CHAPTER II

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS

King Edward VII. was born on 9th November 1841, at Buckingham Palace. The Duke of Wellington, who was in the Palace at the time, is said to have asked the nurse, Mrs. Lily, “Is it a boy?” “It’s a _Prince_, your Grace,” answered the justly offended woman.

The news was received with great enthusiasm throughout the country, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had thousands of letters and telegrams of congratulation not only through official sources at home and abroad but from many of Her Majesty’s humblest subjects all over the world. _Punch_ celebrated the event in some verses beginning--

Huzza! we’ve a little Prince at last, A roaring Royal boy; And all day long the booming bells Have rung their peals of joy.

And the little park guns have blazed away, And made a tremendous noise, Whilst the air has been filled since eleven o’clock With the shouts of little boys.

At the moment of his birth the eldest son of the Sovereign became Duke of Cornwall. This dukedom was the first created in England. It was created by King Edward III. by charter, wherein his son, Edward the Black Prince, was declared Duke of Cornwall, to hold to himself and his heirs, Kings of England, and to their first-born sons; and it is in virtue of that charter that the eldest son of the Sovereign is by law acknowledged Duke of Cornwall the instant he is born.

At the same time King Edward III. granted by patent certain provision for the support of the dukedom, including the Stannaries, in Cornwall, together with the coinage of tin, and various lands, manors, and tenements, some of which lay outside the county of Cornwall, but were nevertheless deemed to be part of the duchy. From these rents and royalties King Edward VII. derived, when he was Duke of Cornwall, a revenue of about £60,000 a year.

The little prince also became at his birth Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland (by act of the Scottish Parliament in 1469), but he was not born Prince of Wales. King George IV. was only a week old when he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester by letters patent, but King Edward VII. had to wait nearly a month--till 4th December 1841--for these dignities.

The picturesque origin of the title of Prince of Wales is well known--how King Edward I. promised the turbulent Welsh barons to appoint them a prince of their own, one who was born in Wales and could not speak a word of English, and on whose life and conversation there was no stain at all. Having engaged the consent of the barons beforehand, he showed them his infant son, Prince Edward, who had been born in Carnarvon Castle but a few days before, and who was thereupon acclaimed as the first Prince of Wales. The dignity thus became established as personal, not hereditary, which could be granted or withheld at the pleasure of the Sovereign.

The Earldom of Chester was an early creation which was annexed to the Crown for ever by letters patent in the thirty-first year of King Henry III., when Prince Edward, his eldest son, was immediately granted the dignity. Edward the Black Prince received the Earldom of Chester when he was only three years old, before he was created Duke of Cornwall.

Queen Victoria’s recovery was rapid, as will be seen from the following entry in Her Majesty’s _Journal_ on 21st November, the birthday of the Empress Frederick (Princess Royal of England):--

“Albert brought in dearest little Pussy [the Princess Royal] in such a smart white merino dress trimmed with blue, which Mama [the Duchess of Kent] had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her on my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good. And as my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God.”

A little less than a month after the birth of her eldest son, Queen Victoria wrote to her uncle, Leopold I., King of the Belgians:--

“I wonder very much who my little boy will be like. You will understand _how_ fervent are my prayers, and I am sure everybody’s must be, to see him resemble his Father in _every, every_ respect, both in body and mind.”

Christmas with its Christmas tree brought a new fund of delight to the Royal parents. “To think,” wrote the Queen in her _Journal_, “that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight already, is like a dream!” Prince Albert also wrote to his father:--“To-day I have two children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German Christmas tree and its radiant candles.”

The christening of the Prince of Wales took place on 25th January 1842, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, for although Royal baptisms had hitherto been celebrated within the Palace, both the Queen and Prince Albert felt it to be more in harmony with the religious sentiments of the country that the future King should be christened within a consecrated building.

As can be easily understood, the choice of sponsors for the Prince of Wales was a matter of considerable delicacy. Finally the King of Prussia was asked to undertake the office, and Baron Stockmar gives the following interesting account of how His Majesty brushed aside the intrigues which were immediately set on foot:--

“Politicians, as their habit is, attached an exaggerated political importance to the affair. The King, who foresaw this, wrote to Metternich, and in a manner asked for his advice. The answer was evasive; and on this the King determined not to give himself any concern about the political intrigues which were set on foot against the journey. Certain it is, that the Russians, Austrians, and even the French, in the person of Bresson (their Ambassador at Berlin) manœuvred against it. They were backed up by a Court party, who were persuaded that the King would avail himself of the opportunity to promote, along with Bunsen and the Archbishop of Canterbury, his pet idea of Anglicanizing the Prussian Church. When the King’s decision to go became known, Bresson begged that he would at least go through France, and give the Royal Family a meeting; but this was declined.”

