CHAPTER XIII

QUIET YEARS OF PUBLIC WORK, 1876-1887--VISIT TO IRELAND--QUEEN VICTORIA’S GOLDEN JUBILEE

The year 1876 was marked, in addition to King Edward’s return from India, by a curious example of His Majesty’s tact and courage. He consented to preside at the special Jubilee Festival of the Licensed Victuallers’ Asylum, and this action aroused an extraordinary amount of feeling in temperance circles. Before the day of the festival he had received more than 200 petitions from all over the kingdom begging him to withdraw his consent. His Majesty, however, attended the festival, and in his speech pointedly referred to his critics, observing that he was there, not to encourage the consumption of alcoholic liquors, but to support an excellent charity, which had enjoyed the patronage of his honoured father.

It is interesting to note the manner in which King Edward always refers to his father, with whom he undoubtedly has far more in common than is generally supposed. Perhaps the most conspicuous taste shared by the father and the son is a really keen and personal interest in exhibitions of all kinds. This was probably first realised by those about him twenty years ago, when the King accepted the onerous duties of Executive President of the British Commission of the Paris Exhibition of 1878. He threw himself with ardour into this work almost immediately after his return from India, and during a short visit which he paid to France in that spring he received a considerable number of official personages connected with the approaching exhibition.

The King, accompanied by Queen Alexandra, unveiled in the following July a statue of Alfred the Great at Wantage, the birthplace of the famous King. The statue was the gift of Colonel Lloyd-Lindsay (afterwards Lord Wantage), the sculptor being Count Gleichen (Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg). King Edward is a lineal descendant of King Alfred by the intermarriage of the Saxon with the Norman reigning houses in the eleventh century, and it was most appropriate that he should have been invited to perform the ceremony.

In January 1878 King Edward, accompanied by Prince Louis Napoleon, visited the late Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire. The Crown Prince of Austria was also a guest of the Duke at the time. The King greatly enjoyed this visit to the premier Peer of Scotland, who is of the ancient lineage of Scottish Royalty. The Royal visitors enjoyed some excellent sport in the historic Cadzow Forest--_Cadyow_ having been granted by King Robert the Bruce after the battle of Bannockburn to Sir Gilbert Hamilton, the ancestor of the present Duke. Here still remain the few old oaks of the once great Caledonian Forest, immortalised by Sir Walter Scott in his ballad of “Cadyow Castle”; and here are also the wild white bulls of the same breed as preserved at Chillingham, and the famous Cadzow herd of wild cattle.

This year of 1878, so brilliant in Paris, brought to the British Royal family a bereavement which can only be compared for its suddenness and bitterness with the death of the Prince Consort. The Grand Duchess of Hesse (Princess Alice), after nursing her children through a malignant diphtheria, herself fell a victim to the same dread disease on the very anniversary of her father’s death. The blow fell with peculiar severity on the King and Queen Alexandra, with whom Princess Alice had been united in the bonds of the closest affection, especially since the King’s illness, in which she had proved herself so devoted a nurse. The link between the Royal brother and sister is significantly shown by the fact that Princess Alice never visited England without paying long visits at Sandringham or at Marlborough House. The King was one of the chief mourners at the funeral in Darmstadt.

After this blow the King and Queen naturally remained for some months in the deepest retirement. A new grief was, however, in store for them--the tragic death in the following June of the young Prince Imperial, in whose career the King had always taken a warm and almost paternal interest. His Majesty was among the very first in this country to be informed of the terrible news, and he was of the greatest assistance to the stricken Empress Eugénie in making the complicated arrangements for the funeral. His active sympathy, and the announcement that the heir to the British Crown intended to be the principal pall-bearer of Napoleon III.’s ill-fated son, aroused much comment on the Continent, and gave great satisfaction to Frenchmen of all shades of political opinion. On a beautiful wreath of violets which was sent from Marlborough House for the funeral at Chislehurst were the words, written in Queen Alexandra’s own hand:--

“A token of affection and regard for him who lived the most spotless of lives and died a soldier’s death fighting for our cause in Zululand.

“From ALBERT EDWARD and ALEXANDRA, July 12, 1879.”

The King strongly supported the movement for erecting a memorial to the Prince Imperial in Westminster Abbey, and subscribed £130 to the fund which was raised for that object. The opposition to the scheme was, however, so strong that it fell to the ground. That the King’s feelings were not modified in any way is shown by the fact that early in January 1883, His Majesty, accompanied by his two sons, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George, with the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Cambridge, unveiled a monument to the Prince Imperial at Woolwich. This “United Service Memorial” was erected by a subscription raised throughout all ranks of the Army, Navy, Royal Marines, Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers, and Count Gleichen was the sculptor. The King, in a speech at the unveiling, commended the virtues, the blameless life, the courage, and obedience to orders manifested by the young Prince, as a bright example to the young men entering the Military Academy, and remarked that it was only a natural impulse which prompted his desire to join his English comrades in the war in South Africa, in which he fell fighting for the Queen of England.

