The sovereignty of England and Hanover severed forever--Funeral of King
William IV. at Windsor--The Queen and her household remove to Buckingham
Palace--She dissolves Parliament--Glowing account of the scene by a
contemporary Journal--Charles Sumner a spectator--His eulogy of the
Queen's reading.


Ever since the accession to the throne of Great Britain of the House of
Brunswick, the Kings of England had also been Kings of Hanover. To carry
on the two branches of the royal business simultaneously must have been a
little difficult, at least perplexing. It was like riding a "two-horse
act," with a wide space between the horses, and a wide difference in
their size. But the Salic law prevailed in that little kingdom over
there; so its Crown now gently devolved on the head of the male heir-
apparent, the Duke of Cumberland, and the quaint old principality parted
company with England forever. That is what Her Majesty, Victoria, got, or
rather lost, by being a woman. A day or two after her accession, King
Ernest called at Kensington Palace to take leave of the Queen, and she
dutifully kissed her uncle and brother-sovereign, and wished him God-
speed and the Hanoverians joy.

There is no King and no kingdom of Hanover now. When Kaiser William was
consolidating so many German principalities into his grand empire, gaily
singing the refrain of the song of the old sexton, "_I gather them in!
I gather them in!_" he took Hanover, and it has remained under the
wing of the great Prussian eagle ever since. It is said that the last
King made a gallant resistance, riding into battle at the head of his
troops, although he was blind--too blind, perhaps, to see his own
weakness. When his throne was taken out from under him, he still clung to