1906 King EDWARD VII of United Kingdom EMPEROR British INDIA Silver Coin i45276

Item: i45276

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

India, Colonial
British India

Edward VII

King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, Emperor of India
22 January 1901 – 6 May 1910
Silver Rupee 31mm (11.64 grams)
Reference: KM 508
EDWARD VII KING EMPEROR, head of Edward VII right.
ONE RUPEE INDIA 1906 with crown above.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

Colonial India is the part of the
Indian subcontinent
which was under the control
of European colonial powers, through trade and conquest. The first European
power to arrive in India was the
Macedonian
army of
Alexander the Great
in 327–326 BC. The
satraps
he established in the north west of the
subcontinent quickly crumbled after he left. Later,
trade was carried
between Indian states and the
Roman Empire
by Roman sailors who reached India
via the Red Sea
and
Arabian Sea
, but the Romans never sought
trading settlements or territory in India. The
spice trade
between India and Europe was one of
the main types of trade in the world economy and was the main catalyst for the
period of European exploration
.^[1][2]
The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the accidental
“discovery” of the Americas by
Christopher Columbus
in 1492. Only a few years
later, near the end of the 15th century,
Portuguese
sailor
Vasco da Gama
became the first European to
re-establish direct trade links with India since Roman times by being the first
to arrive by circumnavigating Africa (1497–1499). Having arrived in
Calicut
, which by then was one of the major
trading ports of the eastern world,^[3]
he obtained permission to trade in the city from
Saamoothiri Rajah
.

Trading rivalries brought other European powers to India. The
Netherlands
,
England
, France, and
Denmark
established trading posts in India in
the early 17th century. As the
Mughal Empire
disintegrated in the early 18th
century and then the
Maratha Empire
became weakened after the
third battle of Panipat
, the relatively weak
and unstable Indian states which emerged were increasingly open to manipulation
by the Europeans through dependent “friendly” Indian rulers.

In the later 18th century
Britain
and France struggled for dominance
through proxy Indian rulers and also by direct military intervention. The defeat
of the redoubtable Indian ruler
Tipu Sultan
in 1799 marginalised French
influence. This was followed by a rapid expansion of British power through the
greater part of the subcontinent in the early 19th century. By the middle of the
century, the British had already gained direct or indirect control over almost
all of India.
British India
contained the most populous and
valuable provinces of the
British Empire
and thus became known as “the
jewel in the British crown”.

East India Company

In 1757 Mir Jafar
, the commander in chief of the army
of the
Nawab of Bengal
, along with
Jagat Seth
, Maharaja
Krishna Nath
,
Umi Chand
and some others, secretly connived
with the British, asking support to overthrow the Nawab in return for trade
grants. The British forces, whose sole duty until then was guarding Company
property, were numerically inferior to the
Bengali
armed forces. At the
Battle of Plassey
on 23 June 1757, fought
between the British under the command of
Robert Clive
and the Nawab, Mir Jafar’s forces
betrayed the Nawab and helped defeat him. Jafar was installed on the throne as a
British subservient ruler. The battle transformed British perspective as they
realised their strength and potential to conquer smaller Indian kingdoms and
marked the beginning of the imperial or colonial era in the subcontinent.

 

An 1876 political cartoon of
Benjamin Disraeli
(1804–1881)
making
Queen Victoria

Empress of India
. The caption was
“New crowns for old ones!”

British policy in Asia during the 19th century was chiefly concerned with
expanding and protecting its hold on India, viewed as its most important colony
and the key to the rest of Asia.^[9]
The
East India Company
drove the expansion of the
British Empire
in Asia. The company’s army had
first joined forces with the
Royal Navy
during the
Seven Years’ War
, and the two continued to
cooperate in arenas outside India: the eviction of Napoleon from
Egypt
(1799), the capture of

Java from the Netherlands (1811), the acquisition of Singapore (1819)
and Malacca
(1824), and the defeat of
Burma
(1826).

From its base in India, the company had also been engaged in an increasingly
profitable opium
export trade to China since the 1730s.
This trade, unlawful in China since it was outlawed by the
Qing dynasty
in 1729, helped reverse the trade
imbalances resulting from the British imports of tea, which saw large outflows
of silver from Britain to China. In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese
authorities at
Canton
of 20,000 chests of opium led Britain to
attack China in the
First Opium War
, and the seizure by Britain of
the island of Hong Kong, at that time a minor settlement.^[11]

The British had direct or indirect control over all of present-day India
before the middle of the 19th century. In 1857, a local rebellion by an army of
sepoys
escalated into the
Rebellion of 1857
, which took six months to
suppress with heavy loss of life on both sides. The trigger for the Rebellion
has been a subject of controversy. The resistance, although short-lived, was
triggered by British East India Company attempts to expand its control of India.
According to Olson, several reasons may have triggered the Rebellion. For
example, Olson concludes that the East India Company’s attempt to annexe and
expand its direct control of India, by arbitrary laws such as Doctrine of Lapse,
combined with employment discrimination against Indians, contributed to the 1857
Rebellion.^[12]
The East India Company officers lived like princes, the company finances were in
shambles, and the company’s effectiveness in India was examined by the British
crown after 1858. As a result, the East India Company lost its powers of
government and
British India
formally came under
direct British rule
, with an appointed
Governor-General of India
. The East India
Company was dissolved the following year in 1858. A few years later,
Queen Victoria
took the title of Empress of
India.

