The Prince of Wales was always a fearless rider and was fond of it from childhood. As an undergraduate at Christ-Church he constantly hunted with Lord Macclesfield's pack and was then considered a hard rider; but in after years his riding was mainly done in connection with military and other functions and for exercise, in a milder way than that of following the hounds. Akin, in some respects to the sport of racing, is that of yachting and to this the Prince of Wales was almost equally devoted. Naturally fond of the sea, trained in ocean travel in days when it was no pleasant drawing-room experience to cross the Atlantic, familiar with every part of a yacht and detail of its management, it was only fitting that the Heir to the throne of the seas should be an accomplished yachtsman. His first racing-yacht was the Aline and his next one, the Britannia, was for a time the most successful of large racing-yachts. Many splendid cups and pieces of plate graced the buffets of Sandringham and Marlborough and marked the victories of the Prince; though any prize moneys won in this way were always handed over to his Captain and crew as an addition to their already handsome pay.

His Royal Highness was a capital sailor. In returning from his Canadian and American tour in 1860 his ship was driven out of its course by a severe storm and so much alarm was caused by the delay that a British fleet was sent out to search for it; but, different as were the conditions of travel in those days, the Prince was not found to be any the worse for his stormy experience. In after years when cruising along the coasts of Europe, or traversing the Pacific and Indian oceans, he met with many a storm and severe strain, so far as weather was concerned, without effect. It is said, however, that he was troubled somewhat by rough weather in the English Channel. As Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron his patronage did very much in making the sport popular and fashionable and in creating the Cowes Regatta as a great yachting function. To this Royal Yacht Club every consideration in the way of prizes was given and the Queen, the Prince, the Emperor William of Germany, and Napoleon III. of France, offered prizes or trophies, from time to time. As Commodore—which office he accepted in 1882—His Royal Highness had as predecessors the Earl of Yarborough, the Marquess of Donegal and the Earl of Wilton. The Vice-Commodore for many years was the Marquess of Ormonde.

THE NAVY AND LOVE OF SHOOTING

On July 18th, 1887, the position of the Heir Apparent was recognized and the Navy complimented through his appointment by the Queen as Honorary Admiral of the Fleet. Some criticism was expressed in a portion of the Radical press mainly, it was stated, through ignorance of the Prince's real qualifications as both a seaman and yachtsman. Upon his accession to the Throne no single action was more popular than King Edward's retention of this latter title and the interest which he continued to show in the Navy. His Majesty took as great interest in Sir Thomas Lipton's efforts to win the America Cup as he had in the previous attempts of Lord Dunraven. Sir Thomas was, apparently, a congenial spirit in this connection and from both Prince and King he received a good deal of favour. It was while cruising with him on board Shamrock II., off Southampton, (May 22, 1901) that a heavy wind unexpectedly strained the spars and gear too much and brought down the top-mast and mainmast in a sudden wreck which crashed over the side of the frail yacht. The danger to the King was very great and a difference of ten seconds in his position would probably have given fatal results. The visit to the yacht was, of course, a private one, but such an incident as this made the affair very widely commented upon. The London Daily Express of the succeeding day embodied a good deal of public opinion in the following remarks:

"King though he be, he is resolute to live the frank and free life of an English gentleman, taking the chances of sport by land and sea as gaily as any undistinguished son of the people, whose life is of no smallest national import. That is the sort of King we want, the sort of King we will die for if need be—a King who holds his own in every manly exercise, loving sport all the more because it contains the element of danger that possesses such a subtle attraction for men of Anglo-Saxon blood."

Shooting was probably the favourite all-round sport of the Prince of Wales and in this he heartily embodied one more characteristic of the typical English gentleman. It has been described as a positive passion with him and as being "the love of his life." His father had been a thorough sportsman, though not a very good shot; the son became not only a thorough sportsman but perhaps the best shot in the United Kingdom. At seven years of age he was taught deer-stalking, at Oxford he frequently did a day's shooting on neighbouring estates, and, in his American and Canadian tour, a great pleasure to the young man was an occasional day's sport. At Sandringham he early mapped out his estate into a series of drives and soon combined with other famous shots to create and make popular the big battues which were afterwards so well known and which came to constitute so important an event in the shooting seasons at his Norfolk home. But His Royal Highness never confined himself to shooting pheasants, hares, or rabbits. Deer-stalking and shooting grouse were favourite pursuits, and he knew no greater pleasure than to spend a day, or days, upon the moors, accompanied by friends and hosts such as the late Duke of Sutherland, his son-in-law, the Duke of Fife, Mr. Mackenzie of Kintail and Colonel Farquharson of Invercauld. Going out from Abergeldie, or Balmoral, or Mar Lodge on a stalking expedition, the Prince cared neither for exposure to bad weather, nor severe exertion, so long as he could return with a bag of several head of deer. With the German Emperor and the late Duke of Coburg he enjoyed splendid sport in the vast forests of Central Europe from time to time, and with Baron Hirsch, on his great Hungarian estates, he had hunted deer, chamois, wild boar and roebuck, as he had shot game in America, hunted tigers and elephants in India, shot crocodiles in Egypt and hunted in the forests of Ceylon or Denmark.



CHAPTER XIV.

Habits and Character of the Prince

During forty years of his career as Prince of Wales, King Edward VII. was probably the most talked-of man in the United Kingdom. Good-natured stories, ill-natured anecdotes, criticisms grading down from the malicious to the very mild, praise ranging from the fulsome to the feeble point, falsehoods great and falsehoods small, have found currency not confined to the English language and ranging through "yarns" of gutter journals in London, Paris, Berlin, New York or Calcutta, in varied languages, and in many degrees of fabrication. Outside of the United Kingdom some of these stories have been more or less believed; even in his own national home there were always people ready and willing to accept the worst that they heard about a great public personage. Where he was known best, however, the influence of these things upon the reputation of the Prince of Wales was least and, in fact, so small as to afford little or no excuse for dealing with them. Abroad, however, it had always been different, and in the United States, thirty years before his accession to the Throne, it was conspicuously so. With the passing years, of course, and with growing knowledge of the Prince's position and character, the situation greatly changed.

As a matter of fact the Prince of Wales, from the early days of his manhood, was in his personal and private relations a jovial, honest and honourable English gentleman; possessed of a full sense of his responsibility in much burdensome work and ceremonial and with a growing appreciation, as years passed, of his place as a sort of impartial Empire statesman; possessed, also, of a large fund of animal spirits and capacity for enjoying the pleasures of life. Within the full limits of his rights and his position he lived his life of work and pleasure, of public responsibility and of private rest and recreation. Yet it was almost always in the blaze of a noon-day publicity and few, indeed, were the times and seasons in which the Heir Apparent could amuse himself in any genuine incognito. Attempt it he might, but if any evil-minded critic were to seriously or conscientiously consider the situation—both of which suppositions are improbable—he might have seen that the best-known and most photographed man in the world would indeed have been foolish to trust to an incognito for any but the simplest and most innocent of objects. The actual impossibility of the Prince of Wales escaping from his entourage, his identity, and his surroundings, were sufficient to make Continental fictions and foreign fancies about him absolutely farcical to those who knew something of his daily life—aside altogether from those who knew and understood his real character.

THE MORDAUNT CASE

There was only one matter involving moral considerations which ever emerged from the low region of back-door insinuation to the upper air and it was threshed out in a cause celebre—that of Lady Mordaunt. Her husband, an English baronet, sued for divorce before the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, alleging the usual grounds, and naming as co-respondents, Viscount Cole and Sir Frederick Johnstone. The case was heard on February 16th, 1870, and following days, and the defence on the part of Lady Mordaunt was insanity. The Prince of Wales, though not specified in the indictment, was so widely gossiped about as being connected with the case that he asked to be heard and swore positively that there had been no improper relations between himself and the defendant. Two of the Judges on Appeal—Lord Penzance and Mr. Justice Keating—agreed with the jury's verdict that Lady Mordaunt was insane, while Chief Baron Kelly differed. The woman in the case was for years afterwards confined in a lunatic asylum, and it has long since been quite well understood that the only basis for scandal was the fact that a Royal visit which had been paid upon one occasion was made under the invariable rule of etiquette, which prescribes that no other caller shall be received while the visit lasts. Before and after the trouble Lady Mordaunt's sisters, and especially the Dowager Countess of Dudley, were amongst the Princess of Wales' warm friends, while the daughter of the plaintiff in the case was, in later years, received at Sandringham, and was given many beautiful presents by the members of the Royal family upon her marriage to the Marquess of Bath. Such conditions would have been absolutely impossible to imagine with the Princess of Wales had she entertained the slightest belief in the stories floating about regarding that famous trial. During the succeeding thirty years, however, there was never even an apparent excuse for the repetition of such stories, and the happy home life of the Prince and Princess was patent to all who were willing to believe the evidence of their eyes and ears.

What may be said of the characteristics and habits of this many-sided heir to Royal position? Probably his first and most pronounced quality was one of difficult definition—tactfulness. Through its means he led society without rivalry and with unique success; promoted reforms without violence of agitation or the creation of antagonisms; carried out countless varied and delicate duties, with noiseless celerity, in an age of intense and active curiosity. In forty years of ceaseless political change and frequently acute political crises not a whisper of his private views became known to the million-tongued press or the curious public. He had known every kind of partisan and been liked by leaders of the masses as well as the classes—by Joseph Arch and Henry Broadhurst, as well as by the Earl of Derby or the Marquess of Salisbury. If he visited Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden on one occasion he paid the same honour to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden at another time. If Lord Randolph Churchill was a personal friend so also was Lord Rosebery, or Mr. Balfour. His genial manner and sometimes cosmopolitan view of society encouraged a popular opinion as to his natural democracy; while a personal dignity, never forced, or assumed, but always present, prevented the most courageous person from taking undue advantage of the freedom from ceremonial which he sometimes liked to encourage. His preferences in international matters were as little known as his political opinions, and yet, at times, his influence in this respect was very great.

