It is impossible to paint a complete picture of my time without saying something about Queen Victoria and Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward VII. In the preceding volume I have given some personal anecdotes about him and described how his introduction of cigarette smoking after lunch and dinner, immediately the last course was finished, put an end to the custom of heavy drinking which had been usual till his advent. As soon as the upper classes stopped guzzling, the middle classes followed suit, and ever since the revenue from drink has diminished in Britain in curious proportion to the increase of population.
Prince Edward reaped only a small part of the benefit of this change. He had a reputation for loose living and no one wished to think of him as a reformer.
Some few knew that he had all the social duties of a sovereign to perform and state to keep up on a small income and with no real power.
It was Edward who changed the traditional policy of Great Britain, which was one of friendly alliance with Germany, into a policy of antagonism to Germany and alliance with France. He was the founder of the Entente Cordiale between England and France, and accordingly the first cause, so to speak, of the World War. But in order to exhibit this change of policy in its true light as a complete right-about-face, I must first speak of his mother, Queen Victoria, and describe her influence.
It is difficult to paint a pen portrait of Queen Victoria. First of all, it must be done chiefly from the outside, and secondly, she changed with the years in an astonishing degree. Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister of her early life, the guide and mentor of her first decisions as a monarch-in fact, the man who trained her-always spoke of her as eminently teachable and docile.
After she married Albert of Saxe-Gotha, she took her husband as mentor.
Her early English education was swallowed up in a German education. She had learnt German as a girl; but now, out of passionate love for her husband, she spoke nothing but German in her home; read chiefly German; took her ideas from her husband; saw life and men through his eyes. She did not love him merely; she grew to idolize him.
A story is told of her early married life which illustrates her devotion. I cannot say how it originated or who was the authority for it; but it became a tradition, one of those stories which are truer than truth, symbol as well as fact.
The husband and wife did not agree about a certain policy. Victoria, still English, was backed up by the Minister whom she was accustomed to trust: at length she said gently to her husband:
"Don't let's argue, dear. I am Queen; I mean the responsibility is mine. You see, don't you?"
"Yes, I see," said Albert, and left the room quietly.
In half an hour she wanted him and was chilled to hear that he had gone out.
In an hour she sent again; he was still out.
He did not appear at dinner, and the Queen could not even pretend to eat.
Late in the evening she was told he had returned and she waited expectantly; but he kept to his apartment.
At length the Queen could stand it no longer. She went to his room; but the door was locked. She knocked and knocked.
"Albert, Albert!"
"What is it?"
"Oh, let me in; I want to come in."
"I'm sorry, but I've letters to write."
"Let me in, I say; you can do your letters later."
"I want to do them now; please leave me alone."
After begging and begging in vain, the Queen burst into tears.
"Oh, forgive me, I'm so unhappy. I can't bear to quarrel with you. I can't bear it."
That was the literal truth; she could not bear a momentary coldness in the man she worshiped. When two love, the one who loves the least is master; so the Queen became her husband's slave and echo.
Prince Albert's death widowed Victoria-maimed her. For years she found it impossible to take up life without him. Even her duty to her children and the Crown could not draw her from the absorbing anguish of grief; her very reason tottered, for her love was rooted in reverence. Albert was her divinity.
To the very end of her life she bowed to his authority.
And when, after many years, she took up life again without him, she seemed changed to everyone. She met her English ministers and advisers from a different standpoint. She felt herself their superior. She not only knew the English view of matters, but also the German view, and this gave her a singular authority. Her confidence in herself, her dignity, her sense of her own importance grew with the years, till she became authoritative. In every difficulty she was accustomed to ask: "How would he have acted?" It is on record that on more than one occasion she left her minister and went over to a bust of her husband and asked the stone effigy what she was to do.
Such devotion did not seem ridiculous to her, for love is never contemptible.
Besides, there was a great deal of common human nature in her, and it may be well to bring her ordinary qualities first into prominence.
Two stories that can both be vouched for throw, it seems to me, a high light on Queen Victoria's character.
She was a great friend of old Lady Hardwicke's, and used often to go and have tea with her. Lord Hardwicke told me once that as a boy he was very curious to know what the two old ladies talked about, and once listened at the door when the Queen was paying an unusually long visit.
