The Life of King Edward VII
presiding at a meeting of the National Lifeboat Institution and at the
one hundred and fifty-second anniversary festival of the Welsh Society
of Ancient Britons, on March 1st; a visit to the International
Exhibition at Paris in May; and the presence of the Prince at the laying
of the foundation stone of the Albert Hall, in London, later in the same
month. On July 10th His Royal Highness inaugurated the London
International College, which had been organized by Mr. Cobden and M.
Michel Chevalier, as a branch of an international institution. At the
luncheon were the Duc d'Aumale, the Prince de Joinville and the Comte de
Paris as well as Professor Huxley and Dr. Leonard Schmitz, the head of
the institution. In his speech the Prince pointed out the usefulness of
a College which would more or less devote itself to the teaching of
modern languages at a time when the interests of varied nationalities
were becoming so intermingled.
An interesting event occurred in July when Ismail Pasha, Khedive of
Egypt, visited England, as his father had done twenty-one years before.
At a banquet in the Mansion Home, on July 11th, a distinguished
gathering met to do him honour and amongst them were the Prince of
Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar and many men
eminent in politics and diplomacy. In his speech the Prince spoke of his
personal indebtedness to the late Khedive for kindness received during
his own visit to Egypt in 1862 and, also, of the national importance of
the facilities given by that country to England in the transit of troops
to India. He then referred to the illness of the Princess and to the
words in that connection used by the Lord Mayor. "I know I only express
her feelings when I say that she has been deeply touched by that
universal good feeling and sympathy which has been shown to her during
her long and painful illness. Thank God, she has now nearly recovered
and I trust that in a month's time she will be able to leave London and
enjoy the benefits of fresh air."
ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND
The Prince of Wales early in his public life showed his sympathy with
the people of Ireland. He had already visited Dublin in 1865 and, on
March 17, 1868, while planning a State visit to that country, attended a
brilliant celebration of the anniversary of St. Patrick's birth, in
Willis's Rooms, London. Amongst those present were the Archbishop of
Armagh, the Bishop of Derry, the Earl of Longford, the Earl of Mayo and
Lord Kimberley. The Prince, in his speech, expressed the belief that
despite disagreeable occurrences of the past few years the people of
Ireland generally were "thoroughly true and loyal." On April 15th the
Prince and Princess of Wales landed at Kingstown and were received with
tremendous acclaim. With his usual tact the Prince asked that no troops
should be present in the streets. The Princess, who was dressed in Irish
poplin, was presented with a white dove, emblematic of peace, and fairly
captured the hearts of the populace. The visit lasted ten days and
included amongst its functions a gorgeous installation of the Prince as
a Knight of St. Patrick, when he used the sword worn by George IV. on a
similar occasion; his presence at the Punchestown races--where the Royal
couple appeared in open carriages and received an enthusiastic welcome;
attendance at the Royal Hibernian Academy's rooms and at the Royal
Dublin Society's Conversazione; a visit to the Catholic University and
the receipt of an LL.D.--together with the Duke of Cambridge and Lord
Abercorn, the Lord Lieutenant--from Trinity College; a visit to the
Cattle Show and a Royal review of troops; attendance at Sunday service
in historic Christ Church; personal visits to Lord Powerscourt's
beautiful place in Wicklow and to the Duke of Leinster at Carton; a
formal visit to Maynooth College and the unveiling in Dublin of a statue
of Edmund Burke.
The London _Times_ described the crowded life of those ten days in
rather interesting language: "There were presentations and receptions,
and receiving and answering addresses, processions, walking, riding and
driving, in morning and evening, in military, academic and mediaeval
attire. The Prince had to breakfast, lunch, dine and sup with more or
less publicity every twenty-four hours. He had to go twice to races with
fifty or a hundred thousand people about him; to review a small army and
make a tour in the Wicklow Mountains, everywhere receiving addresses
under canopies and dining in state under galleries full of spectators.
He visited and inspected institutions, colleges, universities,
academies, libraries and cattle shows. He had to take a very active part
in assemblies of from several hundred to several thousand dancers and
always to select for his partners the most important personages. He had
to listen to many speeches sufficiently to know when and what to answer.
He had to examine with respectful interest pictures, books, antiquities,
relics, manuscripts, specimens, bones, fossils, prize beasts and works
of Irish art. He had never to be unequal to the occasion, however
different from the last, or however like the last, and whatever his
disadvantage as to the novelty or dullness of the matter and the scene."