India suffered a series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century,
leading to
widespread famines
in which at least 10 million
people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated
policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule.^{[citation
needed][dubious
–
discuss
]} This changed during
the Raj
, in which commissions were set up after
each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took
until the early 1900s to have an effect.

The slow but momentous reform movement developed gradually into the
Indian Independence Movement
. During the years
of World War I
, the hitherto bourgeois “home-rule”
movement was transformed into a popular mass movement by
Mahatma Gandhi
, a
pacifist
. Apart from Gandhi, other
revolutionaries such as
Shaheed Bhagat Singh
,
Chandrashekar Azad
,
Subhas Chandra Bose
,and Pradyumn Ananth
Pendyala were not against use of violence to oppose the British rule. The
independence movement attained its objective with the independence of Pakistan
and India on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.

Conservative elements in England consider the independence of India to be the
moment that the
British Empire
ceased to be a world power,
following
Curzon
‘s dictum that, “[w]hile we hold on to
India, we are a first-rate power. If we lose India, we will decline to a
third-rate power.”

Edward
VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was
King of the United Kingdom
and the
British Dominions
and
Emperor of India
from 22 January 1901 until his
death.

The eldest son of
Queen Victoria
and
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
, Edward
was related to royalty throughout Europe. Before his accession to the throne, he
served as
heir apparent
and held the title of
Prince of Wales
for longer than any of his
predecessors. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from
political power and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He
travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties and represented
Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian
subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, but his reputation as a playboy
prince soured his relationship with his mother.

As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the
British Home Fleet
and the reorganisation of
the British Army
after the
Second Boer War
. He re-instituted traditional
ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom
royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other
European countries, especially
France
, for which he was popularly called
“Peacemaker”, but his relationship with his nephew,
Kaiser Wilhelm II
, was poor. The
Edwardian era
, which covered Edward’s reign and
was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded
significant changes in technology and society, including
steam turbine
propulsion and the rise of
socialism
. He died in 1910 in the midst of a
constitutional crisis that was resolved the following year by the
Parliament Act 1911
, which restricted the power
of the unelected
House of Lords
.

Early life and
education

 

Portrait of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, by
Winterhalter
, 1846

Edward was born at 10:48 in the morning on 9 November 1841 in
Buckingham Palace
.^[1]
He was the eldest son and second child of
Queen Victoria
and her husband (and first
cousin)
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
. He was
christened Albert Edward at
St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
, on 25
January 1842.^[2]
He was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
. He
was known as Bertie to the family throughout his life.^[3]

As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically
Duke of Cornwall
and
Duke of Rothesay
at birth. As a son of Prince
Albert, he also held the titles of
Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
and
Duke of Saxony
. He was created
Prince of Wales
and
Earl of Chester
on 8 December 1841,
Earl of Dublin
on 17 January 1850, a
Knight of the Garter
on 9 November 1858, and a
Knight of the Thistle
on 24 May 1867.^[4]
In 1863, he renounced his succession rights to the Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
in favour of his younger
brother,
Prince Alfred
.^[5]

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should
have an education that would prepare him to be a model
constitutional monarch
. At age seven, Edward
embarked on a rigorous educational programme devised by Prince Albert, and
supervised by several tutors. Unlike his elder sister
Victoria
, Edward did not excel in his studies.^[6]
He tried to meet the expectations of his parents, but to no avail. Although
Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm,
sociability and tact—Benjamin
Disraeli described him as informed, intelligent and of sweet manner.^[7]

After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of
1859, he spent the summer of that year studying at the
University of Edinburgh
under, amongst others,
the chemist
Lyon Playfair
. In October, he matriculated as
an undergraduate at
Christ Church, Oxford
.^[8]
Now released from the educational strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed
studying for the first time and performed satisfactorily in examinations.^[9]
In 1861, he transferred to
Trinity College, Cambridge
,^[10]
where he was tutored in history by
Charles Kingsley
,
Regius Professor of Modern History
.^[11]
Kingsley’s efforts brought forth the best academic performances of Edward’s
life, and Edward actually looked forward to his lectures.^[12]

Early adulthood

 

Edward at
Niagara Falls
, 1860

In 1860, Edward undertook the first tour of North America by an heir to the
British throne. His genial good humour and confident bonhomie made the
tour a great success.^[13]
He inaugurated the
Victoria Bridge, Montreal
, across the
St Lawrence River
, and laid the cornerstone of
Parliament Hill, Ottawa
. He watched
Charles Blondin
traverse
Niagara Falls
by highwire, and stayed for three
days with President
James Buchanan
at the
White House
. Buchanan accompanied the Prince to
Mount Vernon
, to pay his respects at the tomb
of
George Washington
. Vast crowds greeted him
everywhere. He met
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
,
Ralph Waldo Emerson
and
Oliver Wendell Holmes
. Prayers for the royal
family were said in
Trinity Church, New York
, for the first time
since 1776.^[13]
The four-month tour throughout Canada and the United States considerably boosted
Edward’s confidence and self-esteem, and had many diplomatic benefits for Great
Britain.^[14]

Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the
British Army
, but his mother vetoed an active
military career.^[15]
His ranks were honorary; he was gazetted a lieutenant-colonel without experience
or any examinations in 1858.^[9]
In September 1861, Edward was sent to Germany, supposedly to watch military
manoeuvres, but actually in order to engineer a meeting between him and Princess
Alexandra of Denmark
, the eldest daughter of
Prince Christian of Denmark
and his wife
Louise
. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had
already decided that Edward and Alexandra should marry. They met at
Speyer
on 24 September under the auspices of
his elder sister,
Victoria
, who had married the
Crown Prince of Prussia
in 1858.^[16]
Edward’s elder sister, acting upon instructions from their mother, had met
Princess Alexandra at
Strelitz
in June; the young Danish princess
made a very favourable impression. Edward and Alexandra were friendly from the
start; the meeting went well for both sides, and marriage plans advanced.^[17]

From this time, Edward gained a reputation as a playboy. Determined to get
some army experience, Edward attended manoeuvres in Ireland, during which he
spent three nights with an actress,
Nellie Clifden
, who was hidden in the camp by
his fellow officers.^[18]
Prince Albert, though ill, was appalled and visited Edward at
Cambridge
to issue a reprimand. Albert died in
December 1861 just two weeks after the visit. Queen Victoria was inconsolable,
wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life and blamed Edward for his
father’s death.^[19]
At first, she regarded her son with distaste as frivolous, indiscreet and
irresponsible. She wrote to her eldest daughter, “I never can, or shall, look at
him without a shudder.”^[20]

Marriage

British Royalty
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Edward VII
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale George V Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife Princess Victoria Maud, Queen of Norway Prince Alexander John of Wales Grandchildren in the female-line Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife Princess Maud, Countess of Southesk
v t e

Once widowed, Queen Victoria effectively withdrew from public life. Shortly
after Prince Albert’s death, she arranged for Edward to embark on an extensive
tour of the Middle East, visiting
Egypt
,
Jerusalem
,
Damascus
,
Beirut
and
Constantinople
.^[21]
In part political, the
British Government
wanted Edward to secure the
friendship of Egypt’s ruler,
Said Pasha
, to prevent French control of the
Suez Canal
if the
Ottoman Empire
collapsed. It was the first
Royal Tour
on which an official photographer,
Francis Bedford
, was in attendance.^[22]
As soon as Edward returned to Britain, preparations were made for his
engagement, which was sealed at
Laeken
in Belgium on 9 September 1862.^[23]
Edward married
Princess Alexandra of Denmark
at
St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
, on 10 March
1863. He was 21; she was 18.

 

Edward and
Alexandra
on their wedding day,
1863

Edward and his wife established
Marlborough House
as their London residence and
Sandringham House
in Norfolk as their country
retreat. They entertained on a lavish scale. Their marriage met with disapproval
in certain circles because most of Queen Victoria’s relations were German, and
Denmark was at loggerheads with Germany over the territories of
Schleswig
and
Holstein
. When Alexandra’s father inherited the
throne of Denmark in November 1863, the
German Confederation
took the opportunity to
invade and annex Schleswig-Holstein
. Queen
Victoria was of two minds whether it was a suitable match given the political
climate.^[24]
After the couple’s marriage, she expressed anxiety about their socialite
lifestyle and attempted to dictate to them on various matters, including the
names of their children.^[25]

Edward had mistresses throughout his married life. He socialised with actress
Lillie Langtry
;
Lady Randolph Churchill
(born Jennie Jerome,
she was the mother of
Winston Churchill
);^[26]
Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick
; actress
Sarah Bernhardt
; noblewoman
Lady Susan Vane-Tempest
; singer
Hortense Schneider
; prostitute Giulia Beneni
(known as “La Barucci”); wealthy humanitarian
Agnes Keyser
; and
Alice Keppel
. At least fifty-five liaisons are
conjectured.^[27]
How far these relationships went is not always clear. Edward always strove to be
discreet, but this did not prevent society gossip or press speculation.^[28]
One of Alice Keppel’s great-granddaughters,
Camilla Parker Bowles
, became the mistress and
subsequently wife of
Charles, Prince of Wales
, one of Edward’s
great-great-grandsons. It was rumoured that Camilla’s grandmother,
Sonia Keppel
(born in May 1900), was the
illegitimate daughter of Edward, but she was “almost certainly” the daughter of
George Keppel
, whom she resembled.^[29]
Edward never acknowledged any illegitimate children.^[30]
Alexandra is believed to have been aware of many of his affairs and to have
accepted them.^[31]

In 1869,
Sir Charles Mordaunt
, a British
Member of Parliament
, threatened to name Edward
as co-respondent in his divorce suit. Ultimately, he did not do so but Edward
was called as a witness in the case in early 1870. It was shown that Edward had
visited the Mordaunts’ house while Sir Charles was away sitting in the
House of Commons
. Although nothing further was
proven and Edward denied he had committed adultery, the suggestion of
impropriety was damaging.^[9][32]

Edward was also a regular habitué of Parisian
brothels
and prostitutes during the 1880s, most
notably Le Chabanais
, which was regarded as the top
establishment in Paris where brothels were legal. One room contained a custom
made bath which was sometimes filled with
champagne
; and a specially designed and crafted
siège d’amour (love seat) that allowed easy access for oral and other
forms of sex for two or three people. It is now a museum piece.^[33][34][35]

Heir apparent

During Queen Victoria’s widowhood, Edward pioneered the idea of royal public
appearances as we understand them today—for example, opening
Thames Embankment
in 1871,
Mersey Tunnel
in 1886, and
Tower Bridge
in 1894.^[36]
However, his mother did not allow Edward an active role in the running of the
country until 1898.^[37][38]
He was sent summaries of important government documents, but she refused to give
him access to the originals.^[9]
He annoyed his mother by siding with Denmark on the
Schleswig-Holstein Question
in 1864 (she was
pro-German) and in the same year annoyed her again by making a special effort to
meet
Giuseppe Garibaldi
.^[39]
Liberal
Prime Minister
William Ewart Gladstone
sent him papers
secretly.^[9]

