The Life of King Edward VII
Archbishop of York officiated and four Peeresses upheld the Cloth of
Gold over Her Majesty as she was anointed upon the head. A ring was
placed upon her finger with a brief prayer, and a sceptre in her hand
with the following words: "Grant unto this thy servant Alexandra, our
Queen, that by the powerful and mild influence of her piety and virtue,
she may adorn the high dignity which she hath obtained, through Jesus
Christ our Lord." Her Majesty was then escorted from the Altar to her
own Throne, bowing reverently to the King as she passed him to take her
place.
The King and Queen then passed to the Altar together, taking off their
Crowns and kneeling on faldstools and His Majesty formally offered the
Sacrament of Communion to the Archbishop. After thus indicating his
headship of the National Church, the King returned with his Consort to
their chairs and listened to some brief prayers. Thence they returned to
the Altar, received Communion from the Archbishop of Canterbury and then
passed into the Chapel of Edward the Confessor accompanied by a stately
procession. There they were arrayed in Royal robes of purple and velvet,
in place of the mantels previously worn, and passed with slow and
stately dignity down the nave, out to their carriage and thence through
masses of cheering people to Buckingham Palace.
There were several incidents in connection with the Coronation
ceremonies which deeply impressed the onlookers. One was the spontaneous
and obvious sincerity of the King's affectionate greeting to his son.
Another was the enfeebled condition of the aged Archbishop of
Canterbury. With his massive frame, brilliant intellect, and piercing
eyes Dr. Temple had lived a life of intense mental activity and
religious zeal, but in these declining days the massive form had become
bent and trembling, the memory and the eyes found difficulties in the
solemn words of the service, and his shaking hands could hardly place
the Crown upon the head of his King. But the latter's solicitude and
anxious care to save the Primate any exertion, not absolutely essential,
were marked and noticed by all that vast assemblage. The Royal patient
was transformed, by kindly sympathy, into a guardian of the Archbishop's
weakness. When tendering his homage as first of all the subjects of the
King, the aged Primate almost fainted and was unable to rise from his
knees until His Majesty assisted him. Prior to the actual Coronation,
Mr. Edwin A. Abbey, R.A., who had been commissioned by the King to paint
a picture of the historic scene, was allowed to take note of the
surroundings. Another incident of the event was the presence of the
Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz--placed by desire of Queen Alexandra in
a seat at the exact spot which she had held during the Coronation of
Queen Victoria.
On the day following the great event a final bulletin was issued by Sir
F. Laking and Sir F. Treves, which stated that "His Majesty bore the
strain of the Coronation ceremony perfectly well, and experienced but
little fatigue. The King has had a good night, and his condition is in
every way satisfactory." Being Sunday, special services were held in the
St. James's Chapel Royal, at St. Paul's Cathedral, in Marlborough House
Chapel, and at St. Margaret's, Westminster. On Monday, a Royal message
to the nation was made public through Mr. Balfour, the Prime Minister.
Dated on Coronation Day, it described the Osborne House estate, on the
Isle of Wight, as being the private property of the Sovereign, and
expressed his wish to establish this once favourite residence of the
late Queen as a National Convalescent Home for Officers of the Army and
Navy--maintaining intact, however, the rooms which were in her late
Majesty's personal occupation. "Having to spend a considerable part of
the year in the capital of this Kingdom and in its neighbourhood, at
Windsor, and having also strong home ties in the County of Norfolk,
which have existed now for nearly forty years, the King feels he will
be unable to make adequate use of Osborne House as a Royal residence,
and he accordingly has determined to offer the property in the Isle of
Wight as a gift to the nation." Following the Coronation came multitudes
of editorial comments upon the event, and one of the most concise and
expressive was that of the London _Times_: "The significance of the
Coronation ceremony on Saturday lay in its profound sincerity, as a
solemn compact between the Sovereign and his subjects, ratified by oath,
and blessed by the highest dignitaries of the National Church. It was a
covenant between a free people, accustomed for long centuries to be
governed according to statutes in Parliament agreed on, and their
hereditary King, and a supplication from both to God that the King may
be endowed with all princely virtues in the exercise of his great
office. Though the details of the ceremony do not mean to us all they
meant to our forefathers, the ceremony itself is a no less strong and
enduring bond between the King and subjects. The most striking feature
of the Coronation was that it was the first to be attended by the
statesmen of self-governing Colonies, and by the feudatory Princes of
India."
With the event also came an Ode from Mr. Alfred Austin, entitled "The
Crowning of Kingship." On August 11th the King held a Council at
Buckingham Palace, attended by the retiring and new members of the
Cabinet; invested many distinguished personages with their Coronation
honours; and gave an audience to Sir Joseph Dimsdale, Lord Mayor of
London, who presented the City's Coronation gift of $575,000 toward the
King Edward Hospital Fund, in which His Majesty had so long taken so
deep an interest and to which, on this occasion, there was contributed
20,000 penny donations from the poorest quarters of London.