On April 25th the Royal visitors returned to Holyhead and on their way
home stopped at Carnarvon, the birthplace of the first Prince of Wales,
where a banquet was received and a brief speech made by the living
successor of a great King's son. Among the incidents connected with this
visit was the fact that while the Prince was freely passing through and
amongst the people of the Irish capital his brother, the Duke of
Edinburgh, was shot at Clontarf, Australia, by an Irishman named
O'Farrell, while he was accepting the hospitality of a local Sailors'
Home. Another was the tact and judgment displayed by the Heir Apparent
in forwarding a cheque to the Dublin Hospital Sunday Fund after his
return home. This institution had then and has since exercised a most
beneficial effect upon Irish hospital affairs; but the marvel was that
the Prince should have found time amid his multifarious duties and
functions to look into its management and influence. May the 5th, saw
the Prince attending the sixty-second anniversary of the "Society of
Friends of Foreigners in Distress" and pointing out in a preliminary
speech that the Queen had taken deep interest in this charity ever since
her accession in 1837. In proposing the health of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, Sir Travers Twiss, the Advocate-General, said that
though it was not generally known, he would take the liberty of stating
that during His Royal Highness' Eastern travels he had passed through no
great city without visiting and helping any institutions which might
exist in aid of suffering humanity.
Eight days later the Prince presided at the annual banquet of the
Governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital--after visiting and inspecting
the wards. During the same day His Royal Highness attended a great state
function in the laying of the foundation of St. Thomas' Hospital by the
Queen in person. The last important matter in which the Prince took part
before leaving for his second Eastern tour was the laying of the
foundation stone of new buildings for Glasgow University on October 8th.
They cost over two millions of dollars and in the stately proceedings
accompanying this event, the Princess of Wales was able to participate.
From November 1868 to May 1869 the Royal couple were in the distant
East, but, on the Queen's birthday in the latter year, the Prince of
Wales was able to be present at the anniversary banquet of the Royal
Geographical Society and to receive congratulations on having been
instrumental in effecting the appointment of his late travelling
companion, Sir Samuel Baker, to the government of the Soudan region in
Africa, under the control of the Egyptian Government and with the object
of suppressing the slave trade. His Royal Highness warmly eulogized Sir
S. Baker--who had also just received the Society's medal for the
year--and the events of the evening were considered to have made the
occasion memorable. Prince Hassan of Egypt was present and amongst the
speakers were Sir Roderick Murchison, Admiral Sir George Back, Professor
Owen, the Duke of Sutherland, Dr. W. H. Russell, Sir Francis Grant
P.R.A., and Sir Henry Rawlinson.
The next two or three years saw the Prince participating in many public
and more or less important events. Accompanied by the Princess of Wales
he laid the foundation of new buildings in connection with the Earlswood
Asylum, in Surrey, on June 28, 1869. An incident of this event was not
only the usual gift of a hundred guineas by the Prince but a procession
of ladies who passed up to the dais in single file and deposited
upwards of four hundred purses, which they had collected for the
Charity, under the influence of Royal patronage and encouragement. On
July 7th Their Royal Highnesses visited Lynn, inaugurated the new
Alexandra Dock, and took part in several local events. A state visit to
Manchester followed, on July 29th, and the Prince opened the annual
exhibition of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, of which he was
President, and was given a warm welcome in and around the city. On the
succeeding day he inaugurated a new dock at Hull.
Meanwhile, on July 23rd, the Prince had visited London in order to
unveil a statue of George Peabody, the distinguished American
philanthropist. At the ceremony Sir Benjamin Phillips, Chairman of the
Committee, addressed the Prince formally and thus concluded: "Let us
hope that this statue, erected by the sons of free England to the honour
of one of Columbia's truest and noblest citizens, may be symbolical of
the peace and good will that exist between the two countries." In
replying His Royal Highness spoke of Mr Peabody as a great American
citizen and of his gift of over a quarter of a million pounds sterling
to the charities of a country not his own, as being unexampled, and
concluded as follows: "Be assured that the feelings which I personally
entertain toward America are the same as they ever were. I can never
forget the reception which I had there nine years ago and my earnest
wish and hope is that England and America may go hand in hand in peace
and prosperity." Following the example of King William IV., when Duke of
Clarence, and of the late Dukes of Kent, Sussex and Cambridge, the
Prince of Wales presided on November 30th at the anniversary banquet of
the Scottish Corporation--or as it was popularly called the Scottish
Hospital--in order to mark his approval of an institution which had done
much to assist, by means of pensions, poor and aged natives of Scotland
living in London; to afford temporary relief to Scotchmen in distress;
or to educate poor Scottish children. On this occasion there was a
large gathering which included Prince Christian and the Duke of
Roxburghe and, after a speech from the Prince describing the objects and
work of the institution, it was announced that $12,500 had been
specially subscribed to the purposes of the Hospital--including $500