Whitman Folder Edward VII George V Great Britain Penny Album Complete 1902-1929

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Seller: dealerschoice73 ✉️ (218) 100%, Location: Dorset, GB, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 116050960193 Whitman Folder Edward VII George V Great Britain Penny Album Complete 1902-1929.

Whitman Penny Album Folder 1902-1929 Complete

The coins in this 32-coin collection are all in excellent circulated collectable grades from F to VF or better. 

The album folder is in great shape too with just one or two minor age-related marks and scuffs and one minor tear as shown. It was obviously completed by an enthusiast.

This is a great ready-made starter set to own and to upgrade if desired. I have included images of both sides of the coins so that you can check if I've missed any scarce varieties.


George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death.

Born during the reign of his grandmother Queen Victoria, George was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and was third in the line of succession to the British throne behind his father and elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. From 1877 to 1892, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On Victoria's death in 1901, George's father ascended the throne as Edward VII, and George was created Prince of Wales. He became king-emperor on his father's death in 1910.

George's reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–1918), the empires of his first cousins Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, he became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924, George appointed the first Labour ministry and the 1931 Statute of Westminster recognised the Empire's dominions as separate, independent states within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

George suffered from smoking-related health problems throughout much of his later reign, and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII.

George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House, London. He was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra, Princess of Wales. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and his mother was the eldest daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. He was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley.

As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was little expectation that George would become king. He was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, and the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871. Neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually. As their father thought that the navy was "the very best possible training for any boy", in September 1877, when George was 12 years old, both brothers joined the cadet training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon.

For three years from 1879, the royal brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton. They toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, and visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean, Egypt, and East Asia. In 1881 on a visit to Japan, George had a local artist tattoo a blue and red dragon on his arm, and was received in an audience by the Emperor Meiji; George and his brother presented Empress Haruko with two wallabies from Australia. Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, a mythical ghost ship. When they returned to Britain, the Queen complained that her grandsons could not speak French or German, and so they spent six months in Lausanne in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to learn another language. After Lausanne, the brothers were separated; Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge, while George continued in the Royal Navy. He travelled the world, visiting many areas of the British Empire. During his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters, then HMS Thrush on the North America and West Indies Station. His last active service was in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–1892. From then on, his naval rank was largely honorary.

As a young man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who was stationed in Malta. There, he grew close to and fell in love with his cousin, Princess Marie of Edinburgh. His grandmother, father and uncle all approved the match, but his mother and aunt—the Princess of Wales and Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh—opposed it. The Princess of Wales thought the family was too pro-German, and the Duchess of Edinburgh disliked England. The Duchess, the only daughter of Alexander II of Russia, resented the fact that, as the wife of a younger son of the British sovereign, she had to yield precedence to George's mother, the Princess of Wales, whose father had been a minor German prince before being called unexpectedly to the throne of Denmark. Guided by her mother, Marie refused George when he proposed to her. She married Ferdinand, the future King of Romania, in 1893.

In November 1891, George's elder brother, Albert Victor, became engaged to his second cousin once removed Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, known as "May" within the family. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck (a member of a morganatic, cadet branch of the House of Württemberg), and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a male-line granddaughter of George III and a first cousin of Queen Victoria.

On 14 January 1892, six weeks after the formal engagement, Albert Victor died of pneumonia during an influenza pandemic, leaving George second in line to the throne, and likely to succeed after his father. George had only just recovered from a serious illness himself, having been confined to bed for six weeks with typhoid fever, the disease that was thought to have killed his grandfather Prince Albert. Queen Victoria still regarded Princess May as a suitable match for her grandson, and George and May grew close during their shared period of mourning.

A year after Albert Victor's death, George proposed to May and was accepted. They married on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, London. Throughout their lives, they remained devoted to each other. George was, on his own admission, unable to express his feelings easily in speech, but they often exchanged loving letters and notes of endearment.

The death of his elder brother effectively ended George's naval career, as he was now second in line to the throne, after his father. George was created Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Killarney by Queen Victoria on 24 May 1892, and received lessons in constitutional history from J. R. Tanner.

The Duke and Duchess of York had five sons and a daughter. Randolph Churchill claimed that George was a strict father, to the extent that his children were terrified of him, and that George had remarked to the Earl of Derby: "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me." In reality, there is no direct source for the quotation and it is likely that George's parenting style was little different from that adopted by most people at the time. Whether this was the case or not, his children did seem to resent his strict nature, Prince Henry going as far as to describe him as a "terrible father" in later years.

They lived mainly at York Cottage, a relatively small house in Sandringham, Norfolk, where their way of life mirrored that of a comfortable middle-class family rather than royalty. George preferred a simple, almost quiet, life, in marked contrast to the lively social life pursued by his father. His official biographer, Harold Nicolson, later despaired of George's time as Duke of York, writing: "He may be all right as a young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York ... he did nothing at all but kill [i.e. shoot] animals and stick in stamps." George was an avid stamp collector, which Nicolson disparaged, but George played a large role in building the Royal Philatelic Collection into the most comprehensive collection of United Kingdom and Commonwealth stamps in the world, in some cases setting record purchase prices for items.

In October 1894, George's maternal uncle-by-marriage, Alexander III of Russia, died. At the request of his father, "out of respect for poor dear Uncle Sasha's memory", George joined his parents in St Petersburg for the funeral. He and his parents remained in Russia for the wedding a week later of the new Russian emperor, his maternal first cousin Nicholas II, to one of George's paternal first cousins, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, who had once been considered as a potential bride for George's elder brother.

As Duke of York, George carried out a wide variety of public duties. On the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901, George's father ascended the throne as King Edward VII. George inherited the title of Duke of Cornwall, and for much of the rest of that year, he was known as the Duke of Cornwall and York.

In 1901, the Duke and Duchess toured the British Empire. Their tour included Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, South Africa, Canada, and the Colony of Newfoundland. The tour was designed by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain with the support of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury to reward the Dominions for their participation in the South African War of 1899–1902. George presented thousands of specially designed South African War medals to colonial troops. In South Africa, the royal party met civic leaders, African leaders, and Boer prisoners, and was greeted by elaborate decorations, expensive gifts, and fireworks displays. Despite this, not all residents responded favourably to the tour. Many white Cape Afrikaners resented the display and expense, the war having weakened their capacity to reconcile their Afrikaner-Dutch culture with their status as British subjects. Critics in the English-language press decried the enormous cost at a time when families faced severe hardship.

In Australia, the Duke opened the first session of the Australian Parliament upon the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia. In New Zealand, he praised the military values, bravery, loyalty, and obedience to duty of New Zealanders, and the tour gave New Zealand a chance to show off its progress, especially in its adoption of up-to-date British standards in communications and the processing industries. The implicit goal was to advertise New Zealand's attractiveness to tourists and potential immigrants, while avoiding news of growing social tensions, by focusing the attention of the British press on a land few knew about. On his return to Britain, in a speech at Guildhall, London, George warned of "the impression which seemed to prevail among [our] brethren across the seas, that the Old Country must wake up if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her colonial trade against foreign competitors."

On 9 November 1901, George was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. King Edward wished to prepare his son for his future role as king. In contrast to Edward himself, whom Queen Victoria had deliberately excluded from state affairs, George was given wide access to state documents by his father. George in turn allowed his wife access to his papers, as he valued her counsel and she often helped write her husband's speeches. As Prince of Wales, he supported reforms in naval training, including cadets being enrolled at the ages of twelve and thirteen, and receiving the same education, whatever their class and eventual assignments. The reforms were implemented by the then Second (later First) Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher.

From November 1905 to March 1906, George and May toured British India, where he was disgusted by racial discrimination and campaigned for greater involvement of Indians in the government of the country. The tour was almost immediately followed by a trip to Spain for the wedding of King Alfonso XIII to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, a first cousin of George, at which the bride and groom narrowly avoided assassination. A week after returning to Britain, George and May travelled to Norway for the coronation of King Haakon VII, George's cousin and brother-in-law, and Queen Maud, George's sister.

On 6 May 1910, Edward VII died, and George became king. He wrote in his diary,

"I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers ... I never had a [cross] word with him in my life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief but God will help me in my responsibilities and darling May will be my comfort as she has always been. May God give me strength and guidance in the heavy task which has fallen on me."

George had never liked his wife's habit of signing official documents and letters as "Victoria Mary" and insisted she drop one of those names. They both thought she should not be called Queen Victoria, and so she became Queen Mary. Later that year, a radical propagandist, Edward Mylius, published a lie that George had secretly married in Malta as a young man, and that consequently his marriage to Queen Mary was bigamous. The lie had first surfaced in print in 1893, but George had shrugged it off as a joke. In an effort to kill off rumours, Mylius was arrested, tried and found guilty of criminal libel, and was sentenced to a year in prison.

