as was supposed, on a visit to Scarborough. The case became so serious that on November 29 the queen and Princess Alice hurried to Sandringham. On the 1st of December there was a slight rally, but on the 8th so serious a relapse occurred that for some days the prince’s life was despaired of. Under the skilful treatment of Sir William Jenner, Sir William Gull and Sir James Paget, however, the crisis was surmounted by December 16, and by Christmas day the danger was regarded as virtually over. On the 27th of February 1872 a thanksgiving was held at St Paul’s, amid imposing demonstrations of public joy.
In January 1874 the prince of Wales attended the marriage at St. Petersburg of his brother, the duke of Edinburgh, with the grand-duchess Marie of Russia. In the same year he paid a historic visit to Birmingham, where Mr Joseph Chamberlain, not yet a member of parliament, received him officially as mayor. In March 1875 it was officially announced that he would make a visit to India, carrying out an idea originally conceived by the first Indian viceroy, Earl Canning. He was supposed to travel as heir-apparent, not as representative of the queen; but the characters could not be kept apart, and in fact the prince’s visit was a political event of great importance. Leaving England on October 11, he was received at Bombay by the viceroy, Lord Northbrook. Here he met a very large number of Indian feudatory princes, whose acquaintance he subsequently improved by visiting at their courts during the seventeen weeks which he spent in the country. During these four months the prince travelled nearly 8000 m. by land and 2500 m. by sea, became acquainted with more rajahs than had all the viceroys who had reigned over India, and saw more of the country than any living Englishman. The visit led up to the queen’s assumption of the title of empress of India in the following year.
The prince’s life after this date was full of conspicuous public appearances. In 1885 he visited Ireland at a time of much political excitement, and was received enthusiastically in many quarters and without symptoms of ill-will in any. In 1886 he filled the presidency of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, opened the Mersey Tunnel, and laid the first stone of the Tower Bridge. In 1887 a large share of the arrangements for the queen’s Jubilee devolved upon him. On the 27th of July 1589 his eldest daughter, Princess Louise, was married to the duke of Fife. In the autumn he paid a semi-incognito visit to Paris, where he was always highly popular, viewed the Exhibition, and ascended the Eiffel Tower. In 1890 he opened the Forth Bridge. On the 14th of January 1892, however, a heavy blow fell upon him and his house by the death of his eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, duke of Clarence, after a brief illness. The young prince, who with his brother George had made the tour of the world (1879–1882) in H.M.S. “Bacchante,” and after a short career at Oxford and Cambridge was just settling down to play his part in public life, had recently become engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (b. May 26, 1867), and the popularity of the heir to the crown had been increased by the expression of his satisfaction at his son’s bride being an English princess. On the 6th of July 1893 the broken thread was reunited by her marriage to Prince George, duke of York.
The year 1894 was a busy one for the prince of Wales, who became a member of the royal commission on the housing of the poor, opened the Tower Bridge, attended the Welsh Eisteddfod and was duly initiated, and paid two visits to Russia—one for the marriage of the grand-duchess Xenia, the other for the funeral of the tsar, his brother-in-law. In 1896 he became first chancellor of the university of Wales, and his first act after his installation at Aberystwyth was to confer an honorary degree upon the princess. He had already been for some years a trustee of the British Museum. On the 22nd of July 1896 his daughter. Princess Maud, was married to Prince Charles of Denmark, who in 1905 was offered and accepted the crown of the new kingdom of Norway. The arrangements for the queen’s Jubilee of 1897 depended upon the prince even more than those of the corresponding celebration in 1887: he rode on the queen’s right at the great procession to St Paul’s, and as an admiral of the fleet presided at the naval review at Spithead. In July 1898 the prince had the misfortune to fracture his knee-cap while on a visit to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, but completely recovered from the effects of the accident. In December 1899, while passing through Brussels on his way to St Petersburg, he was fired at by a miserable lad named Sipido, crazed by reading anarchist literature. Fortunately no injury was done.
It was the especial distinction of Albert Edward, while prince of Wales, to have been a substantial support of the throne before he was called upon to fill it. This cannot be said of any of his predecessors except Edward the Black Prince. He was exemplary in the discharge of his public duties, and in his scrupulous detachment from party politics. He was a keen patron of the theatre, and his thoroughly British taste for sport was as pronounced as his inclination for most of the contemporary amusements of society. The “Tranby Croft Case” (1890), in which Sir William Gordon Cumming brought an unsuccessful libel action for having been accused of cheating at a game of baccarat, caused some comment in connexion with the prince’s appearance in the witness-box on behalf of the defendants. But it did him no disservice with the people to have twice won the Derby with his horses Persimmon (1896) and Diamond Jubilee (1900)—his third victory, in 1909, with Minoru, being the first occasion on which the race had been won by a reigning sovereign; and his interest in yacht-racing was conspicuously shown at all the important fixtures, his yacht “Britannia” being one of the best of her day. His activity in the life of the nation may be illustrated by his establishment (1897) of the Prince of Wales’s (afterwards King Edward’s) Hospital Fund, his devotion to the cause of Masonry (he was first elected grand master of the Freemasons of England in 1874), and his position as a bencher of the Middle Temple, where he also became (1887) treasurer.
On the death of Queen Victoria on the 22nd of January 1901, the question what title the new king would assume was speedily set at rest by the popular announcement that he would be called Edward the Seventh. The new reign began auspiciously by the holding of a privy council at St James’s Palace, at which the king announced his intention to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and to govern as a constitutional sovereign, and received the oaths of allegiance. On the 14th of February the king and queen opened parliament in state. Shortly afterwards it was announced that the visit of the duke and duchess of York to Australia, in order to inaugurate the new Commonwealth, which had been sanctioned by Queen Victoria, would be proceeded with; and on the 16th of March they set out on board the “Ophir” with a brilliant suite. The tour lasted till November 1, the duke and duchess having visited Australia, New Zealand, the Cape and Canada; and on their return the king, on November 9, created the duke prince of Wales and earl of Chester. Meanwhile parliament had settled the new civil list at £470,000 a year, and the royal title had been enlarged to include the colonial empire by an act enabling the king to style himself “Edward VII., by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of all the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.” At the end of May 1902 the long-drawn-out war in South Africa came at last to an end, and the coronation was fixed for the 26th of June. But on the 24th, amid general consternation, the king was announced to be suffering from perityphlitis, necessitating the immediate performance of an operation; and the coronation, for which unprecedented preparations had been made, had to be postponed. The operation—performed by Sir Frederick Treves—was, however, so marvellously successful, and the king’s progress towards recovery so rapid and uninterrupted, that within a fortnight he was pronounced out of danger, and soon afterwards it was decided to hold the coronation service on August 9. Though shorn of much of the magnificence which would have been added to it in June by the presence of foreign royalties and the preparations for a great procession through London, the solemnity duly took place on that date in Westminster Abbey amid great
