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War
and rumours of war — nation rising against nation — these fulfilled and yet
threatening disasters have culminated in the worst disaster of all, the
“passing” of the greatest, purest, best and most blameless Monarch in our
history. England’s Queen is dead! The words sound as heavily as though one
should say, “The sun is no longer in the sky!” Strange indeed it is to think
of England without the Mother-Queen of the great British people — to realize
that she, the gentle and beneficent Lady of the Land, has left us forever! We
had grown to think of her as almost immortal. Her goodness, her sympathy, were
so much part of ourselves, and were so deeply entwined in the very heart and
life and soul of the nation, that we have seldom allowed ourselves to think of
the possibility of her being taken from us. Always apparently “well” —
never permitting her subjects to think there was anything the matter with her
— bearing bravely such trials and bereavements as would have broken down the
health and nerve of many a stronger and younger woman, she was always, as it
seemed, ready to our call. We spoilt children of long-favouring fortune — had
grown accustomed to believe she would always be thus “ready” — that our
constant prayer and chant which all we in our generation have sung since we were
children, “God Save the Queen!” would be so potent and persuasive as to
altogether disarm the one invincible Angel who, when the hour of his solemn
visitation comes, will take no denial, but
Beckons,
and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the Land of the Great Departed,
Into the Silent Land.
Thither
she has gone, the great Mother of a great people; a people growing out like
their own English oaks, far and wide, taking broad root and spreading mighty
branches in all lands — just as her new Empire of the South has been affixed
like another jewel to her crown, she has put off the earthly diadem and robes of
earthly state and has “passed” into that higher condition of being, wherein
all things that seemed sorrows become joys, and where eyes grown blind,
perchance with tears for lost and loved ones, suddenly see “not as in a glass
darkly, but face to face.”
We
grieve for the loss of our beloved Monarch because it is a most personal loss
— one which is irreparable, and which will tell on the English Empire for many
years to come. But we do not grieve for her death,
because we know, not only through the Christian faith, but also through the
wondrous workings of Science and its recent heaven-sent discoveries, that there
is no such thing as Death. We know that when the soul is ready for Heaven, the
body drops from that radiant Essence like the husk from ripe corn, and sets it
free to an eternity of endless joy, work and wisdom; and we are beginning to
learn that all our trials and difficulties in this world, be they the trials and
difficulties of an exalted position or an humble one, are but the necessary
preparation for this divinely-ordained consummation.
The
Queen, our Mother and our Friend, lived her life with a noble simplicity
commanding the admiration of the world. She accepted her many bereavements with
a patience and dignity which silently expressed to all who cared to note it, the
purity of her faith in God. Occupying the proudest position on earth, her days
were passed in the quietest pleasures — and she stood before us, a daily
unmatched example of the inestimable value of Home and home-life, with all its
peaceful surroundings and sacred influences. There was nothing her Majesty so
greatly disliked as vulgar show and ostentation — nothing she appreciated so
thoroughly as quiet and decorous conduct, simplicity in dress, gentleness of
manner. The extravagance, loose morals, and offensive assertion of flaunting
wealth, so common to London society nowadays, met with her extreme disapproval;
and such faults of modern taste have often been set forth as the reasons why she
so seldom visited the Metropolis. She was an incarnation of womanhood at its
best; as a girl she is described by the chroniclers of the time as being simple
and modest, unaffected and graceful; as a wife and mother she was devoted to her
duties, and adored her husband and children; as a widow, no more faithful
worshipper of a beloved memory has ever been writ down in our annals. As in our
old legends the mythical King Arthur was called “the blameless King,” so,
perchance, in the far ages to come, when we, and all our progress, advancement,
Imperialism and power shall have disappeared into the infinite, leaving only a
faint echo, like the sound of a breaking wave upon the shore, future generations
may know Victoria as “the blameless Queen,” in whose long reign England’s
glory rose upward to an almost falling height!
And
now we stand, sorrow-stricken — even as the Queen’s own Laureate, Tennyson,
wrote of his “Sir Bedivere” —
The
stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
Amazed him, and he groan’d,
‘The King is gone!’
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
From the great deep to the great deep he goes!
The
Queen is gone! It will take us a long while to believe it. The solemn and
majestic death-march, the rolling of muffled drums, the tolling of funeral
bells, have not helped us to realize it any the more plainly. We have read the
news, we have shed tears — we think of it and we ponder it, but we do not
really yet understand the full weight of the blow that has fallen upon the
English Empire in the death of the Queen at this particular juncture in history.
We shall realize it by-and-bye; but not yet — not yet for a long while! We
cannot believe but that she is still with us; and the black pageant of death, we
think, must be a mere bad dream, which will pass presently with the full light
of morning. It is not for me to play biographer; there are hundreds of brilliant
men and women in the land ready to write full and detailed memoirs of the Queen,
and to chronicle her virtues, her good deeds, her never failing sympathy with
the suffering and the poor. I am merely trying to express in this brief tribute
to her imperishable glory what I feel to be the special lesson of this noblest
woman’s life to women. In a time like the present, when the accumulation of
wealth seems to be the chief object of existence, and the indulgence of self the
rule of daily conduct, and yet, when despite our exceptional advantages, our
modern luxuries and conveniences, so many of us are weary, restless and ill at
ease, travelling from one place to another in search of some chimera of
happiness which for ever eludes our grasp, is it not plain and paramount after
all, that simple goodness is best? The “old-fashioned” virtues — is there
not something in them? — something sweet and penetrating like the perfume of
thyme and lavender in the “old-fashioned” garden? One recalls today the
words of the great Napoleon to a lady who, deploring lack of energy and
enthusiasm in France, said to him: “Sire, we want men.”
