Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (54 page)

Edward travelled on to France. He was met with cries of “
Vive les Boers
!” and, slightly ridiculously, “
Vive Jeanne d’Arc
!”. Yet Edward never stopped complimenting France and the French in speech after speech. So much so, that by the time he left the cries were, “
Vive notre Roi
!”. The new friendship allowed France and Britain to settle all territorial disputes in Africa.

It made the Germans even more hostile. Nevertheless, Edward continued his efforts to reach some sort of agreement with the Kaiser. Then the Kaiser gave an interview to an American newspaper in which he said that Edward was a corrupt monarch at the head of a corrupt court.

So Edward paved the way for a treaty with Russia, which was signed in 1907. That infuriated the Germans. Edward was convinced that there was no way to stop the Kaiser from starting a major war; he felt that it was only a matter of time. The Kaiser was more explicit; Edward was a Satan, and the world’s press was controlled by British money.

There were two more clouds on the international horizon. One was Edward’s decision never again to have anything to do with Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, who he considered had lied to him before Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. Also, Edward refused to speak to King Leopold II of the Belgians because of his appalling policy in the Congo. Leopold believed that the only route to wealth for him and for Belgium was by establishing colonies. The Belgian government did not agree. So Leopold acquired the Congo as a personal possession, buying the land from 500 local chieftains through the operations of Livingstone’s discoverer, the American journalist H.M. Stanley (he was in fact a Welshman named John Rowlands who emigrated and changed his name). The great powers gave their approval, as each thought it was better than one of their rivals getting it.

Leopold made a fortune by extracting ivory, then he turned to the Congo’s main resource: rubber. Unlike the tapping of rubber trees in many other countries, in the Congo the rubber came from vines in the jungle. The natives were forced to slash the vines, covering themselves in rubber latex, which hardened and was scraped off them at collecting points. When collection targets were not met, the punishment was death or the extermination of a village. Just as bad, Leopold’s soldiers were not given replacement bullets unless they had used the previous supply efficiently – killing natives rather than animals. New bullets were supplied on the basis of one for every severed hand produced. In the end, soldiers just cut off natives’ hands. This led to natives raiding neighbouring villages to cut off hands so that they could deliver them to the soldiers rather than suffering the mutilation themselves. Thousands of handless men, women and children populated the country, and hands became the currency. Up to 10 million natives died, either from disease or killed by Leopold’s mercenary army. When details of the scandal became public, the great powers forced Leopold to transfer the Congo to the Belgian state.

Back in Britain, the Liberals replaced the Conservatives in power in 1905, and Campbell-Bannerman and then Asquith became Prime Minister. Edward had a good relationship with Campbell-Bannerman, but he did not like Asquith. Yet, over time, Edward learned to get on with him, instead reserving his dislike for two of Asquith’s fiery younger ministers, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, son of Lord Randolph Churchill.

Although they had lost the election, Balfour declared that the Conservatives would control the country through the House of Lords. He was right; the Lords threw out Bills passed in the House of Commons, which was controlled by the Liberals who had been voted in by a huge majority. Of course, a Bill only became an Act of Parliament, and therefore the law, if it was passed by both Houses (the Royal Assent was now an automatic formality). It could not go on.

The Government said that they would deal with the matter once and for all by presenting a Bill to change the House of Lords’ power to block legislation to a right merely to delay it. In response, the Lords continued to reject Bill after Bill; and in 1909 they voted down Chancellor Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’, which proposed increased taxation, benefits for the poor and the imposition of a land tax. That rejection was contrary to the convention that the Lords would not oppose the annual Finance Bill. Lloyd George was supported by Winston Churchill, who had already introduced the minimum wage and employment exchanges.

Parliament was dissolved. At the ensuing general election, the Liberals were returned to power, but their numbers were reduced, and they now needed the support of the Irish Nationalists in order to govern.

In April 1910, the Government introduced the Parliament Bill. It provided that the Lords could continue to veto Bills extending the life of Parliament, but Money Bills (exclusively concerning taxation and Goverment spending) could only be delayed by one month and other Public Bills could only be delayed by two years. However, Balfour and the Lords would not budge. Asquith asked Edward to appoint a sufficient number of Liberal peers to ensure a majority in the Lords so that the Parliament Bill would be passed. Edward refused, saying that the matter should be put to the people in another election.

Numerous options were available, important decisions would have to be taken by the King. There was a strong possibility that Edward would call on Balfour to form a minority government. Meanwhile, the Lords agreed to pass the Finance Bill after the land tax was dropped so that the life of the country could continue. But the Parliament Bill was out of the question.

Parliament went into recess. The atmosphere was explosive. There were secret meetings and proposals, negotiations and constitutional debates. Edward would soon have to act. What would he do? He adopted none of the proposed options; instead, he died. After a series of bronchial attacks (no doubt the result of having smoked 20 cigarettes and 12 cigars every day), Edward suffered a number of heart attacks and passed away on 6th May 1910, the only monarch both to be born in and to die in Buckingham Palace.