George objected to the anti-Catholic wording of the Accession Declaration that he would be required to make at the opening of his first parliament. He made it known that he would refuse to open parliament unless it was changed. As a result, the Accession Declaration Act 1910 shortened the declaration and removed the most offensive phrases.

George and Mary's coronation took place at Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911, and was celebrated by the Festival of Empire in London. In July, the King and Queen visited Ireland for five days; they received a warm welcome, with thousands of people lining the route of their procession to cheer. Later in 1911, the King and Queen travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar, where they were presented to an assembled audience of Indian dignitaries and princes as the Emperor and Empress of India on 12 December 1911. George wore the newly created Imperial Crown of India at the ceremony, and declared the shifting of the Indian capital from Calcutta to Delhi. He was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar. As he and Mary travelled throughout the subcontinent, George took the opportunity to indulge in big game hunting in Nepal, shooting 21 tigers, 8 rhinoceroses and a bear over 10 days. He was a keen and expert marksman. On a later occasion, on 18 December 1913, he shot over a thousand pheasants in six hours (about one bird every 20 seconds) while visiting the home of Lord Burnham. Even George had to acknowledge that "we went a little too far" that day.

George inherited the throne at a politically turbulent time. Lloyd George's People's Budget had been rejected the previous year by the Conservative and Unionist-dominated House of Lords, contrary to the normal convention that the Lords did not veto money bills. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had asked the previous king to give an undertaking that he would create sufficient Liberal peers to force the budget through the House. Edward had reluctantly agreed, provided the Lords rejected the budget after two successive general elections. After the January 1910 general election, the Conservative peers allowed the budget, for which the government now had an electoral mandate, to pass without a vote.

Asquith attempted to curtail the power of the Lords through constitutional reforms, which were again blocked by the Upper House. A constitutional conference on the reforms broke down in November 1910 after 21 meetings. Asquith and Lord Crewe, Liberal leader in the Lords, asked George to grant a dissolution, leading to a second general election, and to promise to create sufficient Liberal peers if the Lords blocked the legislation again. If George refused, the Liberal government would otherwise resign, which would have given the appearance that the monarch was taking sides – with "the peers against the people" – in party politics. The King's two private secretaries, the Liberal Lord Knollys and the Unionist Lord Stamfordham, gave George conflicting advice. Knollys advised George to accept the Cabinet's demands, while Stamfordham advised George to accept the resignation. Like his father, George reluctantly agreed to the dissolution and creation of peers, although he felt his ministers had taken advantage of his inexperience to browbeat him. After the December 1910 general election, the Lords let the bill pass on hearing of the threat to swamp the house with new peers. The subsequent Parliament Act 1911 permanently removed – with a few exceptions – the power of the Lords to veto bills. The King later came to feel that Knollys had withheld information from him about the willingness of the opposition to form a government if the Liberals had resigned.

The 1910 general elections had left the Liberals as a minority government dependent upon the support of the Irish Nationalist Party. As desired by the Nationalists, Asquith introduced legislation that would give Ireland Home Rule, but the Conservatives and Unionists opposed it. As tempers rose over the Home Rule Bill, which would never have been possible without the Parliament Act, relations between the elderly Knollys and the Conservatives became poor, and he was pushed into retirement. Desperate to avoid the prospect of civil war in Ireland between Unionists and Nationalists, George called a meeting of all parties at Buckingham Palace in July 1914 in an attempt to negotiate a settlement. After four days the conference ended without an agreement. Political developments in Britain and Ireland were overtaken by events in Europe, and the issue of Irish Home Rule was suspended for the duration of the war.

First World War

On 4 August 1914, the King wrote in his diary, "I held a council at 10.45 to declare war with Germany. It is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault. ... Please to God it may soon be over." From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers, led by the German Empire. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who for the British public came to symbolise all the horrors of the war, was the King's first cousin. The King's paternal grandfather was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; consequently, the King and his children bore the German titles Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony. Queen Mary, although born in England like her mother, was the daughter of the Duke of Teck, a descendant of the German Dukes of Württemberg. The King had brothers-in-law and cousins who were British subjects but who bore German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein. When H. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and uninspiring court", George replied: "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien."

On 17 July 1917, George appeased British nationalist feelings by issuing a royal proclamation that changed the name of the British royal house from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor. He and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and styles and adopted British-sounding surnames. George compensated his male relatives by giving them British peerages. His cousin Prince Louis of Battenberg, who earlier in the war had been forced to resign as First Sea Lord through anti-German feeling, became Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, while Queen Mary's brothers became Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, and Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone.

In letters patent gazetted on 11 December 1917, the King restricted the style of "Royal Highness" and the titular dignity of "Prince (or Princess) of Great Britain and Ireland" to the children of the Sovereign, the children of the sons of the Sovereign and the eldest living son of the eldest son of a Prince of Wales. The letters patent also stated that "the titles of Royal Highness, Highness or Serene Highness, and the titular dignity of Prince and Princess shall cease except those titles already granted and remaining unrevoked". George's relatives who fought on the German side, such as Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, and Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had their British peerages suspended by a 1919 Order in Council under the provisions of the Titles Deprivation Act 1917. Under pressure from his mother, Queen Alexandra, the King also removed the Garter flags of his German relations from St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

When Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, George's first cousin, was overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the British government offered political asylum to the Tsar and his family, but worsening conditions for the British people, and fears that revolution might come to the British Isles, led George to think that the presence of the Romanovs would be seen as inappropriate. Despite the later claims of Lord Mountbatten of Burma that Prime Minister David Lloyd George was opposed to the rescue of the Russian imperial family, the letters of Lord Stamfordham suggest that it was George V who opposed the idea against the advice of the government. Advance planning for a rescue was undertaken by MI1, a branch of the British secret service, but because of the strengthening position of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and wider difficulties with the conduct of the war, the plan was never put into operation. The Tsar and his immediate family remained in Russia, where they were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. George wrote in his diary: "It was a foul murder. I was devoted to Nicky, who was the kindest of men and thorough gentleman: loved his country and people." The following year, Nicholas's mother, Marie Feodorovna, and other members of the extended Russian imperial family were rescued from Crimea by a British warship.

Two months after the end of the war, the King's youngest son, John, died aged 13 after a lifetime of ill health. George was informed of his death by Queen Mary, who wrote, "[John] had been a great anxiety to us for many years ... The first break in the family circle is hard to bear but people have been so kind & sympathetic & this has helped us much."

In May 1922, the King toured Belgium and northern France, visiting the First World War cemeteries and memorials being constructed by the Imperial War Graves Commission. The event was described in a poem, The King's Pilgrimage by Rudyard Kipling. The tour, and one short visit to Italy in 1923, were the only times George agreed to leave the United Kingdom on official business after the end of the war.

Before the First World War, most of Europe was ruled by monarchs related to George, but during and after the war, the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece, and Spain, like Russia, fell to revolution and war. In March 1919, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt was dispatched on the personal authority of the King to escort the former Emperor Charles I of Austria and his family to safety in Switzerland. In 1922, a Royal Navy ship was sent to Greece to rescue his cousins, Prince and Princess Andrew.

Political turmoil in Ireland continued as the Nationalists fought for independence; George expressed his horror at government-sanctioned killings and reprisals to Prime Minister Lloyd George. At the opening session of the Parliament of Northern Ireland on 22 June 1921, the King appealed for conciliation in a speech part drafted by General Jan Smuts and approved by Lloyd George. A few weeks later, a truce was agreed. Negotiations between Britain and the Irish secessionists led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. By the end of 1922, Ireland was partitioned, the Irish Free State was established, and Lloyd George was out of office.

The King and his advisers were concerned about the rise of socialism and the growing labour movement, which they mistakenly associated with republicanism. The socialists no longer believed in their anti-monarchical slogans and were ready to come to terms with the monarchy if it took the first step. George adopted a more democratic, inclusive stance that crossed class lines and brought the monarchy closer to the public and the working class—a dramatic change for the King, who was most comfortable with naval officers and landed gentry. He cultivated friendly relations with moderate Labour Party politicians and trade union officials. His abandonment of social aloofness conditioned the royal family's behaviour and enhanced its popularity during the economic crises of the 1920s and for over two generations thereafter.

