Prince Edward of Wales

“ The Prince of Wales, however, rose above the apparent difficulties of his position and for more than a quarter of a century emulated the wise example of his princely father—Albert the Good—and profited by the beautiful character and unquestioned statesmanship of his august mother. As with all those upon whose life beats the glare of ever-present publicity and upon whose actions the press of friendly and hostile nations alike have the privilege of ceaseless comment, the Heir to the British Throne had to suffer from atrocious canards as well as from fulsome compliments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meanwhile Aquitaine was gradually lost; the defeat of Pembroke off La Rochelle deprived England of the command of the sea, and Sir Owen ap Thomas, a grand-nephew of Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, planned, with French help, an abortive invasion of Wales. In 1371 the Black Prince came back to England with broken health, and in 1373 John of Lancaster marched to little purpose through France, from Calais to Bordeaux. In 1372 Edward made his final effort to lead an army, but contrary winds prevented his even landing his troops in France. ”

“ His son, Edward I, nicknamed “Long Shanks,” the ablest king of the Plantagenet race, was almost constantly occupied, during his stirring reign, in wars of conquest against Wales and Scotland, and he succeeded in annexing the first-named country to the English crown. His son and successor, Edward II, was the first English Prince of Wales. This Edward inherited the Scotch war which his father had left unfinished, after great effusion of blood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the outset of their married life King Edward and Queen Alexandra were called upon to perform the public duties of the Sovereign, which, since the Prince Consort’s death, had in some measure necessarily developed upon the Duke of Cambridge and his family. The late Duchess of Teck’s biographer records that Society did its utmost to give the beautiful young bride a right royal welcome. A memorable event of the London season was the Guards’ ball in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales, held in the picture galleries of the International Exhibition. ”

“ Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment, Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs, Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke About his marriage, nor my own disgrace, Have ever made me sour my patient cheek Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face. I am the last of noble Edward's sons, Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first. In war was never lion rag'd more fierce, In peace was never gentle lamb more mild, Than was that young and princely gentleman. ”

“ But it was impossible that a stern, just man like Edward, penetrated with the most advanced doctrine of European legists and deriving his information from English employés, should be able to understand the position of the chief of a semibarbarous nationality, who thought outrages on law matters to be atoned for by fines, while he brooded with implacable rancor over every slight, real or fancied, to his own position as prince of Wales, representative of a dynasty that had ruled "since the time of Camber the son of Brutus." ”

“ Edward gladly agrees, and swears on the hilt of his sword to “keep faith.” So the Welsh have once more a prince of their own, and thus it comes about that the eldest son of an English king bears the proud title Prince of Wales.
Now Edward betakes himself to the more serious work of settling the government of the land. Wales is to keep her old customs and laws, and Welshmen are to retain the freedom and the estates which they enjoyed under their own princes. All is done that can be done to make the foreign yoke easy and the burden light ”

“ Properly used, it meant his personal friends or those who, along specific and often very diverse lines of sport, society, work, or travel, were necessarily intimate with His Royal Highness. Improperly applied, it was supposed to designate a rather fast and very "smart" set of wealthy social magnates. In this latter guise it had really no existence. Those who were familiar with the Prince of Wales' career and character knew that mere wealth was the last thing which ever attracted him, and the one thing which was a most certainly uncertain basis upon which to gain his patronage ”

“ On June 5th he presided at the yearly banquet of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution for providing pensions or annuities for persons ruined by agricultural depression. The Earl of Hardwicke in proposing the Royal chairman's health said that "the position of the Prince of Wales is not one of the easiest. He has no definite duties, but the duty he has laid down for himself is of a very definite nature. It is to benefit, to the best of his power, all his fellow-creatures." ”

“ 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." ”

“ The tradition of constitutional monarchy established by our late beloved Queen necessarily inaugurated a different régime. No political party was ever able honestly to claim the Prince of Wales as an adherent, or even as a platonic sympathiser. On the other hand, not his severest critics ever accused him of [264] apathy to British interests. In that higher sphere of patriotism which rises superior to the din of party politics he thoroughly earned the title of the typical Englishman. ”