SPORTING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRINCE

The next and perhaps most prominent characteristic of the Prince of Wales was his love for sports and his embodiment of qualities which, in everyday life, constitute the English country gentleman. Some reference has already been made to his interest in racing, yachting and shooting. But most of the lesser sports and games were also attractive to him at different periods, and there was hardly one with which he was not more or less familiar. Boating and riding in his University days and fox-hunting at Sandringham from time to time in later years, were incidents of this record. Croquet he was an expert in, but never very fond of. Lawn-tennis, when first introduced and for years afterwards, was a game to which he was very partial, and on the Serapis when traversing the route to India he played deck-tennis until everyone else was exhausted. The bowling-alley at Sandringham was one of the best in England and the Prince was always fond of a game of bowls. Quoits he played well, and billiards he played with frequency and skill—his daughters being also able to handle the cue with success. Hockey was a favourite game, especially on the lakes at Sandringham, and of this sport the other members of his family were equally fond. Skating and hockey parties were frequent during severe winter seasons and the Prince played in many specially arranged hockey matches—one of them against members of the House of Commons in the winter of 1894-5 included Mr. Balfour, Lord Stanley, Lord Willoughby de Eresby and Mr. Victor Cavendish.

Fishing never appealed to him and was, apparently, too quiet and easy a sport. He liked pigeon-flying, and bred some very fine birds at Sandringham for this purpose. Tricycling he was very fond of and kept good machines both at Marlborough and Sandringham. As soon as motor cars came into use he could be frequently seen driving a smart carriage along the country roads of Norfolk. Chess the Prince never mastered nor cared for. In dancing he was an expert, as well as in skating, and was always exceedingly fond of the amusement. At his Sandringham balls he was an indefatigable dancer, and at great balls all over the world he delighted many a partner and varied social circle by his obvious pleasure in the entertainment. From Halifax to Montreal, from Toronto to New York, in Canada and the United States, in Egypt and India, in Turkey and Greece, in all the greater Courts of Europe, from the days of Napoleon III. at Paris, to those of William II. at Berlin, he had been the central figure of some such occasions. Golf was played by His Royal Highness on the links of Musselburgh in early days and at a later time in Windsor Park. Cricket he was fond of in his younger days, but latterly he only showed his interest by patronizing matches as an onlooker. In these and other pursuits the Prince represented in his mode of life and his manner of enjoying himself the qualities of a distinct type amongst his countrymen and a type most popular throughout the community.

Another characteristic of the Prince was his good manners. The "first gentleman in Europe" always knew how to be pleasant without being familiar, dignified without being pompous, genial without being free. Myriads of stories are told in this connection. At the skating and hockey parties on the Sandringham lakes the farmers' wives and daughters were included and no Duchess in the land would be handed a cup of tea with more courtly manner by the Royal host than would the wife of a tenant on his estates. His servants, in houses and farms and stables, in sport or travel, at home and abroad, were treated in such a way as to make every one of them wish to serve the Prince for a life-time. No more charming incident is on record than the way in which His Royal Highness approached Mrs. Gladstone at the state funeral of her great husband, bowed low before her and kissed her proffered hand. Whether in high circles, or in those of ordinary people, in expected surroundings or amid unexpected conditions, the Prince seemed to always retain this faculty of politeness in the true sense of the word—a product of heart and mind rather than of mere instruction or habit.

His manner and style of public speaking was an incident in the Prince of Wales' career which exercised considerable influence upon his personal popularity. The pronounced factors in his style were not oratory, gestures, or brilliancy. Plain in matter and manner the speeches always were; full of meat and substance they frequently were; neat and effective they were generally considered. Mr. Gladstone once went further than this description would seem to warrant when he declared that there were few speakers whom he listened to with more pleasure. "His speeches are invariably marvels of conciseness, graceful expression and clear elocution". His voice was a good one, clear and distinct and well-trained. Nervous in his younger days and accustomed to learn the speeches off for delivery, he gradually changed with age and experience into the delivery of impromptu after-dinner remarks and speeches which did not show traces of the midnight oil or earnest preparation—although often full of facts and incidents about the immense variety of subjects with which he had to deal.

Intimately connected with these characteristics of his was the unquestioned ability to judge human nature. This quality enabled the Prince to play his difficult part so well as he did, to keep him in touch with all classes and the masses, to cultivate all the varied elements of a changing national life, and to be as much at home amongst business men as at the Royal Academy—amongst the aristocracy of London as with the farmers of Norfolk. He was ever a good judge of the people around him and, perhaps, no man in modern life was so well and faithfully served. His memory for names and faces was extraordinary and would remind Canadians of the unique faculty in this connection possessed by the late Sir John Macdonald. He always hated affectation and toadyism and liked sincerity and simplicity. Marie Corelli, writing in 1897, used the following expressive words: "To entertain the Prince do little; for he is clever enough to entertain himself privately with the folly and humbug of those he sees around him, without actually sharing in the petty comedy. He is a keen observer and must derive infinite gratification from his constant study of men and manners, which is sufficiently deep and searching to fit him for the occupation of even the throne of England. I say 'even', for at present, till time's great hourglass turns, it is the grandest throne in the world".

Patronage of music, art and the drama were characteristic incidents in the life and work of the Prince. The day for helping literature had perhaps gone when he came upon the scene and newspapers were then supposed to do for budding genius what royalty and aristocracy did for Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift or Pope. It is a curious fact of later-day democracy that, with the obvious exception of Kipling, most of the greater lights in literature—Browning, Rossetti, Tennyson, Mathew Arnold or Swinburne—were born with fairly comfortable means. This in passing, of course. Something has been said elsewhere as to His Royal Highness's patronage of music and there is no doubt that he taught smart society to support the opera, while his personal enthusiasm for Wagner was pronounced and sincere.

THE THEATRE AND THE CHURCH

He patronized the theatre for many years with regularity and discrimination; his taste in all matters of light comedy and opera was known to be good; and it goes without saying that his approval of a play or actor made many a reputation and fortune. He used to make his own selection of theatre or play, pay handsomely for his own box, arrive punctually on time and remain till the end, or very near it. His dislike of ostentation soon did away with the old fashion of a manager walking upstairs backward before royalty and his leaving a little early was to avoid causing delay and confusion with their carriages amongst the other guests of the theatre. Actors have greatly exaggerated the extent of his patronage and friendship. But he more than once took supper with Sir Henry Irving and it is understood to have been by his advice that the great tragedian was knighted. He it was who encouraged the late Queen to resume her patronage of the theatre and to begin by having Mr. and Mrs. Kendal appear before her at Osborne. He never liked, however, the appearance of members of the aristocracy on the stage and his daughters are said to have never taken part even in private theatricals. He is said to have enjoyed a private visit and smoke behind the scenes and George Grossmith is stated to have been one of those who were most patronized in this respect.

An interesting feature of his many-sided career and character was the Heir Apparent's attention to his religious duties. At Marlborough and at Sandringham prayers were read daily, in the morning, and guests, staff and servants were expected, though not compelled, to be present. On Sunday the Prince invariably attended morning service either at the Chapel Royal in London, or at the quaint and beautiful little Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, in the country. The latter was filled with handsome Memorial windows and tablets and there, for many years, worshipped the future King with the humblest labourers on his estate. The only distinction made was in the private entrance for the Prince and the reserved pews for his guests and family. His daughters taught in the Sunday School and the Princess had charge of the music. It has been said that the Prince never attended Divine service on a Sunday in any but an Episcopal church. Certainly the records of his travels and habits appear to confirm this statement. Whether in Bombay, or Montreal, or New York, he seems to have always attended the services of the Established Church or its daughter Churches. Even in Rome, where he once spent Easter Sunday, impressive ceremonies conducted by the Pope at St. Peter's did not prevent him from attending a quiet little English church and explaining that when members of the Church were in foreign lands they should be especially particular in encouraging their own form of faith.

Of course, as a traveller of wide experience the Prince visited all the great cathedrals of the Continent and was familiar with the splendid Mohammedan mosques and Hindoo temples and sacred shrines which helped to make the glittering East so attractive. But they were visited on week-days. He was supposed to be broad in his principles as a Churchman and certainly at state weddings and funerals in other countries he shared in various forms of worship. The Princess of Wales was known to have attended ritualistic services before her husband's accession to the Throne, but she far more often attended Low or Broad Church services. On Sundays at Sandringham the Prince used, in the afternoons, to walk about the grounds with his family or guests, visit the kennels, the bear-pit, the model farms or the Princess's lovely little dairy and its suite of tiny attached rooms where tea would often be served. In London he would sometime attend Divine service again or else pay calls in his private hansom and then dine quietly with friends or have a few of them to dinner at Marlborough. Sunday afternoons at Sandringham were always greatly enjoyed by Sir Frederick Leighton and Lord Beaconsfield but Mr. Gladstone is said to have best liked long, lonely rambles through the woods of the estate.

