The Life of King Edward VII
Clarke to other positions at Court. Queen Alexandra appointed the
members of her Household under date of March 8th and they included the
Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry as Mistress of the Robes, the
Countesses of Antrim, Macclesfield, Gosford and Lytton and the Lady
Suffield and Dowager Countess of Morton as Ladies of the Bedchamber,
Lord Colville of Culross as Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Gosford as
Vice-Chamberlain, the Earl de Grey as Treasurer, and the Hon. S. R.
Greville as Private Secretary. Numerous appointments of an honorary kind
in connection with the Army and Navy followed and on July 24th the Earl
of Pembroke was announced as Lord Steward of His Majesty's Household,
the Hon. V. C. W. Cavendish M.P. as Treasurer, Viscount Valentia M.P. as
Comptroller, Lord Farquhar as Master of the Household, the Earl of
Clarendon as Lord Chamberlain, Major-General Sir Arthur Ellis as
Comptroller of Accounts, the Duke of Portland as Master of the Horse,
the Duke of Argyll as Governor of Windsor Castle and the following as
Lords-in-Waiting: the Earl of Denbigh, the Earl of Kintore, Earl Howe,
Lord Suffield, Lord Kenyon, Lord Churchill and Lord Lawrence.
Many of these names may be recognized as amongst the friends or
officials of the King, in his later years as the Heir Apparent, or as
companions in some of his travels. On March 24th, following the custom
of British Sovereigns, several special Embassies were appointed and
announced to carry to European Courts the official intimation of His
Majesty's accession. That to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Russia, Germany
and Saxony, included the Duke of Abercorn, the Earl of Kintore,
Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter and the Marquess of Hamilton, M.P.
and that to Belgium, Bavaria, Italy, Wurtemberg and the Netherlands,
included the Earl of Mount Edgecombe, Viscount Downe and Admiral Sir
Michael Culme-Seymour. Earl Carrington, the Earl of Harewood and others
were appointed to France, Spain and Portugal and Field Marshal Lord
Wolseley, Viscount Castlereagh and others to Austro-Hungary, Roumania,
Servia and Turkey.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The First Year of the New Reign
The first year's reign of a Sovereign must always be important, and when
that Sovereign rules over a third of the earth's surface and a quarter
of its population, it is more than usually so. King Edward VII., when he
came to the Throne, found himself the first of Mohammedan rulers, with
more Moslem subjects than the Sultan of Turkey; the first of Brahmin and
Parsee Sovereigns; the head of various Confucian colonies and the
possessor of the most sacred of Buddhist shrines; the ruler of Christian
sects and idolatries of every conceivable kind and variety. Almost every
race in the world was included in his Empire--English, Scotch and Irish
everywhere, French in the Channel Islands and in Canada, Italians and
Greeks in Malta, Arab, Coptic and Turkish subjects in Egypt, Negroes of
all descriptions in the Soudan and elsewhere, subjects of infinitely
varied Asiatic types in India, Chinese in Hong-Kong and Wei-Hai-Wei,
Malays in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, Polynesians in the Pacific,
Red Indians in Canada and Maoris in New Zealand, Dutch, Zulus, Basutos
and French Huguenots in South Africa, Eskimos in Northern Canada. The
complicated issues involved in such a Government as that of the British
Empire, with its curiously non-centralized system, were certainly
sufficient to make a Sovereign inheriting the position, the
opportunities, and much of the capacity of Queen Victoria, feel that he
had, indeed, assumed heavy responsibilities.
His first step had been a most wise one, and in direct line with a
policy carried out as Heir Apparent--the cementing of close and cordial
relations with the German Emperor during his long and much-discussed
visit to the dying Queen and mourning family. To this friendship and the
enthusiastic and popular reception given William II. when leaving London
on February 5th, 1901, was undoubtedly due the restraining influence
held over a part of the press of Germany during the succeeding period of
vile abuse of England regarding the South African War. Following this,
on February 24th, was the departure of King Edward on a visit to his
sister, the Empress Frederick, at Frederichshof, near Cronberg, where he
was joined by the Emperor William. The King was accompanied by Sir Frank
Lascelles, Ambassador at Berlin, and by his physician, Sir Francis
Laking. The Empress was found to be very ill, but not dying, and after a
few days her Royal brother and son returned to their respective
capitals.
