MM Mini View: Kings of England (Part IX)

The Coburgs

King Edward VII: It seems incredible that a woman of such incredible moral fortitude as Queen Victoria could have an eldest son like Edward VII and it can only call to mind the vast difference between the third and fourth Georges. However, the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, while no paradigm of virtue, was certainly of better quality than George IV. He, at least, waited for the throne with better grace and dignity and he waited quite a long while. Still, while he was undoubtedly a bit of a rascal in his private life, he at least was a much more likeable fellow and proved himself a seasoned and capable monarch. Fashionable, jovial and a man who enjoyed good living, he personified a Britain that was ’large and in-charge’. My opinion of him is somewhat prejudiced by his peacemaking with republican France, to the detriment of Austria-Hungary and Germany. His rather warmer attitude toward Imperial Russia, on the other hand, was certainly a welcome change in my view from the hostility of his mother, if not very whole-hearted. His modernization of the army and navy was also a major positive, the move toward curtailing the power of the House of Lords was certainly not. He avoided war with France over colonial rivalries but set the stage for World War I. Given how that turned out, a little colonial conflict might have been preferable. Still, a steady and sober monarch, far removed from his reputation as heir apparent.

King George V: When I think of George V the image that comes to mind is of a hard working, stable, reliable, methodical monarch. He lacked the style and personality of his father but was a more meticulous monarch and a more upstanding man, even a bit on the authoritarian side. Those looking for a romantic figure would be disappointed but George V was a good, steady monarch for those interested in substance rather than style. He was perhaps more closely familiar with the far flung dominions of his empire than any British monarch before him and things would have gone better had his advice been heeded more often, particularly in the wake of the Easter Uprising in Ireland. World War I was a disaster, though he was not to blame for it and was a commendable wartime monarch. In the aftermath he seemed to have every radical, revolutionary movement plaguing him and that is nothing to be taken lightly. He was a good man and a good monarch but, understanding the unrest he faced in his own country, I will still always have some bitterness in regard to George V for his failure to rush to the aid of his cousin the Tsar and his family.

King Edward VIII: When Edward VIII came to the throne, albeit briefly, it must have seemed to some that history was repeating itself. Again a stern, upright and moral father had produced a rather libertine son and heir. I cannot have a very high opinion of Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor) who led quite an immoral life in his youth and who put his own desires before his duty to the empire and the royal house he belonged to. Still, I certainly do not hate the man as many seem to. He had no use for the League of Nations, which I would agree with and he was opposed to war which, while considered outrageous today, might have saved the British Empire. I don’t think he would have been a terrible king but his beloved was never going to be queen and I doubt he would have settled for anything less. His abdication was a dereliction of duty, no question, but if that was his nature, surely it was best that he abdicate rather than inflict an unwilling monarch on his country and dominions. I have also never understood those who hold anger against the man, totally despise him and yet still condemn him for abdicating. Makes no sense to me.

King George VI: Back on the right track, with George VI Britain again had an ideal constitutional monarch. I have often said that when I picture “a king” in my mind, it is George VI that I usually see. He was a man of great dignity, high moral standards, a devoted family man and he was disciplined, dutiful and dedicated. His calm and majestic presence was just what Britain needed in World War II and, though he is often left out of the historical narrative, he was a very “hands-on” wartime monarch. More than enduring the blitz alongside his people, he kept up with the war economy, visited the front and was involved in all the major planning sessions for strategy. Even the American supreme Allied commander, General Eisenhower, had nothing but respect and the highest praise for King George VI. He also had the good sense (and persistence) to marry a fine Scottish lady who proved to be a tremendous asset for the Royal Family and the country. His reign is bitter-sweet though as he did see Britain through her “darkest hour” but was also the last King-Emperor and presided over the beginning of the disintegration of the British Empire, mostly due to the government poverty caused by the war.