“No,
Madame,” was the curt rejoinder, “we want mothers!”
This
is what every great nation needs — mothers — true, good women, content with
their husbands and their homes — women whose dearest joy in life is so to
influence their sons that they may grow up to be useful, clever, brave, and
honourable. This invaluable influence of pure and modest womanhood is what
England is fast losing. For many of her matrons, especially those of the upper
classes, are no longer content to be matronly — they must have the pleasures,
the dissipations, the frivolous gaieties of the extremely young, and the girl of
today is often brought into reluctant rivalry with her own mother in the contest
for the unmeaning flatteries and attentions of men. Our late Monarch has given
to women a supreme example of what mothers should be — wise, prudent, patient,
never weary in well doing, and for ever tender, for ever loving. How sweet it is
to-day to remember the little endearing words which she wrote when he who is now
our King was a new-born infant in her arms:
“As
my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our
little love between us, I felt quite warm with happiness and
love to God!”
Her
gentle woman’s heart, then so “warm with happiness,” was destined to know
the coldness of a life-long sorrow, but the “love to God” never failed —
never relaxed in its firm trust and faith; and herein was the great light that
seemed to spring mystically from England’s throne, and spread a halo round
England’s Sovereign.
“I
am quite clear,” said the Queen, speaking of her eldest daughter, then a
child, “that she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for
religion, and that she should have the feeling of devotion and love which our
Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of
fear and trembling.”
“Reverence
for God!” No one will deny that the Queen in the closing years of her long and
splendid reign must have seen this reverence dying out, and that her heart must
often have been surcharged with weeping when she considered the great change
that has come over modern thought and modern life since she first ascended the
throne, a shy, pretty little girl, with all England waiting to do her homage.
She must have noticed a complete departure from old ways and customs which,
however simple they were, certainly did mark Englishwomen as the Queen-roses of
the world, and did so influence men to love their homes, and to work for the
glory of their country, that they were able to leave it greater than they found
it. She must have watched Progress marching with swift, impetuous strides in one
direction, but Retrogression and Decay marching as steadily, though more slowly,
in another — progress, let us say, in machinery, but retrogression in men. Who
shall count the tears the Queen has shed for the evils which she, with her
well-known wisdom and prescience, may not have foreseen coming upon England! Who
shall estimate the grief and pain she has suffered on account of the cruel war
which has ravaged the homes of a people who are one with ourselves in the
Christian faith — a war which, in her last days on earth, she had to learn was
not ended, but rather likely to be prolonged! Noble-hearted, deeply God-loving
woman as she was, her beautiful spirit, on the verge of eternal glory, must have
often contemplated the dark clouds on England’s horizon with the most poignant
and tender sorrow, and her anxiety for the many difficulties likely to surround
her son, our King, must have been acute and pitiful indeed. For there can be no
doubt that much of the peace of Europe was the result of her personal influence;
and personal influence is a far more important factor in the welding together
and holding of countries and peoples, than is generally taken into account by
such of us as are superficial observers, and who imagine everything is done by
Governments.
How
many times in the history of the world has it been proved that Governments are
paralyzed in a great national crisis, and powerless to avert a great national
disaster! How often have the men composing the governing body lost their heads
in emergency, and thrown aside their responsibilities in desperate dismay at the
suddenly rising tide of difficulties, many of which they had not foreseen! But
the Queen’s heart was true; her trust in God never faltered, and her woman’s
hand, so small and delicate, held all things in the clasp of a fearless love and
faith, such as we are told can remove mountains. One may say of her that she
taught all her fellow-sovereigns the dignity of sovereignty. There was no German
Empire when she first came to the throne. There was no free or united Italy.
England’s chief foes were France and Russia — and may it not be said that
they are her foes still? Yet in Russia the personal influence of our late
beloved Monarch has been of weight, apart altogether from the ties of blood
which unite her family with that of the Tzar. Her personal word — the benign
action of her quiet personal authority — these have smoothed over many
animosities which might otherwise have become subjects of hot international
dispute. The woman’s word and the woman’s touch are marvellous in their
working for good if the woman herself be pure and true! When Bismarck, known as
“the man of blood and iron,” called the Queen “The greatest Statesman in
Europe,” his remark was neither a flattery nor an exaggeration. It was
strictly correct. The Queen possessed the two supreme gifts with which God
endows unspoilt women, Instinct and Tact. While men, with heavy logic and
contentious disputes, wearily argued pros and cons of various
deep questions, the Queen, bringing her quick brain to bear on the subject in
hand, easily sprang to a straight issue, and by a word here, a gentle suggestion
there, skilfully guided slower perceptions and duller wits out of darkness into
light. Her loss means much more than is at present apparent to Europe. The very
fact of her sex commanded reverence and respect — a woman’s prayer has often
proved more potent than a man’s command.