THE KING'S FIRST PARLIAMENT AND DECLARATION
The first Parliament of the new reign was opened by the King in
brilliant state and with much dignified ceremonial on February 14th. The
pageantry of the occasion was picturesque and splendid. The staircase in
Parliament House, up which the Royal pair passed in their progress, was
lined with a living hedge of men in blue and silver uniforms, topped
with red plumes and shining with the burnished steel accoutrements of
the Horse Guards. Before them were stately, robed officials, such as
Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Devonshire and some of the brilliant
colours of the Court. The King wore a short ermine cape over his Field
Marshal's uniform, and beneath the cape a sweeping cloak and train of
Royal purple. Queen Alexandra, beautiful always, was more than usually
sweet and dignified in her garb of mingled black and purple. In the
House of Lords the evidences of mourning for the late Queen were very
apparent. The ladies were dressed in black though they were permitted to
blaze with jewels. The Peers' robes of red and ermine, gave a little
colour to the scene, helped by those of the judges in black and gold, or
red and white, and the bright uniforms of the Ambassadors in a distant
corner. Hand-in-hand the King and Queen entered the Chamber and took
their places upon the chairs of state. The Commons were called in, and
their the Lord Chancellor presented and the King repeated and signed the
somewhat famous Declaration against the Mass and other Roman doctrines,
or observances, as provided by the Bill of Rights. It was as follows:
"I do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess,
testify and declare that I do believe that in the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements
of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the
consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the
invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other saint and
the sacrifice of the mass as they are now used in the Church of
Rome are superstitious and idolatrous, and I do solemnly in the
presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I do make this
Declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense
of the words read unto me as they are commonly understood by
English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental
reservation whatsoever and without any dispensation already granted
me for this purpose by the Pope or any other authority or person
whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from any
person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or
can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this Declaration
or any part thereof, although the Pope or any other person or
persons or power whatsoever should dispense with or annull the
same, or declare that it was null and void from the beginning."
The next proceeding was the reading of the King's speech to his
Parliament in strong, full tones which impressively and clearly filled
the Chamber. This part of the ceremony was rendered unusually
interesting, in view of the fact that the King was understood to have
had more to do with the wording of his speech than had been customary,
and to have changed the conditions by which it had become usual to give
an advance summary of its contents to the press. Reference was made to
the death of the Queen and to his own accession, to the progress of the
South African War, the Chinese troubles, the establishment of the
Australian Commonwealth, the sending of additional Contingents from the
Colonies to the front, the famine in India, the relief of the Coomassie
garrison, and to his intention to carry out the late Sovereign's wish
regarding the Imperial tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and
York. The whole function was of a solemn and impressive and splendid
character, in keeping with the traditions of the Crown and in harmony
with the known intentions of the King to assume the full ceremonial and
dignity of his position. The _Times_, on the following morning, referred
to the enthusiastic reception of the King and Queen as they drove to
Westminster and to the inspiring and exhilarating character of the scene
in the House of Lords. "The present generation has seen hardly anything,
not even excepting the processions of 1887 and 1897, at all comparable
in splendour and solemnity with the pageant yesterday at Westminster."
The session of Parliament which followed was closely and continuously
associated with subjects arising out of the King's accession. An early
and prominent topic was the Declaration taken against Roman Catholicism.
Under date of February 20th, Cardinal Vaughan issued a letter to his
Diocese declaring that "patriotism and loyalty to the Sovereign are
characteristic of the Catholics of this country and are to be counted
on, quite independently of passing emotions of pain or pleasure, because
they are rooted in a permanent dictate and principle of religion;" that
Catholics had, however, been made unhappy by the "recent renewal of the
national act of apostacy" in the Sovereign's branding by solemn
Declaration their religious doctrines as superstitious and idolatrous;
that the Catholic Peers had done well in protesting to the Lord
Chancellor against the continued use of this Declaration; that British
legislators in all parts of the Empire and the twelve million Catholic
subjects of the Crown throughout the world should take further measures
of constitutional protest; that the evil so greatly deplored was the
result of an anachronism and of a barbaric law which had remained
accidentally unrepealed; and that there was reason to hope that "this
remnant of a hateful fanaticism" would soon be removed from the
statute-book.
In Canada and Australia protests were prepared and presented through the
Cardinal--that from the Dominion being signed by all the members of the
Hierarchy. In the House of Lords a Committee was appointed, on motion of
Lord Salisbury, to deal with the matter although no Catholic Peers would
serve upon it. They reported early in July that a modification of the
Declaration might be made so as to omit the adjectives and objectionable
phraseology without affecting the strength of the pledge itself. A
Government measure was prepared along these lines and submitted to the
House. It was opposed by Lord Rosebery on August 1st, on the ground that
nothing could really bind conscientious convictions, that the King might
change his views and not be bound by this Declaration in future, and,
that it did not repudiate the temporal or spiritual supremacy of the
Pope. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not like the changes, the Duke of
Norfolk did not care for the new form and the Roman Catholics generally,
in and out of the House, objected to the compromise as useless. The
result was that Lord Salisbury eventually withdrew his measure and the
matter dropped out of public discussion for the time--although the
Canadian House of Commons and other public bodies in the Empire had
meanwhile protested against the continued maintenance of the