The years between 1922 and 1929 saw frequent changes in government. In 1924, George appointed the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, in the absence of a clear majority for any one of the three major parties. George's tact in appointing the first Labour government (which lasted less than a year) allayed the suspicions of the party's sympathisers that he would work against their interests. During the General Strike of 1926 the King advised the government of Conservative Stanley Baldwin against taking inflammatory action, and took exception to suggestions that the strikers were "revolutionaries" saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."

In 1926, George hosted an Imperial Conference in London at which the Balfour Declaration accepted the growth of the British Dominions into self-governing "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another". The Statute of Westminster 1931 formalised the Dominions' legislative independence and established that the succession to the throne could not be changed unless all the Parliaments of the Dominions as well as the Parliament at Westminster agreed. The Statute's preamble described the monarch as "the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations", who were "united by a common allegiance".

In the wake of a world financial crisis, the King encouraged the formation of a National Government in 1931 led by MacDonald and Baldwin, and volunteered to reduce the civil list to help balance the budget. He was concerned by the rise to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 1934, the King bluntly told the German ambassador Leopold von Hoesch that Germany was now the peril of the world, and that there was bound to be a war within ten years if Germany went on at the present rate; he warned the British ambassador in Berlin, Eric Phipps, to be suspicious of the Nazis.

In 1932, George agreed to deliver a Royal Christmas speech on the radio, an event that became annual thereafter. He was not in favour of the innovation originally but was persuaded by the argument that it was what his people wanted. By the Silver Jubilee of his reign in 1935, he had become a well-loved king, saying in response to the crowd's adulation, "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow."

George's relationship with his eldest son and heir, Edward, deteriorated in these later years. George was disappointed in Edward's failure to settle down in life and appalled by his many affairs with married women. In contrast, he was fond of his second son, Prince Albert (later George VI), and doted on his eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth; he nicknamed her "Lilibet", and she affectionately called him "Grandpa England". In 1935, George said of his son Edward: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months", and of Albert and Elizabeth: "I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne."

The First World War took a toll on George's health: he was seriously injured on 28 October 1915 when thrown by his horse at a troop review in France, and his heavy smoking exacerbated recurring breathing problems. He suffered from chronic bronchitis. In 1925, on the instruction of his doctors, he was reluctantly sent on a recuperative private cruise in the Mediterranean; it was his third trip abroad since the war, and his last. In November 1928, he fell seriously ill with septicaemia, and for the next two years his son Edward took over many of his duties. In 1929, the suggestion of a further rest abroad was rejected by the King "in rather strong language". Instead, he retired for three months to Craigweil House, Aldwick, in the seaside resort of Bognor, Sussex. As a result of his stay, the town acquired the suffix Regis – Latin for "of the King". A myth later grew that his last words, upon being told that he would soon be well enough to revisit the town, were "Bugger Bognor!"

George never fully recovered. In his final year, he was occasionally administered oxygen. The death of his favourite sister, Victoria, in December 1935 depressed him deeply. On the evening of 15 January 1936, the King took to his bedroom at Sandringham House complaining of a cold; he remained in the room until his death. He became gradually weaker, drifting in and out of consciousness. Prime Minister Baldwin later said:

"... each time he became conscious it was some kind inquiry or kind observation of someone, some words of gratitude for kindness shown. But he did say to his secretary when he sent for him: "How is the Empire?" An unusual phrase in that form, and the secretary said: "All is well, sir, with the Empire", and the King gave him a smile and relapsed once more into unconsciousness."

By 20 January, he was close to death. His physicians, led by Lord Dawson of Penn, issued a bulletin with the words "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close." Dawson's private diary, unearthed after his death and made public in 1986, reveals that the King's last words, a mumbled "God damn you!", were addressed to his nurse, Catherine Black, when she gave him a sedative that night. Dawson, who supported the "gentle growth of euthanasia", admitted in the diary that he ended the King's life:

"At about 11 o'clock it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the Patient but little comporting with that dignity and serenity which he so richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. Hours of waiting just for the mechanical end when all that is really life has departed only exhausts the onlookers & keeps them so strained that they cannot avail themselves of the solace of thought, communion or prayer. I therefore decided to determine the end and injected (myself) morphia gr.3/4 and shortly afterwards cocaine gr.1 into the distended jugular vein ... In about 1/4 an hour – breathing quieter – appearance more placid – physical struggle gone."

Dawson wrote that he acted to preserve the King's dignity, to prevent further strain on the family, and so that the King's death at 11:55 pm could be announced in the morning edition of The Times newspaper rather than "less appropriate ... evening journals". Neither Queen Mary, who was intensely religious and might not have sanctioned euthanasia, nor the Prince of Wales was consulted. The royal family did not want the King to endure pain and suffering and did not want his life prolonged artificially but neither did they approve Dawson's actions. British Pathé announced the King's death the following day, in which he was described as "for each one of us, more than a King, a father of a great family".

The German composer Paul Hindemith went to a BBC studio on the morning after the King's death and in six hours wrote Trauermusik ("Mourning Music"), for viola and orchestra. It was performed that same evening in a live broadcast by the BBC, with Adrian Boult conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the composer as soloist.

At the procession to George's lying in state in Westminster Hall, the cross surmounting the Imperial State Crown atop George's coffin fell off and landed in the gutter as the cortège turned into New Palace Yard. The new king, George's eldest son Edward, saw it fall and wondered whether it was a bad omen for his new reign. As a mark of respect to their father, George's four surviving sons – Edward, Albert, Henry, and George – mounted the guard, known as the Vigil of the Princes, at the catafalque on the night before the funeral. The vigil was not repeated until the death of George's daughter-in-law, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, in 2002. George V was interred at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 28 January 1936. Edward abdicated before the year was out, leaving Albert to ascend the throne as George VI.

George V disliked sitting for portraits and despised modern art; he was so displeased by one portrait by Charles Sims that he ordered it to be burned. He did admire sculptor Bertram Mackennal, who created statues of George for display in Madras and Delhi, and William Reid Dick, whose statue of George V stands outside Westminster Abbey, London.

Although he and his wife occasionally toured the British Empire, George preferred to stay at home pursuing his hobbies of stamp collecting and game shooting and lived a life that later biographers would consider dull because of its conventionality. He was not an intellectual: on returning from one evening at the opera he wrote, "Went to Covent Garden and saw Fidelio and damned dull it was." He was earnestly devoted to Britain and its Commonwealth. He explained, "it has always been my dream to identify myself with the great idea of Empire." He appeared hard-working and became widely admired by the people of Britain and the Empire, as well as "the Establishment". In the words of historian David Cannadine, King George V and Queen Mary were an "inseparably devoted couple" who upheld "character" and "family values".

George established a standard of conduct for British royalty that reflected the values and virtues of the upper middle-class rather than upper-class lifestyles or vices. Acting within his constitutional bounds, he dealt skilfully with a succession of crises: Ireland, the First World War, and the first socialist minority government in Britain. He was by temperament a traditionalist who never fully appreciated or approved the revolutionary changes under way in British society. Nevertheless, he invariably wielded his influence as a force of neutrality and moderation, seeing his role as mediator rather than final decision maker.

His full style as king was "George V, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, when it changed to "George V, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India".

 

British honours:

KG: Royal Knight of the Garter, 4 August 1884

KT: Knight of the Thistle, 5 July 1893

Sub-Prior of the Venerable Order of St. John, 1893

PC: Privy Counsellor, 18 July 1894

Privy Counsellor (Ireland), 20 August 1897

GCVO: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 30 June 1897

KP: Knight of St Patrick, 20 August 1897

GCMG: Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George, 9 March 1901

Royal Victorian Chain, 9 August 1902

ISO: Companion of the Imperial Service Order, 31 March 1903

GCSI: Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India, 28 September 1905

GCIE: Knight Grand Commander of the Indian Empire, 28 September 1905

Queen Victoria Golden Jubilee Medal, with 1897 bar

On 4 June 1917, he founded the Order of the British Empire.