An important part of the character of a man in the position so long held by the Prince of Wales is the fact of moderation, or otherwise, in eating and drinking. It is a vital factor in the lives of all men but how much more so when great banquets are for months a daily function; when every luxury, or delicacy, or combination of cookery known to the civilized world and the barbaric East is at one time or another offered for his delectation; when the power of rulers and the wealth of millionaires are devoted to the furnishing of choice wines and liqueurs and drinks for his use. The good health always enjoyed by the Prince was perhaps proof enough of his moderation at the table. His habits in this respect became pretty well known. Tea at breakfast and in the afternoon he always liked; Moselle cup he enjoyed and was rather proud of possessing the receipt brought from Germany by the Prince Consort; champagne for many years was almost his exclusive beverage though afterwards claret took its place. Between meals he seldom drank anything though a well-known "cocktail" in the London clubs is credited to his invention. He always strongly disapproved of ladies drinking anything but a little wine and this was well understood by his own guests or by those at houses where he visited.

Reference must be made here to one unpleasant incident in the Prince of Wales' later career—unpleasant in its results and in the comments of the press and pulpit. To playing cards for an occasional evening's amusement the Prince was always partial, but not to the extent which was sometimes asserted.

CARDS AND THE BACCARAT AFFAIR

During his journeys abroad he seldom or never played and he made a strict and early rule against playing in clubs. His friends say that he used to frequently dissuade younger men or the sons of old friends from forming a habit in this connection and as a well-known man of the world, without affectation and with wide experience and a naturally commanding influence, his views no doubt had great weight. Hence the most regrettable feature in the famous Baccarat case of 1890 which was, for a time, one of the most talked-of and preached-at incidents in modern social life. To understand the matter it is necessary to look at the Prince's environment. He was the leader of society and society, together with a large proportion of people everywhere, saw no harm in a game of cards, or even in the accompaniment of playing for ordinary money stakes, any more than they saw harm in racing and betting upon the results, or in dancing and its accompaniment of late hours and perhaps frivolous dissipation. Yet to many people in the United Kingdom and the Empire danger and evil lurked in one or all of these amusements and it was a shock to them to find that the Heir Apparent actually indulged in card-playing; although everyone had known that he patronized the other two pursuits referred to.

The history of the affair may be told briefly. On September 8th, during the Doncaster races, Mr. Arthur Wilson, a very wealthy shipowner, was entertaining a large party at Tranby Croft, near Hull, which included the Prince of Wales, Lord Coventry, General Owen Williams, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Lord Craven, Lord and Lady Brougham and Lord Edward Somerset. When each day's racing was over and the company had returned to Tranby Croft and finished dinner, Baccarat was introduced as the amusement of the evening and played for a couple of hours. The stakes were moderate—for such a party—and ran from five shillings to ten pounds. About seventeen people, ladies and gentlemen, usually sat down and the Prince of Wales was the life of the party, as he generally was, whatever the occupation or sport. On the date mentioned, Mr. Stanley Wilson, the host's son, thought he saw Sir W. Gordon-Cumming using his counters fraudulently and informed Lord Coventry and General Williams of his suspicions. On the third evening a committee of five—two ladies and three gentlemen—watched the baronet and unanimously agreed that they saw him cheating. He was privately accused of the offence, denied it vehemently, and brought the matter before the Prince, who practically acted as judge and regretfully told him that there could be no doubt of his guilt.

It was, perhaps the most difficult position the Prince of Wales had ever been placed in. To hand a friend and fellow-guest and well-known soldier over to justice meant in this case ruin to the man himself, disgrace to their host and his family and a considerable amount of discredit to the Prince. Of the latter point it is probable that the Prince thought least, as his fidelity to friends was always well-known. Yet to let the apparently guilty man go without punishment or restriction was impossible from every standpoint. The Prince, therefore, tried to square his duty all round by a compromise and made Sir W. Gordon-Cumming sign a pledge to never play at cards again. The natural result followed where at least seven people hold a secret of much importance. It became known, or rather rumored, the resignation of the baronet from the Army was not accepted pending inquiry and, finally, he precipitated the issue by sueing the committee of five—Mrs. Arthur Wilson, Mr. Stanley Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green and Mr. Berkeley Levett—for scandal. Sir Charles Russell acted for the defence and Sir Edward Clarke for the plaintiff and, after a sensational trial, the action was dismissed.

The case created the most intense interest and for a time His Royal Highness was the most criticised man in the United Kingdom. Press and pulpit thundered forth denunciations of gambling and card-playing, and lectured the Prince upon his duty to the nation and his responsibility for public morality. Every extreme religious speaker or writer, every Radical paper, or pamphleteer, or lecturer found the Heir to the Throne an excellent subject for abuse, while the best papers abroad teemed with reflections which could hardly be termed generous. Speaking of the counters which had been used in these games and which were brought by the Prince personally to Tranby Croft the New York Tribune declared that in them he had "fingered the fragments of the Crown of England." Upon one point all the home papers were united and that was that in trying to arrange and settle the matter the Prince had contravened the Army regulations.

The better class of papers were very serious upon the subject. The London Times declared that the Heir Apparent could not put off his responsibilities as he did his official dress and, while admitting the assiduity and tact and good-humour with which he performed his dull round of routine duties, it yet bitterly regretted the example he had now set. The Daily News thought that the Prince had only been guilty of an indiscretion, so far as his action toward Gordon-Cumming was concerned, but went on to say that what was blameless as an example in meaner men, was very different in one of his exalted position. The Standard denounced the whole affair from beginning to end. "The Prince of Wales is not as other men. His position demands a sobriety, a self-restraint, and a dignity from which people of less exalted position and lighter responsibilities are absolved." The religious press put no bounds to its denunciation. The Christian World spoke of the matter as an "outrage to the public conscience" and the British Weekly thought it "enough to sober the strongest supporters of the Monarchy." Resolutions were passed at some Church meetings of a similar character.

AFTERMATH OF THE INCIDENT

Then the re-action came. His Royal Highness expressed to the Military authorities and the House of Commons his apologies for an unintentional infraction of Army regulations; it was pointed out that playing a game of cards in a private house was not setting a public example and that the situation was so unique that any man in the Prince's place would have been pardoned in not knowing what to do; the cause of the trouble was dismissed from the Army and expelled from his clubs. The Daily Telegraph pointed out that the carrying of the Baccarat counters, which was apparently deemed the most serious part of the matter by many commentators, was a very common habit with players of this game as the symbols for money tended to moderation in playing, and were better in every way than slips of paper. Years afterwards, Mr. Arnold White stated it as a fact that these famous bits of pasteboard were actually a present from the Princess of Wales. The public came to feel after the first hasty judgment was given that, after all, the Prince had risked a good deal for a friend and the Observer went so far as to say that "under the most difficult and trying circumstances His Royal Highness has acted as ninety-nine Englishmen out of a hundred would have done." The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Berry, the eminent Non-conformist divine, declared that the people were not going to be unduly severe in their judgment. "They recognize the fact that he does a great deal of public work and is compelled to live almost continually a life of unnatural pressure. It is, therefore, to say the least, understandable that he should seek pleasure and relaxation in some form of excitement."

Then the issue cooled down as suddenly as the tempest had arisen, and before long it would have been hard to recognize that so stormy a stage of criticism had swept over the popular Prince's head. In the Life of Archbishop Benson, published many years afterwards, there appeared a long letter from the Heir Apparent in answer to a note of sympathy received at this time from His Grace. The Prince spoke of the "deep pain and annoyance" which the Baccarat incident had caused him; of the recent trial which had given the press occasion "to make most bitter and unjust attacks upon me, knowing I was defenceless—and I am not sure that politics were not mixed up in it." Speaking of the papers and the Nonconformists, who had been especially strong in their remarks, he added some interesting expressions as to his general view of gambling. "They have a perfect right, I am well aware, in a free country like our own, to express their opinions, but I do not consider that they have a just right to jump at conclusions regarding myself, without knowing the facts. I have a horror of gambling, and should always do my utmost to discourage others who have an inclination for it, as I consider gambling, like intemperance, is one of the greatest curses which a country could be afflicted with. Horse-racing may produce gambling, or it may not, but I have always looked upon it as a manly sport which is popular with Englishmen of all classes, and there is no reason why it should be looked upon as a gambling transaction. Alas, those who gamble will gamble at anything."

Such were some of the characteristics and habits and social incidents in the career of King Edward while he was Prince of Wales. They show how entirely he shared in the life of the majority of the people—a fact all the more illustrated in the occasions when he departed from his natural and usual course and seemed to participate in matters outside of the accepted and popular pursuits of the people. It is the picture of a man who loved his England, liked life and its pleasures, hated humbug, enjoyed sport, did his duty as it came to him and liked the play, the race-course and all the sports of a healthy, hearty Englishman. They prove the accuracy of that interesting description penned in his Diary by the King of Sweden and which, somehow, became public: "The Heir Apparent to the British Throne is Prince of Wales by name, Prince of Society by inclination, Prince of Good Fellows by nature."



CHAPTER XV.

The Prince as an Empire Statesman

The breadth of view shown by the late Prince Consort was one of his greatest and most marked qualities. He seemed to have the faculty of seeing further into the future than most men and of preparing his own mind for developments which were yet hidden from the view of contemporary statesmen. Hence his famous Exhibition of 1851 and the realization of the fact that to encourage trade and commerce some knowledge of the world's products and resources was not only desirable but necessary. Hence the early perception, which he shared with the Queen, of the coming importance of the Colonies and of the necessity of bringing the Crown into touch with those over-sea democracies which were growing up to nationhood in such neglected fashion and with such little practical concern in the Motherland. Hence the dislike of the Queen and himself—because she had the statesman's understanding as well as her husband—to the Manchester school, and their opposition to the line of thought which said that Colonies were useless except for commerce and not much good for that. Hence the Queen's long-after regard for Lord Beaconsfield and her appreciation of his stirring and romantic Imperialism.

