Accession , 1901 When
his mother died on 22 January 1901, Edward became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British
Dominions. He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use—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". 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". '' magazine, 1901 Edward donated his parents' house,
Osborne on the
Isle of Wight, to the state and continued to live at Sandringham. 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. 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. At a time of widespread
antisemitism, Edward attracted criticism for openly socialising with Jews.
Edward's coronation had originally been scheduled for 26 June 1902. However, two days before, he was diagnosed with
appendicitis. 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.
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 an incision in the king's abdomen; this outcome showed that the cause was not cancer. The next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar. 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) and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream. 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, but Edward resented his ministers' attempts to reduce his traditional powers. Eventually, he relented and Britain sent a special embassy to the Shah with a full Order of the Garter the following year.
"Uncle of Europe" , photograph by Queen Alexandra 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. He took annual holidays in
Biarritz and
Marienbad. Edward was related to nearly every other European monarch, and came to be known as the "uncle of Europe". 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. 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. 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. The previous month, he visited the Scandinavian countries, becoming the first British monarch to visit Sweden.
Political opinions '' magazine, 1902 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. On other matters, he was more conservative; for example, he did not favour giving
votes to women, although he did suggest that the social reformer
Octavia Hill serve on the
Commission for Working Class Housing. He was also opposed to
Irish Home Rule, instead preferring a form of
dual monarchy. 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. Edward involved himself heavily in discussions over army reform, the need for which had become apparent with the failings of the
Second Boer War. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. In 1904, Wilhelm II and Edward met during an Anglo-German summit in
Kiel. 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". 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". 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". 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!" 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. 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. , 1902 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 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. 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. Talk of removing the Lords' veto played a major role in the
January 1910 election. Early in the election campaign, Lloyd George talked of "guarantees" and Asquith of "safeguards" that would be necessary before forming another Liberal government, but such talk ceased after the King informed Asquith that he would not be willing to contemplate creating peers until after a second general election. Balfour refused to say 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. During the campaign, the leading Conservative
Walter Long 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. 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. 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. The Commons passed resolutions on 14 April that would form the basis for the
Parliament Act 1911: 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). 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". Esher's view has been called "obsolete and unhelpful". ==Death==