 

Military ranks and naval appointments:

September 1877: Cadet, HMS Britannia

8 January 1880: Midshipman, HMS Bacchante and the corvette HMS Canada

3 June 1884: Sub-Lieutenant, Royal Navy

8 October 1885: Lieutenant, HMS Thunderer; HMS Dreadnought; HMS Alexandra; HMS Northumberland

July 1889 I/C HMS Torpedo Boat 79

By May 1890 I/C the gunboat HMS Thrush

24 August 1891: Commander, I/C HMS Melampus

2 January 1893: Captain, Royal Navy

1 January 1901: Rear-Admiral, Royal Navy

26 June 1903: Vice-Admiral, Royal Navy

1 March 1907: Admiral, Royal Navy

1910: Admiral of the Fleet, Royal Navy

1910: Field Marshal, British Army

1919: Chief of the Royal Air Force (title not rank)

 

Honorary military appointments:

21 June 1887: Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen

18 July 1900: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)

1 January 1901: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Marine Forces

25 February 1901: Personal Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King

29 November 1901: Honorary Colonel of the 4th County of London Yeomanry Regiment (King's Colonials)

21 December 1901: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers

12 November 1902: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders

April 1917: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Flying Corps (Naval and Military Wings)

 

Foreign honours:

Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Charles III (Spain), 30 May 1906

Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of St. Olav (Norway), 22 June 1906

Knight with Collar of the Order of the Golden Lion (Hesse and by Rhine), 17 July 1910

Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Carol I (Romania), 1910

Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (Japan), 30 March 1911

Knight of the Order of St. Hubert (Bavaria), 1911

Grand Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark), 18 April 1913

Grand Commander with Diamonds of the Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark), 9 May 1914

Member 1st Class with Diamonds of the Order of Osmanieh (Ottoman Empire)

Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer (Greece)

King Christian IX Jubilee Medal (Denmark)

King Christian IX Centenary Medal (Denmark)

King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark Golden Wedding Commemorative Medal (Denmark)

Knight 3rd Class of the Order of St. George (Russian Empire), 14 March 1918

Grand Cross of the Sash of the Three Orders (Portuguese Republic), 1919

Knight with Collar of the Order of Muhammad Ali (Egypt), 1920

Cross of Liberty, Grade I Class I (Estonia), 17 June 1925

Grand Cross of the Order of the Colonial Empire (Portuguese Republic), 19 February 1934

Grand Cross of the Order of San Marino (San Marino)

Knight with Collar of the Order of Solomon (Ethiopia), 1935

 

Honorary foreign military appointments:

1 February 1901: À la suite of the Imperial German Navy

26 January 1902: Colonel-in-Chief of the Rhenish Cuirassier Regiment "Count Geßler" No. 8 (Prussia)

24 May 1910: Admiral of the Royal Danish Navy

Honorary Colonel of the Infantry Regiment "Zamora" No. 8 (Spain)

29 October 1918: Honorary Field Marshal of the Imperial Japanese Army

1923: Honorary Admiral of the Swedish Navy

 

Honorary degrees and offices:

8 June 1893: Royal Fellow of the Royal Society, installed 6 February 1902

1899: Doctor of Laws (LLD), University of the Cape of Good Hope

1901: Doctor of Laws (LLD), University of Sydney

1901: Doctor of Laws (LLD), University of Toronto

1901: Doctor of Civil Law (DCL), Queen's University, Ontario

1902: Doctor of Laws (LLD), University of Wales

1901: Chancellor of the University of Cape Town

1901–1912: Chancellor of the University of the Cape of Good Hope

1902–1910: Chancellor of the University of Wales

 

Arms:

As Duke of York, George's arms were the royal arms, with an inescutcheon of the arms of Saxony, all differenced with a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing an anchor azure. The anchor was removed from his coat of arms as the Prince of Wales. As King, he bore the royal arms. In 1917, he removed, by warrant, the Saxony inescutcheon from the arms of all male-line descendants of the Prince Consort domiciled in the United Kingdom (although the royal arms themselves had never borne the shield).

Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.

The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and nicknamed "Bertie", Edward was related to royalty throughout Europe. He was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political influence and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and of the Indian subcontinent in 1875 proved popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother.

As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He re-instituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially France, for which he was popularly called "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, was poor. The Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society, including steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism. He died in 1910 in the midst of a constitutional crisis that was resolved the following year by the Parliament Act 1911, which restricted the power of the unelected House of Lords. Edward was succeeded by his only surviving son, George V.

Edward was born at 10:48 a.m. on 9 November 1841 in Buckingham Palace.[1] He was the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was christened Albert Edward at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 25 January 1842.[a] He was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. He was known as Bertie to the royal family throughout his life.[3]

As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth. As a son of Prince Albert, he also held the titles of Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony. He was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 8 December 1841, Earl of Dublin on 17 January 1850,[4][5][b] a Knight of the Garter on 9 November 1858, and a Knight of the Thistle on 24 May 1867.[4] In 1863, he renounced his succession rights to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother Prince Alfred.[7]

The Queen and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should have an education that would prepare him to be a model constitutional monarch. At age seven, Edward embarked on a rigorous educational programme devised by Albert, and supervised by several tutors. Unlike his elder sister Victoria, he did not excel in his studies.[8] He tried to meet the expectations of his parents, but to no avail. Although Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm, sociability and tact—Benjamin Disraeli described him as informed, intelligent and of sweet manner.[9] After the completion of his secondary-level studies, his tutor was replaced by a personal governor, Robert Bruce.

After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of 1859, Edward spent the summer of that year studying at the University of Edinburgh under, among others, the chemist Lyon Playfair. In October, he matriculated as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford.[10] Now released from the educational strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed studying for the first time and performed satisfactorily in examinations.[11] In 1861, he transferred to Trinity College, Cambridge,[12] where he was tutored in history by Charles Kingsley, Regius Professor of Modern History.[13] Kingsley's efforts brought forth the best academic performances of Edward's life, and Edward actually looked forward to his lectures.[14]

In 1860, Edward undertook the first tour of North America by a Prince of Wales. His genial good humour and confident bonhomie made the tour a great success.[15] He inaugurated the Victoria Bridge, Montreal, across the St Lawrence River, and laid the cornerstone of Parliament Hill, Ottawa. He watched Charles Blondin traverse Niagara Falls by highwire, and stayed for three days with President James Buchanan at the White House. Buchanan accompanied the Prince to Mount Vernon, to pay his respects at the tomb of George Washington. Vast crowds greeted him everywhere. He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Prayers for the royal family were said in Trinity Church, New York, for the first time since 1776.[15] The four-month tour throughout Canada and the United States considerably boosted Edward's confidence and self-esteem, and had many diplomatic benefits for Great Britain.[16]

Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the British Army, but his mother vetoed an active military career.[17] He had been gazetted colonel on 9 November 1858[18]—to his disappointment, as he had wanted to earn his commission by examination.[11] In September 1861, Edward was sent to Germany, supposedly to watch military manoeuvres, but actually in order to engineer a meeting between him and Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark and his wife Louise. The Queen and Prince Albert had already decided that Edward and Alexandra should marry. They met at Speyer on 24 September under the auspices of his elder sister, Victoria, who had married the Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858.[19] Edward's sister, acting upon instructions from their mother, had met Alexandra at Strelitz in June; the young Danish princess made a very favourable impression. Edward and Alexandra were friendly from the start; the meeting went well for both sides, and marriage plans advanced.[20]

Edward gained a reputation as a playboy. Determined to get some army experience, he attended manoeuvres in Ireland, during which he spent three nights with an actress, Nellie Clifden, who was hidden in the camp by his fellow officers.[21] Prince Albert, though ill, was appalled and visited Edward at Cambridge to issue a reprimand. Albert died in December 1861 just two weeks after the visit. Queen Victoria was inconsolable, wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life and blamed Edward for his father's death.[22] At first, she regarded her son with distaste as frivolous, indiscreet and irresponsible. She wrote to her eldest daughter, "I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder."[23]

Once widowed, Queen Victoria effectively withdrew from public life. Shortly after Prince Albert's death, she arranged for Edward to embark on an extensive tour of the Middle East, visiting Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut and Istanbul.[24] The British Government wanted Edward to secure the friendship of Egypt's ruler, Said Pasha, to prevent French control of the Suez Canal if the Ottoman Empire collapsed. It was the first royal tour on which an official photographer, Francis Bedford, was in attendance. As soon as Edward returned to Britain, preparations were made for his engagement, which was sealed at Laeken in Belgium on 9 September 1862.[25] Edward married Alexandra of Denmark at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 10 March 1863. He was 21; she was 18.