Strange,
beautiful and pathetic is the picture given to our thoughts of the dead Majesty
of England — white and still, lying in her snowy death-robes with the first
snowdrops of the year and lilies around her, and the golden Cross shining above
her — that emblem of the Christian Faith which, in its simplest form, the
Queen followed fervently without any faltering doubt or fear. The words of one
of her favourite hymns were the daily echo of her own heart’s trust in the
Divine:
Thy
way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be;
Lead me by Thine own Hand,
Choose out the path for me.
Not mine, not mine the choice
In things or great or small;
Be Thou my Guide, my Strength,
My Wisdom and my All.
The
Queen’s piety was of a simple and fervent nature, and ostentatious or
decorative ritual never met with her sympathy or approval. The private chapel at
Osborne is as simple as a mission-house, and if her Majesty had any preference
for a devotional service other than that of the Church of England, it was for
the Presbyterian form, which she always adopted when at Balmoral. The religious
side of her character, as displayed through her whole life, was a direct
contradiction to the statement rashly made in certain quarters that she favoured
the idea of what Leo XIII. calls “The conversion of England,” that is, the
retrogression of England to Rome. Never did she warrant such a report; never did
she give the slightest ground for even a suspicion of the accusation, though she
was broad-minded and tolerant of all shades of religious belief, as indeed every
true Christian worthy of the name should be, provided he is not asked to
entertain the wolf of money-grubbing and self-aggrandizement under the sheep’s
clothing of a creed. The Queen was not a bigot; she was in herself the
representative of England and England’s freedom; and she would have been the
last to approve of any form of religious intolerance or persecution. Once, in
long years back, she was told by the then Bishop of London that two members of
the royal band, who were Wesleyans, had refused to attend Sunday rehearsals.
“These
men,” said the Bishop, “have since been dismissed from the service for their
scruples.”
“What!”
exclaimed her Majesty, “two of my men dismissed for conscience sake! They
shall be immediately reinstated. I will have no more persecution in my service
on account of religious belief, and I will have no more Sunday rehearsals.”
And she kept her word.
By
numberless little anecdotes such as this, many of which will be quoted for years
and years to come, we recognize the steadfast simplicity and candour of the
Queen’s religious faith, and we know that the angry quarrels of sects, the
intolerant pride of precedence in forms and rituals, the wrangling, the
bitterness and malice which have recently and regrettably disturbed the
equanimity of some of those ministers of Him whose New Commandant was “Love
one another,” could not have been otherwise than lamentable to the mind of
that crowned Defender of the Faith whose woman’s weakness made her stronger
than many armed hosts, and more potent than all other rulers of the kingdoms of
this world. Her devotion to the highest ideal of sovereignty, namely —
“Queen, by
the Grace of God!” enabled her to hold the delicate
balance of things aright, and to maintain the equilibrium of national policy by
the mere fact of her existence. Not only will the British Empire miss Her, who,
as the King has said, “united the virtues of a supreme domestic guide with the
affection and patriotism of a wise and peace-loving Monarch,” but all Europe
will be the poorer for lacking her gentle counsel. True, she fulfilled a more
than ordinary length of days — true, her reign extended beyond that of all our
other Monarchs — but the fact that the blessing of her presence and influence
was vouchsafed to us so long does but little to console us for its withdrawal.
She was our Mother as well as our Queen, and a mother’s place can never be
filled.
There
is a deep melancholy in the thought that the nation begins its first year of the
Twentieth Century clad in “the trappings and the suits of woe.” The sombre
black under which the Ship of State sets sail again upon the uncertain ocean of
life strikes a dismal hue against the arching azure of the sky, and many there
are of us who deem it un-Christian to wear mourning robes if truly we believe in
Heaven. Unfortunately, however, at this time of day thousands of us do not
believe in Heaven — will not believe, no, not for all our preachers and
teachers, and would not, if an angel brought us the assurance straight from God!
We believe in the dark grave, because we see it with our finite eyes, and we put
on the sable colour of the earth to match the dimness of our sight. What we see,
or what we think we see with our limited and doubtful vision, we accept as
actual; but what we feel in the innermost recesses of our souls, when we are
alone to think, alone to realize in the deep silence that we are not
alone, this we put aside hastily, sometimes with a careless laugh or nervous
shudder, calling it “imagination,” “fancy,” or “morbidness.” It is
“morbid,” some people will tell us, to believe that there is a Divine
Intelligence from whose observation no smallest thing escapes, and yet if the
conscience be clear, how far from “morbid,” how healthy, how reasonable, how
comforting is such belief! — for, no matter how evilly we are spoken of, how
vilely we are slandered — no matter what sorrows we suffer or what losses we
endure, all will be righted by that Eternal Justice at the end, when “through
the gates that bar the distance, comes a gleam of what is higher!”
The
great thing, therefore, is to live, here and now, the daily life of simplicity
and self-denial such as our late glorious Queen lived. For if by the rule of
courts we must wear outward black as a sign of mourning for her loss, let us in
our hearts inwardly rejoice that God found her so pure, so ready for the highest
bliss of Heaven. Sixty-three years of the most exalted position in the world —
sixty-three years of undisputed sovereignty over millions of human beings
neither spoilt the earthly Woman nor the heavenly Soul which God had made our
Queen. Shall we not be grateful for this? Shall we not give hearty thanks amid
our lamentation? There is cause for very profound rejoicing that the crowned
Queens of the earth to-day are proverbially of simple tastes and gentle
characters, and we may be proud that our Queen was the simplest of them all.
