What is all this perturbation about? Why are coroners’ inquests multiplied, and young women ruined, and infants murdered, and heads of households pressed for money till they think they have fallen on evil days? Why are we living under a perpetual sense of danger,—guarding against death by anxious precautions at the ironing-board, and by locking up every fire in the house? Why all these proposals of return to a system of caste, and to sumptuary taxation? Why all this arguing and disputing, and remonstrance,—this frail footing of peace at home, this sudden dislike of the freedom of the press and the independence of the working-classes,—this flagrant display of shameless selfishness and perilous self-will on the part of a class which bore a very different character twenty, and even ten, years ago? What is all this for? To enable a few of the women of England to wear, and to compel others to wear, skirts too heavy and large for use or beauty.
Will a future generation believe it? Is it credible to ourselves? Yet, I must say, from my own experience, it is too true. Here is a crowd of Englishwomen spontaneously speaking their minds: they all declare themselves “appalled” by the amount of murder committed by this fashion; and—they all avow their intention of adhering to and sustaining it! Heaven comfort them when they come to see what they have done!
MARRIAGES OF PRINCES OF WALES.
Just now, when the royal marriage is so much the topic of the day, a little gossip, gathered in the byways of history, concerning some other “auspicious events” of the same kind, may not be out of place. These events, however, have been by no means so frequent as one might naturally suppose. The Registrar-General, whose matter-of-fact eye looks upon matrimony as one of the exact sciences, tells us that, when a man is in receipt of a comfortable income, he is pretty sure to marry. But this rule, which is sound enough in regard to Brown, Jones, and Robinson, does not seem to apply to princes of the blood. Of the fourteen Princes of Wales, known to English history, only five married while holding that title. The others, excepting, of course, those who died at a tender age, disported freely in l’école buissonnière, and only consented to range themselves, as a duty to society, when they came to the throne.
The most famous of all the Princes of Wales, Edward the Black Prince, the third of the order, was the first who married as a prince; and few events in English history have taken such a hold on the mind of the people. For centuries it was one of the most attractive tales that could be told at our English fire-sides; and there was no chap-book with which the pedlars drove a better trade than that which commemorated the loves of Edward and Joan. The popularity of the story was no doubt attributable to the fame of the hero, the nationality of the heroine, and, above all, to the union having been a genuine love-match.
When the Prince was “a hopeful young gentleman” of fourteen years of age, there had been some talk of a marriage between him and Margaret of Brabant, an innocent little prattler only four years old. But, somehow or other, the proposal came to nought, probably on account of some question of dower; certainly, we may presume, not because the affections of the lady were pre-engaged.
Afterwards, when the Prince had distinguished himself by his valour and prowess in the field, the daughters of the kings of France and Portugal were successively suggested as suitable brides. But these schemes fell through, too, and when Edward came home, in 1361, from vanquishing the French, and proving what wonders a gallant leader can achieve with a handful of trusty men, he was still a bachelor. It is a question, however, how far his heart was free.
Joan of Kent, the lady to whose charms he now surrendered, must have been known to him from boyhood, for she was a relation of his own, being a grandchild of the same King Edward, whose great-grandchild he himself was. Joan’s early life was somewhat chequered. Betrothed as a girl to the heir to the earldom of Salisbury, she had afterwards married Sir Thomas Holland. Notwithstanding this second alliance, the Earl claimed her as his wife; and the intervention of the Pope was required to decide, authoritatively, to whom the Fair Maid of Kent really belonged. The Pontiff very properly pronounced that the marriage which had been carried into effect was the true one. In 1361, Sir Thomas had just died, and Joan was a widow, with four bouncing “encumbrances.” At this critical period of her fortunes she was fair, fat, and not far off forty (being thirty-three years of age). The Prince of Wales was two years her junior, and, like Launcelot, was one of “the goodliest men that ever among ladies eat in hall.”
Such was the pair. “He,” says the magniloquent old chronicler, “the glory of his sex for military performances and all princely virtues; and she, the flower of hers, for a most surprising beauty.”
But here the chronicle and the chap-book are somewhat at issue. The former represents Joan as a knowing, out-spoken widow, the other as quite a “gushing young thing.” Barnes says that when the Prince first spoke to Joan about love, it was while advocating the suit of another. After several times declaring her indifference to the Prince’s friend, the lady plainly expressed her preference for the Prince’s self, by telling him “with some warmth how, when she was under ward, she had been disposed of by others, but that now being at years of discretion, and mistress of her own actions, she would not cast herself beneath her rank; but, remembering she was of the blood royal of England, was resolved never to marry again but a prince of quality and virtue—like himself.” This was plain and pointed, certainly. The Prince could not affect to misunderstand it, and, being “an admirer of every gallant spirit,” was so pleased with the lady’s courageous candour, that “presently he returns her compliment with an affectionate kiss, and from that instant resolved to be her servant.”