The King of Prussia arrived on the 22nd, and was met by Prince Albert at Greenwich and conducted to Windsor.

King Edward’s other sponsors were his step-grandmother, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, represented by the Duchess of Kent; the Duke of Cambridge; the young Duchess of Saxe-Coburg (Queen Victoria’s sister-in-law), represented by the Duchess of Cambridge; Princess Sophia, represented by the Princess Augusta of Cambridge; and Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg.

Nothing was omitted to make the Prince of Wales’s christening a magnificent and impressive ceremony. There was a full choral service, and a special anthem had been composed by Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Elvey for the occasion. When Prince Albert was told of this, and asked when it should be sung, he answered, “Not at all. No anthem. If the service ends by an anthem, we shall all go out criticising the music. We will have something we all know--something in which we can all join--something devotional. The Hallelujah Chorus; we shall all join in that, with our hearts.” The Hallelujah Chorus ended the ceremony accordingly.

“It is impossible,” wrote Queen Victoria in her _Journal_, “to describe how beautiful and imposing the effect of the whole scene was in the fine old chapel, with the banners, the music, and the light shining on the altar.” It was significant of the young Queen’s native simplicity that the Prince was only christened Albert, after his father, and Edward, after his grandfather, the Duke of Kent.

Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert soon showed that they were determined to allow nothing like publicity to come near their nurseries, and the public obtained but few glimpses of the Prince of Wales as a child. Prince Albert’s intimate friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar, wrote a year after his birth to one of his friends:--

“The Prince, although a little plagued with his teeth, is strong upon his legs, with a calm, clear, bright expression of face.” Before he was eighteen months old His Royal Highness had already sat for his portrait several times.

King Edward VII. was barely four months old when Baron Stockmar drew up a very long memorandum on the education of the Royal children. In this document he laid down that the beginning of education must be directed to the regulation of the child’s natural instincts, to give them the right direction, and above all to keep the mind pure. “This,” he went on, “is only to be effected by placing about children only those who are good and pure, who will teach not only by precept but by living example, for children are close observers, and prone to imitate whatever they see or hear, whether good or evil.” In the frankest manner the shrewd old German physician proceeded to point out that the irregularities of three of George III.’s sons--George IV., the Duke of York, and William IV.--had weakened the respect and influence of Royalty in this country, although the nation ultimately forgave them, because, “whatever the faults of those Princes were, _they were considered by the public as true English faults_”; whereas the faults of some of their brothers, who had been brought up on the Continent, though not at all worse, were not condoned, owing to the power of national prejudice.

The conclusion at which Baron Stockmar consequently arrived was, “that the education of the Royal infants ought to be from its earliest beginning _a truly moral and a truly English one_.” It ought therefore to be entrusted from the beginning only to persons who were themselves morally good, intelligent, well informed, and experienced, who should enjoy the full and implicit confidence of the Royal parents. The Baron did not mince matters with regard to “the malignant insinuations, cavillings, and calumnies of ignorant or intriguing people, who are more or less to be found at every Court, and who invariably try to destroy the parents’ confidence in the tutor.”

These principles commended themselves to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Her Majesty wrote the following interesting letter to Lord Melbourne on the subject:--

“WINDSOR CASTLE, _24th March 1842_.

“We are much occupied in considering the future management of our nursery establishment, and naturally find considerable difficulties in it. As one of the Queen’s kindest and most impartial friends, the Queen wishes to have Lord Melbourne’s opinion upon it. The present system will not do, and must be changed; and now how it is to be arranged is the great question and difficulty.… Stockmar says, and very justly, that our occupations prevent us from managing these affairs as much our own selves as other parents can, and therefore that we must have some one in whom to place _implicit confidence_. He says, a lady of rank and title with a sub-governess would be the best. But where to find a person so situated, fit for the place, and, if fit, one who will consent to shut herself up in the nursery, and entirely from society, as she must, if she is _really_ to superintend the whole, and not accept the office, as in my case, Princess Charlotte’s, and my aunts’, merely for title, which would be only a source of annoyance and dispute?

“My fear is, that even if such a woman were to be found, she would consider herself not as only responsible to the Prince and Queen, but more to the country, and nation, and public, and I feel she ought to be responsible only to _us_, and _we_ to the country and nation. A person of less high rank, the Queen thinks, would be less likely to do that, but would wish to be responsible only to the parents. Naturally, too, we are anxious to have the education as simple and domestic as possible. Then again, a person of lower rank is less likely to be looked up to and obeyed, than one of some name and rank. What does Lord Melbourne think?”