In view of Princess Louise’s subsequent marriage it is interesting to record that in the autumn of 1880 the King, accompanied by Prince Leopold and Prince John of Glucksburg, visited the Earl of Fife at Mar Lodge. On the evening of their arrival Lord Fife gave a grand ball, at which his distinguished visitors were present. The entertainment included a torchlight procession and dance by the Duff Highlanders. The party also enjoyed some deer-stalking in the Forest of Mar.

An incident worth recording occurred in January 1881, during a visit of the King and Queen to Normanton Park. Queen Alexandra drove with Lady Aveland to Oakham, and paid a visit to the ancient castle, on the inner walls of which are nailed numerous horse-shoes, the gift, or rather the toll, of various Royal and noble personages. A large horse-shoe of steel, perfect in shape and of elegant workmanship, had been made for the Queen to offer. Her Majesty examined the other horse-shoes in the Castle hall, and chose the position in which she desired her toll to be affixed, namely, over a large one supposed to have been the gift of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen greatly enjoyed following this ancient custom, a mark of territorial power possessed for many centuries by the Ferrers family, a shoe from the horse of every princely traveller who passed that way being a tax due to the Ferrers or Farriers. Among the horse-shoes specially noticed by Queen Alexandra were one contributed by Queen Victoria before her accession, on 2nd September 1833; another by the Duchess of Kent on the same date; also one offered by the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., on 7th January 1814.

It was in this year that the King had an opportunity of exhibiting in a public manner his strong interest in the British Colonies, the welfare of which was not then so much a matter of concern in the eyes of our statesmen as it is now. The occasion was a dinner given to the members of the Colonial Institute by the then Lord Mayor, Sir George MacArthur, himself an old colonist. An extraordinary number of distinguished men connected in various ways, official and other, with our colonies were present. In his speech the King pointed out that no function of the kind had ever taken place before--a statement which seems hardly credible nowadays, thanks in a great measure to His Majesty’s own unwearied exertions in the interests of our colonial empire. The King also alluded to his Canadian tour, and took the opportunity of paying a graceful compliment to his friend Sir John Macdonald, the Canadian statesman, who was present.

Very shortly after this dinner the King attended as patron the first meeting ever held in this country of the International Medical Congress.

King Edward was deeply grieved at the death of Dean Stanley, with whom, as we have seen, he had been on terms of close intimacy. At a meeting held in the Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, His Majesty paid a touching and eloquent tribute to his dead friend’s rare qualities, both of heart and intellect.

Generally speaking, this period of the King’s life was not very eventful. His children were still quite young, and his public appearances, though tolerably frequent, did not usually possess more than a local importance. There were, however, some conspicuous exceptions, which broke the even current of his life. For example, it would be difficult to overestimate the value of the work which His Majesty did in promoting the International Fisheries Exhibition in 1883, which was visited by nearly three million people, and may be said to have been the first introduction into London of open-air entertainment on a large scale. Moreover, it resulted in a clear profit of £15,000, of which two-thirds was devoted to the relief of the orphan families of fishermen.

The success of the Fisheries suggested to the King the idea of another exhibition concerned with health and hygiene, which was held in 1884, and was nicknamed the “Healtheries.” Not long before it was opened the King and Queen Alexandra suffered a great bereavement in the death of the Duke of Albany, to whom their Majesties had always been very much attached. He died quite suddenly in the south of France on 28th March, and the King instantly started for the Riviera and brought his brother’s remains back to Windsor. In the following July His Majesty, presiding at the festival of the Railway Guards’ Friendly Society, took the opportunity of his first appearance at a public dinner to express in the name of Queen Victoria and the Royal Family their thanks for the public sympathy shown on the death of the Duke of Albany.

In August of this year was celebrated the jubilee of the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. The King attended a meeting at the Mansion-House and delivered a long and elaborate speech, evidently the result of much painstaking study, in which he reviewed the whole history of the anti-slavery movement.

The news of the fall of Khartoum came as a terrible shock to the King, who had long watched with increasing interest the career of General Gordon. Indeed, General Gordon had always been one of His Majesty’s great heroes, and it was chiefly owing to His Majesty’s initiative that a fund was established for providing a national memorial to the hero of Khartoum. At the first meeting of the committee the King made a touching speech, in which he said of Gordon--

“His career as a soldier, as a philanthropist, and as a Christian is a matter of history.… Many would wish for some fine statue, some fine monument, but we who know what Gordon was feel convinced that were he living nothing would be more distasteful personally than that any memorial should be erected in the shape of a statue or of any great monument. His tastes were so simple and we all know he was anxious that his name should not be brought prominently before the public, though in every act of his life that name was brought, I am inclined to think, as prominently before the nation as that of any soldier or any great Englishman whom we know of at the present time.”

