The Death of King Edward
There had been rumours flying around London early in 1910 as to the
King's health, but it would seem that only a limited circle understood
that, while there was no serious disease involved, there was a general
weakness of the system which rendered great care necessary and made it
easy to see danger in any otherwise trifling illness. Occasional
cablegrams to this Continent were largely disregarded and looked upon as
more or less sensational and little was thought of the attack of
bronchitis at Biarritz in March. There seems small reason to doubt that
the political situation hastened the end though it did not actually
cause the sad event. The conditions of weakness were there; the worry of
a great and urgent responsibility was added to the King's normal work
and subjects of thought. Though the constitutional crisis was probably
not as serious as the press and politicians made out, it must
undoubtedly have had its effect upon a ruler conscientiously devoted to
his duty. On May 5th, it was announced that the King was again ill with
bronchitis and that his condition caused "some anxiety;" a few hours
afterwards it was officially stated that "grave anxiety" was felt; on
May 6th, near midnight, there came the sorrowful announcement of his
physicians that the King had passed away in the presence of Queen
Alexandra, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal [Duchess
of Fife], Princess Victoria and the Princess Louise [Duchess of Argyll].
So unexpected was any serious or immediate issue of His Majesty's
condition that the Queen was still on the Continent when he was taken
ill and the King himself was transacting state business in an arm-chair
the day before he died. A pathetic incident of the latter date was the
bearing of the well-known purple and gold colours to victory at Kempton
Park Races by "The Witch of the Air." When the news came it was hard to
believe. People throughout the Empire were entirely unprepared. In
Britain, Canada, Australia, etc., public functions and social
arrangements were at once cancelled; black and purple drapings rapidly
covered the important buildings--and many that were even more important
as representing individual and spontaneous feeling--of the British
world; mourning was seen everywhere in the United Kingdom and to a
lesser extent in the other countries; papers appeared universally draped
in black. In Canada, H. E. the Governor-General cabled to Lord Crewe an
official expression of regret--one which was real as well as official:
"The announcement of the death of King Edward VII, which has just
reached Canada, has created universal sorrow. His Majesty's Canadian
Ministers desire that you will convey to His Majesty, King George, and
the members of the Royal family, an assurance that the people of Canada
share in the great grief that has visited them. In discharge of the
duties of his exalted station His late Majesty not only won the respect
and devotion of all British subjects, but by his efforts on behalf of
international harmony and good-will he became universally esteemed as a
great Peacemaker. Nowhere was this gracious attribute of Royal character
more deeply appreciated than in His Majesty's Dominion of Canada."
Every kind of loyal tribute was paid to the late King by the Press and
in the pulpit of all the countries concerned, while from the United
States came expressions of admiration and respect very little short of
those dictated by the natural loyalty and knowledge of his own subjects.
In Canada the Premiers of the Provinces were amongst the first to
express their feelings. At Quebec Sir Lomer Gouin, supported by the
Opposition Leader, moved the adjournment of the Legislature on May 6th:
"Those who love in a Chief of State the greatest qualities, peace,
goodness, nobility and _entente cordiale_, all feel his loss. It is for
that reason that we cannot do otherwise than suspend our sittings, and I
am convinced that all the Members of this House will endorse this
proposal for adjournment."
In Toronto Sir James Whitney, the Provincial Premier, declared that "it
would be difficult to express the feeling of love, respect, and
admiration entertained by British peoples for their late sovereign, who
in his comparatively short reign, has so borne himself and has so done
his part, that the whole human race has participated in the benefit
resulting from the wisdom shown by him. Probably no wiser monarch ever
reigned over a nation." To the New Brunswick press the local Premier,
Hon. Douglas Hazen, said: "King Edward's reign was a comparatively short
one, but the verdict of history will undoubtedly be that he was one of
the wisest and greatest rulers that ever sat upon a throne. He took a
most keen and active interest in all his country's institutions,
endeavouring at all times to promote the well-being of his subjects and
to show his appreciation of the British Dominions beyond the Seas." The
Hon. A. K. Maclean, Acting-Premier of Nova Scotia, stated that "to his
pacific tendencies and his powerful mediation is due the existence of
friendly relations between Great Britain and other nations and the
removal of many long-standing differences and historic prejudices." The
Conservative leader at Ottawa, Mr. R. L. Borden, gave eloquent
expression to his feelings:
"The tidings of sorrow which have just been flashed across the
ocean come to the people of Canada with startling suddenness.
