LITTLE ROYALTIES.

OUR FUTURE KING. | HIS BROTHER ALBERT.

Illustrated with Special Photographs taken by F. & R. Speaight.

Even in the days when the Queen's children formed a charming group of young people, high-spirited, intelligent, and enjoying, according to many passages in the late Princess Alice's letters, an ideally happy childhood, British Royal Nurseries were not better filled than they are at present, for in the immediate Court circle there are many young people, not one of whom can be considered in any sense grown up.

PRINCESS VICTORIA OF YORK, HIS SISTER.

Prince Arthur of Connaught and his two sisters form the eldest group, being severally fifteen, sixteen, and twelve. The three children of the Duke of Connaught, though they are half German, for their mother was the daughter of the Red Prince, have received an entirely English form of education, Prince Arthur having been the first British Prince sent to Eton, and the two Princesses, Margaret and Louise, being educated at home, partly under their parents and partly under the Queen's supervision, for during the Duke and Duchess' stay in India their children remained in England, and so their short lives have been divided between Aldershot, Bagshot Park, and Windsor Castle.

To the same group of the Queen's British grandchildren may be said to belong the children of the late Duke of Albany and of Princess Henry of Battenberg. In each case they are much younger than Her Majesty's other grandchildren.

There is something very pathetic in the position of the Duchess of Albany: left a widow within two years of her marriage, and obliged, by the circumstances of her position, to remain in a foreign country, finding her only solace and interest in her two children, to whom she has proved a model mother. Till last year, when the Prince entered Mr. Benson's popular house at Eton, Princess Alice and her young brother had never been separated for a single day. In this connection it may be stated that the Royal Princes when at school lead exactly the same lives as do other Eton boys. They are addressed by their masters and by their school-fellows as "Connaught" and "Albany," and though, as is natural, they generally spend any half-holidays at Windsor Castle, the Queen is most particular never to ask them out of hours, or to treat them in a way calculated to make them feel themselves favoured above the other boys.

PRINCESS MARGARET OF CONNAUGHT. PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT. LADIES ALEXANDRA AND MAUD DUFF. PRINCESS LOUISE OF CONNAUGHT. PRINCESS ALICE OF ALBANY. THE DUKE OF ALBANY.

The portraits of the Prince and Princesses of Connaught were specially taken by Mr. R. Speaight for this article, and most of the others taken by the same photographer are published by special permission of the Royal parents.

Princess Alice of Albany's great friend is her first cousin, the young Queen of Holland, and this in spite of the fact that she is three years younger than the girl-monarch. The Duchess of Albany has remained on very intimate terms with her sister, the Queen-mother of the Netherlands, and there has always been a constant interchange of visits between Claremont and the Dutch Court; indeed, the Duke and Princess Alice of Albany are the only members of the British Royal Family who can speak Dutch fluently, that language having been taught them by their Queen-cousin.

The four children of Princess Henry of Battenberg have had their childhood sadly shadowed by the death of their father, to whom they were all devotedly attached. In one matter their position differs very much from that of the other Royal children: that is, they have been thrown into peculiarly close relations with their venerable grandmother, and it is perhaps owing to this fact that the only girl among them, Princess Victoria Eugénie, is, although only eleven years old, said to be exceptionally intelligent and grown-up for her age.

Of Princess Beatrice's three sons, the eldest, Prince Alexander Albert, who is just twelve years old, is at school at Lyndhurst, but next year he will join the Britannia, for, like his uncle Prince Louis of Battenberg, he is very fond of the sea and wishes to enter the British Navy. Prince Leopold and Prince Maurice are too young for it to have been yet decided what career they will follow, but they will each enter a profession, for their position is a somewhat peculiar one. Unlike the young Duke of Albany, who was a peer from the moment of his birth, the children of Princess Beatrice have no legal rank, and their father, the late Prince Henry, was even desirous that they should not be habitually given the title of "Prince" or "Princess."

PRINCE GEORGE OF TECK.

