The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 64, February, 1863 by Various
page 11 of 277 (03%)
page 11 of 277 (03%)
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principles, as well he might be; for while the father was a model of
decorum, and a bitter Tory, the son was a profligate, and a Whig,--and the King probably found it harder to forgive the Whig than the profligate. The Prince cared no more for Whig principles than he did for his marriage-vows, but affected them as a means of annoying his father, whose Toryism was of proof. He, as a man, toasted the buff and blue, when that meant support of Washington and his associates, for the same reason that, as a boy, he had cheered for Wilkes and Liberty,--because it was the readiest way of annoying his father; but he ever deserted the Whigs when his aid and countenance could have been useful to them. George IV. had no child with whom to quarrel, but while Prince Regent he did his worst to make his daughter unhappy, as we find established in Miss Knight's Memoirs. The good-natured and kind-hearted William IV. had no legitimate children, but he was strongly attached to the Fitzclarences, who were borne to him by Mrs. Jordan. Indeed, monarchs have often been as full of love for their offspring born out of wedlock as of hate for their children born in that holy state. Being men, they must love something, and what so natural as that they should love their natural children, whose helpless condition appeals so strongly to all their better feelings, and who never can become their rivals? Queen Victoria is the first sovereign of the House of Hanover who, having children, has not pained the world by quarrelling with them. A model sovereign, she has not allowed an infirmity supposed to be peculiar to her illustrious House to control her clear and just mind, so that her career as a mother is as pleasing as her career as a sovereign is splendid. About the time of the death of Prince Albert, a leading British journal published some articles in which it was insinuated, not asserted, that there had been trouble in the Royal |
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