The Prince of Wales unquestionably inherited this capacity for statecraft from his parents. Natural and hereditary pride in his future Crown and in the greatness of the United Kingdom was developed by teaching and study and visits into an intense pride in the vast Empire which grew so rapidly from year to year around his country and under its Crown. Having a broader and saner outlook than many of those about him, without the spur of ordinary ambitions, or the hampering influence of partisan considerations, he was enabled to view this development more carefully, wisely, and clearly than the busy diplomatist or the much-occupied statesman. Hence the pleasure with which he saw the Imperial Federation League formed in 1884 and watched the efforts of Mr. W. E. Forster and Lord Rosebery to build upon the preliminary principles already evolved by Lord Beaconsfield. It was not long before he saw an opportunity to promote this sentiment of unity and encourage the extension of Imperial trade. He had visited different parts of the Queen's dominions and understood something of the immense possibilities which were still lying dormant. His sons had since travelled over an even larger portion of the Empire and had, no doubt, in private as well as in their published journals, told him much of the more recent progress of those great outlying communities. Contemporaneously, therefore, with the founding of the League just mentioned, His Royal Highness proposed the holding of a great Exhibition which should meet the new needs of the time as his father's had done in 1851. Then, the interests of British trade were cosmopolitan and Colonial development slight and unimportant to the immediate concerns of England. Now, British commerce was contracting with foreign countries and steadily growing with British countries. Hence the new Exhibition should, he thought, be confined to British resources and products and be Imperial instead of international.

On November 10th, 1884, the Queen issued a Royal Commission to arrange for the holding of an Exhibition of the products, manufactures and arts of Her Majesty's Colonial and Indian dominions in the year 1886. The Prince of Wales was to be President and Sir Philip Cunliffe-Owen, Secretary, of the Commission. The first meeting took place at Marlborough House on March 30th, 1885, with His Royal Highness in the chair. Amongst the members present were F. M. the Duke of Cambridge, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Marquess of Lorne, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Dalhousie, Earl Cadogan, the Earl of Kimberley, the Earl of Lytton, F. M. Lord Strathnairn, Mr. Edward Stanhope, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. W. E. Forster, Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach, Sir H. T. Holland, Sir John Rose, Sir R. G. W. Herbert, Sir Charles Tupper of Canada, Sir Arthur Blyth of South Australia, Sir F. D. Bell of New Zealand, Sir Saul Samuel of New South Wales, Mr. Charles Mills of Cape Colony, Mr. R. Murray Smith of Victoria, Mr. James F. Garrick of Queensland, Sir W. C. Seargeant, Sir G. C. M. Birdwood and many other distinguished representatives of British, Colonial and Indian interests. In the course of his somewhat lengthy speech detailing the objects of the movement and the methods of operation, the Prince described the proposed Exhibition as one by which the "reproductive resources" of the Colonies and India would be brought before the British people and the different countries concerned be able to "compare the advance made by each other in trade, manufactures and general material progress". He pointed out the desire of the Motherland to participate in the development of Colonial material interests and then added: "We must remember that, as regards the Colonies, they are the legitimate and natural homes, in future, of the more adventurous and energetic portion of the population of these Islands."

The Secretary announced that the preliminary list of guarantees provided for L128,000, including L20,000 from the Government of India, L10,000 from that of Canada, L19,000 from the various Australasian Governments and L1000 each from individual subscribers such as Lord Cadogan, Sir Thomas Brassey, Sir Daniel Cooper, the Earl of Derby, Mr. Henry Doulton, Sir J. Whittaker Ellis, Mr. Samuel Morley and the Earl of Rosebery. This latter list indicated in a most marked manner the personal influence of the Prince of Wales. On May 3, 1886, the eve of the formal opening of the Exhibition was marked by a meeting of the Royal Commission at which the Prince presided, sketched the history and progress of an undertaking to which he had given much time and intimated that the guarantee fund now amounted to L218,000, of which the City of London had recently voted L10,000. In proposing a vote of thanks to the Royal chairman, seconded by Earl Granville, the Duke of Cambridge said: "It is not the first time that His Royal Highness has acted as President in undertakings of this nature, and it is very difficult for any person to praise him in his presence without appearing fulsome; but it is not fulsome to say that he has always devoted his whole energies to bringing everything to a successful issue with which he is connected."

OPENING AND SUCCESS OF THE EXHIBITION

The Colonial and Indian Exhibition was opened on the following day at South Kensington by Her Majesty the Queen in the presence of an immense gathering, representative of all parts of the British realm. It was, in fact, the first of those great fetes with which the people became so familiar in the next two decades and which did so much to unify and typify the power of the Empire. In the brilliant throng surrounding the Queen and the Prince of Wales, as the latter read an elaborate address of loyal welcome, were the members of the Government, the various Foreign Ambassadors, distinguished men in every walk of life, representatives of Colonies and British islands in all parts of the world—Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Lord Cranbrook, the Earl of Northbrook, the Dukes of Manchester, Buckingham and Abercorn, the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord Granville, the Earl of Kimberley, Lord Napier of Magdala, Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach, Sir F. Leighton, Sir Charles Tupper and Mr. Hector Fabre from Canada, Sir Alexander Stuart, Sir Arthur Blyth, Sir Samuel Davenport, the Hon. James F. Garrick and the Hon. Malcolm Fraser, from Australia, Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Richard Cross, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Wolseley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. H. C. E. Childers, the Maharajah of Johore, Rustem Pasha, Count Hatzfeldt, Earl Spencer, and many others. Madame Albani sang that splendid ode by Lord Tennyson beginning:

"Welcome, welcome with one voice In your welfare we rejoice, Sons and brothers that have sent, From isle and cape and continent Produce of your field and flood, Mount and mine and primal wood, Works of subtle brain and hand And splendours of the Morning Land, Gifts from every British zone Britons, hold your own!"

The National Anthem was first sung in English and then in Sanskrit as a compliment to the Indian visitors. The address read by the Prince of Wales referred to the origin and progress of the project, to the development of the Colonies, to the late Prince Consort's interest in Exhibitions and to his own position as President of the present Royal Commission, and concluded as follows: "It is our heartfelt prayer that an undertaking intended to illustrate and record this development may give a stimulus to the commercial interests and intercourse of all parts of Your Majesty's dominions; that it may be the means of augmenting that warm affection and brotherly sympathy which is reciprocated by all Your Majesty's subjects; and that it may still further deepen that steadfast loyalty which we, who dwell in the Mother Country, share with our kindred who have elsewhere so nobly done honour to her name." The Queen's reply expressed an earnest hope that the Exhibition would encourage the arts of peace and industry and strengthen the bonds of union within the Empire. An interesting feature of the proceedings was the receipt of a telegram from Sir Patrick Jennings, Premier of New South Wales, expressing that Colonial Government's "thanks and appreciation to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for the profound interest" he had shown in the success of the great project now so auspiciously opened. The London Times on the following day spoke of the "energy and devotion" of the Prince in this connection, and the press as a whole at home and in the external Empire joined in congratulating him upon the issue.

The Exhibition was a great success in every way. Over five and a half million visitors were recorded and the Queen helped, personally, to maintain public interest in it by herself visiting the various Sections repeatedly. The final meeting of the Royal Commission was held at Marlborough House on April 30th, 1897 and the Prince of Wales submitted an elaborate and exhaustive Report which was afterwards published. In his own remarks the President pointed out that the project had served its main purpose in very largely promoting knowledge of the Empire's resources and products and that, incidentally, its success had given the management a surplus of L35,000. This sum, he suggested, should be largely devoted to the advancement of the project for a permanent Exhibition or Imperial Institute—"in the promotion of which the Queen and I both take so warm an interest." Later in the evening the Prince expressed the hope that as the late Exhibition had been, allegorically, burnt that day, "the Imperial Institute may be a Phoenix rising out of its ashes. I trust that it may be a lasting memorial not only of that but of the Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen." Of the sum mentioned, L25,000 was accordingly voted to the new project.

The proposal of the Heir Apparent—as first expressed in a letter to the Lord Mayor on September 13, 1886—was that the idea evolved in the Exhibition should be made permanent and be embodied in an Imperial Institute which should be at once a visible emblem of the unity of the Empire, a place for illustrating its vast resources, a museum for exhibiting its varied and changing products and industries, a centre of information and communication for all British countries, an aid to the increase and distribution of national wealth, a medium for combining in joint co-operation older and smaller institutions of tried utility, and a fitting national memorial of the Queen's Jubilee. The movement developed steadily and, on January 12th, 1887, a gathering was held at Kensington Palace, upon invitation of the Prince of Wales, and was one of the most representative over which even he had ever presided. Amongst those present were Lord Herschell, Chairman of the Organizing Committee, the Earl of Carnarvon, Lord Revelstoke, Lord Rothschild, Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir H. T. Holland, Sir John Rose, Sir Henry James, the Right Hon. H. H. Fowler, Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir Charles Tupper, Sir Saul Samuel, Sir Edward Guinness, Sir Ashley Eden, Sir Owen T. Bourne, Sir Reginald Hanson, Lord Mayor of London, Mr. J. H. Tritton, Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Pattison Currie, Chairman of the Bank of England, Sir Frederick Abel, Mr. Neville Lubbock, Lord Campden, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the Lord Mayor of York, the Mayor of Newcastle and nearly two hundred other mayors, or chief magistrates, of British towns.