The couple established Marlborough House as their London residence and Sandringham House in Norfolk as their country retreat. They entertained on a lavish scale. Their marriage met with disapproval in certain circles because most of Queen Victoria's relations were German, and Denmark was at loggerheads with Germany over the territories of Schleswig and Holstein. When Alexandra's father inherited the throne of Denmark in November 1863, the German Confederation took the opportunity to invade and annex Schleswig-Holstein. The Queen was of two minds as to whether it was a suitable match, given the political climate.[26] After the marriage, she expressed anxiety about their socialite lifestyle and attempted to dictate to them on various matters, including the names of their children.[27]

Edward had mistresses throughout his married life. He socialised with actress Lillie Langtry; Lady Randolph Churchill;[c] Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick; actress Sarah Bernhardt; noblewoman Lady Susan Vane-Tempest; singer Hortense Schneider; prostitute Giulia Beneni (known as "La Barucci"); wealthy humanitarian Agnes Keyser; and Alice Keppel. At least fifty-five liaisons are conjectured.[29][30] How far these relationships went is not always clear. Edward always strove to be discreet, but this did not prevent society gossip or press speculation.[31] Keppel's great-granddaughter, Camilla Parker Bowles, became the mistress and subsequent wife of King Charles III, Edward's great-great-grandson. It was rumoured that Camilla's grandmother, Sonia Keppel, was fathered by Edward, but she was "almost certainly" the daughter of George Keppel, whom she resembled.[32] Edward never acknowledged any illegitimate children.[33] Alexandra was aware of his affairs, and seems to have accepted them.[34]

In 1869, Sir Charles Mordaunt, a British Member of Parliament, threatened to name Edward as co-respondent in his divorce suit. Ultimately, he did not do so but Edward was called as a witness in the case in early 1870. It was shown that Edward had visited the Mordaunts' house while Sir Charles was away sitting in the House of Commons. Although nothing further was proven and Edward denied he had committed adultery, the suggestion of impropriety was damaging.[11][35]

During Queen Victoria's widowhood, Edward pioneered the idea of royal public appearances as they are understood today—for example, opening the Thames Embankment in 1871, the Mersey Tunnel in 1886, and Tower Bridge in 1894[36]—but his mother did not allow him an active role in the running of the country until 1898.[37][38] He was sent summaries of important government documents, but she refused to give him access to the originals.[11] Edward annoyed his mother, who favoured the Germans, by siding with Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein Question in 1864 and in the same year annoyed her again by making a special effort to meet Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian general, patriot, and republican, who was a leader in the movement for Italian unification.[39] Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone sent him papers secretly.[11] From 1886, Foreign Secretary Lord Rosebery sent him Foreign Office despatches, and from 1892 some Cabinet papers were opened to him.[11]

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain was given a boost when the French emperor, Napoleon III, was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and the French Third Republic was declared.[40] However, in the winter of 1871, a brush with death led to an improvement in both Edward's popularity with the public and his relationship with his mother. While staying at Londesborough Lodge, near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Edward contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father. There was great national concern, and one of his fellow guests (Lord Chesterfield) died. Edward's recovery was greeted with almost universal relief.[11] Public celebrations included the composition of Arthur Sullivan's Festival Te Deum. Edward cultivated politicians from all parties, including republicans, as his friends, and thereby largely dissipated any residual feelings against him.[41]

On 26 September 1875, Edward set off for India on an extensive eight-month tour; on the way, he visited Malta, Brindisi and Greece. His advisors remarked on his habit of treating all people the same, regardless of their social station or colour. In letters home, he complained of the treatment of the native Indians by the British officials: "Because a man has a black face and a different religion from our own, there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute."[42] Consequently, Lord Salisbury, the Secretary of State for India, issued new guidance and at least one resident was removed from office.[11] He returned to England on 11 May 1876, after stopping off at Portugal.[43] At the end of the tour, Queen Victoria was given the title Empress of India by Parliament, in part as a result of the tour's success.[44]

Edward was regarded worldwide as an arbiter of men's fashions.[45][46] He made wearing tweed, Homburg hats and Norfolk jackets fashionable, and popularised the wearing of black ties with dinner jackets, instead of white tie and tails.[47] He pioneered the pressing of trouser legs from side to side in preference to the now normal front and back creases,[48] and was thought to have introduced the stand-up turn-down shirt collar, created for him by Charvet.[49] A stickler for proper dress, he is said to have admonished Lord Salisbury for wearing the trousers of an Elder Brother of Trinity House with a Privy Councillor's coat. Deep in an international crisis, Salisbury informed the Prince that it had been a dark morning, and that "my mind must have been occupied by some subject of less importance."[50] The tradition of men not buttoning the bottom button of waistcoats is said to be linked to Edward, who supposedly left his undone because of his large girth.[11][51] His waist measured 48 inches (122 cm) shortly before his coronation.[52] He introduced the practice of eating roast beef and potatoes with horseradish sauce and yorkshire pudding on Sundays, a meal that remains a staple British favourite for Sunday lunch.[53] He was a lifelong heavy smoker, but not a heavy drinker, though he did drink champagne and, occasionally, port.[54]

Edward was a patron of the arts and sciences and helped found the Royal College of Music. He opened the college in 1883 with the words, "Class can no longer stand apart from class ... I claim for music that it produces that union of feeling which I much desire to promote."[44] At the same time, he enjoyed gambling and country sports and was an enthusiastic hunter. He ordered all the clocks at Sandringham to run half an hour ahead to provide more daylight time for shooting. This tradition of so-called Sandringham Time continued until 1936, when it was abolished by Edward VIII.[55] He also laid out a golf course at Windsor. By the 1870s the future king had taken a keen interest in horseracing and steeplechasing. In 1896, his horse Persimmon won both the Derby Stakes and the St Leger Stakes. In 1900, Persimmon's brother, Diamond Jubilee, won five races (Derby, St Leger, 2,000 Guineas Stakes, Newmarket Stakes and Eclipse Stakes)[56] and another of Edward's horses, Ambush II, won the Grand National.[57]

In 1891 Edward was embroiled in the royal baccarat scandal, when it was revealed he had played an illegal card game for money the previous year. The Prince was forced to appear as a witness in court for a second time when one of the participants unsuccessfully sued his fellow players for slander after being accused of cheating.[58] In the same year Edward was involved in a personal conflict, when Lord Charles Beresford threatened to reveal details of Edward's private life to the press, as a protest against Edward interfering with Beresford's affair with Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick. The friendship between the two men was irreversibly damaged, and their bitterness would last for the remainder of their lives.[59] Usually, Edward's outbursts of temper were short-lived, and "after he had let himself go ... [he would] smooth matters by being especially nice".[60]

In late 1891, Edward's eldest son, Albert Victor, was engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. Just a few weeks later, in early 1892, Albert Victor died of pneumonia. Edward was grief-stricken. "To lose our eldest son", he wrote, "is one of those calamities one can never really get over". Edward told Queen Victoria, "[I would] have given my life for him, as I put no value on mine".[61] Albert Victor was the second of Edward's children to die. In 1871, his youngest son, Alexander John, had died just 24 hours after being born. Edward had insisted on placing Alexander John in a coffin personally with "the tears rolling down his cheeks".[62]

On his way to Denmark through Belgium on 4 April 1900, Edward was the victim of an attempted assassination when fifteen-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido shot at him in protest over the Second Boer War. Sipido, though obviously guilty, was acquitted by a Belgian court because he was underage.[63] The perceived laxity of the Belgian authorities, combined with British disgust at Belgian atrocities in the Congo, worsened the already poor relations between the United Kingdom and the Continent. However, in the next ten years, Edward's affability and popularity, as well as his use of family connections, assisted Britain in building European alliances.[64]

When Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, Edward became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominions.[65] He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use[d]—declaring that he did not wish to "undervalue the name of Albert" and diminish the status of his father with whom the "name should stand alone".[66] The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the national church, in deference to protests that the previous Edwards were English kings who had "been excluded from Scotland by battle".[11] J. B. Priestley recalled, "I was only a child when he succeeded Victoria in 1901, but I can testify to his extraordinary popularity. He was in fact the most popular king England had known since the earlier 1660s."[67]

Edward donated his parents' house, Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to the state and continued to live at Sandringham.[68] He could afford to be magnanimous; his private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, claimed that he was the first heir to succeed to the throne in credit.[69] Edward's finances had been ably managed by Sir Dighton Probyn, Comptroller of the Household, and had benefited from advice from Edward's financier friends, some of whom were Jewish, such as Ernest Cassel, Maurice de Hirsch and the Rothschild family.[70] At a time of widespread anti-Semitism, Edward attracted criticism for openly socialising with Jews.[71][72]

Edward's coronation had originally been scheduled for 26 June 1902. However, two days before, he was diagnosed with appendicitis.[73] The disease was generally not treated operatively. It carried a high mortality rate, but developments in anaesthesia and antisepsis in the preceding 50 years made life-saving surgery possible.[74] Sir Frederick Treves, with the support of Lord Lister, performed a then-radical operation of draining a pint of pus from the infected abscess through a small incision (through 1⁄2-inch thickness of belly fat and abdomen wall); this outcome showed that the cause was not cancer.[75] The next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar.[76] Two weeks later, it was announced that he was out of danger. Treves was honoured with a baronetcy (which the King had arranged before the operation)[77] and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream.[74] Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple.[73]