In this matter, however, the Queen overruled his objection, though, curiously enough, Her Majesty did not seem desirous of doing so in the case of the children of the Duke and Duchess of Fife, notwithstanding the fact that when the elder, Lady Alexandra, was born she was considerably nearer the throne than had been Queen Victoria herself at the moment of her birth. The question of whether the eldest grandchild of the Prince and Princess of Wales should or should not be given the title of "Royal Highness" was actually discussed at some length, but as both the Duke and Duchess of Fife were very anxious that their child should only bear the title and have the precedence accorded to a Duke's daughter, the matter was arranged that way. Subsequent events—that is, the birth of the Duke and Duchess of York's three children—have proved how wisely the parents of Lady Alexandra Duff acted in this matter. As it is, the Ladies Alexandra and Maud Duff are in the happy position of having all the privileges and none of the responsibility of Royal birth. They are so far the only younger members of the Royal Family who have never been out of the United Kingdom, their lives having been spent between London, Norfolk, and Scotland. They are being brought up in the very simplest fashion compatible with their rank; indeed, the only public appearance, since her birth, made by Lady Alexandra was when she acted as bridesmaid to her aunt Princess Maud of Wales.

Of course, from many points of view, by far the most important group of Royal children is that composed of the two little sons and of the baby daughter of the heir-presumptive. Owing to the sad death of the Duke of Clarence there are only three lives between little Prince Edward of York and the throne, and far more care has been bestowed upon his education and general upbringing than is generally the case even with Royal children of so tender an age, for our King to be will not be five years old until the 23rd of next June.

THE BATTENBERGS. PRINCESS VICTORIA. PRINCE ALEXANDER. PRINCE LEOPOLD. PRINCE MAURICE.

As his names, Edward, Andrew, Patrick, and David, indicate, his grandparents and parents were anxious that the Prince should, from his birth, belong rather to the nation than to his family. It was seriously proposed that he should share the Queen's carriage on Diamond Jubilee Day, but the idea was given up when it was realised that the long slow drive through the streets of London would be a terrible ordeal for a three-year-old baby; thus, although little Prince Edward's Jubilee clothes were actually prepared, he only wore them at home, to the disappointment of his young mother, who would have liked her son to have gone down in history as having taken part in so great and noteworthy a pageant.

The Duke of York's second son, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, was born on the anniversary of the deaths of the Prince Consort and of Princess Alice, and so was three years old on the 14th of last December. Two years younger is Princess Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary, the youngest but not the least of Her Majesty's British great-grandchildren.

The child of Prince Adolphus of Teck—whose wife, it will be remembered, was Lady Margaret Grosvenor, a daughter of the Duke of Westminster—is Royal in the same sense as are the Ladies Alexandra and Maud Duff, and it is rather interesting to note that the three children all stand in the same intimate relationship to the future King of England, though even Prince Edward of York was not legally entitled to the name of "Royal Highness" until a special decree was passed in favour of all the children of the Duke of York.

A word on Royal children from the photographer's point of view.

Mr. Richard Speaight of Regent Street, who took all our photographs except those of the Duke of Albany and his sister Princess Alice of Albany, which were taken by Messrs. Gunn and Stuart of Richmond, speaks enthusiastically of them—and he is now quite a connoisseur of children.

He says he is always struck by the natural and careful way in which the children are brought up. The younger ones are always most obedient to their nurses, and they, on the other hand, are very jealous in guarding their Royal charges. They do not even allow them to sit to be photographed without hiding behind to hold them in case they should fall.

The photographs of the Duke of York's children were taken at Sandringham. They took great delight in the musical and clockwork toys which Mr. Speaight took with him; and when the operation was finished, Prince Edward, shaking hands with his photographer, thanked him for the trouble he had taken.

THE COVER FOR BINDING OUR FIRST VOLUME. Order at once.

Here is a small facsimile of the charming cover which has been designed for binding the first volume of The Harmsworth Magazine, which is completed with the issue of this number.

The colour of the cover is a very pretty pale green, and the ornamentation is very dainty in gold and black.

The design is copyright, and any local bookbinder infringing it will be prosecuted. The initials of Harmsworth Bros., "H. B.," will be found on the back and side of every genuine cover, and none should be accepted without them.

THIS IS A SKETCH OF THE PRETTY COVER FOR BINDING OUR FIRST VOLUME.

This cover can be obtained from any bookseller or newsman, price 1s. 3d., or it will be sent, post free, on receipt of 1s. 6d., on application to the Publisher, Harmsworth Bros., Ltd., 24, Tudor Street, E.C.

An Index to the volume is also now ready, price threepence.

Everyone should bind the six numbers of The Harmsworth Magazine, for they make a most delightful, attractive, and interesting volume.