Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/352

344 reign, there was an approach towards a grant of popular rights in Denmark; and the present king, Frederick VII., granted in 1848 a species of parliament, by which the country is better prepared than ever before for any action which may be necessary against the encroachments which the German Powers attempt from time to time.

This liability on the side of Germany is the ground on which some people cry out against the proposed marriage of our Prince. Others, who persist in the dread of Russia, which certainly need not trouble us much at present, object to the alliance on account of the chance of a Russian succession in Denmark. There is a satisfactory answer to both; and if the marriage had been a political scheme, instead of a natural love-affair between two amiable young people, it might have been considered a wise and good measure in a public sense.

I need not go into the story which most of us find rather tiresome, of the Holstein controversy. The leading points are enough;—that the German Powers want to interfere in Denmark on account of the German character of the Holstein people; that they endeavour to assume that the province of Schleswig is under the same conditions as Holstein, whereas Schleswig is a Danish province altogether, though a small proportion of the inhabitants speak German, and are German in their ways;—that Prussia and Austria have made one war of late years, for the annexation of Holstein to Germany; and that they are incessantly threatening to renew the attack, with an undisguised aim of dismembering the kingdom of Denmark; so that, at this moment, every Dane is aware that there is a great struggle ahead for the honour and integrity of his country, in which there would be little hope but for the countenance of other nations, and for the disunion which prevails among the German Powers. Prussia is now the Power which menaces; and the aggressive temper of Prussia towards Denmark threatens the peace of Europe almost as formidably as the Italian difficulty and the Eastern question.

At this very juncture, our Princess Royal, the Crown Princess of Prussia, is understood to have been the chief mover in bringing together her brother and the daughter of the future King of Denmark. To most people’s minds this is delightful. It shows that the private happiness of the young people is the first consideration: and, if we are to look at the matter in a political light, it certainly appears to reasonable people that the best chance of a pacific arrangement arises from the knitting of a family bond between the royal houses of Prussia and Denmark. It is impossible to help thinking that the next heir to the Prussian throne must be kindly disposed towards the Danish house, while desiring a marriage between that and the English royal family.

“O! but,” say the croakers, “this Danish princess is herself of a German family. The people of Denmark hate the Germans; and this marriage must therefore be disagreeable to them, as a direct countenance of German pretensions. They hate the existing settlement of the Crown; and they will believe that England is enlisted on the side of their enemies, if the proposed marriage takes place.” This croak brings us up to the other dismal view,—the dread of Russian relations with Denmark.

It has been a great misfortune to Denmark that there has been a repeated failure of male heirs to the throne. There was no male heir for a century after the death of Christopher III., in 1448; and for some time past there has again been difficulty and danger to the State from the same cause. It is not to be wondered at; for marriages of consanguinity have been far too common in the royal house of Denmark; and deterioration of the quality of families, and troubles about succession, are the proper consequences of such marriages. One of the best features of the proposed connection is, there being no relationship in the case; and where the choice is so restricted as that of royal children is by our Royal Marriage Act, and by state religion and policy all over Europe, it is a great blessing that our Prince will marry a Protestant princess out of a fresh family, who will bring new blood into our royal house. Denmark, meantime, is suffering from failure of male heirs. The reigning King is old, and long ago made a left-handed marriage. The Hereditary Prince is old, and has no heirs. When it was clear that none were to be expected, the chief Powers of Europe entered upon a consultation as to how the succession was to be arranged, so as to preclude civil and international strife when the two childless princes should die. The result was the Treaty of May 8th, 1852, by which it was agreed by England, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Norway, and Denmark, that succession by the female line was inadmissible, and that therefore the House of Glücksborg must succeed. This is the family which is cried out upon as German, and as standing between the Danish and the Russian throne. Next to the Glücksborg princes, we are told, stands the Czar; and then follows a dismal picture of the state of Europe in general, and England in particular, when the Czar shall have absorbed Denmark, and laid his grasp on the entrance to the Baltic. A very few words will disperse these ingenious fears. The Second Article of the Treaty provides for another consultation being held, and another settlement made, in case of any probability of a failure of male heirs in the Glücksborg line. Thus, all the great Powers of Europe stand between the Russian family and the throne of Denmark.

Glücksborg is in Schleswig: and those who choose to class Schleswig with Holstein, and to claim a German mode of government for it, choose also to consider its princes German. That house is allied with Hesse Cassel; but not only have Glücksborg wives come from Hesse, but Hessian spouses have come from Denmark. We consider our royal family English, though they have been abundantly connected with Germany, besides coming from thence within a century and a half. The Princess who is coming to us is rather less than more German than the Prince of Wales, whose father and grandmother were German. It would be enough to say that his wife becomes English by her marriage with the future King of England; but it is also true that she is Danish, by every qualification of Nature and of training.