Edward refurbished the royal palaces, reintroduced the traditional ceremonies, such as the State Opening of Parliament, that his mother had foregone, and founded new honours, such as the Order of Merit, to recognise contributions to the arts and sciences.[78] In 1902, the Shah of Persia, Mozzafar-al-Din, visited England expecting to receive the Order of the Garter. The King refused to bestow the honour on the Shah because the order was meant to be in his personal gift and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, had promised it without his consent. He also objected to inducting a Muslim into a Christian order of chivalry. His refusal threatened to damage British attempts to gain influence in Persia,[79] but Edward resented his ministers' attempts to reduce his traditional powers.[80] Eventually, he relented and Britain sent a special embassy to the Shah with a full Order of the Garter the following year.[81]

As king, Edward's main interests lay in the fields of foreign affairs and naval and military matters. Fluent in French and German, he reinvented royal diplomacy by numerous state visits across Europe.[82] He took annual holidays in Biarritz and Marienbad.[55] One of his most important foreign trips was an official visit to France in May 1903 as the guest of President Émile Loubet. Following a visit to Pope Leo XIII in Rome, this trip helped create the atmosphere for the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, an agreement delineating British and French colonies in North Africa, and ruling out any future war between the two countries. The Entente was negotiated in 1904 between the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, and the British foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne. It marked the end of centuries of Anglo-French rivalry and Britain's splendid isolation from Continental affairs, and attempted to counterbalance the growing dominance of the German Empire and its ally, Austria-Hungary.[83]

Edward was related to nearly every other European monarch, and came to be known as the "uncle of Europe".[37] German Emperor Wilhelm II and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia were his nephews; Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden, Crown Princess Marie of Romania, Crown Princess Sophia of Greece, and Empress Alexandra of Russia were his nieces; King Haakon VII of Norway was both his nephew and his son-in-law; kings Frederick VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece were his brothers-in-law; kings Albert I of Belgium, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and Charles I and Manuel II of Portugal were his second cousins. Edward doted on his grandchildren, and indulged them, to the consternation of their governesses.[84] However, there was one relation whom Edward did not like: Wilhelm II. His difficult relationship with his nephew exacerbated the tensions between Germany and Britain.[85]

In April 1908, during Edward's annual stay at Biarritz, he accepted the resignation of British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. In a break with precedent, Edward asked Campbell-Bannerman's successor, H. H. Asquith, to travel to Biarritz to kiss hands. Asquith complied, but the press criticised the action of the King in appointing a prime minister on foreign soil instead of returning to Britain.[86] In June 1908, Edward became the first reigning British monarch to visit the Russian Empire, despite refusing to visit in 1906, when Anglo-Russian relations were strained in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, the Dogger Bank incident, and the Tsar's dissolution of the Duma.[87] The previous month, he visited the Scandinavian countries, becoming the first British monarch to visit Sweden.[88]

While Prince of Wales, Edward had to be dissuaded from breaking with constitutional precedent by openly voting for W. E. Gladstone's Representation of the People Bill (1884) in the House of Lords.[11][89] On other matters, he was more conservative; for example, he did not favour giving votes to women,[11][90] although he did suggest that the social reformer Octavia Hill serve on the Commission for Working Class Housing.[91] He was also opposed to Irish Home Rule, instead preferring a form of dual monarchy.[11]

As Prince of Wales, Edward had come to enjoy warm and mutually respectful relations with Gladstone, whom his mother detested.[92] But the statesman's son, Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone, angered the King by planning to permit Roman Catholic priests in vestments to carry the Host through the streets of London, and by appointing two ladies, Lady Frances Balfour and May Tennant, wife of H. J. Tennant, to serve on a Royal Commission on reforming divorce law—Edward thought divorce could not be discussed with "delicacy or even decency" before ladies. Edward's biographer Philip Magnus-Allcroft suggests that Gladstone may have become a whipping-boy for the King's general irritation with the Liberal government. Gladstone was sacked in the reshuffle the following year and the King agreed, with some reluctance, to appoint him Governor-General of South Africa.[93]

Edward involved himself heavily in discussions over army reform, the need for which had become apparent with the failings of the Second Boer War.[94] He supported the redesign of army command, the creation of the Territorial Force, and the decision to provide an Expeditionary Force supporting France in the event of war with Germany.[95] Reform of the Royal Navy was also suggested, partly due to the ever-increasing Naval Estimates, and because of the emergence of the Imperial German Navy as a new strategic threat.[96] Ultimately a dispute arose between Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, who favoured increased spending and a broad deployment, and the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Fisher, who favoured efficiency savings, scrapping obsolete vessels, and a strategic realignment of the Royal Navy relying on torpedo craft for home defence backed by the new dreadnoughts.[97][98]

The King lent support to Fisher, in part because he disliked Beresford, and eventually Beresford was dismissed. Beresford continued his campaign outside of the navy and Fisher ultimately announced his resignation in late 1909, although the bulk of his policies were retained.[99] The King was intimately involved in the appointment of Fisher's successor as the Fisher-Beresford feud had split the service, and the only truly qualified figure known to be outside of both camps was Sir Arthur Wilson, who had retired in 1907.[100] Wilson was reluctant to return to active duty, but Edward persuaded him to do so, and Wilson became First Sea Lord on 25 January 1910.[101]

Edward was rarely interested in politics, although his views on some issues were notably progressive for the time. During his reign, he said use of the word "nigger" was "disgraceful", despite it then being in common parlance.[102] In 1904, during an Anglo-German summit in Kiel between Wilhelm II and Edward, Wilhelm with the Russo-Japanese War in mind started to go on about the "Yellow Peril", which he called "the greatest peril menacing ... Christendom and European civilisation. If the Russians went on giving ground, the yellow race would, in twenty years time, be in Moscow and Posen".[103] Wilhelm went on to attack his British guests for supporting Japan against Russia, suggesting that the British were committing "race treason". In response, Edward stated that he "could not see it. The Japanese were an intelligent, brave and chivalrous nation, quite as civilised as the Europeans, from whom they only differed by the pigmentation of their skin".[103] Although Edward lived a life of luxury often far removed from that of the majority of his subjects, they expected it, and his personal charm with all levels of society and his strong condemnation of prejudice went some way to assuage republican and racial tensions building during his lifetime.[11]

In the last year of his life, Edward became embroiled in a constitutional crisis when the Conservative majority in the House of Lords refused to pass the "People's Budget" proposed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Asquith. The crisis eventually led—after Edward's death—to the removal of the Lords' right to veto legislation.

The King was displeased at Liberal attacks on the peers, which included a polemical speech by David Lloyd George at Limehouse.[104] Cabinet minister Winston Churchill publicly demanded a general election, for which Asquith apologised to the King's adviser Lord Knollys and rebuked Churchill at a Cabinet meeting. Edward was so dispirited at the tone of class warfare—although Asquith told him that party rancour had been just as bad over the First Home Rule Bill in 1886—that he introduced his son to Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane as "the last King of England".[105] After the King's horse Minoru won the Derby on 26 July 1909, he returned to the racetrack the following day, and laughed when a man shouted: "Now, King. You've won the Derby. Go back home and dissolve this bloody Parliament!"[106]

In vain, the King urged Conservative leaders Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne to pass the Budget, which Lord Esher had advised him was not unusual, as Queen Victoria had helped to broker agreements between the two Houses over Irish disestablishment in 1869 and the Third Reform Act in 1884.[107] On Asquith's advice, however, he did not offer them an election (at which, to judge from recent by-elections, they were likely to gain seats) as a reward for doing so.[108]

The Finance Bill passed the Commons on 5 November 1909, but was rejected by the Lords on 30 November; they instead passed a resolution of Lord Lansdowne's stating that they were entitled to oppose the bill as it lacked an electoral mandate. The King was annoyed that his efforts to urge passage of the budget had become public knowledge[109] and had forbidden Knollys, who was an active Liberal peer, from voting for the budget, although Knollys had suggested that this would be a suitable gesture to indicate royal desire to see the Budget pass.[110] In December 1909, a proposal to create peers (to give the Liberals a majority in the Lords) or give the prime minister the right to do so was considered "outrageous" by Knollys, who thought the King should abdicate rather than agree to it.[111]

The January 1910 election was dominated by talk of removing the Lords' veto. During the election campaign Lloyd George talked of "guarantees" and Asquith of "safeguards" that would be necessary before forming another Liberal government, but the King informed Asquith that he would not be willing to contemplate creating peers until after a second general election.[11][112] Balfour refused to be drawn on whether or not he would be willing to form a Conservative government, but advised the King not to promise to create peers until he had seen the terms of any proposed constitutional change.[113] During the campaign the leading Conservative Walter Long had asked Knollys for permission to state that the King did not favour Irish Home Rule, but Knollys refused on the grounds that it was not appropriate for the monarch's views to be known in public.[114]