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain was given a boost when the French
Emperor,
Napoleon III
, was defeated in the
Franco-Prussian War
and the
French Third Republic
was declared.^[40]
However, in the winter of 1871, a brush with death led to an improvement in both
Edward’s popularity with the public and his relationship with his mother. While
staying at Londesborough Lodge, near
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
, Edward contracted
typhoid
, the disease that was believed to have
killed his father. There was great national concern, and one of his fellow
guests (Lord
Chesterfield) died. Edward’s recovery was greeted with almost
universal relief.^[9]
Public celebrations included the composition of
Arthur Sullivan
‘s
Festival Te Deum
. Edward cultivated politicians
from all parties, including republicans, as his friends, and thereby largely
dissipated any residual feelings against him.^[41]
From 1886,
Foreign Secretary

Lord Rosebery
sent him Foreign Office
despatches, and from 1892 some
Cabinet
papers were opened to him.^[9]

 

Edward (front centre) in India, 1876

In October 1875 Edward set off for India on an extensive eight-month tour of
the sub-continent. His advisors remarked on his habit of treating all people the
same, regardless of their social station or colour. In letters home, he
complained of the treatment of the native Indians by the British officials:
“Because a man has a black face and a different religion from our own, there is
no reason why he should be treated as a brute.”^[42]
At the end of the tour, his mother was given the title Empress of India by
Parliament, in part as a result of the tour’s success.^[43]

Edward was a patron of the arts and sciences and helped found the
Royal College of Music
. He opened the college
in 1883 with the words, “Class can no longer stand apart from class … I claim
for music that it produces that union of feeling which I much desire to
promote.”^[43]
At the same time, he enjoyed gambling and country sports and was an enthusiastic
hunter. He ordered all the clocks at Sandringham to run half an hour ahead to
provide more daylight time for shooting. This so-called tradition of
Sandringham Time
continued until 1936, when it
was abolished by
Edward VIII
.^[44]
He also laid out a golf course at Windsor. By the 1870s the future king had
taken a keen interest in horseracing and steeplechasing. In 1896, his horse
Persimmon
won both the
Derby Stakes
and the
St. Leger Stakes
. In 1900, Persimmon’s brother,
Diamond Jubilee
, won five races (Derby, St.
Leger,
2,000 Guineas Stakes
,
Newmarket Stakes
and
Eclipse Stakes
)^[45]
and another of Edward’s horses, Ambush II, won the
Grand National
.^[46]

He was regarded worldwide as an arbiter of men’s fashions.^[47][48]
He made wearing
tweed
,
Homburg hats
and
Norfolk jackets
fashionable, and popularised
the wearing of black ties with dinner jackets, instead of
white tie
and tails.^[49]
He pioneered the pressing of trouser legs from side to side in preference to the
now normal front and back creases,^[50]
and was thought to have introduced the stand-up turn-down shirt collar.^[51]
A stickler for proper dress, he is said to have admonished the Prime Minister,
Lord Salisbury
, for wearing the trousers of an
Elder Brother of
Trinity House
with a
Privy Councillor
‘s coat. Deep in an
international crisis, the Prime Minister informed the Prince of Wales that it
had been a dark morning, and that “my mind must have been occupied by some
subject of less importance.”^[52]
The tradition of men not buttoning the bottom button of waistcoats is said to be
linked to Edward, who supposedly left his undone because of his large girth.^[9][53]
His waist measured 48 inches (122 cm) shortly before his coronation.^[54]
He introduced the practice of eating roast beef, roast potatoes, horseradish
sauce and
yorkshire pudding
on Sundays, which remains a
staple British favourite for Sunday lunch.^[55][56]

 

Edward (right) with his mother (centre) and Russian relations:
Tsar Nicholas II
(left),
Empress Alexandra
and baby
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
, 1896

In 1891 Edward was embroiled in the
royal baccarat scandal
, when it was revealed he
had played an illegal card game for money the previous year. The Prince was
forced to appear as a witness in court for a second time when one of the players
unsuccessfully sued his fellow players for slander after being accused of
cheating.^[57]
In the same year Edward was involved in a personal conflict, when
Lord Charles Beresford
threatened to reveal
details of Edward’s private life to the press, as a protest against Edward
interfering with Beresford’s affair with
Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick
. The
friendship between the two men was irreversibly damaged and their bitterness
would last for the remainder of their lives.^[58]
Usually, Edward’s outbursts of temper were short-lived, and “after he had let
himself go … [he would] smooth matters by being especially nice”.^[59]

In late 1891 Edward’s eldest son, Albert Victor, was engaged to
Princess Victoria Mary of Teck
. Just a few
weeks later, in early 1892, Albert Victor died of pneumonia. Edward was
grief-stricken. “To lose our eldest son”, he wrote, “is one of those calamities
one can never really get over”. Edward told Queen Victoria, “[I would] have
given my life for him, as I put no value on mine”.^[60]
Albert Victor was the second of Edward’s children to die. In 1871, his youngest
son, John, had died just 24 hours after being born. Edward had insisted on
placing John in his coffin personally with “the tears rolling down his cheeks”.^[61]