The Prince of Wales was accompanied by Prince Albert Victor and spoke at length upon the objects to be served and the progress already made in the matter which he had so much at heart. "It occurred to me that the recent Colonial and Indian Exhibition, which presented a most successful display of the material resources of the Colonies and India, might suggest the basis for an Institute which should afford a permanent representation of the products and manufactures of the Queen's dominions. I, therefore, appointed a Committee of eminent men to consider and report to me upon the best means of carrying out this idea." So much for the initiation of the scheme. The Report had been duly submitted and accepted and he now invited co-operation and assistance in establishing and maintaining the proposed "Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India." His Royal Highness pointed out that no less than sixteen million persons had attended the four Exhibitions over which he had presided—the Fisheries, Healtheries, Inventories and Colinderies, as they were popularly called—and expressed the strong belief that they had added greatly to the knowledge of the people and largely stimulated the industries of the country.

INITIATION OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE

"My proposals are that the Imperial Institute be an emblem of the unity of the Empire and illustrate the resources and capabilities of every section of Her Majesty's dominions." The Colonies and Motherland would thus teach other and emigration would also be greatly aided along British channels. He believed that the work upon which he had entered in this connection would be of lasting benefit to this and future generations and, after a careful review of the whole situation, declared that "from the close relation in which I stand to the Queen there can be no impropriety in my stating that if her subjects desire, on the occasion of the celebration of her fiftieth year as Sovereign of this great Empire, to offer her a memorial of their love and loyalty, she would specially value one which would promote the industrial and commercial resources of her dominions in various parts of the world and which would be expressive of that unity and co-operation which Her Majesty desires should prevail amidst all classes and races of her extended Empire."

A public meeting at the Mansion House followed with the Lord Mayor in the chair and was addressed by Earl Granville, Mr. A. J. Mundella, Mr. G. J. Goschen, and others. Strong resolutions of support and approval were passed, many telegrams of sympathy with the object announced, and a statement of initial subscriptions given which included the names of Lord Rothschild, Sir W. J. Clarke of Australia and Lord Revelstoke. During the next six years the project was steadily pressed forward; large individual subscriptions obtained by the personal influence of the Prince of Wales, supplemented by the growing sympathy with the Colonies and with Empire unity; while grants were given by the British, Indian and Colonial Governments. Gradually, the splendid building in South Kensington, known over the world as the Imperial Institute, approached completion and, on May 9th, 1893, was opened by the Queen amidst stately ceremonial and all the trappings of regal magnificence. Nearly all the Royal family were present and, in the progress through the streets, a particularly enthusiastic reception was given to the Duke of York and Princess May of Teck whose engagement had been very recently announced. Around Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales, as the latter presented the address of the Committee, were ranged the most representative men of England, many Ambassadors, and Indian Princes and Colonial statesmen. Lord Salisbury, Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. H. H. Asquith, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Rosebery and Lord Randolph Churchill were there, but not Mr. Gladstone. After a brief description, in the address, of the objects and history of the Institute, the Prince continued as follows: "We venture to express a confident anticipation that the Imperial Institute will not only be a record of the growth of the Empire and of the marvellous advance of its people in industrial and commercial prosperity during Your Majesty's reign but will, also, tend to increase that prosperity by stimulating enterprise and promoting the technical and scientific knowledge which is now so essential to industrial development." After some brief words from Her Majesty the great building was declared open and another important project initiated by the Prince of Wales had reached completion. The London Times of the succeeding day referred with accuracy, in this connection, to his "clear-sighted initiative and untiring energy" and a member of the Executive Committee, which had the enterprise in hand, wrote to the same paper that during the past six years "every important step in connection with the Institute has been taken under the immediate direction of the Prince of Wales. By his energy men have been moved to action and difficulties apparently insuperable have been overcome. The result of years of devoted labour was accomplished to-day."

EARLY ADVOCACY OF IMPERIALISM

These were the two chief products of what may be called the Empire statesmanship of the Prince of Wales. Long before either of them were undertaken, however, he had shown a deep and sincere interest in the unity of the Empire—a natural outcome of his training, his travels, his individual abilities. For many years he acted as President of the Royal Colonial Institute, accepting the position at a time when people were only beginning to awake to the fact that Great Britain was more than an Island and sea-power and when the Institute was the rallying ground and centre for a small group of men like the late Duke of Manchester, Lord Bury, Mr. W. E. Forster and Sir Frederick Young, who devoted much energy and enthusiasm to the promotion of what long afterwards became known as Imperialism. The patronage and support of His Royal Highness did very much to give the movement, in its earlier days, a place and an influence and to establish the Institute as the factor which history has since recognized it to have been. It was in this connection, on July 16th, 1881, that the Lord Mayor of London—Sir William McArthur M.P.—entertained the Prince of Wales at a banquet attended by many representatives of the Colonies and distinguished guests. In his speech the Prince referred with extreme regret to his not having been able to visit all the Colonies, and especially, Australia. He had greatly desired to accept the invitation extended to him two years before to visit the Exhibitions at Sydney and Melbourne. "Though, my Lords and gentlemen I have not had the opportunity of seeing those great Australian Colonies, which every day and every year are making such immense development, still, at the International Exhibitions of London, Paris and Vienna, I had not only an opportunity of seeing their various products then exhibited, but I had the pleasure of making the personal acquaintance of many Colonists—a fact which has been a matter of great importance and great benefit to myself."

A further reference was made to the sending of his sons to visit Australia and memories of his own tour of British America were revived, with an expression of special gratification at seeing his "old friend," Sir John Macdonald, Prime Minister of Canada, present on this occasion. In August, 1887, the Prince of Wales showed further and practical interest in Australia by accepting the post of President of the Royal Commission appointed by the Queen, in England, to promote and help the Melbourne Exhibition of 1888. The Earl of Rosebery acted as Vice-President and much was done in making the British exhibit a good one. Years before this, speaking at the laying of the foundation stone of the first Melbourne Exhibition—February 19th, 1879—the Governor of Victoria, Sir George F. Bowen, declared it to be well-known that the Heir Apparent was animated by "a desire to visit the Australian Colonies in person should high reasons of state permit." As illustrating the opinions formed of him by colonial statesmen, the following may be quoted from the autobiography of that uncouth, clever, patriotic personality, Sir Henry Parkes: "I met His Royal Highness on several occasions in London, and he struck me as possessing in a remarkable degree the princely faculty of doing the right thing and saying the right word."

Another matter to which the Prince of Wales gave an Imperial character was the Royal College of Music which he initiated, organized and finally inaugurated on May 7th, 1883. Upon the latter occasion he explained in his speech that the institution was open to the whole Empire, that scholarships had already been provided by Victoria and South Australia, and that he hoped it might become an Imperial centre of musical education as well as a British centre. "The object I have in view is essentially Imperial as well as national, and I trust that ere long there will be no Colony of any importance which is not represented by a scholar at the Royal College." During the years which followed, up to the time of his accession to the Throne, the interest of the Prince of Wales in everything that helped Imperial unity was continuous and most earnest. At the Jubilee periods of 1887 and 1897, he entertained many Colonial statesmen, as he had done at other times when opportunity served, and he was always delighted to meet them and to discuss the affairs of their countries with men who naturally knew them best. It was a process of mental equipment for the government of a vast empire which, in addition to his early travels, must have made the experience and knowledge of Queen Victoria's successor as unique as were the conditions and greatness of his Empire.

During the last Jubilee the Prince presided, on June 18th, as President of the Imperial Institute, at a banquet given to the Colonial Premiers and other representatives in London. Upon his right sat Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Premier of Canada, and upon his left Mr. Whitelaw Reid, the special Envoy of the United States. Amongst others present were Lord Salisbury, Sir Hugh Nelson, Premier of Queensland, the Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Rosebery and Mr. Chamberlain—all of whom spoke; while Lord Ripon, Lord Dufferin, Lord Kimberley, the Marquess of Lorne, Sir W. V. Whiteway, Premier of Newfoundland, Lord Rothschild, Sir Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) the Archbishop of Canterbury and a splendid array of other representative men in Church and State, army and navy, art and science and literature, were also present. In one of his tactful speeches on this occasion, His Royal Highness referred to the enormous growth of the Colonies during the Queen's record reign and expressed the hope that present peaceful conditions might long continue. "God grant it," he added, "but if the national flag is threatened I am convinced that all the Colonies will unite to maintain what exists and to preserve the unity of the Empire." In little more than a year these words were fully borne out by events.

But the Prince of Wales was never content to make mere speeches in advocacy of a principle. His aid to the Royal Colonial Institute and organization of the Imperial Institute were cases in point. When the Imperial Federation League was formed he could only help its aims indirectly because there were political possibilities in its platform, but when, in 1896, the British Empire League succeeded to its place and mission, with a broader and more general platform, the Queen and the Prince extended their patronage to the organization. On April 30, 1900, a great banquet was given under its auspices to welcome the Australian Delegates who had gone "home" to discuss the Commonwealth Act, and to recognize the services rendered by Colonial troops in the South African war. The Duke of Devonshire occupied the chair, with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York on either hand, and next to them again the Dukes of Cambridge and Fife. The Marquess of Salisbury, Lieutenant Colonel George T. Denison, President of the League in Canada, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Edmund Barton of Australia and Mr. J. Israel Tarte of Canada were amongst the speakers, and others present included the Right Hon. C. C. Kingston, the Hon. Alfred Deakin, the Hon. J. R. Dickson, Sir John Cockburn and Sir James Blyth of Australia, the Earl of Hopetoun, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Wolseley, Lord Knutsford, Lord Strathcona, the Earl of Onslow, the Earl of Jersey, the Earl of Crewe, Lord Kelvin and Earl Grey. The Prince of Wales was enthusiastically received and congratulated upon his recent escape from assassination at Brussels. After some eloquently appropriate remarks upon this point, he welcomed the Australians in kindly words and then referred to the war. "We little doubt," he went on, "that in a great war like the one we are now waging we should have at any rate the sympathy of our Colonies; but it has exceeded even our expectations. We know now the feeling that existed in our Colonies and that they have sent their best material, their best blood and manhood, to fight with us, side by side, for the honour of the flag and for the maintenance of our Empire." Such words may fittingly conclude a brief record of the Prince of Wales' interest in Empire affairs up to the time of his accession to the Throne.



