Etiquette and Royal Titles

To marry a Princess does not make a man a Prince, and royal etiquette thinks nothing of putting asunder bride and bridegroom.

To Marry a Princess Does Not Make a Man a Prince

Describing the scene at the dedication of the Royal Albert Hall, in London, our correspondent says :

The Queen came at 12:30. What the programme said should be done was done, the Prince of Wales and the rest of the committee receiving her Majesty as she descended from her carriage, and escorting her to the door, through which the great multitude of hushed spectators were waiting to see her appear. As she entered, the whole audience rose and organ and orchestra broke out together in the strains of the national anthem. For a moment the Queen halted on the upper step and just within the curtained doorway, courtesying low to the silent homage which the great audience was paving. Then she advanced, conducted by the Prince of Wales, quite slowly down the center of the hall between the lines of yeomen.

She wore, as she always wears, a black dress; this time a plain mourning dress of black silk, with black bonnet and gloves. The Princess of Wales followed in a robe of ruby colored velvet, and bonnet of the same. Her husband came as Colonel of Hussars, in a jacket laced and frogged as only hussar jackets in this world are, not suiting his stout figure. The Princess was accompanied by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, in what looked like an Austrian cavalry uniform, all white. The Princess of Wales is pretty and popular, but to-day most eyes are turned on the figure that follows, all clad in white silk, with vail and bonnet of white, and a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead.

It is the bride of last week, the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, by whose side walks her brother, Prince Arthur, not her husband. For to marry a Princess does not make a man a Prince, and royal etiquette thinks nothing of putting asunder bride and bridegroom. The Marquis, looking more boyish than ever, walks some ranks behind his wile, stands apart from her when they have reached the dais, and afterward, when the whole party go up to their boxes, cannot even sit in the same box with her. Nobody seems to be troubled about it, yet there in the cabinet-box yet there is that proud Duke of Argyll looking down on the curious scene, and one would really like to know what he thinks of the social law that ranges his son so far below his son's wife. – Sacramento Daily Union, 1871

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