Remembering her, and cherishing her memory as we shall ever do, it may be we
shall help ourselves to measure things rightly by the standard she has left us,
so that we may be no longer deceived by false appearances. We shall learn to
recognize extravagance and ostentation as mere vulgarity — materialism and
atheism as the action of diseased brains, and social “swagger” as bad
manners. We shall demand of women that the matrons deserve our homage and the
maidens our respect — that the aged command our reverence, and the young our
tenderness. We shall perhaps learn by-and-bye that paint and dyed hair are not
beautifiers of any woman’s face, and we shall give the wearers of such the
kindly, compassionate cold shoulder. We may even ask — who knows! — that
certain of our “ladies” shall give up smoking and the use of stable-slang.
This
would be a great concession, no doubt, but perhaps it will come. The memory of
the great Queen who has passed from our midst without a stain upon her character
as a woman, or a flaw in her wisdom as a Monarch, may exercise a softening charm
and refining influence upon us through the chastening sorrow we feel at her
irreparable loss. But that there are breakers ahead for England, who shall deny?
Who can refuse to see the gathering clouds? Who that is not wilfully deaf cannot
hear the ominous rising of the storm-wind?
We
live in a time of sorrow,
A time of doubt and storm,
When the thunder-clouds hang heavy,
And the air is thick and warm;
When the far-off lightnings gather
On the verge of the darkening sky,
And the birds of the air, fear-stricken,
To nest and cover fly:
Look up! ye drowsy people,
There’s desolation nigh!
Look up! ye drowsy people,
And shield yourselves in time,
From the wrath and retribution
That track the heels of crime;
That lie in wait for the folly
Of the lordly and the strong;
That spare not nigh nor lowly
From vengeance threatened long —
But strike at the heart of nations,
And kings who govern wrong.
Kneel down in the dust and sackcloth,
And own, with contrite tears,
Your arrogant self-worship,
And wrongs of many years;
Your luxuries hard-hearted;
Your pride so barren-cold,
Remote from the warmth of pity
For men of the self-same mould,
As good as yourselves, or better,
In all but the shining gold.
Kneel down, ye priests and preachers,
Ye men of lawn and stole,
Who call yourselves physicians
And guardians of the soul —
And own if ye have not hated
Your brethren, night and day,
Because of God’s high altars
They bent another way,
And sought not your
assistance
To worship and to pray!
Awake! awake! ye sleepers,
There’s danger over all,
When the strong shall be sorely shaken,
And the weak shall go to the wall;
When towers on the hill-top standing
Shall topple at a word,
And the principles of ages
Shall be question’d with the sword,
And the heart’s blood of the nations
Like fountains shall be pour’d!
When a fierce and a searching Spirit
Shall stalk o’er the startled earth,
And make great Thrones the playthings
Of his madness or his mirth;
When ancient creeds and systems,
In the fury of his breath,
Shall whirl like the leaves of autumn,
When the north wind belloweth —
And drift away unheeded,
To the deep, deep seas of death!
No
one, save those who have selfish interests to serve, and who for latent purposes
of their own may think it advisable to soothe or to flatter the King, will for a
moment question the dangers and difficulties which surround our present Monarch
at the opening of his reign. His worst foes are not rival nations, for he has
inherited from his august Mother a certain fine and courteous tact which is rare
to find even in the most accredited diplomat. It is a helpful endowment, and
will of a certainty aid him to unknot many a perplexing tangle of dispute. He is
undoubtedly regarded by all foreigners with respect and liking, and his
broad-minded, liberal views are well known, so that, as a leading Austrian
newspaper says, “It is anticipated that he will prove a mild and wise ruler,
under whom England will lose enemies and gain new friends.”
It
can scarcely be considered, then, too much to say that the whole continent is
favourably disposed towards him, and that from this particular standpoint alone
he is surrounded by friendly and prospering influences. In our own England he
has long been regarded as the “popular” Prince, and so begins his reign as a
“popular” King. He is full of kindness and generosity; and there are many
who assert that to those who deserve it least he is too kind and too generous.
But “a good heart never changes,” as Shakespeare makes his Henry V. say, and
we may hope that the King’s reputation for this “good heart,” which he won
as Prince of Wales, will be the rock on which the Empire may rest secure. Yet,
without assuming the rôle of a soothsayer crossing the pathway of a Cæsar, one
may suggest that those who truly “fear God and honour the King,” and who
have neither favours to ask nor interests to serve, cannot but entertain,
without undue foreboding, certain fears for his well-being. Dark to him,
personally speaking, must be this particular turn in his pathway, when he takes
up the Imperial Crown, glistening more with tears than with jewels, and dons the
heavy robes of ceremonious state; for he has already lived long and lost much.
Sorrow has dealt hardly with him in many ways, and the dangerous condition of
his dearly beloved sister, the Empress Frederick, is an additional pang to his
already grieving heart. Between duty and love his spirit must be sadly
exercised.
A
man is not as God,
But then most Godlike, being most a man.