CHAPTER XVI.

The Prince as Heir Apparent

The Heir to a Throne such as that of Great Britain has an exceptionally difficult place to fill. He has to have the broad sympathies and knowledge and training of a statesman without the right to express himself upon any of the political problems and issues of his time; he has to live in a never-ending blaze of publicity and be liable to unscrupulous, or too scrupulous, criticism without the power of direct reply; he has, perhaps, to suffer in private life and character from the caustic shafts of men at home or abroad who do not like the institution which he represents; he has to officiate in a ceaseless round of functions and public ceremonial; he has to travel constantly from Court to Court in Europe and, in the case of the Prince of Wales, he had to act for several decades the part of the Sovereign in public life without the resources or responsibilities which the actual ruler would naturally possess.

There are, of course, important compensations. He has the foremost place in every leading national event, the privilege of knowing as intimately as he pleases the great men of his own and other countries, in every line of statecraft and human attainment, the pleasure of travel in many lands and amongst varied scenes and people, the opportunity of taking up any matter of a non-political character which he deems useful to the state, the people, or the Empire, with a reasonable certainty of substantial backing. To succeed, however, in the position as did Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, demands a peculiar combination of qualities which very few men possess in any rank of life. Tact, self-restraint, self-reliance, knowledge of human nature, energy, dignity, good intentions earnest patriotism, are more or less necessary.

How seldom these qualities have all been possessed by Heirs to the British Throne is plain upon the pages of history. There have been amongst them seventeen Princes of Wales of whom the best, before the chief of the line, was the Black Prince, and of whom only four have reached the Throne since the time of Edward VI. They were Charles I, Charles II, George II, and George IV., and the careers of the last two consisted in the establishment of rival Courts, continuous disagreements with their fathers, the headship of political factions, and the possession of characters about which the least said the better. The Prince who became Edward VII. may be said to have created the position of Heir Apparent, as his Royal mother created that of a modern constitutional Monarch.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE POSITION

He established himself as a sort of advisory statesman to the nation, an absolutely impartial leader in questions of high, as distinct from party politics, the first gentleman in the land in society, sports and manners, the leader of philanthropic projects and social reforms. He became the busiest man in England, the most popular personality in the three kingdoms, the head and front of many important public undertakings. Such a development was new to British institutions, but it came about so gradually that only when he ascended the Throne did people fully realize how large a place the Prince of Wales had held in public affairs as well as in their affections. Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, the eloquent American Senator, expressed the personal side of the matter very well when he said, with some surprise, after first meeting His Royal Highness: "I met a thoughtful dignitary filling to the brim the requirements of his exalted position. In fact, a practical as well as a theoretical student of the mighty forces which control the government of all great countries and make their best history."

There were many sides to this career, and in some of them the Prince never received the credit which he deserved. One was the essentially business-like management of his financial affairs. From the time of attaining his majority the Heir Apparent received L40,000 a year by grant of Parliament; at his marriage a special grant of L10,000 was given the Princess of Wales; when their children grew up the Prince was given L36,000 to apportion amongst them as he saw fit. During his minority the wise management of the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall—which is an hereditary appurtenance of the Prince of Wales—by the late Prince Consort, gave the Heir Apparent a total of L600,000, of which L220,000 were expended upon the purchase of Sandringham, and a considerable sum upon improvements there. On the Prince's marriage he was voted L23,455 to defray expenses and his allowance for the Indian tour of 1875 was L142,000 of which L69,000 was for presents. Marlborough House was given him by the nation, though he paid taxes upon it like any other citizen. The Duchy of Cornwall was so well managed after it came under his control that it yielded in 1897 a total income of nearly L74,000, or almost double the value of the returns received forty years before. Birk Hall, an estate inherited from the Prince Consort, was sold to the Queen for L120,000. The total public income of the Prince of Wales during many years was about L180,000, or nearly a million dollars, and the management of his finances was always careful. The stories of extravagance and indebtedness were absolutely without foundation. Yet these tales of poverty were always widespread and were probably believed by many millions of people.

The truth is that he was a first-rate business man in money affairs, knew how to make his income go to its furthest extent, and had an established system on his estates and in his palaces which combined comfort and luxury with judicious economy. A few words upon this point may be quoted, in passing, from an article in the well-known Ladies Home Journal of Philadelphia, written in July, 1897, by Mr. George W. Smalley, an American critic of authority who lived in London for many years: "It is not a subject which I care to touch upon, but I may refer to the stories about the Prince of Wales' financial position. It is a matter with which the American public has absolutely no concern. Nevertheless all sorts of stories are printed here about his debts to this person or that. Such stories were circulated when Baron Hirsch died—so circumstantial that they must have either been based upon minute knowledge or have been pure fabrications. They were not based upon knowledge, minute or otherwise, because they were not true." These stories were rendered more absurd by the fact that a rough calculation of his receipts during forty years of public life would indicate a sum of between thirty and forty millions of dollars.

CHARITIES OF THE PRINCE

Of course the expenses of the Heir Apparent were very great even when those are excepted which the nation paid. His personal gifts to benevolent institutions, educational concerns, religious interests, objects of social, moral and physical improvement, hospitals and infirmaries, asylums, orphanages, commercial and agricultural organizations, the relief of children and foreigners in distress, deaf and dumb and blind institutions, memorials and statues, Indian famines, war funds, calamity funds of various kinds at home, in the Colonies, and abroad, have been reckoned by an English student of statistics at L3,200 a year, or L128,000 in forty years—$640,000 spent in response to public appeals alone without reference to the many private charities about which little was known except that a very large amount of assistance was given yearly by the Prince and Princess in response to all kinds of private and authenticated requests. In this general connection Mr. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, spoke very warmly during the Parliamentary discussion of 1889 upon the Royal grants of that year. "It will be admitted," he said in the course of his somewhat famous speech, "that circumstances have tended to throw upon the Prince of Wales an amount of public work in connection with institutions as well as with ceremonials, which was larger than could reasonably have been expected, and with regard to which every call has been honourably and devotedly met from a sense of public duty."

Reference has been made in the preceding pages to the infinitely varied public functions of His Royal Highness and the aid thus given to charities and benevolent objects. A few instances only were quoted in which many thousands of pounds were obtained for worthy objects through his patronage. The fact is that the Heir Apparent gave his position a rather unique characteristic in this respect by becoming a sort of Grand Almoner of the nation. Almost any charity which he patronized or which the Princess supported with his approval, became a success, and it is probable that every thousand pounds which he gave away became a hundred thousand pounds through the prestige of his example and his often vigorous and effective personal exertions. One of the interests to which he was most devoted was that of the London and other hospitals. Attendance at the festivals, or annual dinners, was frequent, and the consequent subscription to their funds from time to time considerable. During the Diamond Jubilee the Prince thought he saw in this cause a way to fittingly commemorate that great event—as he had already marked that of 1887 by the Imperial Institute.

Under date of February 5th, 1897, therefore, an elaborate statement and earnest appeal appeared in the London Times and other great papers signed by the Prince of Wales, and asking for organized help in making up the existing deficits of L100,000 in London hospitals. The Royal writer pointed out that the efforts of individual institutions, praiseworthy as they had been, failed to obtain more than a small number of subscriptions from the great population of the metropolis; that the reasons for this was partly the difficulty of choosing amongst so many useful charities, partly the lack of definite opportunity for giving annual subscriptions to the cause as a whole, partly a feeling that small sums were not worth contributing; that it was proposed to establish this "Prince of Wales Hospital Fund" in order to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Queen's reign by obtaining permanent annual subscriptions of from L100,000 to L150,000. He also announced that Lord Rothschild had accepted the post of Treasurer, that a commencement in subscriptions had been made, and that the Lord Mayor had promised his active assistance.

The success of the movement thus inaugurated by the Heir Apparent was pronounced. The annual Report of the Council of the Fund, which was issued on May 2nd, 1899, stated that during the past two years L89,000 had been distributed, and that the hospitals had been enabled to re-open and maintain two hundred and forty-two beds. It had, however, not come up yet to the requirements and, on March 1st, of this year, the Prince made another effort to help the hospitals. He called a large and representative meeting at Marlborough House, and placed before it a plan for the establishment of an Order to be called the League of Mercy. Its object would be to reach locally persons who did not subscribe to minor Funds, or individual institutions, and to do this by offering an honour in the form of this decoration, "as a reward for gratuitous personal services rendered in the relief of sickness, suffering, poverty or distress." These services would be apart, altogether, from gifts of money, (although the latter would be gladly accepted) and must be continued during five years. The Queen was to be head of the Order and the Heir Apparent its Grand President. All names were to be submitted to Her Majesty and the honour itself was not to confer any rank, dignity or social precedence. The plan was approved, and its success marked despite some caustic and unjust criticisms in certain Radical papers. On December 1st (1899), following, the annual meeting of the Hospital Fund was held at Marlborough House, with His Royal Highness in the chair, and attended by Lord Rowton, Lord Iveagh, Cardinal Vaughan, Lord Lister, Lord Reay, the Chief Rabbi and others. Lord Rothschild submitted a statement which showed the year's receipts to be L47,000, the first distribution from the League of Mercy to be L1,000, and the total amount of the Fund to be L217,000. The meeting of December 18th, in the following year, showed receipts of L49,468; of which L6,000 came from the League of Mercy. In his speech upon this occasion Lord Rothschild heartily congratulated the Royal chairman upon his "wisdom and foresight" in forming this League. In passing, it may be said that Grey's Hospital, London, was one of the individual institutions which the Prince undertook personally to help, and at one special banquet, at which he presided for this purpose, he was enabled to announce total subscriptions to the extraordinary amount of L151,000.

