e equally descended. The blood of princes, they
thought, would be contaminated by any admixture with less precious
blood, and especially with that which could not substantiate its claim
to pure nobility. Such blood, they imagined, could not be found in all
England, but the families out of which the royal dukes had chosen
their wives were especially deficient in aristocratic pretensions; the
Luttrells being an undistinguished stock of Irish Protestants, and the
Countess Dowager Waldegrave, the natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole.
Under these circumstances, the royal dukes were forbidden the court, and
his majesty sent a message to both houses of parliament, importing that
he thought it would be wise and expedient to render effectual, by some
new provision, the right of the sovereign to approve all marriages in
the royal family. In consequence of this message, a bill was brought
into the house of lords, by which it was declared that no member of the
royal family, being under twenty-five years of age, should marry without
the king's consent; and that after attaining that age, they were at
liberty, if the king refused his consent, to apply to the privy council,
by announcing the name of the person they wished to espouse, and if,
within a year, neither house of parliament should address the king
against it, then the marriage might be legally solemnised. The bill
further declared that all persons assisting in, or knowing of any
intention in any member of the royal family to marry without fulfilling
these ceremonies, and not disclosing it, incurred the penalties of a
premunire. The bill encountered a violent opposition in the house of
lords, but it was carried by a large majority, and then sent down to the
commons. In the commons it was opposed with still greater violence: it
being denounced by Burke and various speakers as cruel and oppressive,
and as being calculated to extend the dangerous power of ministers and
the limits of prerogative. The bill was, however, carried by a majority
of forty members. In the house of lords, nineteen peers entered a
long protest, declaring that if the bill passed into a law, it would,
nevertheless, be void. The excitement out of doors on the subject was
scarcely less violent than that within the house. It was said there,
that the bill should be entitled "an act for encouraging fornication
and adultery in the descendants of George, II." As for the Duke of
Gloucester, in the course of the spri