Various functions of a Coronation character or connection ensued. On
August 12th some 2000 Colonial troops who were present at the event, in
a representative capacity, from British dominions beyond the seas, were
received by the King on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Under the
Royal canopy were the Queen and the children of the Prince of Wales, and
in attendance were Earl Roberts, Lord Kitchener, Mr. Chamberlain and
various Colonial Premiers, including Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier. After
the march past, the King pinned a Victoria Cross on the breast of
Sergeant Lawrence, and the Prince of Wales conferred Coronation medals
upon the officers and men. His Majesty then addressed the troops as
follows: "It has afforded me great pleasure to see you here to-day and
to have the opportunity of expressing my high appreciation of your
patriotism and the way you distinguished yourselves in South Africa. The
services you have rendered the Mother-Country will never be forgotten by
me, and they will, I am sure, cement more firmly than ever the union of
our distant Colonies with the other parts of my great Empire."
On the following day the Indian troops sent from the great Eastern realm
to honour the Coronation of its Emperor were reviewed at the same place.
His Majesty wore a jewelled sword which cost some $50,000, and had been
presented to him on the previous day by the Maharajah of Jaipur. The
scene was a most brilliant and picturesque one. The British notables
present wore military or Levee dress; the great lawn of the Palace was a
splendid spectacle in red, yellow, green and blue; the Eastern Princes
were gorgeous in jewels and many-coloured raiment, and the little
Princes Edward and Albert of Wales constituted themselves Aides of the
King and brought several general officers up to have an audience. After
the march past and the distribution of medals at the hands of the Prince
of Wales, His Majesty addressed the troops in the following words: "I
wish to convey to all ranks the high satisfaction it has given me to see
this splendid contingent from India. I almost feared, owing to my
serious illness, that I would be prevented from having the advantage of
seeing you, but I am glad to say that by God's mercy I am well again. I
recognize among you many of the regiments I had the advantage of seeing
at Delhi during my tour of India." During the next few days various
minor functions took place, and the Colonial leaders especially were
feasted and entertained in every possible way.
On August 17th the final event occurred in connection with the
Coronation. It was the mighty greeting of a great fleet to the Sovereign
of a wide-flung realm. It was the inspection of a naval force which a
generation before could have dominated the seas of the world and put all
civilized nations under tribute. Gathered together from the Home
Station, the Channel squadron and the Cruising squadron; without the
detachment of a ship from foreign waters or Colonial stations, it
included 20 battleships, 24 cruisers and 47 torpedo crafts, with an
outer fringe of foreign vessels contributed in complimentary fashion to
honour the occasion. From Spithead to the Isle of Wight the horizon was
black with great grim vessels of war decked out with flags, and as the
King's yacht approached the first line of ships, a hundred Royal salutes
made a tremendous burst of sound such as probably the greatest
battle-fields of history had never heard. As the King, in Admiral's
uniform, stood upon the deck of his vessel and passed slowly down the
lines, a signal given at a certain moment evoked one of the most
impressive incidents which even he had ever encountered--a simultaneous
roar of cheers from the powerful throats of 50,000 enthusiastic sailors.
The sound rolled from shore to shore, and ship to ship, was echoed from
100,000 spectators on land and sea, and repeated again from the
battleships. The King was deeply moved by this crowning tribute of
loyalty, and at once signaled his gratification to the fleet and an
invitation to its flag officers to come aboard his yacht and receive a
personal expression of his feelings. In the evening electric and
coloured lights of every kind and in countless number combined with
flashing searchlights to illuminate the great fleet and to cast a
glamour of fairy land over the splendid scene.
Meanwhile, in the morning, His Majesty had received on board his yacht
the celebrated Boer Generals, Botha, De Wet and De la Rey. Afterwards,
in company with Lord Kitchener and Earl Roberts they had returned to
London greatly pleased with the cordiality of their reception and
especially gratified at the kind manner of Queen Alexandra. Following
the official Naval Review, the King on the next day visited the fleet in
a stormy sea and watched it go through certain manoeuvres of a
practical kind before being dispersed to its different local stations.
On his return to London he found the Shah of Persia a guest of the
nation and awaiting formal reception at the hands of its Monarch. And
thus King Edward took up again his unceasing round of duty and
ceremonial and high responsibility. In the past year or two he had gone
through every variety of emotional experience and official work and
brilliant ceremony--his mother's death and the consequent mourning of a
nation and empire; his own assumption of new and heavy duties; the
special labours of an expectant period; the time of serious illness and
the anxieties of complex responsibility to a world-wide public; the
realization of his Coronation hopes; the change from an old to a new
period stamped by the change in his national advisers and the presence
of his Colonial Premiers. He now entered upon his further lifework, with
chastened feelings in a personal sense but, it is safe to say, with high
and brilliant hopes for the future of his own home country and its
far-flung Empire.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Reign of King Edward
The history of this reign--not long in years--is yet crowded with