Scores
of nobodies have for years been in the habit of talking glib nonsense about
“the Prince of Wales,” and of casually alluding to “Albert Edward” as if
they knew him personally, or as if he were hail-fellow-well-met with every
little nouveau riche that comes to the social scum-top for a moment
like a minnow in a garden cistern; and the present writer has often been vastly
entertained to hear persons who have never seen the Prince, much less spoken to
him, jabbering about him very much after the fashion of monkeys discussing the
habitat of the lion. There was never a great name that was not slandered by the
envious, never a high reputation that some coward did not strive to attack and
tarnish, never a splendid fame that did not serve as a target for the arrows of
the mean and the malicious. And the worst lies and slanders are always said and
written of those whose position is too exalted to allow them either answer or
self-defence. When persons are themselves ignoble they love nothing better than
to defame nobility, and if they could force an answer from those whom they
malign, they would be happy to have dragged down the higher than themselves to
their own base level. Thus it chances that we have often heard male and female
word-mongers mouthing idiot conversation concerning our present King, which has
marked them as altogether outside the pale of good manners, and has debarred
them from every suspicion of either patriotism or loyalty. “The King can do no
wrong” is, of course, too far-fetched a statement in any period or in any
country, as has been proved over and over again; but until some wrong has been
manifested, the King’s name should surely be set well beyond the limit of
vulgar society jesting.
It
may be asked, Why should this be said now, and why should I say it? To which
reply can be made that there are some few persons who, having been personally
admitted to the honour of an acquaintance with his Majesty, and having been
treated by him with every courtesy, kindness, and consideration; retain
sufficient impression of that kindness as to be conscious of gratitude. It is
therefore out of the merest sense of gratitude that I have, whenever I have
heard people discussing the Prince (now the King), taken care to exercise those
particular privileges belonging to the profession of literature, which are, to
hear, to observe, and to chronicle such things as may be useful to remember in
the history of the time. And so it has chanced that I — being deemed
altogether unimportant by that particular section of society which judges
literature merely as a sort of bill-posting, or press reporting, which giggles
foolishly at the names of Homer and Shakespeare, and can never be brought to
realize that all day, and every day, millions of pens are constantly at work,
writing down such impressions of the hour as will outlast thrones, and be read
by future generations — even I, one of the least of these wielders of pens,
have had the opportunity of seeing and noting much which it might be well and
honest to set down. It can do no harm, and it may do good, to say that I have
seen women of birth and position so lost to every sense of the true dignity of
womanhood, as to descend to the meanest tricks and subterfuges in the endeavour
to secure the notice of, or an introduction to, the Prince of Wales, and that
then, when such notice or introduction has been obtained, I have heard them
vilify him behind his back with the fluency and choice diction common to the
ladies of Billingsgate! It can do no harm, and it may do good, to say that a
certain prominent American politician, professing to be a friend of the
Prince’s, and having been entertained at dinner by His Royal Highness on a
certain evening in Homburg, met the present writer hard by Ritter’s Park Hotel
next morning, and did then and there point to the Royal Standard flying above
the door, with the remark: “See that old rag! It ought to be rolled up and put
away with all the racks, thumbscrews, and other useless rubbish of Royalty!”
And,
on my replying that it was not customary in Europe to accept the hospitality of
a Prince one evening and attack his arms and insignia the next morning, that
tall-talking son of the Stars and Stripes “cut” me from henceforth, for
which I have ever since been thankful. From such men as these — and there are,
we know, Englishmen who are to the full as ill-mannered as any ill-mannered
American — and from such women as have in the past struggled and fought
against each other to obtain the Prince of Wales’s kindly courtesies, merely
to gain personal advantage out of them, and who may be trusted to pursue the
same old campaign with regard to the King, may and probably will come many
vexations and difficulties, not directly from the actual offending persons, but
from the pernicious influences such mischief-makers exercise on the minds of
those who listen to their unwarranted and unwarrantable accounts of the doings
of Royalty. Such irresponsible sources are the fountain-heads of all the foolish
and erroneous statements which often appear in the press, and though Fleet
Street knows “how things get into the papers,” the provinces are ignorant of
Fleet Street mysteries, and provincial people have the unfortunate habit of
accepting everything they see in the often brilliantly imaginative columns of
the cheap London press as truer than Gospel. And although the cheap London press
is a very useful institution, there are times when its zeal outruns its
discretion. We have had several notable examples of this lately, and the
shocking scene described by the Times Special Correspondent, as
occurring outside the gates of Osborne House on the night of our great Queen’s
death, was a disgrace to the very name of journalism.
“I
cannot close,” wrote the correspondent in question, “without a description
of a very painful scene witnessed last night, which is described only out of a
sense of duty, and in obedience to an instinct of journalistic
self-preservation. It happened that I was not at the gates of the lodge last
evening when the news of the Queen’s death was announced by Mr. Fraser, nor
was there any object in being there, since the news was certain to be received
in London; in fact, it was received some minutes before it could be received at
the gates. They are about a quarter of a mile from the house, and it was certain
that the telegraph from the house to London would be quicker than human
transmission from the house to the gate. But a few moments after the news had
been made known at the gate, I was driving up the York Avenue to Osborne in
obedience to the summons, and in ignorance of the calamity which had befallen
the nation, when I was apprised of it in a very shocking and unprecedented way.
Loud shouts were heard in the distance, then came a crowd of carriages at the
gallop, of bicycles careering down the hill at a break-neck speed, of runners
bawling ‘Queen dead’ at the top of their voices. The sound suggested a babel
of voices at a fox-hunt rather than the very solemn occasion which had called
them forth; and it has to be confessed with shame that they were emitted by
persons connected with the Press, although not, of course, with any London paper
of long standing. They were an outrage, and, taken in combination with a
fictitious and disgraceful ‘interview’ with ‘the Queen’s physician,’
which has caused much pain and annoyance, they contribute a real danger to the
better class of journalism, and, through it, to the public. How can journalists
expect to be treated with consideration when, on an occasion so mournful, they
behave in a manner so horribly contrary to common decency? Individual cases of
misconduct one has seen before, but this yelling stampede established a record
in bad taste and in humanity. I am told that there was ‘whooping’ at the
gates themselves, but that is hearsay, and the evidence of my own eyes and ears
is enough and to spare.”