In his reply Lord Melbourne fully concurred in Baron Stockmar’s suggestion that a lady of rank should be appointed, and the choice of the Royal parents fell upon Lady Lyttelton, who had been a lady-in-waiting from 1838, and who appeared to possess the precise qualifications which the post demanded. The daughter of George John, second Earl Spencer, and his wife Lavinia, daughter of the first Earl of Lucan, she was born in 1787, married, in 1813, William Henry, afterwards third Lord Lyttelton, and died in 1870. Lady Lyttelton was installed as governess to the Royal children in April 1842, and discharged her duties with equal ability and devotion. Early in 1851 she laid down her office. Her young charges parted from her with sad hearts and tearful eyes, as Sir Theodore Martin records in the _Life of the Prince Consort_, while from the Queen and Prince Albert she received marked proofs of the deep gratitude which they felt for all that she had done.

In 1846 King Edward accompanied his parents on two yachting excursions, in August and September, on board the Royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_. Writing in her _Journal_ on 2nd September, Queen Victoria says, with a pretty touch of maternal pride:--

“After passing the Alderney Race it became quite smooth; and then Bertie put on his sailor’s dress, which was beautifully made by the man on board who makes for our sailors. When he appeared, the officers and sailors, who were all assembled on deck to see him, cheered, and seemed delighted with him.”

Then, when the yacht arrived at Mounts Bay, Cornwall, Her Majesty records on 5th September that “when Bertie showed himself the people shouted ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”

Again, at Falmouth, on 7th September, the Queen says:--

“The Corporation of Penryn were on board, and very anxious to see ‘The Duke of Cornwall,’ so I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie, and Lord Palmerston told them that that was ‘The Duke of Cornwall’; and the old Mayor of Penryn said that ‘he hoped he would grow up a blessing to his parents and to his country.’”

At Sunny Corner, just below Truro, the whole population “cheered, and were enchanted when Bertie was held up for them to see. It was a very pretty, gratifying sight.”

Princess Mary of Cambridge, afterwards the much-loved and lamented Duchess of Teck, gives a delightful picture of the Royal children in a letter written in 1847 to Miss Draper, her governess. Princess Mary was then about fourteen, and King Edward was rather more than five years old:--

“We paid a visit to the Queen at Windsor on New Year’s Eve, and left there on the 2nd. The Queen gave me a bracelet with her hair, and was very kind to me. The little Royal children are sweet darlings; the Princess Royal is my pet, because she is remarkably clever. The Prince of Wales is a very pretty boy, but he does not talk as much as his sister. Little Alfred, the fourth child, is a beautiful fatty, with lovely hair. Alice is rather older than him; she is very modest and quiet, but very good-natured. Helena, the baby, is a very fine child, and very healthy, which, however, they all are.”

In August 1847, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with the Queen’s half-brother, the Prince of Leiningen, went for a tour round the west coast of Scotland, taking with them their two eldest children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. This is notable as King Edward’s first visit to Scotland, for he was too young to accompany his parents on their first tour in Scotland in 1842; while when the Queen and Prince Albert visited Blair-Atholl in 1844 they only took with them the little Princess Royal.

Of this tour round the west coast of Scotland we obtain some delightful details in the late Queen’s _Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands_. The Royal party started from Osborne in the Royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_, and they took the opportunity, after leaving Dartmouth, of visiting the Scilly Islands. The Queen writes:--

“Albert (who, as well as Charles, has not been unwell, while I suffered very much) went with Charles and Bertie to see one of the islands. The children recover from their sea-sickness directly.” By “Charles,” it should be explained, is meant the Prince of Leiningen. Naturally, when the Royal yacht arrived in Welsh waters, there was the greatest enthusiasm among the inhabitants at the sight of their little Prince. It must be remembered that at that time practically nothing was known by the general public about the Royal children, for their parents had very wisely resolved that they should as far as possible enjoy a natural, happy childhood, that being the best possible preparation for the public life that awaited them. However, evidently no harm was done by the notice which was taken of the Royal children on this tour. At Milford Haven their loving mother writes:--

“Numbers of boats came out, with Welshwomen in their curious high-crowned men’s hats, and Bertie was much cheered, for the people seemed greatly pleased to see the ‘Prince of Wales.’” Then again at Rothesay, when the yacht had passed up the Clyde:--

“The children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and excitement wonderfully. The people cheered the ‘Duke of Rothesay’ very much, and also called for a cheer for the ‘Princess of Great Britain.’ Everywhere the good Highlanders are very enthusiastic.”

