Edward VII

ABOUT

Edward VII (9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the British Dominions, and Emperor of India from 1901 until his death. The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, his reign of more than nine years became known as the Edwardian era. He was also the first British monarch from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which years later was renamed the House of Windsor by his son, George V. King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India Reign January 22, 1901 on May 6, 1910 Coronation August 9, 1902 Predecessor Victory Successor George V Birth November 9, 1841 Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom Death May 6, 1910 (age 68) Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom Buried in 20 May 1910, St George's Chapel, Windsor, Berkshire, UK Full name Albert Edward Wife Alexandra of Denmark Offspring Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale George V of the United Kingdom Louise, Princess Royal United Kingdom victory Maud from the UK Alexander John of Wales Home Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Father Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Mother United Kingdom victory Religion Anglicanism

BIOGRAPHY

Edward was the second-longest-serving heir apparent in history to hold the title of Prince of Wales. During his mother's long reign, he was largely absent from state affairs and personified the leisured elite that was so fashionable at the time. Edward travelled around the kingdom on ceremonial duties and represented the United Kingdom abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and India in 1875 were great successes, but his reputation as a libertine prince strained his relationship with his mother. He ascended the throne in 1901, and the period of his reign became known as the Edwardian era. Edward played a major role in modernising the navy and reorganising the army after the Second Boer War. He reinstituted traditional ceremonies and broadened the range of people with whom he socialised. Edward promoted good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially with France, where he became popularly known as "the Peacemaker", but had a poor relationship with his nephew, Emperor William II of Germany. Edward died in 1910 in the midst of a constitutional crisis that was resolved the following year with the Parliamentary Decree of 1911.

EARLY LIFE

Albert Edward was born at 10:48 a.m. on 9 November 1841 at Buckingham Palace, London. He was the second child and first son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was baptised on 25 January 1842 at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His godparents were King Frederick William IV of Prussia, his paternal grandfather's wife Duchess Marie of Württemberg (represented by his maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld), his great-uncle Prince Adolf, Duke of Cambridge, his great-grandfather's wife Princess Caroline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (represented by her great-aunt Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel), his great-aunt Princess Sophie of the United Kingdom (represented by her cousin Princess Augusta of Cambridge) and his great-uncle Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. Throughout his life, the family called him Bertie. When he was created Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, Edward automatically became the eldest of the sovereign's sons. As the son of Prince Albert, he also bore the titles 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, Knight of the Garter on 9 November 1858 and Knight of the Thistle on 24 May 1867. In 1863, Edward renounced his rights of succession to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother, Prince Alfred.

EDUCATION

Victoria and Albert were determined that their eldest son and heir should receive an education that would prepare him to be a model constitutional monarch. At the age of seven, Edward began a rigorous educational programme planned by his father and supervised by a number of tutors. However, unlike his older sister Victoria, Princess Royal, he did not excel in his studies. The prince tried to live up to his parents' expectations, but in vain. Although Edward was never a diligent student – ​​his real talents were his charm, sociability and tact – Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli described him as well-informed, intelligent and well-mannered. Edward undertook a study tour of Rome in early 1859 and then spent some time later that year studying at the University of Edinburgh, where he was taught by the Scottish chemist Lyon Playfair. He enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford, in October. Edward finally took a liking to learning and for the first time achieved satisfactory results in his examinations now that he was free from the educational restrictions imposed by Victoria and Albert. The Prince transferred in 1861 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had Charles Kingsley as his history tutor. Kingsley's efforts produced the best academic results of Edward's life, with the Prince actually looking forward to his lessons.

ADULT LIFE

In 1860, Edward made the first trip by a British heir to North America. His good humor and cordiality made the visit a great success. In Montreal, Canada, he opened the Victoria Bridge over the St. Lawrence River and laid the foundation stone for Parliament Hill in Ottawa. In the United States, the prince watched Charles Blondin cross Niagara Falls on a wire and spent three days at the White House hosted by President James Buchanan. The two went to Mount Vernon to pay their respects to George Washington at his tomb. The crowds were large everywhere. He met the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the physician Oliver Wendell Holmes. Prayers for the royal family were held at Trinity Church in New York City for the first time since 1776. The four-month trip greatly boosted Edward's self-esteem and confidence, and brought many diplomatic benefits to the United Kingdom. Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the British Army, but his mother vetoed any military activity. His rank was honorary; he was made a lieutenant-colonel in 1858 without any combat experience or examinations. He was sent to Germany in September 1861, ostensibly to watch military manoeuvres, but in reality the purpose was to meet Princess Alexandra of Denmark, daughter of the then Prince Christian of Denmark and his wife Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Victoria and Albert had already decided that their son would marry the Danish princess. The couple met on 24 September at Speyer under the auspices of his sister Victoria, who had married Frederick William, Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858.