It seems that they had sent for fresh tea for the second time, and the two old ladies had consumed an enormous quantity of muffins. They had been talking about their dead husbands, and when the Queen described how her beloved Albert had looked in his court dress when decked out with the Garter for the first time, she burst into tears. "He was so beautiful," she cried,
"and had such an elegant shape," and Lady Hardwicke sobbed in sympathy.
"They cried in each other's arms," said he, "and went on crying and drinking tea while swapping stories of their dead husbands."
When the Queen got up she wiped her eyes. "My dear," she sobbed, "I have never enjoyed myself more in my lie; a really delightful time-" and Lady Hardwicke mopped her eyes in unison.
"A really delightful time, dear."
When old age came upon her, bringing with it a certain measure of ill health through stoutness, she became irascible and impatient. As a girl even, she was far too broad for her height, and particularly short-necked. In her old age she was very stout, so stout that for ten years before she died, she had to be watched in her sleep continually by one of her women, for fear her head should roll on one side and she should choke, her neck was so short.
There was perpetual scandal in her late middle life about her relations with her Scotch gillie and body servant, John Brown. Even among the officers of her court, there were some who believed in her intimacy with the servant; while there were others equally well informed who would not harbor even a doubt of her virtue.
I remember asking Lord Radnor about it once, who had been in her household for twenty years, and whose daughter had been brought up with
the daughters of Prince Edward, but he would not admit the suspicion, though he told me a curious story of the privileges which John Brown arrogated and the Queen permitted.
On the occasion of a visit from the German Emperor, Lord Radnor had to arrange the reception. He formed up the lords and ladies of the court in two long lines, a sort of lane, in fact, through which the Queen and the German Emperor would pass to the dining-room. Just when he had got everyone in place, John Brown came in and began pushing the lines further back. Lord Radnor told him courteously that he had already arranged the court and that it was all right. John Brown told him he didn't know what he was talking about and pushed him, too, back into the line.
At the moment there was nothing for Lord Radnor to do but submit.
That evening Lord Radnor told the Queen that he had to complain of her servant. The Queen listened impatiently and replied that "It was only John's way; he did not mean any rudeness."
When Lord Radnor insisted that he had been rude, she replied, "You must forgive John. It is his way," adding, with curious naivete, "he is often short with me."
Brown's apartments were always near those of the Queen.
She sometimes sent for him two or three times in the evening. He would always come down, but he often made her wait, and even neglected to address her as "Madame"; he would just put his head in at the door and say,
"Well!" The Queen would say, "I just sent to see if everything was all right."
Brown would not even deign to give a word in reply, but went back to his rooms in silence.
Towards the end of his life she gave him a house and piece of ground in her own park at Balmoral, and when he died she set up his statue in the grounds.
One of the first things the Prince of Wales did when he came to the throne was to ask the relatives of Mr. Brown to take the statue away. It is, I believe, still regarded as a precious heirloom in the Brown clan.
In her later life, Victoria left all the ceremonies of royalty to Prince Edward.
He had to receive for her and fulfill all the social duties of the monarch, but there his power ended; he was a figure-head and nothing more. She hardly ever attended a court and gave scarcely any dinners, except occasional dinners to royal personages, particularly to her nephew the German Emperor, and now and then to some German prince; but to the end she kept in her own hands the reins of government. She did not even consult her son about anything or allow him to have any first-hand knowledge of state affairs.
She judged him almost as severely as the German Emperor judged him later.
She heard of scandals-stories of his relations with women; she regarded him as leicht-lebend-loose, if not dissolute, and there was no weakness she condemned so bitterly. She would never have a divorced woman at her court, and if she received anyone and they afterwards got mixed up in any scandal, she cut out their name relentlessly, even though she had liked them.
Looseness of morals was to her the sin that could never be forgiven.
Queen Victoria had all the intolerance of perfect virtue. People she knew and liked and esteemed tried to get her to forgive Colonel Valentine Baker; pointed out to her how nobly he had acted in not defending himself against the woman who accused him; how he had redeemed his fault, too, by years of high endeavor; how he had shed his blood for the English in Egypt. Nothing could move her. A man should be as pure as a woman, was her creed, and she would tolerate no infringement of it. Her eldest son's lax moral code was a perpetual offense to her.