The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Liberal government dependent on the support of the third largest party, the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party. The King suggested a compromise whereby only 50 peers from each side would be allowed to vote, which would also obviate the large Conservative majority in the Lords, but Lord Crewe, Liberal leader in the Lords, advised that this would reduce the Lords' independence, as only peers who were loyal party supporters would be picked.[114] Pressure to remove the Lords' veto now came from the Irish nationalist MPs, who wanted to remove the Lords' ability to block the introduction of Home Rule. They threatened to vote against the Budget unless they had their way (an attempt by Lloyd George to win their support by amending whiskey duties was abandoned as the Cabinet felt this would recast the Budget too much). Asquith now revealed that there were no "guarantees" for the creation of peers. The Cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a Conservative government.[115]

The King's Speech from the Throne on 21 February made reference to introducing measures restricting the Lords' power of veto to one of delay, but Asquith inserted a phrase "in the opinion of my advisers" so the King could be seen to be distancing himself from the planned legislation.[116] The Commons passed resolutions on 14 April that would form the basis for the 1911 Parliament Act: to remove the power of the Lords to veto money bills, to replace their veto of other bills with a power to delay, and to reduce the term of Parliament from seven years to five (the King would have preferred four[113]). But in that debate Asquith hinted—to ensure the support of the nationalist MPs—that he would ask the King to break the deadlock "in that Parliament" (i.e. contrary to Edward's earlier stipulation that there be a second election). The Budget was passed by both Commons and Lords in April.[117]

By April the Palace was having secret talks with Balfour and Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, who both advised that the Liberals did not have sufficient mandate to demand the creation of peers. The King thought the whole proposal "simply disgusting" and that the government was "in the hands of Redmond & Co". Lord Crewe announced publicly that the government's wish to create peers should be treated as formal "ministerial advice" (which, by convention, the monarch must accept) although Lord Esher argued that the monarch was entitled in extremis to dismiss the government rather than take their "advice".[118] Esher's view has been called "obsolete and unhelpful".[119]

Edward habitually smoked twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day. In 1907, a rodent ulcer, a type of cancer affecting the skin next to his nose, was cured with radium.[120] Towards the end of his life he increasingly suffered from bronchitis.[11] He suffered a momentary loss of consciousness during a state visit to Berlin in February 1909.[121] In March 1910, he was staying at Biarritz when he collapsed. He remained there to convalesce, while in London Asquith tried to get the Finance Bill passed. The King's continued ill health was unreported, and he attracted criticism for staying in France while political tensions were so high.[11] On 27 April he returned to Buckingham Palace, still suffering from severe bronchitis. Alexandra returned from visiting her brother, George I of Greece, in Corfu a week later on 5 May.

On 6 May, Edward suffered several heart attacks, but refused to go to bed, saying, "No, I shall not give in; I shall go on; I shall work to the end."[122] Between moments of faintness, his son the Prince of Wales (shortly to be King George V) told him that his horse, Witch of the Air, had won at Kempton Park that afternoon. The King replied, "Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad": his final words.[11] At 11:30 p.m. he lost consciousness for the last time and was put to bed. He died 15 minutes later.[122]

Alexandra refused to allow Edward's body to be moved for eight days afterwards, though she allowed small groups of visitors to enter his room.[123] On 11 May, the late king was dressed in his uniform and placed in a massive oak coffin, which was moved on 14 May to the throne room, where it was sealed and lay in state, with a guardsman standing at each corner of the bier. Despite the time that had elapsed since his death, Alexandra noted the King's body remained "wonderfully preserved".[124] On the morning of 17 May, the coffin was placed on a gun carriage and drawn by black horses to Westminster Hall, with the new king, his family and Edward's favourite dog, Caesar, walking behind. Following a brief service, the royal family left, and the hall was opened to the public; over 400,000 people filed past the coffin over the next two days.[125] As Barbara Tuchman noted in The Guns of August, his funeral, held on 20 May 1910, marked "the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last." A royal train conveyed the King's coffin from London to Windsor Castle, where Edward was buried at St George's Chapel.[126]

Before his accession to the throne, Edward was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. He was surpassed by his great-great-grandson Charles III on 20 April 2011.[127] The title Prince of Wales is not automatically held by the heir apparent; it is bestowed by the reigning monarch at a time of his or her choosing.[128] Edward was the longest-serving holder of that title until surpassed by Charles on 9 September 2017.[129] Edward was Prince of Wales between 8 December 1841 and 22 January 1901 (59 years, 45 days); Charles held the title between 26 July 1958 and 8 September 2022 (64 years, 44 days).[128][130][131]

As king, Edward VII proved a greater success than anyone had expected,[132] but he was already past the average life expectancy and had little time left to fulfil the role. In his short reign, he ensured that his second son and heir, George V, was better prepared to take the throne. Contemporaries described their relationship as more like affectionate brothers than father and son,[133] and on Edward's death George wrote in his diary that he had lost his "best friend and the best of fathers ... I never had a [cross] word with him in my life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief".[134]

Edward has been recognised as the first truly constitutional British sovereign and the last sovereign to wield effective political power.[135] Though lauded as "Peacemaker",[136] he had been afraid that German Emperor Wilhelm II, who was one of his nephews, would tip Europe into war.[137] Four years after Edward's death, the First World War broke out. The naval reforms he had supported and his part in securing the Triple Entente between Britain, France, and Russia, as well as his relationships with his extended family, fed the paranoia of the German Emperor, who blamed Edward for the war.[138] Publication of the official biography of Edward was delayed until 1927 by its author, Sidney Lee, who feared German propagandists would select material to portray Edward as an anti-German warmonger.[139] Lee was also hampered by the extensive destruction of Edward's personal papers; Edward had left orders that all his letters should be burned on his death.[140] Subsequent biographers have been able to construct a more rounded picture of Edward by using material and sources that were unavailable to Lee.[141]

Historian R. C. K. Ensor, writing in 1936, praised the King's political personality:

...he had in many respects great natural ability. He knew how to be both dignified and charming; he had an excellent memory; and his tact in handling people was quite exceptional. He had a store of varied, though unsystematized, knowledge gathered at first-hand through talking to all sorts of eminent men. His tastes were not particularly elevated, but they were thoroughly English; and he showed much (though not unfailing) comprehension for the common instincts of the people over whom he reigned. This was not the less remarkable because, though a good linguist in French and German, he never learned to speak English without a German accent.[142]

Ensor rejects the widespread notion that the King exerted an important influence on British foreign policy, believing he gained that reputation by making frequent trips abroad, with many highly publicized visits to foreign courts. Ensor thought surviving documents showed "how comparatively crude his views on foreign policy were, how little he read, and of what naïve indiscretions he was capable."[143] Edward received criticism for his apparent pursuit of self-indulgent pleasure, but he received great praise for his affable manners and diplomatic tact. As his grandson Edward VIII wrote, "his lighter side ... obscured the fact that he had both insight and influence."[144] "He had a tremendous zest for pleasure but he also had a real sense of duty", wrote J. B. Priestley.[145] Lord Esher wrote that Edward VII was "kind and debonair and not undignified—but too human".[146]

British honours[5]

KG: Royal Knight of the Garter, 9 November 1858[147]

GCSI: Extra Knight Companion of the Star of India, 25 June 1861;[148] Extra Knight Grand Commander, 24 May 1866[149]

FRS: Fellow of the Royal Society, 12 February 1863

PC: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, 8 December 1863

GCB: Knight Grand Cross of the Bath (military), 10 February 1865;[150] Great Master, 22 June 1897[151]

KT: Extra Knight of the Thistle, 24 May 1867[152]

KP: Extra Knight of St. Patrick, 18 March 1868[153]

PC(I): Member of the Privy Council of Ireland, 21 April 1868

GCStJ: Knight of Justice of St. John, 1876;[154] Grand Prior, 1888[155]

GCMG: Extra Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George, 31 May 1877[156]

GCIE: Extra Knight Grand Commander of the Indian Empire, 21 June 1887[157]

GCVO: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 6 May 1896[158]

Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1901[159]

Founder and Sovereign of the Order of Merit, 26 June 1902[160]

Founder and Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, 8 August 1902[161]

Founder of the Royal Victorian Chain, 1902[162]

Foreign honours

 

Armorial achievement of the Spanish Army 62nd Regiment of Infantry "Arapiles".