“ The triumph over Winchelsea made Edward's position stronger than it had been during the first days of the Lincoln parliament. That assembly ended amidst the festivities which attended the creation of Edward of Carnarvon as Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, and Count of Ponthieu. The new prince, already seventeen years of age, had made his first campaign in the previous year. But all the pains that Edward took in training his son in warfare and in politics bore little fruit, and Edward of Carnarvon's introduction to active life was only to add another trouble to the many that beset the king. ”

“ For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death,
And see another, as I see thee now,
Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine;
Long die thy happy days before thy death,
And, after many lengthened hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s Queen.
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers. ”

“ After the acceptance of Richard of York as heir to the crown, Edward returned to the Welsh marches, where early in the new 996 year he heard of his father’s defeat and death at Wakefield. Hastily gathering an army he defeated the earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire at Mortimer’s Cross on the 2nd of February 1461, and then marched on London. He was acclaimed by the citizens in an assembly at Clerkenwell, declared king by a Yorkist council, and took possession of the regality on the 4th of March. ”

“ Edward swore that when he had expiated this wrong to Holy Church, he would never more bear arms against Christian man, but would immediately turn his steps towards the Holy Land to redeem the Holy Sepulchre. The Prince of Wales' vow was never to rest two nights in the same spot until he had reached Scotland to assist his father in his purpose. Then all the young knights were despatched northwards to overthrow the Scottish pretender. ”

“ Seeing that his dangerous rival had escaped his hands, Edward thought it desirable to assure himself of the fidelity of his nobles to his son. The little child of eight months old was created Prince of Wales, Duke of Lancaster, and Earl of Cornwall; and on the 3rd of July, in "the Parliament Chamber" at Westminster, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal swore allegiance to him. [#] Among those who took this oath is specially named, third on the list, his uncle of Gloucester. An entire household was appointed for the baby Prince—Chancellor, Seneschal, and Chamberlain. ”

“ Edward had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. Five of his sons played some part in the history of their time, these being Edward the Black Prince, Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Edmund of Langley, afterwards duke of York, and Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of Gloucester. John and Edmund are also important as the founders of the rival houses of Lancaster and York. Each of the last four was named from the place of his birth, and for the same reason the Black Prince is sometimes called Edward of Woodstock. ”

“ Then they came home for the rest of the autumn to Sandringham, where Queen Alexandra spent her twentieth birthday.
The year 1865 proved an eventful one to both King Edward and his wife. King Edward paid his first State visit to Ireland, opening the International Exhibition of Dublin on 9th May, and a little less than a month later Prince George of Wales was born at Marlborough House. ”

“ A Prince of Wales has rarely been called as a witness in a case, although, of course, in the theory of English law, all men are equal, and the privileges, if any, which would attach to him would not attach to him in his capacity as Prince of Wales or Heir-Apparent to the Throne, but simply in his capacity as a peer of the United Kingdom. ”

“ There were the usual delays of a medieval muster, and it was not until July was well begun that Edward, having constituted his second son Lionel of Antwerp, a boy of six, as regent, took ship at Portsmouth with his eldest son, then sixteen years of age, and, since 1343, Prince of Wales as well as Duke of Cornwall. The destination of the army was a secret, but Edward's original idea seems to have been to join Henry of Lancaster in Gascony, though we may well believe that the resources of medieval transport were hardly adequate to convey so large a force for so great a distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The most famous of all the Princes of Wales, Edward the Black Prince, the third of the order, was the first who married as a prince; and few events in English history have taken such a hold on the mind of the people. For centuries it was one of the most attractive tales that could be told at our English fire-sides; and there was no chap-book with which the pedlars drove a better trade than that which commemorated the loves of Edward and Joan. ”

“ When Edward I. died, on the 7th of July 1307, the first act of the prince, now Edward II., was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.
The new king was physically almost as fine a man as Edward I. He was, however, destitute of any serious purpose, and was, as Dr Stubbs says, “the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business.” He cared for nothing but amusing himself, and found his chief delight in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. ”

“ To succeed, however, in the position as did Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, demands a peculiar combination of qualities which very few men possess [Pg 249] 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. ”