His final words were said to have been: “I am very glad”. It was not at the prospect of death or to sum up his life; rather it was because his son, George, had just told him that Edward’s horse ‘Witch of the Air’ had won the 4.15 race at Kempton Park.

Edward was genuinely mourned by the British people, who had grown to love a monarch with flaws. His weaknesses were mainly women, gambling, food and alcohol – all to excess. Edward was also a stickler for correct dress, frequently reprimanding others. He was open-minded enough to invite ‘working class’ MP Henry Broadhurst to stay at Sandringham House; but as Broadhurst had not brought correct evening dress with him, he had to eat his dinners alone in his bedroom.

Fashion items popularised by Edward include the Norfolk jacket, wearing tweed, the Tyrolean hat and the unbuttoning of the lowest button, particularly on waistcoats – but this was a necessity rather than a choice, as Edward’s waist already exceeded 48 inches at the time of his coronation. Queen Alexandra popularised the ‘choker’; this was also a necessity, in order to cover a scar on her neck from a childhood operation. When in India, Edward insisted on everyone dressing formally for dinner, even in the wild. After complaints, he compromised and allowed the men to cut the tails off their evening coats before coming to the table, so inventing the dinner jacket. He then introduced the fashion of wearing a black tie with a dinner jacket instead of a white tie with tails.

Another of his innovations was the custom of the Sunday Roast, particularly the combination of roast beef with horseradish sauce, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.

Edward’s coronation had not been attended by large numbers of foreign royals because after they had arrived in London, Edward fell ill and the coronation was postponed for an appendix operation. Most of the foreign royals went home and did not return for the postponed ceremony. However, Edward’s funeral saw one of the largest gatherings of royalty and nobility in the history of the world (it included the Emperors of Germany and India, the Kings of Britain, Norway, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Portugal and the Belgians, the Dowager Empress of Russia, the Archduke of Austria and over 30 princes as well as former US President Theodore Roosevelt)
⁴⁴
; and with the list of monarchs decreasing steadily from 1914 onwards, the numbers will probably never be equalled.

Perhaps the only photograph of four kings of the same country (George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Edward VII) – it was taken by Queen Alexandra

George was brought up together with his older brother, Albert Victor. In 1877 they were sent to the navy; George was just two days past his twelfth birthday. Albert Victor left the navy ten years later; George remained at sea.

Then, in the winter of 1891/2 both boys fell ill, George with typhoid and Albert Victor with influenza. George recovered; Albert Victor’s influenza developed into pneumonia, and he died. So George left the navy, having succeeded his brother as heir after his father, and also as the fiancé of Princess Mary of Teck. Mary was the daughter of Francis Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, granddaughter of Adolphus the seventh son of George III; so she was George’s second cousin once removed.

Teck was in Wurttemberg. Francis was the only son of the Duke of Wurttenberg’s marriage to a Hungarian countess (she was later thrown by her horse during a troop review and trampled to death by the cavalry). However, it was a morganatic marriage, so Francis could not inherit the Wurttenberg title; instead he was given the lower title of Teck. With no inheritance rights, Francis found it hard to find a royal bride; but Mary Adelaide was in her thirties, ugly and obese. The marriage was soon agreed. Surviving on Mary Adelaide’s small income, the couple lived in England, where their daughter, Mary, was born.

George and Mary married in 1893, and they went on to have six children. The first was Edward (named after Albert Victor who had always been called ‘Eddie’) Christian (after his Danish great-grandfather) and then the four patron saints: George Andrew Patrick David; he would be know by his last forename – David. The second child was born on the 34th anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death; he had to be called Albert. They were followed by Mary, Henry, George and John. The youngest child, John, developed epilepsy and lived apart from his family; he died at the age of thirteen.

On the death of his father, George was crowned King George V. At last the coronation ceremony went ahead without the anti-Catholic statements. George always behaved in a correct manner; so did Mary, but in a much more austere way. They were therefore known as ‘George and the Dragon’.

First George had to deal with the Lords versus Commons constitutional crisis his father had managed to avoid. The solution was found during a secret meeting between George and Prime Minister Asquith. There would be another general election; if the Liberals won, George would create a sufficient number of Liberal peers to ensure that the Parliament Bill was passed in the Lords.

The second 1910 general election produced a dead-heat between the Liberals and the Conservatives, but the Liberals held on to power with the support of Labour members and the Irish Nationalists. Now George’s promise to create Liberal peers became public. Just as with the Reform Bill, rather than see commoners join them in the House of Lords, many Conservative peers abstained. Even so, the Bill was passed by a majority of only 17 votes. Anyway, the crisis was over.

With all his years in the navy, George had already visited many countries. He decided to return to India. Wearing the newly-created Crown of India embedded with sapphires, rubies, emeralds and 6,170 diamonds
⁴⁵
, George made a magnificent progress. However, the decision for George to ride on horseback meant that the waiting Indians did not recognise him, they were used to seeing their ruler on an elephant.