ADULT LIFE

Princess Victoria, acting on her mother's instructions, had met Alexandra in June and had formed a favourable impression of the young princess. Edward and Alexandra were friendly from the outset; the meeting went well for both parties, and marriage plans were advanced. Edward gained a reputation as a playboy from this time. He attended military activities in Ireland, determined to gain some military experience, and spent three days with the actress Nellie Clifden, who had been posted to the field by her fellow officers. His father, although ill, was horrified: he sent his son a letter saying, "I knew you were thoughtless and weak, but I never thought you depraved", and visited him in Cambridge to reprimand him. Albert died two weeks later in December 1861. Victoria was inconsolable, wore black mourning clothes for the rest of her life, and blamed Edward for his father's death. Initially she had regarded her son as frivolous, indiscreet and irresponsible. He wrote to his daughter Vitória: “I cannot, nor could I, look at him without shuddering.”

MARRIAGE

Once a widow, Vitória withdrew completely from public life. She had Edward embark on a long tour of the Middle East shortly after Albert's death, passing through Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut and Constantinople. Partly due to politics, the British government wanted the prince to become friends with Sa'id Pasha of Egypt in order to prevent the French from taking control of the Suez Canal if the Ottoman Empire fell. It was the first royal trip accompanied by an official photographer, Francis Bedford. As soon as he returned to Great Britain, preparations began for his engagement, which was sealed in Laeken, Belgium, on September 9, 1862. Edward and Alexandra married at St George's Chapel on 10 March 1863. The couple lived at Marlborough House in London and used Sandringham House in Norfolk as their country retreat. They had luxurious fun. The marriage was not well received in certain social circles as the majority of Victoria's family relationships were Germanic and Denmark was at odds with Germany over the territories of Schleswig and Holstein. When Alexandra's father ascended the Danish throne as Christian IX on November 15, 1863, the German Confederation took the opportunity to invade and annex Schleswig-Holstein. Victoria had divided opinions on whether it would be a good union given the political situation. After the wedding, the queen expressed great anguish over Edward and Alexandra's social lifestyle and tried to dictate their actions on several matters, including the names of their children. had six children: Alberto Vitor, Jorge, Luísa, Vitória Alexandra, Maud and Alexandre João; apparently they were all born prematurely and biographer Richard Hough suggests that Alexandra deliberately misled Victoria about likely birth dates so as not to have the queen present during her births.

MARRIAGE

Edward had many mistresses during his married life. He was often with actress Lillie Langtry, Jennie Churchill (mother of future Prime Minister Winston Churchill), Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, actress Sarah Bernhardt, aristocrat Susan Vane-Tempest, singer Hortense Schneider, prostitute Giulia Beneni, humanitarian Agnes Keyser and Alice Keppel. It is estimated that he had at least 55 affairs. It is not clear how extensive these relationships were. The prince tried hard to keep it a secret, but this did not prevent gossip and speculation in the media. One of Alice Keppel's great-granddaughters, Camilla Shand, became the mistress and later wife of Charles III, the current King of the United Kingdom, one of Edward's great-great-grandchildren. There were rumours that Sonia Kappel, Baroness Ashcombe and Camilla's grandmother, was an illegitimate daughter of Edward, but she was "almost certainly" the daughter of George Keppel, to whom she bore a resemblance. Edward never acknowledged paternity of any illegitimate children. It is believed that Alexandra knew of many of the infidelities and accepted them. Despite this, the marriage was described as happy.

MARRIAGE

Sir Charles Mordaunt, 10th Baronet and member of parliament, threatened to appoint Edward in 1869 as a correspondent in his divorce proceedings. Although he ended up not doing so, the prince was called early the following year to testify in court. It was shown that Edward had visited Mordaunt's house while he was in session in the House of Commons. Although nothing further was proven and Eduardo denied having committed adultery, the suggestion of impropriety was damaging. Eduardo was a regular visitor to Parisian brothels and prostitutes during the 1880s, particularly Le Chabanais, which was considered the best establishment of its kind. in Paris, where brothels were legal. One of the rooms had a custom-made bathtub that was sometimes filled with champagne, and a specially designed and created siège d'amour ("love seat") that allowed access to two- and three-way oral sex with ease. The chair is now a museum piece.