Queen Elizabeth II: One of the greatest but simplest things one can say about HM the Queen is that she is and has always been worthy of her father. It must be said that her reign has covered the most drastic decline in British power and influence in centuries but none of that can be attributed to her. She follows the advice of her ministers without fail and has been a model constitutional monarch. Warm, friendly, even humorous but at the same time dignified and majestic, no matter what has gone on around her, the Queen has always conveyed continuity, stability and integrity. Few other monarchs have been faced with such rapid and drastic changes as Elizabeth II and she has shown both strength and an ability to adapt in navigating through such waters. Even on the rare occasion when she became rather unpopular, the public eventually realized she had been right all along and that they had behaved rather childishly. The Queen has been an anchor in the storm and has, seemingly effortlessly, upheld the monarchy as a popular institution by her spotless moral values and her matchless ability to never make a mistake. It has been said quite often by now that the Queen has “never put a foot wrong”. That is quite a remarkable thing to say when you think about it -and the most remarkable thing is that it is completely true.

Monarch Profile: King Edward VII of Great Britain

The eldest son and heir of HM Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; Prince Albert Edward, was born on November 9, 1841 at St James’s Palace in London. Before he was a month old he was formally invested with the title of Prince of Wales. The childhood of this future king, however, was far from ideal and, in many ways, he seemed a totally different person as a child compared to the man everywhere knew later as monarch. His parents were not terribly affectionate towards him, not wishing him to be spoiled, and later came to view him, even at a young age, as rather dull and disappointing. The very driven and disciplined Prince Albert drew up a plan for the proper upbringing of his son intended to prepare him for his future role as monarch which was quite harsh. Even the tutors brought in to educate the little prince complained that his training was far too harsh and heavy-handed. They feared (perhaps correctly as things turned out) that too much emphasis on constant work and heavy moralizing would only discourage the boy and have the opposite effect, making him rebel towards being lazy and immoral; which was certainly not what Queen Victoria and Prince Albert wanted at all. If they erred in their raising of little Edward, they certainly did so with most noble of intentions, hoping to make him the best future king possible.

Still, as he grew older, Prince Edward was often at odds with his parents for whom he never seemed to be quite good enough. Given his behavior, their fears were not all unfounded and they were quite worried about the monarchy being pulled back into the scandals that had brought such ill-repute during the regency era after they had worked so hard to raise the moral tone. In his youth, Prince Edward was known for being a rather angry boy (perhaps because of harsh discipline placed on him). He would be enraged at losing a game and could be rather cruel to his lessers when no one was looking. It was a far cry, thankfully, from the man he would ultimately become who most would know as a very friendly, charming and kindly gentleman. And he did grow into a dashing young man of winning ways. His first official duty came when he was 18 when he was sent on a visit to the Dominion of Canada and, most controversially, the United States of America in 1860. British royals had previously refused to step on American soil, considering it a land of dangerous ideas and unsavory parties, both Republican and Democrat. However, despite a little trouble when one largely Irish regiment refused to turn out for parade, the visit of the Prince of Wales was a great success. He charmed the elites and favored American vanity by paying a solemn visit to the tomb of George Washington in Virginia.

Unfortunately, one year after this diplomatic victory, Prince Albert died following parental outrage over Edward having a fling with an actress (arranged by his army buddies) while on maneuvers in Ireland and the Queen, in her grief, blamed her son for hastening the demise of her father. Sadly, mother-son relations were never quite what they should have been. The Queen greatly disapproved of his lifestyle overall. The Prince of Wales was fond of over eating, smoked like a chimney and was quite fond of his mistresses and gambling. None of that was to change throughout his life, even after a marriage was arranged for him with the very pretty and prim and proper Princess Alexandra of Denmark who, the Queen hoped, would help “reform” her son. The marriage worked when it came to the basics. Children were produced to carry on the royal line and Edward liked and respected his wife but never relented in his womanizing ways which Alexandra endured with quiet stoicism. Queen Victoria was also not always pleased with Alexandra either though, particularly when war came between Denmark and Germany. The Prince and Princess of Wales (along with the Prime Minister and most of Britain) favored the Danes while the Queen favored the Germans.