On his way to Denmark through Belgium on 4 April 1900 Edward was the victim
of an attempted assassination, when fifteen-year-old
Jean-Baptiste Sipido
shot at him in protest
over the
Boer War
. Sipido, although obviously guilty,
was acquitted by a Belgian court because he was underage.^[62]
The perceived laxity of the Belgian authorities, combined with British disgust
at Belgian atrocities in the
Congo
, worsened the already poor relationship
between the United Kingdom and the Continent. However, in the next ten years,
Edward’s affability and popularity, as well as his use of family connections,
assisted Britain in building European alliances.^[63]

Accession

When Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, Edward became King of the United
Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the
British Dominions
.^[64]
He chose to reign under the name Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name
his mother had intended for him to use,^[65]
declaring that he did not wish to “undervalue the name of Albert” and diminish
the status of his father with whom the “name should stand alone”.^[66]
The number VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the
national church
, in deference to protests that
the previous Edwards were English kings who had “been excluded from Scotland by
battle”.^[9]
J. B. Priestley
recalled, “I was only a child
when he succeeded Victoria in 1901, but I can testify to his extraordinary
popularity. He was in fact the most popular king England had known since the
earlier 1660s.”^[67]

 

Caricature in
Puck
magazine, 1901

He donated his parents’ house,
Osborne
on the
Isle of Wight
, to the state and continued to
live at Sandringham.^[68]
He could afford to be magnanimous; his private secretary, Sir
Francis Knollys
, claimed that he was the first
heir to succeed to the throne in credit.^[69]
Edward’s finances had been ably managed by Sir
Dighton Probyn
,
Comptroller of the Household
, and had benefited
from advice from Edward’s Jewish financier friends, such as
Ernest Cassel
,
Maurice de Hirsch
and the
Rothschild family
.^[70]
At a time of widespread
anti-Semitism
, Edward attracted criticism for
openly socialising with Jews.^[71][72]

Edward VII was crowned at
Westminster Abbey
on 9 August 1902 by the
80-year-old
Archbishop of Canterbury
,
Frederick Temple
, who died only four months
later. The coronation had originally been scheduled for 26 June, but two days
before on 24 June, Edward was diagnosed with
appendicitis
.^[73]
Appendicitis was generally not treated operatively and carried a high mortality
rate, but developments in
anaesthesia
and
antisepsis
in the preceding 50 years made
life-saving surgery possible.^[74]
Sir
Frederick Treves
, with the support of
Lord Lister
, performed a then-radical operation
of draining the infected abscess through a small incision. The next day, Edward
was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar.^[75]
Two weeks later, it was announced that the King was out of danger. Treves was
honoured with a baronetcy (which Edward had arranged before the operation)^[76]
and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream.^[74]

Edward refurbished the royal palaces, reintroduced the traditional
ceremonies, such as the
State Opening of Parliament
, that his mother
had forgone, and founded new
orders of honours
, such as the
Order of Merit
, to recognise contributions to
the arts and sciences.^[77]
In 1902, the Shah of Persia,
Mozzafar-al-Din
, visited England expecting to
receive the
Order of the Garter
. Edward refused to give
this high honour to the Shah because the order was meant to be his personal gift
and the
Foreign Secretary
,
Lord Lansdowne
, had promised the order without
his consent. Edward also objected to inducting a Muslim into a Christian order
of chivalry. His refusal threatened to damage British attempts to gain influence
in Persia,^[78]
but Edward resented his ministers’ attempts to reduce the King’s traditional
powers.^[79]
Eventually, he relented and Britain sent a special embassy to the Shah with a
full Order of the Garter the following year.^[80]

“Uncle of Europe”

 

Edward VII relaxing at
Balmoral Castle
, photographed by
his wife, Alexandra

As king, Edward’s main interests lay in the fields of foreign affairs and
naval and military matters. Fluent in French and German, he made a number of
visits abroad, and took annual holidays in
Biarritz
and
Marienbad
.^[44]
One of his most important foreign trips was an official visit to France in May
1903 as the guest of President
Émile Loubet
. Following a visit to the
Pope
in Rome, this trip helped create the
atmosphere for the Anglo-French
Entente Cordiale
, an agreement delineating
British and French colonies in North Africa, and ruling out any future war
between the two countries. The Entente was negotiated between the French foreign
minister,
Théophile Delcassé
, and the British foreign
secretary,
Lord Lansdowne
. Signed in London on 8 April
1904 by Lansdowne and the French ambassador
Paul Cambon
, it marked the end of centuries of
Anglo-French rivalry and Britain’s
splendid isolation
from Continental affairs,
and attempted to counterbalance the growing dominance of the
German Empire
and its ally,
Austria-Hungary
.^[81]

Edward was related to nearly every other European monarch and came to be
known as the “uncle of Europe”.^[37]
Kaiser Wilhelm II
was his nephew;
Tsar Nicholas II
was his nephew-by-marriage;
Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain
,
Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden
,
Crown Princess Marie of Romania
,
Crown Princess Sophia of Greece
, and
Empress Alexandra of Russia
were his nieces;
Haakon VII of Norway
was both his nephew by
marriage and his son-in-law;
Frederick VIII of Denmark
and
George I of Greece
were his brothers-in-law;
Albert I of Belgium
,
Ferdinand of Bulgaria
, and
Charles I
and
Manuel II of Portugal
were his second cousins.
Edward doted on his grandchildren, and indulged them, to the consternation of
their governesses.^[82]
However, there was one relation whom Edward did not like: Wilhelm II. Edward’s
difficult relationship with his nephew exacerbated the tensions between Germany
and Britain.^[83]