Words of foreboding had hardly reached us before the last message
came; 'God's finger touched him and he slept.' To the people of the
overseas Dominions the Crown personifies the dignity and majesty of
the whole Empire; and through the Throne each great Dominion is
linked to the others and to the Motherland. Thus the Sovereign's
death must always thrill the Empire. But to-day's untimely tidings
bring to the people of Canada the sense of a still deeper and more
personal bereavement. They gloried in their King's title of
Peacemaker, and they believed him to be the greatest living force
for right within the Empire. In him died the greatest statesman and
diplomat of Europe."
The Hon. R. Lemieux, Postmaster-General and a Liberal leader in Quebec,
added this succinct description: "As a peacemaker and as a
constitutional king he had no equal in the history of modern times." He
expressed the hope that "in the common sorrow of his subjects at the
death of an exemplary Sovereign the ties making for unity and common
interest throughout the Empire may be strengthened and his influence for
good find continued fruition." The Hon. G. P. Graham, Minister of
Railways, also touched on the Empire thought: "His part in the growth
and increasing solidarity of the Empire in matters of defense, of trade,
of common effort for the common interest, must bulk large in history.
Since his assumption of the throne there has been a steady growth in
Canada's loyalty to the Sovereign based on esteem for his personal
character, confidence in his judgment and statesmanship, and pride in
his commanding position among the world's sovereigns." From Mr. Richard
McBride, Premier of far-away British Columbia, came the declaration that
King Edward was infinitely tactful and always patient, the first
gentleman and best beloved monarch of his time; that he was "an
unusually gifted ruler who performed unostentatiously and with inspired
ability his part in the making of British history." To Archbishop
Bruchesi of Montreal he was "a great and good King;" to the Rev. Dr.
Carman, Canada's Methodist leader, he was "royally born and ruled
royally over a free, loyal and loving people;" to Archbishop McEvay
(Roman Catholic) of Toronto he was a ruler "trusted and loved by all his
subjects;" to President R. A. Falconer, of Toronto University, there was
a special appeal in his "experience, sympathy and broad humanity."
There is no need to largely quote the tributes of Britain, Australia or
South Africa. Their people thought and felt and acted as Canada's did.
Great Britain felt the loss, of course, in a more strictly personal
sense than the Dominions beyond the Seas. The reverent crowds with bared
heads, and every sign of severe personal grief, standing outside
Buckingham Palace grounds could hardly be exactly duplicated abroad,
though the scenes in countless churches, as memorial sermons were
delivered and memorial services held amidst tokens of obvious and
sincere sorrow, came very near to it. In particular, was the open-air
service in Toronto facing the Parliament Buildings and attended by
silent masses of people, with respectful and sympathetic addresses, with
drapings and evidences of mourning on every hand, with the solemn
strains of muffled music from many bands, and the presence of thousands
of loyal troops, an indication of the popular feeling shown throughout
the Dominion on May 20th, which was appointed to be a day of mourning, a
holiday of sorrow for the people. But this is anticipating. Perhaps, in
England, the tribute of Mr. Premier Asquith, at the special meeting of
Parliament on May 11th, was most significant of the innumerable tributes
of earnest loyalty and appreciation expressed at the passing of one who
was not only a great King but a much-loved personality.
After pointing out the nature of events in recent years, the growth of
international friendships and new understandings and stronger safeguards
for peace, together with the ever-tightening bonds of corporate unity
within the British realms, Mr. Asquith went on to say that: "In all
these multiform manifestations of national and Imperial life, the
history of the world will assign a part of singular dignity to the great
ruler Great Britain has lost. In external affairs King Edward's powerful
influence was directed not only to the avoidance of war, but to the
causes of and pretexts of war, and he well earned the title by which he
will always be remembered, the Peace-maker of the World." Continuing,
the Premier said, that within the boundaries of the Empire his late
Majesty, by his broad and elastic sympathies, had won a degree of
loyalty and affectionate confidence which few Sovereigns had ever
enjoyed. "Here at home," he added, "all recognized that above the din
and dust of their hard-fought controversies, detached from party, and
attached only to the common interest, they had in the late King an
arbiter ripe in experience, judicial in temper, and at once a reverent
worshipper of their traditions, and a watchful guardian of their
constitutional liberties." King Edward's life as a devotee of duty, as a
sportsman in the best sense of the word, as an ardent and discriminating
patron of the arts, as a good business man at the head of a great
business community, possessed of intuitive shrewdness in the management
of men and difficult situations, as a keen social reformer with "no self
apart from his people," was then dwelt upon. It would be impossible in
any limited space to analyze the views of the British press. The _Times_
declared that "his people loved him for his honesty and kindly courtesy.
