teen years, on account of adultery. There | ferred to stop in her old residence. She wa are, besides, some children of the late King's continually shut up in her palace, and selbrother, all of them, as also the Princess of dom mixed with the gay world, except when Hohen-zollern, the elder branch of the fam- she could not help doing so without offending ily, married to German sovereigns, but of her kind uncle the new King, who always lesser importance. On the whole, the house of treated her with the greatest consideration. Prussia has more extensive and more impor- At last, wishing to draw her out of her setant family connections than almost any other clusion, he succeeded in persuading her to royal line in Europe. The Hohenzollern sov-receive the Crown Prince, John Bernadotte, ereigns are nearly related to the reigning who all the while had stood aloof respecthouses of Great Britain, of Russia, of Hol- fully, not intruding himself on the Ex-Queen, land, of Bavaria, of Austria, of Saxony, of nor on any body else. Having consented to Hanover, of Baden, and many other reigning receive him, the wife of Gustavus Adolphus families of minor power. arranged the meeting at her own palace; stipulating that the entertainment on the ocIcasion should only consist of tea and cards, as music had never been allowed under her roof since her misfortune. To this rather meagre fête the whole court and all the distinguished foreigners residing in Stockholm were invited. Sudden indisposition prevented the old King from joining the party, but the Ex-Queen did the honors with great seeming affability. She played a rubber of

SWEDEN.

The house of Prussia is also, though indirectly related to the royal family of Sweden, a family interesting in more than one respect. The tenure of the house of Bernadotte is of posterior date to that of the house of Bonaparte, and yet the royal Swedish family is already sufficiently engrafted on the stock of European royalty to find wives and husbands among the class; a thing in which the mem-whist with Prince Bernadotte and the Ambers of the Corsican house, although their bassadors of England and Russia. After chief is a mighty Emperor, have not as yet cards, the tea was served, with a magnificent succeeded. The reason for this good luck plateau, prepared for the Queen and Prince. of the Bernadottes may be found in the calm, The Queen advanced, and poured out the tea quiet, diplomatic way in which they settled into two cups, indicating one to Bernadotte ; down on their Northern throne, and gradu- who was just in the act of taking it, when ally screwed themselves into the confidence suddenly he felt the pressure of a thumb on of their brother monarchs. The founder of his shoulder, forcible and significant enough the house, Jean Bernadotte, the son of a to convince him that it was meant for a notary in the south of France, acted all his warning. Calm and collected, as Bernadotte life long in this quiet, unpretending manner; was throughout his life, he did not move his and from a private of marines he worked his eyes, but quietly and in the most unconcerned way through all the grades of military hier- manner exclaimed, "Ah, Madame, it is imarchy up to the rank of general under the possible that I can permit your Majesty to first Bonaparte. When poor Gustavus Adol- serve me!"-which saying, he seized the phus of Sweden was deposed by the conspi- plateau, and turned it round adroitly in such racy of a party, and his uncle the Duke of a manner that the cup which was intended Sudermania was placed on the throne as for him was placed before the Queen and the Charles XIII., the conspirators, most of other before himself. On this, the Ex-Queen them secret Republicans, succeeded in bring- turned deadly pale, and made a movement as iug about the election of Jean Bernadotte, if fainting. However, the hesitation was but who took great pains to spread a belief in his momentary. Collecting herself suddenly, Democratic opinions. As soon as the de- she bowed to the Crown Prince and the composed King had left the country, the new pany, and, taking the cup, drank its contents heir-apparent came to Stockholm; where he to the last drop. Great was the astonishwas well received by the whole royal family, ment of the citizens of Stockholm, when they with the exception of the wife of the Ex-read the next day, in the official gazette of Monarch, who had not followed her husband Stockholm, the following short paragraphinto exile, but, for some reason or other, pre-"The Queen Dorothea died suddenly during

