The Life of King Edward VII
Hirsch, on his great Hungarian estates, he had hunted deer, chamois,
wild boar and roebuck, as he had shot game in America, hunted tigers and
elephants in India, shot crocodiles in Egypt and hunted in the forests
of Ceylon or Denmark.
CHAPTER XIV.
Habits and Character of the Prince
During forty years of his career as Prince of Wales, King Edward VII.
was probably the most talked-of man in the United Kingdom. Good-natured
stories, ill-natured anecdotes, criticisms grading down from the
malicious to the very mild, praise ranging from the fulsome to the
feeble point, falsehoods great and falsehoods small, have found currency
not confined to the English language and ranging through "yarns" of
gutter journals in London, Paris, Berlin, New York or Calcutta, in
varied languages, and in many degrees of fabrication. Outside of the
United Kingdom some of these stories have been more or less believed;
even in his own national home there were always people ready and willing
to accept the worst that they heard about a great public personage.
Where he was known best, however, the influence of these things upon the
reputation of the Prince of Wales was least and, in fact, so small as to
afford little or no excuse for dealing with them. Abroad, however, it
had always been different, and in the United States, thirty years before
his accession to the Throne, it was conspicuously so. With the passing
years, of course, and with growing knowledge of the Prince's position
and character, the situation greatly changed.
As a matter of fact the Prince of Wales, from the early days of his
manhood, was in his personal and private relations a jovial, honest and
honourable English gentleman; possessed of a full sense of his
responsibility in much burdensome work and ceremonial and with a
growing appreciation, as years passed, of his place as a sort of
impartial Empire statesman; possessed, also, of a large fund of animal
spirits and capacity for enjoying the pleasures of life. Within the full
limits of his rights and his position he lived his life of work and
pleasure, of public responsibility and of private rest and recreation.
Yet it was almost always in the blaze of a noon-day publicity and few,
indeed, were the times and seasons in which the Heir Apparent could
amuse himself in any genuine _incognito_. Attempt it he might, but if
any evil-minded critic were to seriously or conscientiously consider the
situation--both of which suppositions are improbable--he might have seen
that the best-known and most photographed man in the world would indeed
have been foolish to trust to an _incognito_ for any but the simplest
and most innocent of objects. The actual impossibility of the Prince of
Wales escaping from his _entourage_, his identity, and his surroundings,
were sufficient to make Continental fictions and foreign fancies about
him absolutely farcical to those who knew something of his daily
life--aside altogether from those who knew and understood his real
character.
THE MORDAUNT CASE
There was only one matter involving moral considerations which ever
emerged from the low region of back-door insinuation to the upper air
and it was threshed out in a _cause celebre_--that of Lady Mordaunt. Her
husband, an English baronet, sued for divorce before the Court of
Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, alleging the usual grounds, and naming
as co-respondents, Viscount Cole and Sir Frederick Johnstone. The case
was heard on February 16th, 1870, and following days, and the defence on
the part of Lady Mordaunt was insanity. The Prince of Wales, though not
specified in the indictment, was so widely gossiped about as being
connected with the case that he asked to be heard and swore positively
that there had been no improper relations between himself and the
defendant. Two of the Judges on Appeal--Lord Penzance and Mr. Justice
Keating--agreed with the jury's verdict that Lady Mordaunt was insane,
while Chief Baron Kelly differed. The woman in the case was for years
afterwards confined in a lunatic asylum, and it has long since been
quite well understood that the only basis for scandal was the fact that
a Royal visit which had been paid upon one occasion was made under the
invariable rule of etiquette, which prescribes that no other caller
shall be received while the visit lasts. Before and after the trouble
Lady Mordaunt's sisters, and especially the Dowager Countess of Dudley,
were amongst the Princess of Wales' warm friends, while the daughter of
the plaintiff in the case was, in later years, received at Sandringham,
and was given many beautiful presents by the members of the Royal family
upon her marriage to the Marquess of Bath. Such conditions would have
been absolutely impossible to imagine with the Princess of Wales had she
entertained the slightest belief in the stories floating about regarding
that famous trial. During the succeeding thirty years, however, there
was never even an apparent excuse for the repetition of such stories,
and the happy home life of the Prince and Princess was patent to all who
were willing to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears.