In April 1908, during Edward’s annual stay at Biarritz, he accepted the
resignation of British Prime Minister Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
. In a break with
precedent, Edward asked Campbell-Bannerman’s successor,
H. H. Asquith
, to travel to Biarritz to
kiss hands
. Asquith complied, but the press
criticised the action of the King in appointing a prime minister on foreign soil
instead of returning to Britain.^[84]
In June 1908, Edward became the first reigning British monarch to visit the
Russian Empire
, despite refusing to visit in
1906, when Anglo-Russian relations were strained in the aftermath of the
Russo-Japanese War
, the
Dogger Bank incident
, and the Tsar’s
dissolution of the Duma
.^[85]
The previous month, Edward visited the Scandinavian countries, becoming the
first British monarch to visit Sweden.^[86]

Political opinions

 

Edward depicted in naval uniform by
Vanity Fair
magazine, 1902

Edward involved himself heavily in discussions over army reform, the need for
which had become apparent with the failings of the
Second Boer War
. He supported the redesign of
army command, the creation of the
Territorial Force
, and the decision to provide
an Expeditionary Force supporting France in the event of war with Germany.^[87]
Reform of the Royal Navy was also suggested, partly due to the ever-increasing
Naval Estimates, and because of the emergence of the
Imperial German Navy
as a new strategic threat.^[88]
Ultimately a dispute arose between Admiral
Lord Charles Beresford
, who favoured increased
spending and a broad deployment, and the
First Sea Lord
Admiral Sir
John Fisher
, who favoured efficiency savings,
scrapping obsolete vessels, and a strategic realignment of the Royal Navy
relying on torpedo craft for home defence backed by the new
dreadnoughts
.^[89]

The King lent support to Fisher, in part because he disliked Beresford, and
eventually Beresford was dismissed. Beresford continued his campaign outside of
the navy and Fisher ultimately announced his resignation in late 1909, although
the bulk of his policies were retained.^[90]
The King was intimately involved in the appointment of Fisher’s successor as the
Fisher-Beresford feud had split the service, and the only truly qualified figure
known to be outside of both camps was
Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson
, who had retired in
1907.^[91]
Wilson was reluctant to return to active duty, but Edward persuaded him to do
so, and Wilson became First Sea Lord on 25 January 1910.^[92]

As Prince of Wales, Edward had come to enjoy warm and mutually respectful
relations with
W. E. Gladstone
, whom his mother detested.^[93]
But Gladstone’s son,
Home Secretary

Herbert Gladstone
, angered the King by planning
to permit Roman Catholic priests in vestments to carry the Host through the
streets of London, and by appointing two ladies, Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs
H. J. Tennant
, to serve on a Royal Commission
on reforming divorce law – Edward thought divorce could not be discussed with
“delicacy or even decency” before ladies. Edward’s biographer
Philip Magnus
suggests that Gladstone may have
become a whipping-boy for the King’s general irritation with the Liberal
government. Gladstone was sacked in the reshuffle the following year and the
King agreed, with some reluctance, to appoint him
Governor-General of South Africa
.^[94]

Edward was rarely interested in politics, although his views on some issues
were notably liberal for the time. During his reign he said use of the word
nigger
was “disgraceful” despite it then
being in common parlance.^[95]
While Prince of Wales, he had to be dissuaded from breaking with constitutional
precedent by openly voting for
Gladstone
‘s
Representation of the People Bill (1884)
in the
House of Lords
. On other matters he was less
progressive: he did not, for example, favour giving
votes to women
,^[9][96]
although he did suggest that the social reformer
Octavia Hill
serve on the
Commission for Working Class Housing
.^[97]
He was also opposed to
Irish Home Rule
, instead preferring a form of
dual monarchy
.^[9]
Edward lived a life of luxury that was often far removed from that of the
majority of his subjects. However, his personal charm with people at all levels
of society and his strong condemnation of prejudice went some way to assuage
republican and racial tensions building during his lifetime.^[9]

Constitutional crisis

 

Bust by
Francis Derwent Wood

 

Profile of Edward VII on a
halfpenny
, 1902

In the last year of his life, Edward became embroiled in a constitutional
crisis when the
Conservative
majority in the
House of Lords
refused to pass the “People’s
Budget” proposed by the
Liberal
government of Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith
. The crisis eventually led –
after Edward’s death – to the removal of the Lords’ right to veto legislation.

The King was displeased at Liberal attacks on the peers, which included a
polemic speech by
David Lloyd George
at
Limehouse
.^[98]
Cabinet minister
Winston Churchill
publicly demanded a general
election, for which Asquith apologised to the King’s adviser
Lord Knollys
and rebuked Churchill at a Cabinet
meeting. Edward was so depressed at the tone of class warfare – although Asquith
told him that party rancour had been just as bad over the
First Home Rule Bill
in 1886 – that he
introduced his son to
Secretary of State for War

Richard Haldane
as “the last King of England”.^[99]
After the King’s horse Minoru won the Derby on 26 July 1909, he returned to the
racetrack the following day, and laughed when a man shouted: “Now, King. You’ve
won the Derby. Go back home and dissolve this bloody Parliament!”^[100]

