© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

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Heir apparent

During Victoria's widowhood, he represented her at public gatherings. But even as a husband and father, Bertie was not allowed by his mother to have an active role in the running of the country. Several incidents—including a court appearance in a notorious divorce case—brought Bertie bad press and caused him to be regarded as unsuitable material for a future monarch.

He enthusiastically indulged in pursuits such as gambling and country sports. Edward was also a patron of the arts and sciences and helped found the Royal College of Music.

Freemason

An active Freemason throughout his adult life, Edward VII was installed as Grand Master in 1874, giving great impetus and publicity to the fraternity. He regularly appeared in public, both at home and on his tours abroad, as Grand Master, laying the foundation stones of public buildings, bridges, dockyards, and churches with Masonic ceremony. His presence ensured publicity, and reports of Masonic meetings at all levels appeared regularly in the national and local press. Freemasonry was constantly in the public eye, and Freemasons were known in their local communities. Edward VII was one of the biggest contributors to the fraternity.

King

When Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, Bertie became king. Then 59, he was the second oldest man to ascend to the throne in British history (the oldest having been William IV, who ascended at age 64)[3]. To the surprise of many, he chose to reign under the name Edward VII instead of Albert Edward I, the name his mother had intended for him to use. (No English or British sovereign has ever reigned under a double name.) The new King declared that he chose the name Edward as an honoured name borne by six of his predecessors, and that he did not wish to diminish the status of his father with whom alone among royalty the name Albert should be associated. Some observers, noting also such acts of the new king as lighting cigars in places where Queen Victoria had always prohibited smoking, thought that his rejection of Albert as a reigning name was his acknowledgment that he was finally out from under his parents' shadow.

The Shah of Persia, Mozzafar-al-Din, visited England around 1902 on the promise of receiving the Order of the Garter. King Edward VII refused to give this high honor to the Shah. A quick thinking Secretary had a special medal made that resembled the Order, but was missing the Cross of St. George. He and had it sent to the royal yacht just in time for the Shah's arrival. The King was so enraged by the sight of the medal, though, that he threw it out of his yacht's porthole. As a consolation, the Shah was introduced to the King's tailor, Henry Poole and Co. on Savile Row. A few years later, Britain sent the Shah a full Order of the Garter.

Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902. His coronation had originally been scheduled for 26 June but two days before on 24 June, Edward developed appendicitis. Thanks to the discovery of anaesthesia in the preceding 50 years he was able to undergo a potentially life-saving operation, performed by Sir Frederick Treves. Two weeks later it was announced that the King was out of danger.

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. One of his most important foreign trips was an official visit to France in spring 1903 as the guest of President Šmile Loubet. This visit helped create the atmosphere for the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, an informal agreement delineating British and French colonies in North Africa, and making virtually unthinkable the wars that had so often divided the countries in the past. Negotiated between the French foreign minister, ThÈophile DelcassÈ, and the British foreign secretary, the Marquess of Lansdowne, and signed on 8 April 1904 by Lord Lansdowne and the French ambassador Paul Cambon, the Entente marked the end of centuries of Anglo-French rivalry and Britain's splendid isolation from Continental affairs.

"Uncle of Europe"

Edward VII was, mainly through his mother and his father-in-law, related to nearly every other European monarch and came to be known as the "uncle of Europe." The German Emperor Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, King Alphonso XIII of Spain, and Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha were Edward's nephews; King Haakon VII of Norway was his son-in-law and nephew by marriage; King George I of the Hellenes and King Frederick VIII of Denmark were his brothers-in-law; and King Albert I of Belgium, Manuel II of Portugal, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and Prince Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-L¸neburg, were his cousins. Edward's volatile relationship with his nephew, Wilhelm II, exacerbated the tensions between Germany and Britain in the decade before World War I.

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 Herbert Henry Asquith. The King died before the Liberal victory in the 1910 general election resolved the situation, but he discreetly let Asquith know his willingness to appoint additional peers, if necessary, to enable the budget's passage in the House of Lords.

Death

On May 6, 1910, Edward was bedridden with bronchitis. He enjoyed his last midday cigar, then suffered heart attacks and died at 11:45pm at Buckingham Palace. On his deathbed, he heard that his horse 'Witch of the Air' had won at Kempton Park.

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 learn the role. He ensured that his second son and heir, who would become King George V, was better prepared to take the throne. Edward VII is buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Legacy

The lead ship of a new class of battleships, launched in 1903, was named in his honour.

King Edward VII seems to be a popular name for schools in England. One of the largest is King Edward VII Upper School, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire as well as King Edward VII School, Sheffield England, founded 1905 formally Wesley College, Sheffield.

A statue of King Edward VII and supporters constructed from local granite stands at the junction of Union Gardens and Union Street, in the city centre of Aberdeen.

Dramatisation

Edward's life was dramatised in the 1975 British television series Edward the Seventh, also known as Edward the King or The Royal Victorians, and starring Charles Sturridge as the adolescent Edward, Timothy West as the adult Edward and Annette Crosbie as Queen Victoria.

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