To all he was not merely every inch a King but every inch an English
King and an English gentleman. His influence was not the same as that of
Queen Victoria, but in some respects it was almost stronger." The _Daily
Mail_ considered that "to his initiative his subjects and the Empire
owe the pacification of South Africa and the final reconciliation with
the Boers. The system of understandings with foreign powers which is our
security to-day was in a great part his handiwork." To the Radical
_Daily News_ he was "the supreme example of a people's King by common
consent" and this the Liberal _Morning Leader_ echoed with a further
tribute to "the sheer instinctive deference paid to his proved wisdom,
his large-minded statesmanship, his unequaled knowledge of the world,
and the tact that never failed him in the greatest or the least
occasion."
A notable incident of this first week of mourning, during which the
people were waiting to pay their final tribute of loyal sympathy on the
day of the Royal interment, was the unanimous Resolution of the
Legislature of Quebec. Coming from a French-Canadian people, amongst
whom special interest had been aroused by King Edward's creation of the
_entente cordiale_ with France, something earnest and sympathetic as
well as loyal in expression might have been expected and, if so, the
hope was certainly realized. The Legislature in its address to King
George V. (May 10th) put the feelings of the people of the Province in
the following expressive words:
"We mourn the loss in him of a monarch whose chief aim was to draw
all the nations closer together and to promote universal peace.
Ever mindful of the great principles of the British constitution,
through his broad-mindedness, his tolerance, and the exquisite
charm of his personality, he succeeded in creating a potent bond of
union between the various parts of our common country, and in
closely consolidating the different branches of the greatest Empire
that ever existed. Representing as we do the Province of Quebec it
gives us pleasure to recall that the development of the idea of a
powerful Canadian nation, devoted to the interest of the
Mother-Country, was favoured by that great King. Imbued with the
grandeur and nobility of his mission he won our admiration and our
love through his solicitude in respecting our laws and our dearest
traditions, aspirations and liberties."
The individual utterances of the Ministers were equally patriotic in
terms. Sir Lomer Gouin spoke along the lines of his earlier tribute and
declared that King Edward's reign had been "a glory to his people and a
blessing to humanity." Mr. J. M. Tellier, the Opposition leader, joined
the Premier in expressing the "confidence and sincere affection" of his
people for this "the most powerful King of the most powerful of Empires"
and in presenting to the new King "the allegiance, the faith and the
heartfelt wishes of Canadians." Mr. H. Bourassa, the Nationalist
representative, Hon. P. S. G. Mackenzie, the English-speaking member of
the Cabinet, and Hon. J. C. Kaine and Hon. C. R. Devlin, the Irish
Ministers, joined in these tributes.
The view of Foreign countries was unique in its friendliness, in its
expressions of admiration for the great qualities of heart and head in
the late Sovereign, for appreciation of his broad sympathies and
international statecraft. One of the earliest official telegrams of
sympathy to King George was from President Fallieres of France: "I
learnt with emotion of the death of your beloved Father. The French
Government and the French people will regret profoundly the demise of
the august Sovereign who upon so many occasions has given them evidence
of his sincere friendship; and associate themselves fully in the great
grief which his unexpected loss brings to you, the Royal family, and the
entire British Empire. It is with a heart full of sadness that I ask
Your Royal Highness to accept my personal condolences, those of the
French Government and of all France." From the President of the United
States came a prompt message of condolence to Queen Alexandra, and from
the American Congress a unanimous Resolution of adjournment and
expressive words of sympathy with the British people "in the loss of a
wise and upright ruler whose great purpose was the cultivation of
friendly relations with all nations and the preservation of peace"; from
ex-President Roosevelt, speaking at Stockholm on May 8th, came words of
regret and of regard for the people "who mourn the loss of a wise ruler
whose sole thought was for their welfare and for the good of mankind,
and the citizens of other nations can join with them in mourning for a
man who showed throughout his term of Kingship that his voice was always
raised for justice and peace among the nations."