REIGN- ASCENSION

Victoria died on 22 January 1901, and Edward became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in a first, of the British Dominions Overseas. He chose to reign as Edward VII rather than Albert Edward – the name his mother had wanted him to use, declaring that she did not wish to "undervalue the name of Albert" and diminish the position of his father with whom the "name must stand alone". The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, not least by the national church, in defence of protests that previous Edwards were English kings who had "been shut out of Scotland by battle". J. B. Priestley recalls that "I was only a child when in 1901 he succeeded Victoria, but I can testify to his extraordinary popularity. He was in fact the most popular king England has seen since the early 1660s". He bequeathed his parents' house, Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to the state and continued to live at Sandringham. Edward could afford to be magnanimous; His private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, claimed that he was the first heir to succeed to the throne in good standing. His finances had been skilfully managed by Sir Dighton Probyn, Comptroller of the Household, and he had also been advised by Edward's Jewish financial friends, such as Ernest Cassel, Moritz Hirsch and the Rothschild family. Edward was criticised for openly socialising with Jews at a time of great anti-Semitism. Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902 by Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died just four months later at the age of eighty. The coronation had been scheduled for 26 June, but two days before the king was diagnosed with appendicitis. The condition was not usually operable and had a high mortality rate, but developments in anaesthesia and antiseptics over the previous fifty years had made surgery possible.

REIGN- ASCENSION

Sir Frederick Treves, with the support of Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, performed a radical operation for the time by draining the infected abscess through a small incision. The next day, Eduardo was already sitting in bed smoking his cigar. Two weeks later, it was announced that he was no longer in danger. Treves received a barony (which Eduardo had already prepared before the operation) and the surgery for appendicitis became famous. Edward reformed the royal palaces, reintroducing traditional ceremonies, such as the Opening of Parliament, which his mother had renounced, also founding new honorary orders, such as the Order of Merit to recognize contributions in the fields of arts and sciences. also founding new honorific orders, such as the Order of Merit to recognize contributions in the fields of arts and sciences.[74] Emperor Mozzafar-al-Din of Persia visited England in 1902 hoping to receive the Order of the Garter. Edward refused to hand over this honor because the order was supposedly to be a personal gift from the monarch and Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, his Foreign Secretary, had promised to hand over the order without his consent. Edward was also against inducting a Muslim into a Christian order of chivalry. His refusal threatened to damage British attempts to gain influence in Persia, but the king resented his ministers' attempts to diminish his traditional powers. He later relented and the United Kingdom sent a special embassy to the emperor the following year with the Order of Complete garter.

LEGACY

As king, Edward proved to be a much greater success than expected, but he was already an old man and had little time to fulfil his role. During his short reign, he ensured that his son and heir, George V, was better prepared to assume the throne. Contemporaries described the relationship between the two as that of affectionate brothers rather than father and son, with George writing in his diary after his father's death that he had lost his "best friend and best of parents ... I have never had an argument with him in my life. I am broken-hearted and overcome with grief". Edward was lauded as "The Peacemaker", but he feared that his nephew, Emperor William II of Germany, would lead Europe to war. The First World War broke out four years after his death. The naval reforms he had supported and his role in securing the Triple Entente between Britain, France and Russia, as well as his relationships with his family, increased William's paranoia, and he eventually blamed his uncle for the conflict. Author Sidney Lee delayed publishing Edward's official biography for fear that German propagandists would select material to portray the king as an anti-German warmonger. Lee was also hampered by the widespread destruction of Edward's personal papers; the king had left orders that all his papers be burned after his death. Subsequent authors have been able to construct a better picture of him by using materials and sources unavailable to Lee. Edward was criticized for his apparent self-indulgent pleasure-seeking, but he was also praised for his affable, kind and good manners, and his diplomatic skills. As his grandson King Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor) wrote, "his lighter side ... obscured the fact that he had both knowledge and influence".

LEGACY

JB Priestley wrote that "he had an enormous enthusiasm for pleasure but also a real sense of duty". Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, stated that Edward was "kind and affable and not unworthy – but very human".