect. Because two young ladies, whose qualifications fitted them to adorn any station, had been raised to the rank of princesses, the interposition of Parliament must be invoked to guard the Electoral blood from mingling with that generous English current, which had not been thought contamination by the Plantagenets, the Tudors, or the Stuarts.

Early in the session of 1772, a royal message was brought down to both Houses, requiring The Royal them to pass a law which should, to a cer- Marriage Act. tain extent, place the matrimonial alliances of the royal family under the control of the Sovereign.

The recital with which the message was prefaced, that the right of approving marriages in the royal family had ever belonged to the kings of England, as a matter of public concern, was untrue in fact. The proposition, when questioned, was evaded by the House of Commons; and no attempt was made to support it by authority. The practice was irregular. Many royal marriages had been from time to time solemnised without the King's consent, and without dispute. Sometimes the King had announced to Parliament the marriage of one of his own children, with his approbation; but this was generally for the purpose of obtaining an endowment from the public purse. In no case had it ever been pretended, that the validity of a marriage contracted by a member of the royal family depended on the King's consent. It is difficult to discover any sufficient reason of policy, why the head of the first family in the Empire should be allowed a more extensive control over the marriage-contracts of its members than the general law of the land allows to the head of any other family. If it is expedient to provide that the throne of these realms. shall not be shared by an unworthy consort, then is the Royal Marriage Act deficient in the most essential

Policy of re

strictions as to royal mar

112

THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT,

CH. XVI.

particular; for it leaves the Sovereign himself under no other restriction in this respect, than the single qualification of creed which is imposed by the Act of Settlement. There is nothing in the Royal Marriage Law of George the Third to prevent the King of Great Britain from elevating the meanest of the human race to be the partner of the throne. It only empowers him absolutely to interdict any person in the line of succession to the Crown, taking George the Second as the common stock, from marrying before the age of twenty-five. For a result so inadequate, for the sole purpose, indeed, of exalting the prerogative, was a corrupt and servile Parliament found ready to encroach upon the law of nature. vain were all the arguments of reason and morality urged against this impious and cruel measure. was enough that it emanated from the same stubborn, bigoted and selfish will which would not be thwarted, whether its intense rancour pursued an individual, a party or a people. The bill was carried by the means which were now habitually employed to carry the favourite measures of the Court.

In

It

It sometimes happens, that measures pernicious in theory, prove harmless or even beneficial

Bad measures sometimes produce good results.

in their operation. But if every marriage contracted under the conditions of this law had proved fortunate, if in every instance in which it postponed or defeated an unpromising alliance, the public welfare could be shown to have been concerned, the law would still remain indefensible on those high considerations of policy as well as humanity, upon which it was originally opposed. But the true character and tendency of King George's law developed itself in the first generation, upon which it took effect. The respectability and happiness of his own children were in a great measure sacrificed to it. Perhaps it may be too much to say that any law, human or divine, could have had any

1772.

ITS CONSEQUENCES.

113

material effect on the character of the heir apparent. But it is certain that the Prince of Wales had recourse to an illegitimate marriage, to obtain possession of the only woman whom he ever sincerely loved- a woman also qualified to adorn a throne, if personal merit can ever be worthy of such preferment; and that this connection was afterwards rudely severed for the purpose of a lawful alliance with one of the most degraded of her sex. The fate of those illomened nuptials in the very hour of their consummation, the disgrace and misery which ensued, the public commotion which shook the throne-all these are within the memory of living men; and these were the first-fruits of the royal edict. The next son of George the Third, and heir presumptive to his throne, was brought to open shame and disgrace by the infamy of a paramour, into whose arms he had been driven by the policy of his father. The Duke of York afterwards contracted a marriage in conformity with the Act of Parliament, without choice and without affection. This profane and dismal mockery of the relation, at once the dearest and holiest which human beings can form, was protracted, cold, and lifeless, during many weary years. The third son, in like manner, who afterwards ascended the throne of England, passed the best years of his life in open concubinage. The son of George the Third most remarkable for spirit and intelligence, like his elder brother, committed a deliberate breach of the law, by espousing a lady, whose beauty and accomplishments did credit to his taste, and who, in birth even, was hardly his inferior; but, unlike the heir apparent, the Duke of Sussex, a man of honour and a gentleman, adhered to the engagement he had made. If we advert to the operation of the law, as it affects and as it has affected the female members of the royal family, it appears to be still more cruel and revolting. The rules of English society have

114

GERMAN ORIGIN OF

CH. XVI.

subjected the gentler sex to restraints from whicn men are altogether free; but from the princesses of England a degree of self-denial is exacted, which human nature is hardly fit to bear. Bred up in a refined and luxurious Court, surrounded by the most brilliant nobility in the world, these exalted ladies must resist all the attractions to which the female breast is more peculiarly susceptible. Bravery, gentleness, wit, learning, or any other accomplishments which can adorn a man, yea, even if these are accompanied by a name either of hereditary renown, or rendered illustrious by its possessor, can constitute no pretension to mate with a daughter of England. Unless the German storehouse of princes can furnish some petty Grand Duke or Landgrave, who, for the sake of her ample English dowry, will place her at the head of his paltry court, she must pine in hopeless celibacy.

Character of the

Act.

That the Royal Marriage Act has been, both in its provisions and in its results, distasteful to Royal Marriage the people of this country, will be denied by few persons who do not come under the description of inveterate courtiers. It was a German law peculiar to the royal families of the Teutonic race, and unknown in England before the accession of the house of Hanover. Many of the English sovereigns, from the great founder of the Anglo-Norman monarchy, who was not even sprung from the marriage bed, to the last sovereign of the line of Stuart, were born of subjects. Of all the royal houses of Europe, indeed, the princes of the Empire alone, with uncouth pride, whenever they form an alliance beneath their own degree, give the left hand only, and these morganic marriages occupy a questionable position, something above concubinage, but far short of the honourable estate of matrimony. It is true that the statute of George the Third did not enact, in terms, the German dogma. No Parliament

1772.

THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT.

115

that ever sat in this country, however corrupt and servile, would have dared to put such an affront upon the nation. But the true intent and meaning of the Act were not to prevent the King's family from forming disreputable connections, but to limit their choice to the class of royalty; and practically, if not designedly, its operation has been to confine them to one circle of royalty.

The bill was feebly supported in debate by the ministers who had brought it forward in pursuance of the express command of the Sovereign. Hardly an attempt was made to found it upon either principle or expediency; but precedents in its favour were drawn from the proceedings of the Star Chamber, and the uncertain practice of mediæval kings. But the measure, though violently assailed in both Houses of Parliament, encountered no real opposition. Both the Ministry and the Opposition were equally weak. The former, destitute of inherent strength, and representing neither party nor policy, was entirely dependent on the pleasure of the Court; the Opposition, distracted and dispirited, could only protest against an insolent and unnatural law. The Crown was at this time the only power in the State.

The bill was, therefore, carried by large majorities; but the real feeling of Parliament on the subject was indicated by a division in the Commons, on a proposed clause to limit the duration of the act to three years after the demise of the Crown. It was clear, that the only reason for placing the royal family on a different footing from any other family in the kingdom, in respect of its domestic relations, must be one of high public policy; and was in no degree affected by a consideration of the Sovereign who might happen to fill the throne. The object which the promoters of this clause had in view was, no doubt, to render the act a dead letter, for the King's health was such as to render it very improbable that