With regard to her son’s title of Duke of Rothesay, Queen Victoria appends the following interesting note:--

“A title belonging to the eldest son of the Sovereign of Scotland, and therefore held by the Prince of Wales as eldest son of the Queen, the representative of the ancient Kings of Scotland.”

At Inveraray, which was next visited, the little Prince first met his future brother-in-law, the Marquis of Lorne, whom the Queen describes, in words which have often been quoted but will bear repetition, as “just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother: he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket, with a ‘sporran,’ scarf, and Highland bonnet.”

Naturally a good deal of interest was taken in the little Prince of Wales by those who had an opportunity of seeing him. When the great geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, went to Balmoral, the Queen’s eldest son, “a pleasing, lively boy,” gave him an account of the conjuring of Anderson, the “Wizard of the North,” who had just then shown the Court some marvellous tricks. Said the Prince in an awestruck tone:--

“He cut to pieces Mamma’s pocket-handkerchief, then darned it and ironed it so that it was as entire as ever; he then fired a pistol, and caused five or six watches to go through Gibbs’s head; but Papa knows how all these things are done, and had the watches really gone through Gibbs’s head he could hardly have looked so well, though he was confounded.”

Gibbs, it should be mentioned, was a footman.

The late Archbishop Benson, before he went up to Cambridge, was tutor to the sons of Mr. Wicksted, then tenant of Abergeldie Castle. Writing to his mother on 15th September 1848, young Mr. Benson gives the following interesting description of a glimpse which he had of the King as a little boy:--

“The Prince of Wales is a fair little lad, rather of slender make, with a good head and a remarkably quiet and thinking face, above his years in intelligence I should think. The sailor portrait of him is a good one, but does not express the thought that there is on his little brow. Prince Alfred is a fair, chubby little lad, with a quiet look, but quite the Guelph face, which does not appear in the Prince of Wales.”

In September 1848 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert established themselves with their six children at Balmoral, and Her Majesty records her first impressions of the place which was to be for so many years her much-loved Northern home. After describing her own and Prince Albert’s rooms, she says, “Opposite, down a few steps, are the children’s and Miss Hildyard’s three rooms.” Only a few days later we hear of the little Prince of Wales going out with his parents for a “drive” in the Balloch Buie. “We then mounted our ponies, Bertie riding Grant’s pony on the deer-saddle, and being led by a gillie, Grant walking by his side.” Grant, it should be explained, was head keeper, and much trusted by the Queen and Prince Albert, and for him was built a pretty lodge called Croft, a mile from Balmoral. “We scrambled up an almost perpendicular place to where there was a little _box_, made of hurdles and interwoven with branches of fir and heather, about five feet in height. There we seated ourselves with Bertie.” It can readily be imagined with what excitement the little Prince waited for nearly an hour till his father obtained a shot. The Queen records how her son helped her over the rough ground until they all gathered round the magnificent “Royal” which had fallen to Prince Albert’s gun.

The life at Balmoral was as far as possible shorn of Royal state, and was much the same, no doubt, as that which was led under many another hospitable roof-tree in the country round about. Queen Victoria devoted herself to her husband and children. Thus she records, on 11th September 1849, “The morning was very fine. I heard the children repeat some poetry in German.”

The life at Windsor Castle was scarcely less simple. Writing to an intimate friend, the late Duchess of Teck thus describes a dramatic performance at the Castle in January 1849, in which King Edward appeared, in spite of an accident which he had had a few days before:--

“Last Wednesday we went to Windsor Castle to remain till Friday. The visit went off very well indeed. The Queen and the children are looking very well, and the latter much grown. The poor little Prince of Wales has disfigured his face by falling on an iron-barred gate, and the bridge of his nose and both his eyes are quite black and bruised, but fortunately no bones were broken. The first evening we danced till twelve o’clock. Next day, … dinner was very early, and at eight o’clock the Play began. ‘Used Up’ and ‘Box and Cox’ were chosen for that night, and I was much pleased at seeing two very amusing pieces. They were very well acted, and we all laughed a great deal. The Theatre was well arranged, and the decorations and lamps quite wonderfully managed. It was put up in the Rubens-room, which is separated from the Garter-room by one small room where the Private Band stood. In the Garter-room was the Buffet, and in the centre hung one of the beautiful chandeliers from the pavilion at Brighton. The four elder children appeared at the Play, and the two boys wore their ‘kilts.’ The two little girls had on white lace gowns, over white satin, with pink bows and sashes. Princess Royal wears her hair in a very becoming manner, all twisted up into a large curl, which is tucked into a dark blue or black silk net, which keeps it all very tidy and neat.”