We
may unite to this account the very extraordinary statement made in a well-known
theatrical journal, namely, that a certain popular actor-manager convened a
meeting of his confrères to put forth the proposition that “as vast
crowds would be in London on the day of the Queen’s funeral, and as the
procession would be over by three o’clock, would it not be advisable for all
theatrical managers, especially those of the West End, to ask the Lord
Chamberlain whether they might not be allowed to open on the Funeral night!” A
more shocking, gross, and unpatriotic proposition was never set forth, and it is
to be sincerely hoped, for the actor-manager’s own sake, that the journal
which has so written him down, has somehow been misled as to its information.
The King has already been called (with a hasty officiousness which borders on
excessively bad taste in the hour of his Majesty’s bereavement) by theatrical
gossips a “promising patron of the drama”; but if he has been so in the
past, a proposal to make profit out of his Mother’s funeral will scarcely
commend the stage so much to his future consideration and favour. During the
brief time that has elapsed since our late glorious Sovereign’s death, there
has been far too much dragging-in of the King’s name, to matters “theatrical
and sporting,” in the Press — and it is of far more interest to the nation
to remember how ardently he, as Prince of Wales, has worked for good and
charitable aims, how much he has helped to promote the cause of the poor, the
weak and the aged, and how generously and promptly he has always given his
personal aid and influence to relieve any immediate suffering. I do not think it
is possible to appeal to the King for a good cause in vain; I have never heard
that he turned a deaf or callous ear to the cry of sorrow. Certain lines I wrote
of him once, I have now neither wish nor need to recall, and I venture to quote
them here, not that they are worth quoting, but because many of my “gentle
enemies” have taken much pains to pretend that I have written “against”
our present Monarch — a disloyal task to which I have never bent my pen. The
lines are these:
To
entertain the Prince, do little; for he is clever enough to entertain himself
privately with the folly and humbug of those he sees around him without actually
sharing in the petty comedy. He is a keen observer, and must derive infinite
gratification from his constant study of men and manners, which is sufficiently
deep and searching to fit him for the occupation of even the Throne of England.
I say “even,” for at present, till Time’s great hour-glass turns, it is
the grandest Throne in the world.... There is nothing the Prince will appreciate
so much as a lack of toadyism, a sincere demeanour, an unostentatious
hospitality, a simplicity of speech, and a total absence of affectation. Of all
the royalties at present flourishing on this paltry planet, I have the greatest
respect for the Prince of Wales.
This,
written five years ago, can be repeated today without a word of alteration for
the benefit of the aforesaid gentle enemies.
Certes,
those who are sincerely loyal in their devotion to the King, will not be found
in the train of flatterers, snobs and time-servers who are, alas, the inevitable
encumbrance attendant on Majesty. Those who would serve him truly are not made
in the mould of the Court-parasite, which particular insect feeds on Royal
favour while it can, and stings when it can feed no more. Any student of human
nature knowing King Edward, and having, taken pains to observe little personal
traits of his disposition and character, cannot have failed to perceive how
much, that is to the superficial eye unsuspected, lies behind the easy manner,
the smiling bonhomie and invariable courtesy of his outward bearing. As
one of our leading journalists has aptly said of him — “He has done a good
many wise things, and no one can ever charge him with having said, a foolish
one. He is neither a bookworm nor a prig, and he possesses that civilitas
which the old Romans lauded so strongly as the soul of social amenity.” Apart
from these qualities, we, his subjects, have good reason to believe that in the
weighty duties of kingship, which his Mother fulfilled so steadfastly and
unerringly, he will be like Shakespeare’s heroic Henry:
Hear
him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study;
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music;
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter.
And
so, as the great Victorian epoch rolls away into the deep shadow of the past,
the Empire rests as it were on a rainbow-edge between storm and sunshine, grief
and hope — grief for the Monarch that was, hope for the Monarch that is. One
invaluable influence Edward VII brings with him to the Throne in his
Queen-Consort, the “sea-king’s daughter from over the sea,” whom we all
love and admire with a boundless love and admiration. Never has there been a
more exquisite woman than the beautiful Princess whom we now call Queen
Alexandra; her sweet face has been a light in our land for many years, and her
generous deeds of sympathy and love are known wherever her name is spoken. All
manner of kindly thoughts have moved her spirit — thoughts which have
blossomed into kindliest actions; and the very sorrows she has suffered have
seemed merely to increase her sweetness, if such a thing could be possible. It
will be strange at first to think of her as Queen Alexandra, having known her
always as Princess of Wales; but if queenly deeds can make queenliness, then she
has been a queen all the time. Of gracious manner and rare dignity, she, too,
possesses the love of home and home surroundings which so notably distinguished
our late Queen, and it may be prophesied that her quiet influence will maintain
the Court at that high standard of combined excellence, brilliancy and
intellectuality which shall give the key-note to manners and culture throughout
Europe. All the same we shall do well to remember that society is not what it
was in the early Victorian days, and also that with the spread of educational
systems, the masses of the people equally, are not what they were. In the olden
times the middle and lower classes were uneducated and illiterate; now they have
sufficient learning to be able to think for themselves, and to judge men and
matters more or less correctly. The toiling millions know while they toil that
they have a right to an opinion on government and social questions, and they
give utterance to that opinion sometimes in unexpected ways. The feudal system
no longer works; and the most careful, prudent and painstaking rulers of
countries and peoples are sometimes called to account sharply when altogether
unprepared. The militarism of the German Emperor is exceedingly picturesque, but
it would not find favour with free Britons, despite the eager toadyism exhibited
towards “Kaiser Wilhelm” just now by the very journalists who but lately
never spared him from taunt and caricature; and though it is well that the ties
of amity and good-will should be cemented between nations, the Englishman is not
over fond of his German brother, or his German rival in every branch of trade.