There were other causes for tension as well, such as when Edward cordially received the famous Italian nationalist and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Queen was very displeased by this and rather upset at the rousing welcome Garibaldi received from the British public. Things like this made the Queen distrustful of her son and she refused to allow him to see state papers or have any real role in the interaction of the government and the monarchy. Still, he went about other royal duties, attending functions, opening things and dedicating monuments and the like and won people over with his good natured manners and affable personality. He visited foreign countries but was not allowed to have formal meetings with foreign heads of state as he occasionally requested. For the most part, his time was spent going on hunts, attending parties and socializing; which he was remarkably adept at. He was a people person who disliked being alone and who tended to view things in personal terms. He was, throughout his life, fairly conservative when it came to politics but he took people one at a time and his circle of friends was open to people of various backgrounds who had made their way to the top of society from the old aristocracy to the newly rich businessmen. Many of those friends were Jews and it was likely those personal relationships that made Edward particularly disgusted by anti-Semitism and, though he always maintained good relations and indeed helped forge a rather unexpected Anglo-Russian friendship, his greatest concern with Russia tended to be the treatment of Jews there.

At times, his many friendships involved the Prince of Wales in scandals, though it was much easier to keep quiet in those days. Usually the behavior of the Prince was not in question but it was the actions of those around him that got him into trouble. Still, he was always a loyal friend and for all the minor scandals, his friendly nature helped bring about closer relationships between traditional enemies like Britain and France as well as Britain and Russia which had, in the not too distant past, been enemies in the Crimean War. The press sometimes made a fuss over his behavior but all in all he remained widely popular as he was a man most found it hard to dislike. He was 59-years-old 1901 when the revered and long-reigning Queen Victoria was called to her eternal reward and he was crowned King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, etc and Emperor of India. Though his reign would not be very long, it was a time of changes, in science as well as attitudes, and his great gift for simply being a “presence” ensured that it would be known as the Edwardian Age; a time when Britain took her first steps toward the welfare state, when new alliances were formed but also still one of dapper gentlemen and fine ladies in traditional fashion.

King Edward VII most made himself significant in the area of diplomacy and foreign policy as his foreign visits and relations with other European leaders helped to set up a new state of affairs for Britain and Europe, starting in 1903 with his state visit to Paris and the subsequent Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and the French Republic. Prior to this, while Emperor Napoleon III had established good relations with the British, it was open to question how the new republic would be dealt with by the crowned heads of Europe and Britain had previously been more favorable toward Germany and antagonistic toward Russia. Under King Edward VII the British Empire allied with France and Russia and began to increasingly view Imperial Germany as their primary rival in economic and colonial policy. Although it was certainly not decisive, it is no less true that the King simply did not like his nephew the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. His friendship toward Russia also caused outrage amongst the growing socialist minority in Great Britain yet, in that regard, British friendship toward Russia was, perhaps, not so surprising as the fact that Russia reciprocated given that Britain had fought Russia in the Crimea, blocked Russia and supported Turkey in the Balkans and Britain which was the ally of Imperial Japan which had so recently bloodied the Russian nose. The German Kaiser, who disliked his uncle as much as the King disliked him, looked at those facts and was bewildered by the movement of Russia toward Britain and away from Germany. Again, it certainly was not decisive, but it certainly helped that King Edward VII was so likeable in his dealings with other leaders whereas the Kaiser tended to put people off.

The new state of affairs and the leading part King Edward VII was seen to play in bringing it all about, proved immensely popular. The public saw Britain strengthened by powerful alliances and her primary rival more isolated. The new system of alliances also made war seem extremely improbably and thus King Edward VII was hailed as the great peacemaker of his time and not just by people in Britain but around the world, outside of Germany of course. Even after the outbreak of the First World War, the reputation of the King would survive while the Kaiser singled him out as the author of all German misfortunes. When that calamity came, most people placed the blame on the bombastic Kaiser, rightly or wrongly, and not on the jovial King Edward VII. Prior to that, it was a common boast that there would be no war in Europe so long as Edward VII was alive. Of course, he did not live to see that disaster which befell the world. He did, however, see, at the very end of his life, the beginning of the struggle to remove the veto power from the House of Lords. Of this last great political confrontation, the King was greatly disturbed by it all and tended to blame both sides for bringing things to such an impasse. When asked to create new peers in order that the liberals could have their way, the King put it off until after the next election and tried all the time to arrange a compromise between the opposing party leaders. A solution had still not been found when King Edward VII passed away on May 6, 1910. It would be left to his son, King George V, to see the crisis through as well as to preside over the great test of the system of alliances King Edward VII had helped arrange in the (vain) hope of preventing war in Europe.