the night. The cause of the death is believed" who lived in the year of the world 3858," to be apoplexy."* and whose successor, King Anserich, was Through such scenes Prince Bernadotte swaying his flaxen-haired subjects at the had to make his road to the throne; and wa- time Jesus Christ was born. The fourteenth rily indeed did he proceed on his way. When in the list of these ancient Saxon monarchs at last King, in 1818, his first object was to was a certain Hengst or Hengist, who, in the look about for family alliances to strengthen year 449, in company with his brother Horsa, his dynasty. After long diplomatic negotia- crossed the raging North sea, to conquer an Another welltions, he saw that he could find no better island called Britannia. consort for his eldest son than the half-legit-known man was the twenty-fourth of this imate Princess Josephine of Leuchtenberg, line, Prince Wittekind; and the modern whose father, Prince Eugène, had engrafted Saxon court biographers, who seem to be his family in some degree on the royal house ashamed to go back into the past as far as of Bavaria. This was the first step of the old John Hubner, commonly mention this Bernadottes towards an alliance with the sov- prince as the founder of the race. Witteereigns of Europe; their second step ad- kind was persuaded into Christianity by the .vanced them a good deal further. On the great Emperor Charlemagne, who solemnly 12th June 1850, Prince Charles, the present baptized him, in the year 785, and then made Regent of Sweden, married a Princess of the him a Herzog, or chief of armed men, and ancient house of Orange-Nassau, a daughter gave him for wife a Christian Princess of his of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands and own house. His descendant in the fourth of Princess Louise of Prussia the sister of generation was Duke Henry, who, in 919, King Frederick William IV.; and now the was chosen Emperor of Germany, or of the family of Bernadotte might be said to have "Holy Roman Empire" as it was called; a entered, on a footing of equality, the great dignity which he transmitted to son, grandcircle of sovereigns of Europe. Through son, and great-grandson. Thus the family this union, and through the former of King rose in influence, and their hereditary dominOscar with the Princess of Leuchtenberg, ions became gradually more extended, and the house of Bernadotte has become directly were at last elevated into an electorate. related to the reigning families of Holland, of Prussia, and Bavaria, and through them, indirectly, to those of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and the rest of the sovereigns of this quarter of the globe.

SAXONY.

Saxony would have, perhaps, in course of time embraced the whole of Germany, as the members of the reigning family continually kept at the head of the other princes, but for the want of a law of primogeniture. The non-existence of any such regulation during the middle ages is the reason that Germany to this day is broken up in a number of petty principalities, all of them weak and helpless because disunited. No sooner, therefore, had Saxony risen to a certain point of influence, than its power was broken up again. Frederick the Mild, who reigned from 1428 to 1464, left at his death two children, Albert and Ernest, between whom, according to usage, the electorate was divided; and they became the founders of two branches of the family, called to this day the Albertine and the Ernestine lines. From the latter line,. the elder of the two, spring the sovereigns

What we now call Saxony is not the country originally so named, which lies further North. The earliest writers who mention the Saxons, Ptolemæus among others, describes them as neighbors of the Danes: so that ancient Saxony must have been where Holstein, Oldenburg, Hanover, &c., are at present. However, the rulers of the modern kingdom and duchies of Saxony are the descendants of the chiefs of that old Saxony on the North Sea, and it was they who carried the name further South into Germany. The origin of this family is lost in the night of time. Herr Johann Hübner, that most of the ducal houses; and from Prince Alconscientious genealogical bookworm, traces the line of Saxon Princes nearly two thousand years back, to one King Harderich, The responsibility of this story remains with the late Thomas Raikes, Esq. Diary, iii. 199.