King Edward's cypher and the name of the British Army unit that played a prominent role in the Battle of Salamanca were added at the beginning of the Peninsular War Centenary (1908).[163]

  Saxony: Knight of the Rue Crown, 1844[164]

  Russia:[165]

Knight of St. Andrew, with Collar, 1844

Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky, 1844

Knight of the White Eagle, 1844

Knight of St. Anna, 1st Class, 1844

Knight of St. Stanislaus, 1st Class, 1844

Knight of St. Vladimir, 3rd Class, 1881

  Netherlands: Grand Cross of the Netherlands Lion, 1849[165]

  Spain:

Knight of the Golden Fleece, 7 May 1852[166]

Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, with Collar, 6 May 1876[167]

  Portugal:[168]

Grand Cross of the Tower and Sword, 25 November 1858

Grand Cross of the Sash of the Two Orders, 7 June 1865; Three Orders, 8 February 1901

  Prussia:[169]

Knight of the Black Eagle, 22 December 1858; with Collar, 1869

Grand Cross of the Red Eagle, 2 March 1874

Grand Commander's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern, 11 March 1878

Knight of the Royal Crown Order, 3rd Class with Red Cross on White Field on Commemorative Band, 4 April 1881

Knight of Honour of the Johanniter Order, 19 May 1884

  Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (civil), 11 January 1859[170]

  Sardinia: Knight of the Annunciation, 20 February 1859[171]

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Meiningen Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, December 1859[172]

  Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the White Falcon, 17 April 1860[173]

  Baden:[174]

Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1861

Grand Cross of the Zähringer Lion, 1861

  Ottoman Empire:

Order of Osmanieh, 1st Class, 25 May 1862[175]

Hanedan-i-Ali-Osman, June 1902[176]

  Greece: Grand Cross of the Redeemer, 29 May 1862[177]

  Hesse and by Rhine:[178]

Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order, 8 October 1862

Grand Cross of the Merit Order of Philip the Magnanimous, with Swords, 18 February 1878

Knight of the Golden Lion, 18 June 1882

  France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 15 March 1863[179]

  Denmark:[180]

Knight of the Elephant, 16 November 1863

Cross of Honour of the Order of the Dannebrog, 14 October 1864

Commemorative Medal for the Golden Wedding of King Christian IX and Queen Louise, 1892

Grand Commander of the Dannebrog, 9 September 1901

  Sweden:

Knight of the Seraphim, with Collar, 27 September 1864[181]

Knight of the Order of Charles XIII, 21 December 1868[182]

Commander Grand Cross of the Order of Vasa, with Collar, 26 April 1908[183]

  Hanover:[184]

Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order, 1864

Knight of St. George, 1865

  Mecklenburg: Grand Cross of the Wendish Crown, with Crown in Ore, 13 August 1865[185]

  Nassau: Knight of the Gold Lion of Nassau, August 1865[186]

Austrian Empire Kingdom of Hungary Austria-Hungary: Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, 13 June 1867[187]

  Brazil: Grand Cross of the Southern Cross, 11 July 1871[187]

  Ethiopia:

Grand Cross of the Seal of Solomon, 1874[188]

Grand Cross of the Star of Ethiopia, 9 October 1901[189]

  Norway: Grand Cross of St. Olav, with Collar, 3 October 1874[190]

  Oldenburg: Grand Cross of the Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig, with Golden Crown, 24 February 1878[191]

Thailand Siam:

Knight of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri, 1880[165]

Grand Cross of the White Elephant, 1887[187]

Sovereign Military Order of Malta Military Order of Malta: Knight, 14 June 1881;[187] Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion[192]

  Hawaii: Grand Cross of the Order of Kalākaua, with Collar, July 1881[193]

  Romania:

Grand Cross of the Star of Romania, 1882[165]

Collar of the Order of Carol I, 1906[194]

  Württemberg: Grand Cross of the Württemberg Crown, 1883[195]

  Japan: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 20 September 1886; Collar, 13 April 1902[196]

  Bavaria: Knight of St. Hubert, 19 March 1901[187]

  Monaco: Grand Cross of St. Charles, 25 June 1902[197]

  San Marino: Grand Cross of the Order of San Marino, August 1902[198]

  Montenegro: Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Danilo I, 1902[199]

  Persia: Order of the Aqdas, 1st Class, 1904[200]

Honorary foreign military appointments

1870: Honorary Colonel of the Guard Hussar Regiment (Denmark)[201]

1883: Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) of the German Army[202]

5 February 1901: Honorary Colonel of the 27th (King Edward's) Regiment of Dragoons of Kiev[203]

26 June 1902: Admiral of the Fleet (Großadmiral) à la suite of the Imperial German Navy[202]

Honorary Captain General of the Spanish Army[204]

Honorary Admiral of the Spanish Navy[204]

Colonel-in-Chief of the German regiment 5th (Pomeranian) Hussars "Prince Blücher of Wahlstatt"[202]

Colonel-in-Chief 1st Guards Dragoons "Queen of Great Britain and Ireland"[202]

Honorary Colonel of the Infantry Regiment "Zamora" No. 8 (Spain)[204]

1905: Honorary Admiral of the Swedish Navy[205]

1908: Honorary General of the Swedish Army[206]

Honorary Admiral of the Greek Navy[192]

Honorary General of the Norwegian Army[192]

Arms

Shortly after Edward's accession, he proposed an alternate version of the Royal Standard for use by the Sovereign, defaced in the centre with a purple oval containing the cypher and crown of the reigning monarch. However, he was persuaded that such a proposal was impractical.[207]

Edward's coat of arms as the Prince of Wales was the royal arms differenced by a label of three points argent, and an inescutcheon of the Duchy of Saxony, representing his paternal arms. When he acceded as King, he gained the royal arms undifferenced.[208]

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Further reading

Andrews, Allen (1975), The Follies of King Edward VII, Lexington, ISBN 978-0-904312-15-7

Aubyn, Giles St (1979), Edward VII, Prince and King, Atheneum, ISBN 978-0-689-10937-9

Beer, Peter (2016), Playboy Princes: The Apprentice Years of Edward VII and VIII, Peter Owen

Buckner, Phillip (2003), "Casting daylight upon magic: Deconstructing the royal tour of 1901 to Canada", Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31 (2): 158–189, doi:10.1080/03086530310001705656, S2CID 162347515

Butler, David (1975), Edward VII, Prince of Hearts, Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, ISBN 978-0-297-76897-5

Cornwallis, Kinahan (2009) [1860], Royalty in the New World: Or, the Prince of Wales in America, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-108-00298-1

Cowles, Virginia (1956), Edward VII and his Circle, H. Hamilton

Farrer, James Anson (1912), England Under Edward VII, Allen & Unwin

Glencross, Matthew (2016), The State Visits of Edward VII: Reinventing Royal Diplomacy for the Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan

Hibbert, Christopher (2007), Edward VII: The Last Victorian King, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-4039-8377-0

Neilson, Francis (1957), "Edward VII and the Entente Cordiale, I.", American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 16 (4): 353–368, doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1957.tb00197.x, JSTOR 3484884

Plumptre, George (1997), Edward VII, Trafalgar Square Publishing, ISBN 978-1-85793-846-3

Ponsonby, Frederick (1951), Recollections of Three Reigns, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode

Ridley, Jane (2013), "'The Sport of Kings': Shooting and The Court of Edward VII", The Court Historian, 18 (2): 189–205, doi:10.1179/cou.2013.18.2.004, S2CID 159750104

Ridley, Jane (2016), "Bertie Prince of Wales: Prince Hal and the Widow of Windsor", Royal Heirs and the Uses of Soft Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 123–138

Roby, Kinley E. (1975), The King, the Press and the People: A Study of Edward VII, Barrie and Jenkins, ISBN 978-0-214-20098-4

Ryan, A. P. (1953), "The Diplomacy of Edward VII", History Today, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 352–360

Tuchman, Barbara (1964), The Guns of August, New York: Macmillan

Walker, Richard (1988), The Savile Row Story: An Illustrated History, London: Prion, ISBN 978-1-85375-000-7

Watson, Alfred Edward Thomas (1911), King Edward VII. as a sportsman, Longmans, Green and Company

Weintraub, Stanley (2001), Edward the Caresser: The Playboy Prince Who Became Edward VII, Free Press, ISBN 978-0-684-85318-5tle, Brown, p. 34, ISBN 978-1-85605-469-0

  • Condition: Coins and album folder in excellent collectable condition. Coins F - VF
  • Denomination: Penny
  • Year of Issue: 1902 - 1929
  • Era: George V (1910-1936)
  • Edward VII: 1902 - 1910
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
  • Country of Origin: Great Britain
  • Colour: BN

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