“Made in Germany,” has become a contemptuous by-word with the British
artisan, and the spirit which is at the root of that contempt is a very strong
spirit indeed. It can scarcely be called pessimistic to feel, aye, to almost
see, much political and social agitation for England in the immediate future —
much trouble and difficulty for all concerned in England’s government, when
the last tears have been shed, and the last farewells spoken in pulpit and on
platform for the “passing” of the great Queen! For with her passes more than
herself; her death sets the closing seal on the scroll of the nineteenth
century; and with her departs for ever a Royal dynasty! We do not quite grasp
the meaning of the grave historical events through which we have rushed, half
blind with amazement, during the first month of the Twentieth Century; many of
us do not yet fully understand that we have done with the House of Hanover, and
have accepted as reigning Sovereigns the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It means
nothing very much to our ears as yet, but who shall predict that it may not in
future mean something more than we can anticipate? Edward VII. is King over a
generation of people whose modes of thought and life are totally different to
the modes of thought and life which distinguished the English during the first
half of his Mother’s reign. Few will deny that there is much in modern society
which would be better eliminated, and that the general callousness and
carelessness shown for most things save self and money, are not good signs of
the times. People who made our late Queen’s Funeral an excuse for private
rowdyism, who engaged “windows with luncheon inclusive,” for 50l. and
100l., and laughed and giggled in their “fashionable” black as the
solemn cortêge went by, as if the whole pageant were a circus-fair, are not
promising subjects of our great realm. Such persons, however, it must be
remembered, were of the ultra-moneyed class, and it is the ultra-moneyed class
who are likely to have much to do in the ruling of social matters. The actual
People of Great Britain have nothing in common with such; they who in their
millions watched the mortal remains of their great Queen carried through the
streets of London in a silence that was almost terrible, because so pregnant
with unuttered meanings. These millions are they who are most deeply and loyally
conscious of their loss in the death of the good Queen — these are they who
take up the labour of their days again with heavy hearts, and doubting, puzzled
brains, wondering what is to come next. War is draining out young brave lives
from the country — trade is slipping from British hands to Americans and
foreigners — taxation is heavy; food and fuel are dear. Speculators in South
African holdings are preparing largely for their own self-aggrandisement,
regardless of the country’s welfare, or the life-blood that has been shed in
the long and cruel contest with the Boers; and it is under these circumstances,
which are visible to the most casual observer and need no exaggeration to make
them more serious, that Edward VII. ascends the Imperial Throne of England. He
has what none of his early ancestors had — a cheap Press ready to flatter him
— to note his every movement — to eulogize his every smile and nod, to crawl
and cringe and clean his boots with paragraph-blacking daily, and editors who
want to be “Sirs” and “Barts.” will so demean themselves before him as
to make him wonder perchance, in an idle moment, why God made such men!
Unfortunately he cannot avoid this kind of thing, only it is devoutly to be
wished that the people who read such gratuitous accounts of his Majesty’s
doings would once for all understand that they are merely reading “smart”
fiction, and that for news of the King which shall be correct and legitimate,
they had best pin their faith on the Court Circular. Otherwise they
will soon lose their way in the wonderful web of Fleet Street imaginings, which
are more potent to transform a truth to a lie, and a wise man to a fool, than
the most direful spells of Circe.
A
leading and popular journalist has lately penned the following: “That we have
loved our Queen is beyond dispute, but the pretence that has been offered that
her departure brings a great epoch to a close is ridiculous.”
Nevertheless,
“ridiculous” as it seems to this one individual, there can be no doubt that
a great epoch has
closed, and that it is particularly doubtful whether as great a one will ever
dawn again. Nations have their lives and deaths like individuals, and in the
opinion of many, both here and abroad, the more active life of England has
already begun to decline. “For,” as Carlyle says, “Never on this earth was
the relation of man to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If at any time
a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition, and Supply-and-demand start up as
the exponent of human relations, expect that it will soon end.”
We
will not, however, and shall not accept forebodings of disaster; and yet there
are hints in the very air of a coming battle and a dawning change.
Great
thoughts are heaving in the world’s wide breast;
The time is labouring with a mighty birth;
The old ideals fall!