bert the younger brother, descend the Kings of Saxony. This change of fortune between the elder and the younger line was brought about by the exertions of the Ernestine famly in favor of Protestantism; for which they

were punished by the bigoted Emperor The last branch of the four ducal houses
Charles V., who took the electorate from of Saxony, the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
them, and gave it to the younger line. Not--not consisting of above a dozen members,
withstanding such losses, the elder branch of
the family (to whom belongs the Prince Con-
sort of England) have always stood out val-
iantly for Protestantism and liberty of con-
science; and when, in 1697, the Elector
Friedrich August I. became a convert to the
Roman Catholic faith in order to gain the
crown of Poland, the indignation of the
Ernestine family was on the point of going
beyond words.

and the head of which rules over a population
of not more than 150,000 (about the popula-
tion of Bradford, in Yorkshire)-is undoubt-
edly the best-connected family in Europe.
The reigning Duke, Ernest II, married Prin-
cess Alexandrina, daughter of the late Grand
Duke Leopold of Baden; his brother is Prince
Albert, Consort of the Queen of Great Britain;
his eldest aunt is the divorced wife of the
late Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, the
The house of Saxony, chiefly this elder elder brother of Czar Nicholas, who discarded
line, now represented in the four ducal fam- her that he might unite himself to a Polish
ilies, has been more fertile in members than lady, the Countess of Grudzinska; his other
any other princely house for the last century. aunt is the Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen
The present King of Saxony, John Nepomuk, Victoria; and his uncle is King Leopold of
who is married to a daughter of the late King Belgium. One of his cousins is King of
Maximilian of Bavaria, has no fewer than Portugal, and another has married the daugh-
eight children living, all born at intervals of ter of a King, Princess Clementine, who fol-
from eighteen months to two years. Four lowed her husband into Coburg when her
of them are married already: the Crown father, Louis Philippe, was on the throne of
Prince to a Princess Wasa; Princess Eliza- France. The house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,
beth to the brother of the King of Sardinia, therefore, is nearly related to the royal fam-
whose death we mentioned above; Princess ilies of Great Britain, of Portugal, Belgium,
Anne to the Crown Prince of Tuscany; and Russia, Holland, Baden, and most of the
Princess Marguerite to the second brother of other reigning houses of Europe.
the Emperor of Austria. There are, besides,
the widow of the former King Frederick
Augustus, a daughter of the King of Bavaria,
and several other relations.

a

The next Saxon Prince in importance, the Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, married daughter of the late King William II of the Netherlands, and has four children, the eldest of whom, Prince Charles, is not more than thirteen years old. His two sisters are married to two brothers of the King of Prussia; the elder sister, Maria, to Prince Charles, and the younger sister, Augusta, to the Prince of Prussia. The latter royal lady, who accompanied her son this week at the important ceremony in St. James' Chapel, is at present in her forty-sixth year. Her mother, the Grand Duchess Mary of Russia, is the eldest sister of the late Czar Nicholas.

Lastly, the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Altenburg have, both of them, not many children, but numerous cousins, uncles, and aunts. One of the latter, Princess Alexandrine, now called Alexandra-Josefowna, was married, in 1830, to the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, eldest brother of the

present Czar.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE present royal family of this country, members of the house of Brunswick-Luneburg, trace their origin to the first Margraves of Este, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century, and who married into the family of the Guelph, German Counts who were living in Suabia, but had possessions in the North of Italy, then a province of the Holy Roman Empire. Empire. Through these Guelphs, and through alliances with other rising houses, the members of the house of Este soon acquired considerable territory, chiefly in the North of Germany. One of them, John, established himself, in the middle of the thirteenth century, as Duke of Luneburg, and another, Albrecht, at about the same time as Duke of Brunswick. The family, however, soon split into scores of little branch lines, each with but a few square yards of territory; and not one of them rose to any considerable influence in Germany, until two Dukes, who saw the source of the evil, Prince George William of Celle and Prince Ernest Agustus of Hanover, established, in 1680, the law of primogeniture. This brought

about a sudden rise in the fortunes of the duchess Marie of Austria, are her cousins.