In vain, the King urged Conservative leaders
Arthur Balfour
and
Lord Lansdowne
to pass the Budget, which
Lord Esher
had advised him was not unusual, as
Queen Victoria had helped to broker agreements between the two Houses over
Irish disestablishment in 1869
and the
Third Reform Act in 1884
.^[101]
On Asquith’s advice, however, he did not offer them an election (at which, to
judge from recent by-elections, they were likely to gain seats) as a reward for
doing so.^[102]

The Finance Bill passed the Commons on 5 November 1909 but was rejected by
the Lords on 30 November; they instead passed a resolution of Lord Lansdowne’s
stating that they were entitled to oppose the bill as it lacked an electoral
mandate. The King was annoyed that his efforts to urge passage of the budget had
become public knowledge^[103]
and had forbidden his adviser Lord Knollys, who was an active Liberal peer, from
voting for the budget, although Knollys had suggested that this would be a
suitable gesture to indicate royal desire to see the Budget pass.^[104]
In December 1909, a proposal to create peers (to give the Liberals a majority in
the Lords) or give the prime minister the right to do so was considered
“outrageous” by Knollys, who thought the King should abdicate rather than agree
to it.^[105]

The
January 1910 election
was dominated by talk of
removing the Lords’ veto. During the election campaign Lloyd George talked of
“guarantees” and Asquith of “safeguards” that would be necessary before forming
another Liberal government, but the King informed Asquith that he would not be
willing to contemplate creating peers until after a second general election.^[9][106]
Balfour refused to be drawn on whether or not he would be willing to form a
Conservative government, but advised the King not to promise to create peers
until he had seen the terms of any proposed constitutional change.^[107]
During the campaign the leading Conservative
Walter Long
had asked Knollys for permission to
state that the King did not favour Irish Home Rule, but Knollys refused, as it
was not appropriate for the monarch’s views to be known in public.^[108]

The
election
resulted in a
hung parliament
, with the Liberal government
dependent on the support of the third largest party, the
Irish nationalists
. The King suggested a
compromise whereby only 50 peers from each side would be allowed to vote, which
would also redress the large Conservative majority in the Lords, but
Lord Crewe
, Liberal leader in the Lords,
advised that this would reduce the Lords’ independence as only peers who were
loyal party supporters would be picked.^[108]
Pressure to remove the Lords’ veto now came from the Irish nationalist MPs, who
wanted to remove the Lords’ ability to block the introduction of Irish Home
Rule. They threatened to vote against the Budget unless they had their way (an
attempt by Lloyd George to win their support by amending whisky duties was
abandoned as the Cabinet felt this would recast the Budget too much). Asquith
now revealed that there were no “guarantees” for the creation of peers. The
Cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a
Conservative government.^[109]

The King’s
Speech from the Throne
on 21 February made
reference to introducing measures restricting the Lords’ power of veto to one of
delay, but Asquith inserted a phrase “in the opinion of my advisers” so the King
could be seen to be distancing himself from the planned legislation.^[110]

The Commons passed resolutions on 14 April that would form the basis for the
Parliament Act
: to remove the power of the
Lords to veto money bills, to replace their veto of other bills with a power to
delay, and to reduce the term of Parliament from seven years to five (the King
would have preferred four^[107]).
But in that debate Asquith hinted – to ensure the support of the nationalist MPs
– that he would ask the King to break the deadlock “in that Parliament” (i.e.
contrary to Edward’s earlier stipulation that there be a second election). The
Budget was passed by both Commons and Lords in April.^[111]

By April the Palace was having secret talks with Balfour and the Archbishop
of Canterbury, who both advised that the Liberals did not have sufficient
mandate to demand the creation of peers. The King thought the whole proposal
“simply disgusting” and that the government was “in the hands of
Redmond
& Co”. Lord Crewe announced publicly
that the government’s wish to create peers should be treated as formal
“ministerial advice” (which, by convention, the monarch must obey) although Lord
Esher argued that the monarch was entitled in extremis to dismiss the
government rather than take their “advice”.^[112]
Esher’s view has been called “obsolete and unhelpful”.^[113]

Death

Edward habitually smoked twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day. Towards
the end of his life he increasingly suffered from
bronchitis
.^[9]
He suffered a momentary loss of consciousness during a state visit to Berlin in
February 1909.^[114]
In March 1910, the King was staying at
Biarritz
when he collapsed. He remained there
to convalesce, while in London Asquith tried to get the Finance Bill passed. The
King’s continued ill health was unreported and he attracted criticism for
staying in France whilst political tensions were so high.^[9]
On 27 April he returned to Buckingham Palace, still suffering from severe
bronchitis. Alexandra returned from visiting her brother, King
George I of Greece
, in
Corfu
a week later on 5 May.

The following day, the King suffered several heart attacks, but refused to go
to bed saying, “No, I shall not give in; I shall go on; I shall work to the
end.”^[115]
Between moments of faintness, his son the Prince of Wales (shortly to be
King George V
) told him that his horse, Witch
of the Air, had won at
Kempton Park
that afternoon. The King replied,
“Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad”: his
final words
.^[9]
At 11:30 p.m. he lost consciousness for the last time and was put to bed. He
died 15 minutes later.^[115]

Edward VII was buried at
St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
, on 20 May
1910. As
Barbara Tuchman
noted in
The Guns of August
,
his funeral
marked “the greatest assemblage of
royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last”.

Legacy

Statue of Edward VII in
Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne

Statue of Edward VII outside the
Holyrood Palace
in Edinburgh

 

Statues of Edward can be found throughout the former empire, such as those in
Waterloo Place, London;
Centenary Square, Birmingham
;
Union Street, Aberdeen
;
Queen’s Park, Toronto
;
Phillips Square, Montreal
;
North Terrace, Adelaide
; Franklin Square,
Hobart
; and outside the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
.