THE PRINCE AND THE WORKINGMEN

There was no part of his public career more creditable to the Prince of Wales than his sincere, unforced friendship and sympathy with the workingman. Like his philanthropic work, it was the natural product of a generous disposition, and won the honest liking of men who had always looked with suspicion upon aristocratic, to say nothing of Royal, efforts in their behalf. This was another illustration of the difference between Heirs Apparent to the Throne. Imagination fails to grasp the thought of the Stuarts or the Georges, when holding that position, trying to help the poor or uplift the labourer! Speaking at a meeting in London on January 12th, 1887, Lord Mayor, Sir Reginald Hanson, said: "All those who have been engaged in this scheme (the Imperial Institute) know that the Prince of Wales is one of the first in this country who looks to the interests of the working classes." For many years, indeed, he had been an annual subscriber to the Workingmen's Club and Institute Union and to the Workingmen's College in Great Ormond Street. In the Alexandra Trust, founded by Sir Thomas Lipton, at the instance of the Princess, much interest was taken by the Heir Apparent as well as his wife, and, on March 15th, 1900, they privately and unexpectedly visited the Restaurant in City Road and inspected this praiseworthy effort to supply wholesome food at low prices to the poor. After walking about and speaking to many of the people, they enjoyed a "three-course dinner" costing four pence half-penny, and left amid a scene of great enthusiasm.

More than once the Prince aided workingmen's institutions by visiting them. On one occasion he heard that an Exhibition in South London, promoted by workingmen, was languishing for want of patronage and at once arranged to visit it unofficially. He went through it carefully, buying a number of articles and expressing much interest in the project. There was no further neglect of the institution by the general public. There was, perhaps, no single work in which he more appreciated the opportunity of doing good than that connected with the Housing of the Poor Commission to which he was appointed in 1884. He more than once presided at its meetings and took an active part in the investigations which were necessary. He attended every sitting and studied quietly and privately the whole condition of the poor in the poorest quarters of London and other cities. The Prince never hesitated to criticize those who neglected their charitable duties, or to praise those who lived up to the level of their opportunities, and in connection with an institution which he opened at Deptford, in 1898, his condemnation of the wealthy people in that neighbourhood was severe.

On March 4th, 1900, the working-class dwellings built in Shoreditch by the City Council were opened by the Prince of Wales. They were largely the product of the Royal Commission in which he had taken such interest and whose proposals were the basis of so much progress in this direction. His Royal Highness was accompanied on this occasion by the Princess and Lord Suffield and was surrounded on the platform by Lord Welby, the Earl of Rosebery, the Bishops of London and Stepney, the Earl and Countess Carrington and others. In his speech the Prince was expressive and vigorous upon the necessity of better housing for the poor. "I am satisfied, not only that the public conscience is awakened on the subject but that the public demands, and will demand, vigorous action in cleansing the slums which disgrace our civilization and the erection of good and wholesome dwellings such as those around us, and in meeting the difficulties of providing house-room for the working-classes, at reasonable rates, by easy and cheap carriage to not distant districts where rents are reasonable." He concluded an elaborate speech upon the question generally by expressing the hope that the Legislature would deal with and punish those who were responsible for insanitary property. Speaking at a banquet of the London County Council on December 3rd of the same year, the Prince again urged attention to the improvement of dwellings in various city areas. A part of this generous desire to aid the poor was the Princess of Wales' dinner to three hundred thousand persons in London at the Jubilee of 1897. Contributions poured in unceasingly to the project and amongst others was the gift of twenty thousand sheep from the pastoralists of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The organization of the dinner was in the hands of the Lord Mayor of London and it proved a great success.

The gifts of a statesman were cultivated by the Prince of Wales upon every proper opportunity. His Empire unity ideas and projects were abundant evidence of this while a not less distinct proof of statecraft was the apparent absence of it—the absolute non-partisan position of the Heir Apparent. No one was ever able to say that he held political views of any particular type. His delicate tact was particularly shown in his kindness and courtesy to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. When the aged statesman finally retired from politics the Prince visited him again at Hawarden Castle and was photographed in a family group. He and the Princess attended his funeral and showed the greatest respect for his memory and services. When the time came, in 1900, for Mrs. Gladstone to be laid beside her husband in Westminster Abbey one of the incidents of a sad occasion was the wreath sent in by their Royal Highnesses with the following inscription:

In Memory of Dear Mrs. Gladstone.

"It is but crossing with abated breath And with set face, a little strip of sea, To find the loved ones waiting on the shore More beautiful, more precious than before."

In preparing a national memorial to the eminent Liberal leader the Prince of Wales accepted the post of President of the General Committee with the Duke of Westminster as Chairman of the Executive. With Mr. Cecil Rhodes, he was long upon terms of intimacy and never concealed his admiration for the great Imperialist's career and objects. There can be no doubt that he knew much of South African affairs and was instrumental in the Duke of Fife taking a place on the Directorate of the South African Chartered Company. The only occasion upon which the Prince ever withdrew from a prominent Club was his retirement from the Traveller's because they had black-balled Mr. Rhodes. Not the smallest evidence of statecraft which the Prince of Wales showed, in a semi-personal way, was his warm sympathy with the emancipation of the Jews and his belief in their absorption into the life and interests of England. His presence at the marriage of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild caused, long since, a sensation in Jewish circles but it was only the first of many compliments which the Heir Apparent bestowed upon the "chosen people" up to the days when one of them became Prime Minister and a daughter of the House of Rothschild married a future Premier—the Earl of Rosebery. The late Baron Hirsch, the present Lord Rothschild. Sir Reuben Sassoon and Sir Moses Montefiore were amongst his personal friends and he made a thorough study of the position of the Russian Jews—showing them practical sympathy in various indirect ways. Of course, this partiality was open to misconstruction and the rumour of indebtedness to Jewish financial interests was so prevalent at one time that Sir Francis Knollys had to write a correspondent, who directly asked the question, an official statement as Private Secretary to the Prince, that the latter had no debts worth speaking of and could pay every farthing he owed at a moment's notice.

There is no question, however, that this friendship with a powerful financial class, ruling great interests in every nation, gave the Prince of Wales a much enhanced influence abroad. In the same way his obvious liking for American men and women of standing and ability was marked and did undoubted service in promoting good feeling between the two countries—where it was not grossly and untruthfully misrepresented by sensational journals. Really distinguished visitors from the United States, whether rich or poor, always found a welcome at the hands of His Royal Highness and amongst those whom he appears to have especially liked were James Russell Lowell, Thomas F. Bayard, Whitelaw Reid and Chauncey M. Depew. American women who have been absorbed into English life and society like Lady Harcourt, Mrs. Chamberlain and the Duchess of Marlborough were always treated with marked courtesy by both the Princess and himself. His visit to the United States in 1860 had also taught him something of conditions there which those around him were not always fully aware of. Hence the value of the message which was sent to the New York World in the name of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York during the Venezuelan crisis. If it be true that a private letter, a word spoken in season, or a brief drawing-room conversation, is often more influential than a cloud of newspaper writing, then the Prince of Wales was for years a potent force in promoting good-will between the Empire and the Republic.

As a diplomatist there can be no doubt of the Heir Apparent's influence. He succeeded, in fact, to much of the power held in that respect by the Prince Consort. It was the post of an unofficial and secret personal mediator between the Sovereign of Great Britain and those of other countries. Thoroughly acquainted with the personality of foreign rulers, related to the majority of those in Europe, knowing their degrees of national influence and personal power, familiar with the statesmen's position in Court and Legislature, associated more and more closely as the years went on with Queen Victoria's personal view of foreign policy, the Prince's position was one of very great indirect power. Through his heirship to the British throne he was naturally upon terms of something like equality with those whom he met as rulers at Berlin or St. Petersburg, at Paris or Vienna, and more in sympathy with their point of view than men of less than Royal rank. To quote Mr. George W. Smalley in McClure's Magazine of March, 1901: "His is a strange nature. He has, very fully and strongly, the pride of Kings and what the pride of Kings is, a republican who has lived all his life in a republic can hardly conceive. He has behind him, moreover, the loyalty of an expectant nation." Upon the other hand he knew more about the people and was more of them than any other hereditary ruler or prospective ruler in the world. Hence the strength of his position when conferring with a German Emperor, or a Russian Czar, or talking quietly with some Foreign Minister at a time of crisis.

INCIDENTS OF DIPLOMATIC INFLUENCE

This personal influence of the Heir Apparent was a factor often ignored. "Again and again," says Mr. Smalley, from the point of view of one who watched for years at the source of power in London, "the Prince has gone abroad as—in effect, though of course never in name—an Ambassador from the Queen to some Sovereign on the Continent. He has laid her views at some critical moments before the German Emperor and carried home the Emperor's response." This sort of personal intercourse must, many a time, have solved vital and serious issues. When William II. visited Windsor in 1899 and the Queen, with the aid of the Prince of Wales, Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, evolved the terms upon which the countries were to stand in regard to the coming South African war, can there be any doubt as to the place in these negotiations which the Heir Apparent held, or as to the advantage which his many earlier visits to Berlin in the days of Bismarck and the Kaiser's initiatory years of rule, must have been to him? The result of this intercourse was, in the end, the turning of a possible national enemy into a friend; the change of the Emperor who wrote the famous Transvaal cablegram into the ruler who took the first train and boat to Windsor and bowed his head at the death-bed of Queen Victoria.