From United States newspapers, the exponents of public opinion in a
great kindred nation, came a wonderfully unanimous and kindly expression
of real feeling. To the New York _Herald_ the late King appeared as
blessed with "a genial personality, a kind heart and a strong common
sense, together with that highest quality of supreme importance in a
ruler and statesman--tact"; to the Buffalo _News_ King Edward was "the
ablest Royal ruler England has known in centuries;" to the Baltimore
_American_ "he was, and the world to-day generously accords him the
distinction, the first diplomatist of his time, the man who beyond all
others shaped the policies of the world." To the Indianapolis _News_ he
had "served his country and the world wisely and well, and will go into
history as one of the most successful monarchs that England has ever
had." The New York _Journal of Commerce_ paid special and high tribute
to King Edward's diplomacy and, after dealing with the French _entente
cordiale_ went on as follows: "Even more marvelous than the closing of
the secular feud with France was the termination of that with Russia,
which seemed more bitter and more hopeless of adjustment. The seemingly
impossible was, nevertheless, accomplished, and the power which but a
few short years before had been the chief menace to the safety of
British India became one of the guarantors of its immunity from attack.
It will be reckoned one of the miracles of history that Russia could
have been induced to abandon a policy which she had steadfastly
supported and been ready to concede that the affairs of Afghanistan were
purely a British interest and those of Korea exclusively Japanese."
In most of these tributes of regard and respect--British, Imperial or
Foreign--there was a reference of affectionate admiration for the Queen
Consort who, at this moment, allowed it to be understood that she would
like in future to be known as the Queen Mother. The far-famed beauty of
person, the charm and graciousness of manner, and nobility of mind and
character, which had won a way so quickly and permanently into the
hearts of the British people and had been such potent forces in the life
of King Edward and of her own family, brought to Queen Alexandra at this
time a world-tribute of sympathy and regard. British subjects all over
the Empire, multitudes outside of its bounds, were ready to echo those
famous words of Lord Tennyson, applied to the similar sorrow of Queen
Victoria:
May all love,
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee
The Love of all Thy Daughters cherish Thee
The Love of all Thy people comfort Thee
Till God's love set Thee at his side again.
Few more touching words have been written than the Queen's Message to
the Nation which was made public on May 10th: "From the depth of my poor
broken heart," she wrote, "I wish to express to the whole Nation and our
own kind people we love so well, my deep-felt thanks for all their
touching sympathy in my overwhelming sorrow and unspeakable anguish. Not
alone have I lost everything in him, my beloved husband, but the nation,
too, has suffered an irreparable loss in their best friend, father, and
Sovereign thus suddenly called away. May God give us all his Divine help
to bear this heaviest of crosses which He has seen fit to lay upon us.
His will be done. Give to me a thought in your prayers which will
comfort and sustain me in all that I have to go through. Let me take
this opportunity of expressing my heartfelt thanks for all the touching
letters and tokens of sympathy I have received from all classes, high
and low, rich and poor, which are so numerous that I fear it would be
impossible for me ever to thank everybody individually. I confide my
dear Son to your care, who I know, will follow in his dear Father's
footsteps, begging you to show him the same loyalty and devotion you
showed his dear Father. I know that both my dear son and daughter-in-law
will do their utmost to merit and keep it."
It may be added that the surviving children of King Edward and Queen
Alexandra at the time of the King's death were his successor--George
Frederick Ernest Albert, Prince of Wales; Princess Louise, Duchess of
Fife, who was born in 1867 and married in 1889; Princess Victoria, who
was born in 1868 and was unmarried; Princess Maud, Queen of Norway, who
was born in 1869 and married in 1896 to Charles, then Crown Prince of
Denmark. King Edward's only surviving brother was H. R. H., the Duke of
Connaught, who was born in 1850. His surviving sisters were Princess
Helena, married to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Princess
Louise, married to the Duke of Argyll; and Princess Beatrice, widow of
the late Prince Henry of Battenberg.