Up to the very last Queen Victoria was Queen and would brook no interference or advice. Her relations with her ministers for the last thirty years of her life were always on a peculiar footing. She had not only grown more imperious with the years, but wiser. Again and again she had matched her brains with her ministers, and a woman learns rapidly through intercourse with able men; but it was her German husband who had taught her broad-mindedness and given her faith in herself.
This self-confidence grew in the nineties to absurd heights. She wrote several messages to her people which were plain translations from the German.
At a big reception one evening I followed Arthur Balfour up the Starrs and a lady, I think the then Duchess of Sutherland, was chaffing him about the latest Royal message. "Your English," said the lady, "is not so pure as it used to be, my dear Arthur."
"I had nothing to do with it," replied the Prime Minister. "The dear old lady never even showed me the message! I wish she would, but it is difficult now even to hint criticism to her. So I keep quiet; after all it doesn't matter much-"
"Would you like the practice to cease?" I asked him a little later.
"Indeed I should," he answered. "It might lead to an awkward position at almost any time: her ministers are supposed to do these things."
The next week I wrote an article in the Saturday Review, entitled "The Queen's English," in which I set forth how this expression came into vogue as expressing how careful her various ministers had been to put only good English into any document which the Queen was supposed to sign. I went on to say that the good custom was being neglected, and I took certain phrases from the latest messages and showed that the bad English of them was due to the fact that they were literal translations from the German.
Yet Arthur Balfour knew no German and was besides a master of good English: it was evident that the Queen herself had written these messages, a custom which, if persisted in, would soon ruin her reputation as a writer of English. "In fact," I summed up, "the Queen's English is now plainly made in Germany."
The exposure put an end to the practice: always afterwards the Queen used to call her ministers to counsel.
Queen Victoria grew to dislike radicalism through her dislike for Gladstone.
"He speaks at me," she said, "as if I were a public meeting."
She loved Disraeli's deference and courtesy, and when he made her Empress of India he won her heart of hearts.
In the South African War she took the English official point of view very strongly while deploring the necessity, as she regarded it, of war; and when her nephew, the German Emperor, sent his famous telegram to Krueger, she wrote to him with her own hand, declaring that he had acted unjustifiably; rated him, indeed, as if he had been a peccant schoolboy. And when he pleaded that he thought her Majesty's ministers had directed the Jameson raid, the old lady replied by declaring that none of her ministers knew anything about it and scolded him sharply for the assumption.
"You have weakened the principle of royalty," she wrote.
It says a good deal for the Kaiser that he apologized humbly and promised never to offend again in the same way.
From this it will be seen that towards the end of her life Queen Victoria's personal influence in the courts of Europe was extraordinary. She was the oldest reigning sovereign, save the Emperor of Austria, and the most secure.
Everyone outside of England saw that she had immense power, and yet she was supposed to be a constitutional ruler.
Men of the first capacity as English politicians were astonished at her ability.
No two men could have been more unlike than Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Charles Dilke; yet both spoke of Victoria as the ablest woman they had ever known. Still, her influence was injurious. She strengthened English conservatism and it was already far too strong; she did more than any other person to block the wheels of progress. All her influence during the last twenty years of her life was thrown against reform; she loved the established order and the traditional rule of conduct.
Her foreign policy was bounded by the idea of working in perfect harmony with Germany. She distrusted and disliked France and despised the French.
After Fashoda she still passed a couple of months on the French Riviera in the winter, but her relations with the French had been so slight and formal that the difference of feeling between the two races made hardly any impression on her. It was the South African war which got the English thoroughly disliked in France. And the high-handed, not to say, rude way the English acted about Fashoda humiliated French pride and brought the two peoples to the verge of war. I have already told how Rochefort, the greatest of French journalists, wrote in the Intransigeant the bitterest attack on Queen Victoria; he even called her "Cette vieille caleche qui s'obstine a s'appeler Victoria," (That old stage coach which persists in calling itself Victoria.) Prince Edward used to say that he never knew his position till his mother died, and at her death-bed Lord Salisbury spoke to him.