What may be said of the characteristics and habits of this many-sided
heir to Royal position? Probably his first and most pronounced quality
was one of difficult definition--tactfulness. Through its means he led
society without rivalry and with unique success; promoted reforms
without violence of agitation or the creation of antagonisms; carried
out countless varied and delicate duties, with noiseless celerity, in an
age of intense and active curiosity. In forty years of ceaseless
political change and frequently acute political crises not a whisper of
his private views became known to the million-tongued press or the
curious public. He had known every kind of partisan and been liked by
leaders of the masses as well as the classes--by Joseph Arch and Henry
Broadhurst, as well as by the Earl of Derby or the Marquess of
Salisbury. If he visited Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden on one occasion he
paid the same honour to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden at another time.
If Lord Randolph Churchill was a personal friend so also was Lord
Rosebery, or Mr. Balfour. His genial manner and sometimes cosmopolitan
view of society encouraged a popular opinion as to his natural
democracy; while a personal dignity, never forced, or assumed, but
always present, prevented the most courageous person from taking undue
advantage of the freedom from ceremonial which he sometimes liked to
encourage. His preferences in international matters were as little known
as his political opinions, and yet, at times, his influence in this
respect was very great.
SPORTING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRINCE
The next and perhaps most prominent characteristic of the Prince of
Wales was his love for sports and his embodiment of qualities which, in
everyday life, constitute the English country gentleman. Some reference
has already been made to his interest in racing, yachting and shooting.
But most of the lesser sports and games were also attractive to him at
different periods, and there was hardly one with which he was not more
or less familiar. Boating and riding in his University days and
fox-hunting at Sandringham from time to time in later years, were
incidents of this record. Croquet he was an expert in, but never very
fond of. Lawn-tennis, when first introduced and for years afterwards,
was a game to which he was very partial, and on the _Serapis_ when
traversing the route to India he played deck-tennis until everyone else
was exhausted. The bowling-alley at Sandringham was one of the best in
England and the Prince was always fond of a game of bowls. Quoits he
played well, and billiards he played with frequency and skill--his
daughters being also able to handle the cue with success. Hockey was a
favourite game, especially on the lakes at Sandringham, and of this
sport the other members of his family were equally fond. Skating and
hockey parties were frequent during severe winter seasons and the Prince
played in many specially arranged hockey matches--one of them against
members of the House of Commons in the winter of 1894-5 included Mr.
Balfour, Lord Stanley, Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Mr. Victor
Cavendish.
Fishing never appealed to him and was, apparently, too quiet and easy a
sport. He liked pigeon-flying, and bred some very fine birds at
Sandringham for this purpose. Tricycling he was very fond of and kept
good machines both at Marlborough and Sandringham. As soon as motor cars
came into use he could be frequently seen driving a smart carriage along
the country roads of Norfolk. Chess the Prince never mastered nor cared
for. In dancing he was an expert, as well as in skating, and was always
exceedingly fond of the amusement. At his Sandringham balls he was an
indefatigable dancer, and at great balls all over the world he delighted
many a partner and varied social circle by his obvious pleasure in the
entertainment. From Halifax to Montreal, from Toronto to New York, in
Canada and the United States, in Egypt and India, in Turkey and Greece,
in all the greater Courts of Europe, from the days of Napoleon III. at
Paris, to those of William II. at Berlin, he had been the central figure
of some such occasions. Golf was played by His Royal Highness on the
links of Musselburgh in early days and at a later time in Windsor Park.
Cricket he was fond of in his younger days, but latterly he only showed
his interest by patronizing matches as an onlooker. In these and other
pursuits the Prince represented in his mode of life and his manner of
enjoying himself the qualities of a distinct type amongst his
countrymen and a type most popular throughout the community.
Another characteristic of the Prince was his good manners. The "first
gentleman in Europe" always knew how to be pleasant without being
familiar, dignified without being pompous, genial without being free.
Myriads of stories are told in this connection. At the skating and
hockey parties on the Sandringham lakes the farmers' wives and daughters
were included and no Duchess in the land would be handed a cup of tea
with more courtly manner by the Royal host than would the wife of a
tenant on his estates. His servants, in houses and farms and stables, in
sport or travel, at home and abroad, were treated in such a way as to
make every one of them wish to serve the Prince for a life-time. No more
charming incident is on record than the way in which His Royal Highness
approached Mrs. Gladstone at the state funeral of her great husband,