It is well known that it was His Majesty’s suggestion that a hospital and sanatorium should be founded in Egypt open to persons of all nationalities. Queen Alexandra was present at the special service held in St. Paul’s on 13th March, the day of public mourning for the loss of General Gordon.

Three days later the King, accompanied by his eldest son, presided at a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, and spoke of the personal as well as of the political interest he took in everything that concerned the colonies. On the next day Prince Albert Victor was initiated as a Freemason in the presence of a large and most distinguished company, his father receiving the Royal apprentice in his quality of Worshipful Master of the Royal Alpha Lodge. On the following day the King, Prince Albert Victor, and the Duke of Edinburgh went to Berlin to congratulate the aged Emperor William on his eighty-eighth birthday.

It had been decided, not without the most anxious consideration, that the King and Queen, accompanied by their elder son, should pay a visit to Ireland. The announcement was received with the greatest excitement both in Ireland and in America.

_United Ireland_, the chief organ of the Nationalist party, then edited by Mr. William O’Brien, and said to be largely written by Mr. T. M. Healy, brought out a special number devoted entirely to expressions of opinion from eminent Irishmen of all kinds on the Royal visit. Every Nationalist Member of Parliament, every prominent ecclesiastic, in a word, every Irishman of conspicuous Nationalist views, was invited to say what he thought of the forthcoming visit. The answers filled a copious supplement, and their tenour was one of unanimous disapproval, expressed in some cases strongly, and in others in terms of studied moderation. Almost all the letters agreed in counselling an attitude of absolute indifference to the visit, but abstention from any kind of display of hostility to the King himself was insisted on; and it was openly said that the part which he was playing in this pageant was a more or less passive one. This, perhaps, showed more than anything else that has occurred during His Majesty’s life the personal liking and respect in which he is held.

It may be added that when the King and Queen arrived early in April 1885, the Nationalist party made no sign, but, as there was naturally a great display of rejoicing on the part of the Anti-nationalist citizens, the Press, perhaps unfortunately, chose to regard this reception as a proof that the Home Rulers were wholly discredited. The Nationalist leaders therefore made up their minds that it was necessary to make some protest against the Royal progress as an answer to these taunts, and accordingly, from Mallow till the Royal party left Ireland, they were the victims of some very unpleasing demonstrations, and at Cork collisions occurred between the police and the mob, though no serious injuries were reported on either side.

Perhaps the most interesting event of the tour was when, after laying the foundation-stone of the New Science and Art Museum and National Library of Ireland in Dublin on 10th April, their Majesties attended the Royal University of Ireland, and the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on the King, and that of Doctor of Music on Queen Alexandra. Her Majesty has always been passionately fond of music, and the distinction gave her special gratification.

The Colonial and Indian Exhibition, called for short the “Colinderies,” may be said to have been the most successful of all those with which the King was intimately associated. It was opened by Queen Victoria on 4th May 1886, and Her Majesty was received by the King, and Queen Alexandra, His Majesty conducting his mother to the daïs. In the Royal Albert Hall, where the opening ceremony took place, everything was done to make the scene as impressive and interesting as possible; and at the special desire of the King, Lord Tennyson wrote an Ode for the occasion, which was set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and sung by Madame Albani in the choir. This exhibition resulted in a net surplus of £35,000.

In September some correspondence between King Edward and the Lord Mayor, suggesting the establishment of a Colonial and Indian Institute to commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee, was published, and excited a great deal of interest both at home and in the Colonies. A public subscription was opened at the Mansion-House; and later in the same month His Majesty, having been informed that a movement was on foot to present him with a testimonial in recognition of his services in connection with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, wrote to request that any fund subscribed might be devoted to the furtherance of the Imperial Institute, and a great deal of his time that autumn was dedicated to this scheme.

The King in 1886 also gave his patronage to two great engineering achievements, by opening the Mersey Tunnel and by laying the first stone of the Tower Bridge. It is interesting to note in this connection that His Majesty has long been an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and when he attended their annual dinner in the same year, he made an amusing speech, in which he attempted to picture what sort of a world ours would be without engineers.

One of the busiest years ever spent by the King and Queen Alexandra was 1887, when Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee was celebrated. To His Majesty was left the responsibility of a great number of the arrangements, and on him fell almost entirely the reception and entertainment of the foreign Royal personages who attended the splendid ceremony in the Abbey as Queen Victoria’s guests. In many cases the King was obliged to welcome in person the Royal visitor to London, and he was indefatigable in his efforts to make everything go off as smoothly and successfully as possible, while it need hardly be said that he took a very prominent part next to Queen Victoria in all the Jubilee functions.

It was in this year that His Majesty was appointed Honorary Admiral of the Fleet, a distinction which gave him much gratification, for it was his first definite official link with the sea service which he had selected as the profession of his younger son, and in which his elder son had received an early training--a link which was destined to be still further strengthened after His Majesty’s accession, as will be related hereafter.