THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE—H. R. H. THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE, AND THE PRINCESS MARY OF CAMBRIDGE. (Hansard, 23 July 1850)

§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE

said, that their Lordships were aware that there was a Bill before the other House of Parliament to give 6,000l. a year to the Duchess of Cambridge, 12,000l. a year to the Duke of Cambridge, and 3,000l. a year to the Princess Mary of Cambridge. It was hardly necessary that he should call their Lordships' attention to the circumstances of the case. He believed that there could he hut one feeling among their Lordships on the subject. He should therefore move, "That an bumble Address be presented to Her Majesty, to return Her Majesty the thanks of the House for Her Majesty's most gracious Message, and to assure Her Majesty that the House would avail itself of every opportunity to manifest its dutiful attachment to Her Majesty's person, and its readiness to concur in all measures necessary to carry into effect the object mentioned in Her Majesty's Message."

LORD BROUGHAM

could not suffer this Motion to pass without giving—as he had always done both in that House and in the House of Commons, whenever any money vote was proposed for any branch of the illustrious family on the Throne—expression to his opinion that so long as a certain impolitic and unchristian law remained on the Statute-book, which restrained members of the Royal Family from marrying whom they pleased, it was but an act of strict justice that Parliament should provide for them. But for the existence of that law, the younger branches of that illustrious house would undoubtedly marry into the wealthest families in the kingdom; and it was but reasonable that Parliament, 138 which forced them to contract marriages with foreigners, should make a competent provision.