Being thus in close bonds of consanguinity with the reigning houses of Prussia, Austria, Belgium, Hanover, Portugal, and the Duchies of Saxony, Queen Victoria, through them, can claim family connexion with the soyereigns of the remaining countries of Europe; all of them, as we have shown above, being in the most intimate relationship with either Austria, Prussia, or the Saxon Duchies.

family. Only twelve years after the promulgation of this law, the territories of one branch of the house had become so well rounded off that George William I. rose to the dignity of Elector; which he transmitted, with still increased territory to his son and successor, George Louis. This second Elector, however, had not long governed his paternal dominions before news reached him, in 1714, that Queen Anne of Great Britain Even among the non-sovereign families of was dead, and that he was to be her succes- Germany, Queen Victoria has many relations. sor. At first George Louis was exceedingly Prince Charles of Leinigen, Lieutenantloth to leave his beloved Hanover for any General in the service of Bavaria, is her brothrone beyond the seas, and he had to be ther-in-law; and his Consort, Countess Maalmost forced by his friends to accept the rie of Klebelsberg, is her sister-in-law, or proffered crown; for his daughter was mar- rather was, for she was divorced from the ried to King Frederick William of Prussia, Prince in 1848, after a union of nineteen and all his relations were in Germany. He years. Their eldest son, Prince Ernest, born did go at last, after long hesitation; but he in 1830, is a Lieutenant in the British Navy; returned every year to the country of his an- and the second, Prince Edward, born in 1833 cestors. In his son George II., born in Ger- is a Captain in the Austrian service. Anmany, this love of the "Vaterland" was not other sister-in-law of her Majesty is Princess quite so strong; yet even he made his peri-Anne of Leiningen, who married the mediatodical pilgrimages into Germany; and it was not until the accession of the third George that the house of Brunswick-Hanover can be said to have become naturalized in the country of their adoption.

The family, before as well as after it ascended the English throne, had continually intermarried with German Princes and Princesses, and with them alone; and it is consequently of pure Teutonic blood. All the matrimonial alliances, with the sole exception of this last of the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria with the presumptive heir of the throne of Prussia, were concluded, too, with the smaller princely houses of Germany. Saxe-Meiningen, Hesse-Homburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and other families of no greater political importance, have hitherto furnished the contingent of royal consorts for, the reigning house of Great Britain.

ized Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and
one of whose sons, Prince Victor, born 1833,
is, like his cousin Ernest, Lieutenant in the
British Navy. These maternal relations of
Queen Victoria may be traced far even into
the nobility of Germany, as the house of
Leiningen is split into seven branches, the.
members of only one of which have right to
the title of Prince, while the others-they
of Leiningen-Hardenburg, Leiningen-Reu-
denau, Leiningen-Westerburg, Leiningen-
Heidesheim - Falkenburg, &c.
Counts of the ci-devant Holy Roman Em-
pire. To furnish a list of these connexions,
however, would lead us too far: and we con-
clude our analysis of European royalty with
this last hasty glance at her Majesty's Ger-
man cousins.

BAVARIA'S ROYAL FORTUNES. [OUR account of the reigning families of The Queen of Great Britain is related, Germany, last week, had a leading object, more or less intimately, to all the other royal and the narrative was constructed with a view families. King Leopold L. of Belgium is her to that object, necessarily passing by episodes uncle; King George V. of Hanover is her that might otherwise have tempted us as cofirst cousin; the Duke of Saxe-Coburg is her roborating our general proposition, or as prebrother-in-law, and the heir-apparent to the senting matter of peculiar interest. There throne of Prussia her son-in-law; the King- is one section of the subject which was Regent of Portugal, the Duke of Brabant, necessarily excluded by the plan of our Princess Clementine of France, daughter of paper, but it is too interesting to be enthe late King Louis Philippe, and the Arch-tirely passed over; we refer to the fortune

of the house of Bavaria, especially of its
Princesses.]