"He had always been cold to me," he said, complainingly, "but when the doctors said, 'The Queen is dead,' Lord Salisbury suddenly altered his tone, his manner, everything. He came to me respectfully; stooped to kiss my hand and hoped that I would believe he would serve me as faithfully as he had tried to serve my mother. I was really touched. Then, for the first time, I realized through his deference what it was to be King of England."
When Edward came to the throne, he brought a new policy into power: so long as Victoria lived, England favored Germany and cold-shouldered France, and the outward visible sign of England's good will was the cession of Heligoland to Germany.
Of course, Lord Salisbury knew nothing of the value of that island; never dreamed that it could be an outpost of attack on England by airships and a fortress to protect the German navy. He was blissfully ignorant of geography and gasped with astonishment when told once that Zanzibar was an island.
But he had served Victoria loyally, and up to the very end of her reign it looked as if the understanding between the two Teutonic peoples was certain to endure for at least another century.
In 1889, when I first knew him, Prince Edward was a typical German in appearance, about five feet eight in height, very heavily built, with dark brown hair and full whiskers, beard and moustache. He was already very stout; but instead of trying to get rid of his fat, or to keep it within bounds, he was much more concerned to conceal it. The trait is characteristic. He dressed with extreme care, and always with the idea that he had a figure.
Consequently, his clothes were always a little too tight, and thus drew attention to his rotundity. As is usually the case, his vanity did him harm.
His love of good living and childish self-esteem were his most obvious qualities; they went hand in hand with good humor and a certain bonhomie which everyone noticed in him. When threatened by old age, he tried from time to time to diminish his drinking, believing that too much liquid was the cause of his obesity: but he could never be persuaded to cut down his eating.
Foolish proverbs, enshrining the stupidity of the past, governed him, or were used by him as justification: "Bread is the staff of life… good food never hurt any one," commonplaces appealing to him irresistibly.
The Prince had had every advantage of both German and English training.
He spoke English however, with a strong German accent, and continually used bad English through translating literally from the German. In the same way, his French was fairly fluent so long as he kept to the commonplaces of conversation; but as soon as he had to express some unfamiliar thought he was hopelessly at sea, and then his baragouinage was that of a South German. Curiously enough, his accent in French and in English was rather like a Bavarian, with an indefinable tang of the Jew. I don't put forward the usual scandalous explanation; I merely note the fact.
The Prince's sensualism was as round as his figure, as full-blooded as his body.
He gambled whenever he could because of the pleasure it gave him; he smoked incessantly, though the cigarettes plagued him with smoker's cough; but till Nemesis came with the years-ill health and indigestion from want of exercise or from over-eating, which you will-he was generally good humored and kindly disposed: un ban vivant, as the French say.
Like the average man, he delighted in popularity. He could not help believing that all desired and sought it, and if they failed, it was because of some shortcoming in them. He could not imagine that anyone would hold himself above the arts which lead to popular applause. When he drove through London, bowing and smiling to cheering crowds, he took it all as a triumph of personal achievement, a final and complete apotheosis.
Edward had all the aristocrat's tastes. He loved horse-racing, was gregarious, hated to be alone, preferred a game of cards to any conversation; in fact, he only talked freely when he went to the opera, where, perhaps, he ought to have been silent. He was a gambler, too, as English aristocrats are gamblers, and his love for cards often got him into difficulties. It has been said by a bitter but keen sighted observer: "King Edward was loved by the English because he had all the aristocratic vices, whereas King George is disliked by them because he has all the middle class virtues."
Early in the nineties I was struck by the story of Father Damien. There was an echo of the heroic self-sacrifice of St. Paul and the early Christian martyrs in his self-abnegation.
A simple Belgian monk, he had begged to be sent to the South Sea lepers. He made the choice in the spring of lusty manhood, knowing that he would never see his home and his loved ones again, in the full conviction that he, too, must catch the loathsome malady and die piecemeal, rotting for years, and praying in the end for death as a release.
At luncheon one day I happened to have the Vyners: Mrs. Vyner, an intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, was an extraordinary woman; Bob Vyner, her husband, was simply a very rich Yorkshire squire. Mrs. Vyner, without being good-looking, had an extraordinary charm of manner. I remember once saying to her daughter, Lady Alwynne Compton: "You know, Lady Alwynne, after talking to your mother for some time, one feels a sort of ultimate sympathy with her, almost as though it were love."
