Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/19

Rh Queens Regnant we have had three of eminent distinction as compared with any other Sovereign; and of these three, one ranks with the very greatest of the statesmen who deserve to be remembered as the Makers of England.

Something more can be claimed than that the Salic law did not prevent the overthrow of the French monarchy. It is probably that the female succession to the throne did save the English monarchy in 1837. Failing the Queen, the next heir would have been the Duke of Cumberland, and from all the records of the time, it does not suffice to say that he was unpopular, he was simply hated,and with justice. He appears to have conceived it to be his function in Hanover "to cut the wings of the democracy;" if he had succeeded to the English throne and adopted the same policy here, he would have brought the whole fabric of the monarchy about his ears. He was equally without private and public virtues. The Duke of Wellington once asked George IV. why the Duke of Cumberland was so unpopular. The King replied, "Because there never was a father well with his son, or husband with his wife, or lover with his mistress, or friend with his friend, that he did not try to make mischief between them."

The political power which has in various countries devolved on queens calls to mind one thing that ought to be remembered in discussions upon the hereditary principle in government. Within its own prescribed limitations it applies the democratic maxim, la carrière ouverte aux talents, much more completely than any nominally democratic form of government, and thus has repeatedly given, in our own history, a chance to an able woman to prove that in statesmanship, courage, sense of responsibility, and devotion to duty, she is capable of ruling in such