peror Napoleon, his chief object became to marry his children, especially his daughters, The founder of the royal house of Bavaria into powerful houses, so as to gain by family was Duke Luitpold of Wittelsbach, who alliances that influence which he could not lived in the beginning of the tenth century, hope to acquire by the mere strength of a and whose sons acquired some territory on newly-gained title. Accordingly, he offered the Eastern borders of the Rhine, and be- the eldest of his daughters, the Princess came Counts Palatine of Wittelsbach. But, Augusta, to Eugène de Beauharnais, the like all the other royal families of Germany, the adopted son of the French Emperor, who descendants of Luitpold, through the nonex- had just before been made Vice-King of Italy istence of a law of primogeniture, soon split and Grand Duke of Frankfort. This marinto numerous branches; and it was not riage having been concluded, the King manuntil the latter end of the eighteenth century aged, after much diplomatic maneuvering, to that they were reduced to the two lines still unite his second daughter, Princess Caroline, existing the Electoral house of Bavaria, to the Emperor Francis of Austria, then fifty and the Palatine family of Deau-Ponts. By years old. The Emperor had already buried the grace of Napoleon I., the Elector Maxi- three wives, the last of them only seven milian Joseph, head of the first-named family, months before this union with Princess Carowas made a King, in the year 1805, and re-line. To find a husband for the next Princeived together with his title a considerable cess, Elizabeth, was a still more difficult task increase of territory from the great dispenser of Continental thrones. It is with this Maximilian, the first King of Bavaria, that the modern and the interesting history of the royal house of Wittelsbach begins.

Elector Maximilian married twice: first, a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, by whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters; and secondly, a Princess of Baden, by whom also he had four children, all daughters. The individual fortunes of these three Princes and six Princesses illustrate in a singular manner the intimate and widespread connexions of the royal families of Europe. It is the four daughters of the second marriage that chiefly exhibit this marriage system. The two eldest of them, twin-sisters, born on the 13th November 1801, are now the Queens of Prussia and of Saxony; and the other two, also twin-sisters, born on the 27th January 1805, are the all-influential Archduchess Sophie, mother of the Austrian Emperor, and the Queen-dowager of Saxony. Thus, the daughters of the house of Bavaria have given fair promise to be for the Kings and Princes of Europe what the sons of the house of Coburg are to the Queens and Princesses. And in both cases the connecting medium of royalty was sought in a family of third-rate influence; for the house of Bavaria, at the time when these matrimonial connexions were formed, was as poor as the house of Coburg is even now.

After Maximilian had been, as we have said, created King of Bavaria by the EmDOCXXII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XX. 50

But

for the King of Bavaria; as we learn from
the Memoirs of the Prussian General Wol-
zogen; who, in the year 1819, came with his
pupil, the Crown Prince (the present King)
of Prussia, in the course of his European
travels to Munich. King Maximilian of
Bavaria," says Herr von Wolzogen, "received
me in the most friendly manner, and invited
me to a private dinner. He there and then
confessed to me, that the dearest wish of his
heart consisted in marrying one of his daugh-
ters to the Crown Prince of Prussia.
this wish fulfilled, he said, he would die con-
tentedly, (dann würde er ruhig terben.).
Having sent for the Princesses, they all were
in turn presented to me; and although I
observed to his Majesty that my sole duty
consisted in giving instruction in the art of
war to the Prince Frederick William, and
not to seek a wife for him, his Majesty
smiled, and dismissed me in the most gra-
cious manner." So much royal perseverance
could not remain unrewarded, and accord-
ingly, a few years after this interview with
the worthy Herr von Wolzogen, the Crown
Prince of Prussia was married to Princess.
Elizabeth. Her twin-sister, Amélie, had been
united, a short time before, to Prince John of
Saxony, who eventually became King Max-
imilian of Bavaria now had only to seek hus-
bands for the remaining two daughters; and
easily found them in Archduke Francis of
Austria, who married Princess Sophie, and
Prince Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who,
married Princess Marie, the twin-sister of