"The curious part of it is," said Lady Alwynne, "that she is in love with you for the time being; she's extraordinarily sympathetic."
At this luncheon I declared that modern science should turn the sacrifice of Father Damien into a triumph by forming a fund to study leprosy and discover a cure.
"The only worthy memorial to him," I said, "would be to make his selfsacrifice final by eliminating the foul disease from the world."
Mrs. Vyner questioned me closely after lunch and then persuaded me that I should call on Prince Edward and ask him to take the initiative. "I'll speak to the Prince," she said, "and you'll see that he'll take fire at your idea; he's really a good man and eager to help every noble cause."
A day or two afterwards I got a letter from Prince Edward, asking me to come to Marlborough House and explain my scheme about Damien. I went and found Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince's secretary. I told him I wanted to get up a committee and form a fund, to be called the Damien Fund, to make an end of leprosy in memory of the great hearted man who had given his life for the lepers. "Modern doctors," I said, "will be able to find the microbe of leprosy in six months and so cure the disease." Knollys finally agreed with me and made an appointment with the Prince for the afternoon. When Edward saw me he burst out: "I could hardly believe it was you, Harris! Your naughty stories are wonderful; but what have you to do with leprosy and a fund to cure it?"
"It could be done so easily, Sir," I began. "I'm sure if you'll lend your great influence to the cause, it can be made successful in a year, and one of the vilest diseases that afflict humanity can be done away with."
"All right," cried the Prince. "I'll back you up in every way: see Knollys here and arrange the plan of campaign. I'm with you heartily. We'll have the meetings here." I thanked him cordially for his support.
The chief persons in the kingdom were put on the committee: the preliminaries were settled by Sir Francis Knollys and myself, and a large fund raised. But alas! In spite of all my efforts to keep at least one lay member on the working committee, the whole executive power fell into the hands of the doctors, who each had his own fad to air and his own personality to advertise.
Our first meeting at Marlborough House was a huge success. All the first men in England came to the meeting and some twenty thousand pounds were subscribed in the first half hour. "What should I give?" asked the Duke of Norfolk.
"You must remember," I said, "that as the first Catholic in the realm, your gift will certainly not be surpassed; the more you give, the more others will give."
He gave two thousand pounds, I believe.
While the doctors were disputing in private, strange rumors came to London from the leper settlement in Hawaii. It was said that Father Damien's leprosy had been contracted through his carnal love for some of the female lepers.
The wretched story was contradicted, but the slander was too tasty a morsel to be rejected. The Prince sent for me hot-foot. I found him in a state of great excitement in Marlborough House.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" he cried. "Of course it's not your fault, but this Father Damien must have been a nice person. Fancy choosing lepers-eh? It gives one a shiver. I suppose it's human nature; propinquity, eh?" and he laughed. "We must change the name of our fund, though; what shall we call it?"
"Why change, Sir?" I asked. "That would be to condemn Damien without a trial. I don't believe a word of the vile story."
"Whether you believe it or not," cried the Prince impatiently, "everyone else believes it, and that's the thing I have to consider. Such stories are always believed, and I can't afford to be laughed at like they laugh at Damien. I don't want to be taken for a fool; surely you see that. We may believe what we please, but I have to consider public opinion."
"As you please, Sir," I said, realizing for the first time that in these democratic days Princes, even, are under the hoof of the ignorant despot called opinion.
"The name can be changed. "The Leprosy Fund' is as distinctive a title as 'The Father Damien Fund,' but I regret your decision."
"Oh, come," he exclaimed, restored to complete good humor by my submission. "The Leprosy Fund' is excellent. Tell Knollys, will you, that we have changed the title, and take all steps to make it widely known! We must be worldmen, men of the world, I mean, and accept opinion and not be peculiar. It's always foolish to be peculiar; you get laughed at," and so he ran on, expounding his cheap philosophy, the philosophy of the average man and of the street. Fancy a Prince afraid to be peculiar. No wonder Edward was popular; he was always eager to pay the price popularity demands.
