s brother) married another daughter of Louis Philippe, the
Princess Clementine, while Prince Augustus's sister, Victoria, married
the Duc de Nemours, a son of Louis Philippe. Another nephew, Duke
Friedrich Wilhelm Alexander, son of the Duchess of Wuertemberg, married
the Princess Marie, another daughter of Louis Philippe.

Thus Queen Victoria was closely allied with the royal families of
France, Portugal, Belgium, Saxe-Coburg, and Wuertemberg.

On turning to the immediate Royal Family of England, it will be seen
that the male line at the time of the Queen's accession was limited to
the sons, both named George, of two of the younger brothers of George
IV., the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge. The sons of George III.
played their part in the national life, shared the strong interest in
military matters, and showed the great personal courage which was a
tradition of the family.

[Pageheading: THE ENGLISH ROYAL FAMILY]

It must be borne in mind that abstention from active political life
had been in no sense required, or even thought desirable, in members
of the Royal House. George III. himself had waged a life-long struggle
with the Whig party, that powerful oligarchy that since the accession
of the House of Hanover had virtually ruled the country; but he did
not carry on the conflict so much by encouraging the opponents of the
Whigs, as by placing himself at the head of a monarchical faction. He
was in fact the leader of a third party in the State. George IV. was
at first a strong Whig, and lived on terms of the greatest intimacy
with Charles James Fox; but by the time that he was thirty, he had
severed the connection with his former political friends, which had
indeed originally arisen more out of his personal opposition to his
father than from any political convictions. After this date he became,
with intervals of vacillation, an advanced Tory of an illiberal
type. William IV. had lived so much aloof from politics before his
accession, that he had had then no very pronounced opinions, though he
was believed to be in favour of the Reform Bill; during his reign his
Tory sympathies became more pronounced, and the position of the Whig
Ministry was almost an intolerable one. His other brothers were men
of decided views, and for the most part of high social gifts. They not
only attended debates in the House of Peers, but spoke with emotion
and vigour; they held political interviews with leading statesmen, and
considere