Before his accession to the throne, Edward was the longest-serving
heir apparent
in British history, until
surpassed by his great-great-grandson
Charles, Prince of Wales
, on 22 April 2011. As
the title
Prince of Wales
is not exactly coincident with
the position of heir apparent, he remains the longest-serving holder of that
title, at 59 years, 45 days; Charles has held the title for 56 years, 145 days.

As king, Edward VII proved a greater success than anyone had expected, but he
was already an old man and had little time left to fulfil the role. In his short
reign, he ensured that his second son and heir, George V, was better prepared to
take the throne. Contemporaries described their relationship as more like
affectionate brothers than father and son,^[116]
and on Edward’s death George wrote in his diary that he had lost his “best
friend and the best of fathers … I never had a [cross] word with him in my
life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief”.^[117]

Edward was lauded as “Peacemaker”,^[118]
but had been afraid that his nephew, the German Emperor
Wilhelm II
, would tip Europe into war.^[119]
Four years after Edward’s death, World War I broke out. The naval reforms he had
supported and his part in securing the
Triple Entente
between Britain, France and
Russia, as well as his relationships with his extended family, fed the paranoia
of the German Emperor, who blamed Edward for the war.^[120]
Publication of the official biography of Edward was delayed by its author,
Sidney Lee
, who feared German propagandists
would select material to portray Edward as an anti-German warmonger.^[121]
Lee was also hampered by the extensive destruction of Edward’s personal papers;
Edward had left orders that all his letters should be burned on his death.^[122]
Subsequent biographers have been able to construct a more rounded picture of
Edward by using material and sources that were unavailable to Lee.^[123]

Edward received criticism for his apparent pursuit of self-indulgent pleasure
but he received great praise for his affable and kind good manners, and his
diplomatic skill. As his grandson wrote, “his lighter side … obscured the fact
that he had both insight and influence.”^[124]
“He had a tremendous zest for pleasure but he also had a real sense of duty”,
wrote J. B. Priestley.^[125]
Lord Esher
wrote that Edward was “kind and
debonair and not undignified – but too human”.^[126]

Titles,
styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 9 November – 8 December 1841: His Royal Highness The Duke
  of Cornwall and Rothesay
• 8 December 1841 – 22 January 1901: His Royal Highness The
  Prince of Wales
  • 17 January 1850 – 22 January 1901: The Earl of Dublin
• 22 January 1901 – 6 May 1910: His Majesty The King
  • with regard to India: His Imperial Majesty The King-Emperor

Honours

British honours

• 9 November 1858: Knight of the
  Order of the Garter
  ^[127]
• 25 June 1861: Knight Companion of the
  Order of the Star of India
  ^[127]
• 12 February 1863: Fellow of the
  Royal Society
  ^[127]
• 8 December 1863: Member of the
  Privy Council of the United Kingdom
  ^[127]
• 10 February 1865: Knight Grand Cross of the
  Order of the Bath
  ^[127]
• 28 March 1866: Knight Grand Commander of the
  Order of the Star of India
  ^[127]
• 24 May 1867: Knight of the
  Order of the Thistle

  
  ^[127]
  

• 18 March 1868: Knight of the
  Order of St Patrick
  ^[127]
• 21 April 1868: Member of the
  Privy Council of Ireland
  ^[127]
• 30 May 1877: Knight Grand Cross of the
  Order of St Michael and St George
  ^[127]
• 21 June 1887: Knight Grand Commander of the
  Order of the Indian Empire
  ^[127]
• 6 May 1896: Knight Grand Cross of the
  Royal Victorian Order
  ^[127]
• 22 June 1897:
  Great Master
  of the
  Order of the Bath
  ^[128]

Foreign honours

• May 1852:
  
  
  
  Knight of the
  Order of the Golden Fleece
  of Spain^[127]
• March 1859:
  
  
  
  Knight Grand Cross of the
  Order of the Tower and Sword
  of Portugal^[127]
• March 1863:
  
  
  Grand
  Officer of the
  Legion of Honour
  of France^[127]
• 27 September 1864:
  
  
  
  Knight of the
  Order of the Seraphim
  of Sweden.^[129]
• 1869:
  
  
  
  Knight of the
  Order of the Black Eagle
  of Prussia^[127]
• January 1874:
  
  
  
  Knight of the
  Order of St Andrew
  of Russia^[127]
• 8 October 1874:
  
  
  
  Grand Cross of the
  Order of St. Olav
  of Norway^[130]
• May 1876:
  
  
  
  Knight Grand Cross of the
  Order of Charles III
  of Spain^[127]
• September 1901:
  
  
  
  Grand Commander of the
  Order of the Dannebrog
  of Denmark^[131]
• 9 October 1901:
  
  
  
  Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Ethiopia^[132]

Arms

As Prince of Wales, Edward’s coat of arms was the
royal arms
differenced by a
label
of three points
argent
, and an
inescutcheon
of the
shield of Saxony
, representing his father. When
he acceded as King, he gained the royal arms undifferenced.^[133]

Coat of arms as Prince of Wales from 1841–1901  Royal arms outside Scotland  Royal arms in Scotland

Issue

Ancestry

See also

• Cultural depictions of Edward VII of the United
  Kingdom
• 1908 Summer Olympics
  , which he opened