The doctors chosen to investigate were appointed by the head of the College of Surgeons, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, and the head of the College of Physicians, whose name I forget. But Sir Jonathan Hutchinson took the chief part in the appointments and he was notorious for his belief that leprosy came from the eating of stale fish. This was the theory when he was a youth and studied medicine. It had been completely disproved by the experiments of the Norwegians, who had established the best school and hospital for leprosy in modern Europe, but Sir Jonathan knew nothing of modern research on the subject and insisted on appointing someone who believed or pretended to believe in the stale fish theory. Consequently, the commissioners went to India and returned without achieving anything. They would have been infinitely better advised if they had gone to Norway and profited by the experiments of the Norwegian investigators.
I wanted to use the fund to send two young men to Norway and two to the leper settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, and two more to Calcutta, to study leprosy in all its phases and try to find a cure for it; whereas each of the great doctors had a new theory and a new method to propose. One declared that it was purely contagious; another believed that like syphilis, it could only be propagated through an abrasion of the outer cuticle: not one of them knew anything about the modern researches; they were all full of the conclusions they had formed on the subject after an hour's reading when they were students-one could tell the textbook each of them had used.
I had already noticed that Sir Andrew Clarke and the other notable medical authorities were opposed to me and my ideas. But they didn't trouble me greatly, as no two of them agreed on any policy. On one point however, they were all at one: as I was not a properly qualified doctor I could know nothing of leprosy, though I had really spent more time on it than all of them put together, and had studied the latest works on it in three or four languages. I found it hopeless to dispute with the doctors, and as soon as the name of the fund was changed I resigned my position as secretary and washed my hands of the whole business, though the Prince and Knollys requested me very kindly to reconsider my decision.
The single experience had taught me several good lessons. For one thing, I began to see the weakness of patronage in England. The Prince could only act in any case through the nominal heads of the profession concerned, and the great London doctors knew nothing about leprosy and cared less. I was convinced that no good would come of the inquiry as directed by them.
Progress in science is only made by disinterested, able investigators: one thing was certain; if the money had been subscribed in Germany or in France, a far better use would have been made of it.
In spite of the comparative failure of the scheme, it made the Prince of Wales like me better, and certainly turned Sir Francis Knollys, who was nominally the head of the Prince's household and his most trusted adviser, into a really close friend. When I got to know him I found that he was a lineal descendant of the Sir Francis Knollys, who was the Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth's Court and made himself a little ridiculous when well advanced in years by falling in love with Mistress Mary Fitton, Shakespeare's love, "the dark lady of the Sonnets," and the mistress of young Lord Pembroke, Shakespeare's patron and friend.
I felt sure this old Sir Francis Knollys was the prototype of Shakespeare's Polonius, and I could give a dozen reasons for my belief.
One day I detailed them to Sir Francis Knollys, who was delighted with the identification, a little to my surprise, for Polonius does not cut a heroic figure in Hamlet. I learned to like Knollys with heart and head: he was not only kindly and fair-minded, but absolutely loyal to his friends, and more than anything else I appreciated that loyalty in London, where everybody seems inclined to run his friend down and depreciate even good ideas and unselfish endeavor.
Snobbery is the religion of England. I had always regarded Edmund Yates, owner and editor of the weekly paper, The World, as a friend of mine, and I had taken care to have him asked to the meetings of the Damien Committee, but now he came out with a long article in The World, declaring that I had jumped from Father Damien's shoulders through the window of Marlborough House-the whole article a mere sweat of envy. I never laid any stress on the fact that Prince Edward was kind to me. But to Edmund Yates, who pretended to be my friend, my little social success was much more important than my writing or my friendship. The incident only confirmed my growing belief that most men give themselves much more readily to hatred than to love.
The reasons why the Prince disliked Germany, in spite of his German upbringing, have never yet been told in print. Nevertheless, they are interesting and show how petty slights and foolish misunderstandings may help to cause the greatest wars and deluge Europe with blood.
For many years Prince Edward had been an ardent admirer of Germany and most German institutions.
After the German Emperor began to take up yacht-racing there was a dinner at Cowes, in the early nineties, at which Prince Edward declared that there was no such enviable position in all the world as that of the German Emperor.