Consort Profile: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

One of the most significant consorts in the history of the British monarchy was Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert. He was born on August 26, 1819 in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Saxony, the son of Duke Ernst III. Coincidentally, the same midwife who delivered Albert shortly thereafter also delivered his future bride Victoria. When Albert was still only a boy a re-shuffling in the ducal family made his father Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Family life was not exactly ideal for the young prince with his parents separating and his mother finally being banished from the country. Still, Albert grew up as normally as one could expect and as a young man went to the University of Bonn. He excelled in a wide variety of academic subjects and sports and began to form his opinions which were rather liberal for the time. In 1836 Albert became a subject of interest as a potential husband for his cousin Victoria who was set to inherit the British throne from her uncle King William IV.

Victoria’s uncle, King Leopold I of the Belgians, thought Albert would make a good husband and arranged a meeting. King William IV, however, wanted Victoria to marry a son of the Dutch King Willem II. However, Victoria herself found Albert the much more attractive choice. In 1837 Victoria became Queen and already had her heart set on marrying Albert, however, it was not until 1839 that the couple were formally engaged and they married in 1840. His initial reception in Britain was a cold one. The public were not impressed with a German marrying their Queen and Parliament voted him the smallest allowance ever given to a consort, would not hear of making him “King consort” and even refused to grant him a title in the peerage. Prince Albert shrugged off these snubs, happy enough with his own title, and content with the love of his wife who was absolutely devoted to him. It was not until 1857 that he was formally given the title of “Prince consort”.

This all reveals the extent to which Prince Albert was charting new waters in his role of husband to the Queen. Dealing with the spouse of a Queen regnant was not something the British had a great deal of experience with. It says a lot that their most beloved Queen regnant never married. Prince Albert was happy enough but early on felt rather bored and unused. Still, the succession was secured for the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Queen Victoria was pregnant within the first two years of her marriage and ultimately the couple would have nine children. The Queen’s total devotion to Albert and his own displays of competence and liberal views finally began to win over those in power in Great Britain and his influence grew. He was a great source of strength to the Queen at a time when it was needed. There were several attempts on her life and, though few realize it today, the historic height of British republicanism was actually during the Victorian era.

Prince Albert had a vision of royalty as being involved in government but furthering “enlightenment” principles. He was a champion of the rights of workers, improvements in education, social welfare, the abolition of slavery and so on. It was in part because of his often stated point of view that the royals and high-born of society had a duty to help the poor and downtrodden that helped Britain avoid major upheavals during the revolutions of 1848. He helped in modernizing the army and tried to encourage a diplomatic solution to the problems between Russia and the Ottoman Empire though this effort was unsuccessful and Britain ultimately joined what became known as the Crimean War. The public image of Prince Albert suffered because of this perceived hesitancy to fight. He also helped calm relations with the United States in 1861 when the two countries were on the bring of war.

Ruffling feathers was nothing new for Prince Albert and it did not bother him. He was a very idealistic man who felt obligated to do what he could to advance those ideals. He arranged the marriage of the Princess Royal Victoria to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (the future Kaiser Friedrich III) specifically to try to encourage the spread of liberalism in conservative, militant Prussia. His promotion of education and educational reforms were widely applauded but he also encouraged religious opposition when he extended this support to new ideas that called the reality of God into question. His proposal that Charles Darwin be knighted was not well received. However, Albert’s own confrontation with mortality was not far off.

By the time Prince Albert was helping diffuse a possible war with America in 1861 he was already gravely ill with typhoid fever. On December 14 in Windsor Castle he passed away with Queen Victoria and five of their children around him. Queen Victoria was devastated by his loss and probably no other consort in Great Britain has had the lasting impact of Prince Albert. Monuments and memorials to him abound and in many ways he set the trend that subsequent generations of the British Royal Family would follow.