Another interesting incident in this connection may be found in the friendship known to have existed between the Prince of Wales and the Czar of Russia. Nicholas II. bore the same relationship of nephew to him that was borne by William II. and, like the other Imperial ruler, came to bear a similar feeling of respect and regard for his uncle—sentiments not always felt between relations, royal or otherwise. It was on August 31st, 1894, that the Princess of Wales received a despatch from her sister, the Czarina, that Alexander III. was nearing his end in the far-away Palace of Livadia. As rapidly as train and ship could carry them the Royal couple travelled to Russia, but only in time for the prolonged and splendid ceremonial of a state funeral. In this great and solemn pageant, lasting a week, and extending from Livadia to St. Petersburg, the Czar and the Prince were constantly together, in the most intimate relations, at a moment when the former was just emerging—as yet a young and inexperienced man—into the responsibilities of perhaps the most difficult position in the world. It was little wonder if the youthful autocrat of ninety millions took counsel of his experienced and genial relative, and found in his society comfort and knowledge and the basis of a lasting friendship. Let Mr. W. T. Stead in the Review of Reviews, of January, 1895, describe the situation:

It was fortunate for every one that he stood where he did, as no one outside the Royal Castle could have been to the young Czar what the Prince was at Livadia, and afterwards. In the long and almost terrible pilgrimage to the tomb which followed, when the corpse of the dead Czar was carried in solemn state from the shores of the Black Sea to the tomb in the Cathedral that stands on the frozen Neva, the Prince was always at the right hand of the Czar. Alike in public or in private, the uncle and the nephew stood side by side. After the first gush of grief had passed, it was impossible but that thoughts of the relations between the two Empires should not have crossed the minds of both. These two men share between them the over lordship of Asia. To the Czar, the north from the Oural to the far Sagahlien; to the other, the south from the Straits of Babel Mandeb to Hong Kong. No two men on this planet ever represented so vast a range of Imperial power as the first mourners at the bier of Alexander the Third.

At St. Petersburg, the Duke of York joined the mourning group of Royal personages, and there, on November 26th, the young Czar was married to his cousin, Princess Alix of Hesse, and a still closer tie of relationship formed with the Royal House of England. From this time forward the diplomatic relations of Russia and Great Britain steadily improved and there has never been any doubt amongst those in a position to judge that it was very largely due to the close friendship between the Prince of Wales and his Imperial nephew. In France, and especially amongst its leading men, His Royal Highness was for long an influential factor in keeping the wheels of international relations moving smoothly. Personally popular, his tactful course at critical periods helped greatly in maintaining official amity. The root of this wide-spread influence and practical statecraft, in addition to elements already indicated and covering more directly the personal equation, was well described by Mr. Smalley in an article already quoted: "First of all, the impression of real force of character. Next, that combined shrewdness and good sense which together amount to sagacity. Third, tact. Add to these firmness and courage, and base all of these gifts on immense experience of life by one who has touched it on many sides and you will have drawn an outline of character which cannot be much altered. Add to it the Prince's constant solicitude about public matters and his intelligent estimate of forces—which last is the chief business of statesmanship. Add to this again the effect upon the hearer of conversation from a mind full, not indeed of literature, but of life; a conversation of wide range, of acuteness, of clear statement and strong opinion, of infinite good humour."

To these varied lines of useful statesmanship and personal labour in which the Heir Apparent was engaged for so many years, may be added the personal influence which he exercised over men of the Empire from time to time, and his constant inculcation of pride in country and of patriotic principle. There will then be seen a total record worthy of his later place as the hereditary ruler of vast dominions. In the former connection one incident may be mentioned as told by a correspondent during the Indian tour: "The Prince's tact is remarkable, and the news of his friendliness soon spread over India; one officer of great experience in Indian affairs declared that in asking the Maharajah Scindia to ride down the lines with him at Delhi, His Royal Highness performed an act which was worth a million sterling." Upon the latter point his speeches during forty years to innumerable military bodies—Militia, Volunteer, or Naval—may be mentioned. His earliest deliverance of this character was in presenting colours to the 100th, or Prince of Wales' Royal Canadian Regiment, at Thorncliffe, on January 10th, 1859. His first speech as an officer of the Army was, therefore, of an Imperialistic character: "The ceremonial, in which we are now engaged, possesses a peculiar significance and solemnity because in confiding to you for the first time this emblem of military fidelity and valour, I not only recognize emphatically your enrollment into our national force but celebrate an act which proclaims and strengthens the unity of the various parts of this vast Empire under the sway of our common Sovereign." The fact that this address of the youthful Prince—he was not eighteen—was probably revised and approved by the Prince Consort and the Queen, illustrates how early his education in Imperialism began, and how far in advance of public opinion the Queen and her sagacious husband were.

Through the years that followed the Prince of Wales was never backward in urging efficient military and naval protection for British interests. Upon the question of the Navy two speeches, delivered in 1899, may be referred to as indicating the patriotic statesmanship of the Heir of the Throne Speaking at the Middlesex Hospital banquet on April 12th he said: "In this country it depends on our Navy and our Army to uphold the honour and prestige of our nation and to protect the interests which have made it the vast empire it is. I rejoice to think that Her Majesty's Government have thought fit to increase our Navy. I realize by your applause how heartily you reciprocate what I have said, and I believe that this feeling exists not only in this room but throughout the length and breadth of Her Majesty's dominions. In strengthening our Navy, God forbid that it should imply in any way that we threatened other countries—just the reverse—for, in order to be at peace, we must be strong. Therefore, the best policy is to strengthen our first line of defence—the Navy. I hope the motto of which our Volunteers are so proud may ever be retained by the Navy; that of defence, not defiance." A little later, as President of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, he presided over a banquet in London on May 1st. In proposing the toast of the Army and Navy he declared that the country owed them much. "I am sure the desire of every Englishman is to see both in a high state of efficiency and that he does not grudge putting his hand in his pocket to maintain them, because he knows that if he has a good fleet and a good army he is safe and the honour of the Empire is safe."

An incident occurred on April 4th, 1900, which afforded abundant proof of the popularity of the Prince of Wales and indicated the importance his position had attained in the eyes of the world. He had been travelling to Denmark accompanied by the Princess, and his train had arrived at Brussels en route from Calais to Copenhagen. The carriage was a special one and was leaving the station at a slow, preliminary rate when a youth named Sipido jumped on the foot-board of the car and fired two shots, in rapid succession, point-blank at the traveller who was just taking a cup of tea with his wife. He was about to fire a third time, but was seized by the stationmaster, arrested and sent to prison. The man turned out to be a Belgian, expressed no regret for his attempted crime, said that he was willing to try again, and stated, under cross-examination, that his object was to avenge the thousands of men "whom the Prince had caused to be slaughtered in South Africa." He was afterwards tried under the laws of Belgium and acquitted. After sending dispatches to the Queen and the Duchess of York, containing assurance of safety, the Prince and Princess proceeded on their way to Denmark.



The event created a profound sensation in Great Britain and throughout Europe and the British Empire. The first feeling was of astonishment that one of the most popular members of the world's Royal circle should be the object of such an attempt; the second that more care had not been taken by those responsible for his safety in travelling; and the third was admiration for the perfect coolness and obvious bravery which he showed during and after the ordeal. Everywhere tributes of sympathy were tendered in language of unstinted appreciation of the Heir Apparent's public services and character. Speaking at Acton, on the same evening, Lord George Hamilton, M.P., said: "What could have induced any foreigner to raise his hand against the Prince of Wales passed his comprehension. If there was one individual who had utilized his position and abilities to promote the welfare of the poorer section of society it was the Prince of Wales. No kinder, no more philanthropic, no more humane man existed on the face of the earth." At other meetings which were going on, sympathetic allusions were made to the event, amidst loud cheers, by Lord Strathcona, Sir William Wedderburn, M.P., the Earl of Hopetoun, and Sir Wilfrid Lawson. Telegrams poured in at Windsor and Marlborough House from every point of the compass. Resolutions of congratulation were passed in every portion of the Empire during the next few days, and "God bless the Prince of Wales" rang loudly through the United Kingdom and many a distant country.

King Leopold of Belgium was one of the first to express his deep regret at the occurrence; the Governments of Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, New Zealand, Tasmania, Cyprus, Mauritius and Barbados, the President of France, the Portuguese Parliament, the Town Councils of Ballarat and Bendigo in Australia and Durban in South Africa, the Agents-General of all the Colonies in London, the Australian Federal Delegates in London, the Masonic Grand Lodge of New Zealand, the Corporation of London, the Government of Servia, the High Commissioner for South Africa and the Hon. W. P. Schreiner, Premier of Cape Colony, the Governor-General of Canada, the Governor of Malta, and some eight hundred other Governments, public bodies, or prominent persons, telegraphed messages of congratulation or formal Resolutions. The references of the British and Colonial press were more than sympathetic. The London Standard thought that "the veneration felt for the Queen as well as the general regard for the Prince's personal qualities and his universal popularity might be supposed to give him absolute immunity, even in these days of frenzied political animosity and unscrupulous journalistic violence. The Prince is almost as well-known on the Continent as he is at home, and his invariable courtesy and unaffected kindness of heart have been appreciated and acknowledged in capitals where his country is not regarded with affection." The London Daily News pointed out the utter absence of all excuse for such an attempt. "The Prince had refrained with admirable tact and discretion from interference with public affairs. All sorts of charitable and philanthropic concerns have found in his Royal Highness a sympathetic friend."