"He is the greatest influence in the world," he declared, "for good or evil.
Whatever he does is accepted and copied. All his subjects now are taking up yacht-racing because he wishes it and he'll do great things yet, you'll see: to be German Emperor is to be a god on earth."
But when the Kaiser visited England frequently the glamor disappeared and the real difference in the nature of the two men became apparent.
The uncle was prepared to look up to the nephew who wore the crown, but he was not content to be treated with contempt. On the other hand it was perfectly plain that the German Emperor regarded Prince Edward as a fat elderly person who sacrificed the dignity and serious purposes of manhood to the vices and amusements of youth.
I was once at a dinner at Osborne toward the end of Victoria's life which tells the whole story.
By the wish of Victoria the German Emperor was treated with special reverence. The famous gold dinner service even was brought from Windsor to Osborne to do him honor. The Queen would have had even the weather regulated to suit the convenience of her beloved grandson.
The kinship and likeness between grandmother and grandson were extraordinary. They both had the same serious view of life and the same conventional view of morals. All through the dinner the Queen spoke to no one except the German Emperor, who was on her right. There was scarcely any conversation among the other diners.
Occasionally Prince Edward, who sat opposite the Kaiser, ventured a remark, but neither of the sovereigns paid much attention to him.
Grandmother and grandson talked together in excellent German in a low tone at the head of the table, and it took a very bold spirit among the rank and file of the guests even to whisper to his neighbor. The Prince, who sat opposite the German Emperor, was evidently ill at ease; his usual bonhomie was blighted. As the meal drew to an end he fidgeted about, looking the picture of discomfort.
Suddenly the Queen got up to go. Everybody stood up and the German Emperor and the Prince accompanied her to the door. When the Queen disappeared there was a sigh of relief. The ice was broken. The air of constraint vanished; every one began to talk. Prince Edward was all smiles.
The German Emperor walked back to the table and took his seat again still in profound thought. As Prince Edward seated himself, he asked the Emperor, with a smile, to take the head of the table. The Kaiser did not appear even to hear him, but with clouded brow appeared to be in deep thought: suddenly he pushed back his chair, got up and went hastily out of the room after the Queen, without a word to the Prince, leaving the whole assembly gasping.
Prince Edward flushed; the slight was manifest. He so far forgot himself for the moment as to exclaim: "German manners, I suppose," then went on talking as usual; but the table remained in expectancy; there was a certain embarrassment in the air; the dinner was a failure.
From that time on Prince Edward stood, not with the German Emperor, but opposed to him, and in private did not hesitate to criticize his manners and his want of consideration for others. In fine, he began to look for his nephew's faults and not for his qualities.
A wit at the time summed the whole matter up in the phrase that has more truth than humor in it: "Morals and manners are always at daggers drawn." It was certainly the brainless rudeness of the German Emperor that first made the breach.
When Edward succeeded to the throne, the ever-widening breach became apparent to every one. The German Emperor was not run after nor his visits solicited. When he came to England, he would stay with Lord Lonsdale or some other friend, but there was no public reception; he came and went unheralded and unwelcomed so far as the court was concerned.
Edward's early experiences as king almost forced him to take a new attitude towards affairs. The Queen had died in the early part of the South African war. King Edward hated the war-was liberal-minded enough to feel that war in one of her colonies was not likely to do England any good; he shared, too, the common feeling that the German Emperor was giving the Boers at least moral support. Every setback in the field made the King more determined to put an end to the war, and as soon as Pretoria was taken and President Krueger had fled the country, he used all his influence to bring about peace, peace at almost any price.
It will be remembered that peace was made possible at length by the promise of England to give three million pounds to the Boers to rebuild the farm houses that Lord Kitchener had burnt down. That this proposal of Botha's was accepted was due to King Edward's personal intervention. With the common sense of a man of the world, he saw that fifteen million dollars was a flea bite, not worth talking about. More, as he said, would be spent in a week's war. It was absurd to haggle over such a sum.
As soon as peace was established, everyone felt grateful to the King for having divined the unconscious wishes of his people. He was put on a pedestal; many persons remembered that he had broken the habit of drink in England, and now he had brought about peace in South Africa; almost everyone began to hope that the kindly, good-natured man of the world might be a better ruler than his all too severe and moral mother.
If there was one thing King Edward appreciated and knew all about, it was popular opinion. He soon saw that he had won the confidence of earnest and serious people and at once began to take himself seriously. Everything he did had turned out to be right; why should he not assume the initiative in politics? Not only did he leave the Kaiser uninvited, but he paid a visit to Paris-a state visit-and so pleased the great body of English Liberal opinion, which naturally preferred democratic France to imperial Germany.
Then in 1905 he invited the French fleet to Cowes and gave the French admiral and his officers a great banquet at the Royal Yacht Squadron Club when the Entente Cordiale was confirmed.
The great banquet that followed in the Guildhall only ratified the agreement, and when Admiral Caillard, driving through London, took off his hat to the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, amid a cheering crowd, everyone felt that at length the two peoples were united in heart and in purpose.
In 1906 French officers from the General Staff came across to London and in consultation with the British military authorities fixed on the place in the north of France where the British army was to assemble if the Germans invaded France. From that time on there was a complete military understanding between the two peoples.
One little incident, as yet unrecorded, did a good deal to change King Edward's dislike of the Kaiser into contempt. It was rumored in London that the Kaiser had fallen in love with a lovely Italian: soon the report became clear and detailed; the lady was a fair, if not a super-subtle, Venetian, the Countess M… Whenever the Kaiser went to Italy he met her and spent some time with her. The scandal delighted King Edward. Eagerly he asked anyone who might know:
"Is it true? Do you know her? Is she really lovely? Are they devoted to each other?"
Question on question.
"Well, Sir," came the reply, "it is true at least that the Kaiser visits her whenever he can, spends every moment of free time with her: it is true that countless photographs of him all autographed are all over her rooms; and… "
"Tell me," cried King Edward, "is he taken in uniform or in mufti?"
"In both, Sir," was the reply.
"Then he loves her," was the King's comment. "It is true. Oh, those moralists; they are always the worst…" and he laughed delightedly.
This discovery increased his self-assurance in the most extraordinary degree; he began to speak of himself as a diplomat, and French nobles, like the Marquis de Breteuil, and French politicians of all kinds flattered and praised him to the top of his bent.
Many streams added volume to the great current: the King's personal preference for the French over the Germans was the most obvious force; then came the influence of liberal England; but the main river was the individual rivalry of Germany, now challenging England in the most vital way.
Early in King Edward's reign people began to notice that the production of German steel was exceeding that of English steel; that German industries were competing on an even footing in neutral markets with English industries-beginning, indeed, to oust the English products from one market after another.
Experts went to visit Germany and came back praising German methods and German education; bodies of workingmen returned to eulogize German state socialism. Statesmanship, as understood in England, could not follow the rising tide of rivalry with approval. The Entente Cordiale with France was confirmed in form, and hardly had British politicians arrived at an understanding with Delcasse when the possibility of war with Germany was mooted.
Each year saw the bonds uniting England to France strengthened. The German Kaiser's visit to Morocco fanned the embers of suspicion, dislike and trade-jealousy to a flame. What had the Germans to do in Morocco? Why did the French stand it? The English press began asking: "Isn't it about time that we taught the Germans their place?"
The storm clouds blew over, but a year or two later came the visit of the German cruiser Panther to Agadir, and everyone saw that events were ripening to a catastrophe. The Prune Minister of France, Monsieur Caillaux, told Sir Edward Grey that he would break off negotiations with Germany without ceremony if Sir Edward Grey would assure him of British support in case of war. Sir Edward Grey recommended him to wait, declared that England would support France in case France was attacked, but begged him to let the occasion be a German aggression. "We must carry the opinion of neutral nations with us," he said again and again, and finally, "Wait; the time is not yet ripe."
When Monsieur Caillaux consulted his Russian allies, they answered still more plainly that Russia was not ready-had not yet recovered from the war with Japan. But all the while the storm clouds grew heavier-the ill feeling between the peoples more pronounced.
King Edward never saw the storm break that he had done so much to conjure up, but after his death forces he had set in motion went on acting, and when Russia was ready the storm burst.