Men wander up and down in wild unrest;
A sense of change preparing for the Earth
Broods over all
There lies a gloom on all things under Heaven —
A gloom portentous to the quiet men,
Who see no joy in being driven
Onwards from change, ever to change again;
Who never walk but on the beaten ways;
And love the breath of yesterdays; —
Men who would rather sit and sleep
Where sunbeams through the ivies creep,
Each at his door-post all alone,
Heedless of near or distant wars,
Than wake and listen to the moan
Of storm-vex’d forests nodding to the stars —
Or hear, far-off, the melancholy roar
Of billows, white with wrath, battling against the shore.
Deep on their troubled souls the shadow lies;
And in that shadow come and go —
While fitful lightning write upon the skies,
And mystic voices chant the coming woe —
Titanic phantoms swathed in mist and flame,
The mighty ghosts of things without a name,
Mingling with forms more palpably defined,
That whirl and dance like leaves upon the wind;
Who marshal in array their arrowy hosts,
And rush to battle in a cloud-like land;
Thick phalanx’d on those far aërial coasts,
As swarms of locusts plaguing Samarcand.
‘Oh, who would live,’ they cry, ‘in time like this!
A time of conflict fierce, and trouble strange;
When Old and New, over a dark abyss,
Fight the great battle of relentless change?’
And still before their eyes discrownèd kings,
Desolate chiefs, and aged priests forlorn,
Flit by — confused — with all incongruous things,
Swooping in rise and fall on ponderous wings.”
No
one, even with the most persistent cheerfulness of disposition, can say the
political outlook is otherwise than stormy, or the social one otherwise than
depressing. Half the country is in mourning for itself as well as for the Queen;
so many loved ones have been lost on the field of battle that there is scarcely
a home to which grief has not brought a cup of cruel bitterness during the past
year. On the one side is a section of humanity overbalanced with excess of money
and love of luxury; on the other an infinitely larger mass which is struggling
night and day for the barest means of subsistence, and between these two is the
strong wedge of a steady, thinking, hard-working middle class, whose vote of
preference, if asked for, would unquestionably be given to their poorer rather
than their richer brethren; and over them all the Heavens flame “War!” War
means taxation; War means loss of able-bodied men, and, therefore, loss of
trade; War means to some people, who can barely afford to buy bread in time of
peace, sheer famine. But, say the militarists, War means conquest; War means
gold! So thought Rome in her palmy days; — even so, Rome fell!
“One
might have thought,” wrote Sir George Mackenzie, in the sixteenth century,
“that as the world grew older luxury would have been more shunned; for the
more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers grew, they should have been
the more easily induced to shun all expense, that they might the more
successfully provide against those inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise,
and luxury was the last of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after
riches had been hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that
tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel than
they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel, and so triumphed
over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and courage subdued the world,
it was drowned in that inundation of riches which these brought upon it.”
“Drowned
in an inundation of riches!” A similar inundation threatens to engulf the
higher ideals, the nobler morals of our English tradition. The ostentatious
assertion of wealth was never more in evidence among us than it is to-day; an
entrance into so-called “society” can, we know, be bought for cash; and even
on such a solemn occasion as that which saw our great Queen’s body carried
across the sea from her island home to London, and thence to Windsor, it was not
the most love or loyalty which was rewarded by a full sight of the great
historic pageant, but merely the most push and the greatest amount of gold. No
one who witnessed it will be likely to forget the levity with which bargains
were made and luncheons “planned” for the occasion, and sensitive ears will
long remember the light jesting carried on in certain of the more “smart”
resorts of London among the “high-class” revellers, when the solemn
procession had passed by. Those who saw and heard, will not fail to chronicle
the taste and conduct of the “upper” mob on this supreme and historic
occasion, for the edification of future students who may desire to know
something of the manners and customs in vogue among the educated ladies and
gentlemen at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The slangy epithets heaped
on the somewhat chill weather which prevented these élite from
thoroughly “enjoying” the “general holiday,” might have stirred envy in
the soul of a prize-fighter — and the utter vulgarity, coarseness and
indifference displayed by persons whose names figure in newspaper paragraphs as
“leaders” of society, seemed to call urgently for a swift visitation of the
King’s displeasure.
“To
Apes by the Dead Sea, this Universe is an Apery, a tragic humbug, which they put
away from them by unmusical screeches, by the natural cares for lodging, for
dinner, and such like,” only, unfortunately, it often chances that these
Ape-persons are the very ones who, in the King’s presence, would be the first
to bend the knee, and wear the most close and becoming masks of decorum and
respectful homage; for there is no flattery so subtle or so difficult to deal
with as that which affects straightforwardness and sincerity. His Majesty is
known to despise compliments, therefore those who are anxious to ingratiate
themselves in the Royal favour will be careful not to make them. But open
adulation is a far less dangerous evil than the appearance of blunt and bluff
honesty which covers the deepest motives of self-interest. And the men who
practise this specious form of candid and fair dealing are those who are likely
to work mischief to both society and government. The King’s position is one of
far more difficulty than that of the late Queen; in her case a sense of chivalry
and respect for noble and pure womanhood held many evil tongues silent, and
fastened invisible fetters on the hands of evil-doers.
“She
was,” says a leading journal, “a Constitutional Sovereign with limited
powers of controlling politics in this country, but let it never be forgotten
that she could bring the influence of a parent or relative to bear upon
sovereigns whose personal power was enormous. We can see, negatively, what this
influence was worth from the constant alarm which it excited in Bismarck, who
resented it. It is not to be supposed that her Majesty’s successor can have at
once either the same personal authority or a similar claim to the deference of
other sovereigns. Those things were the fruits of a long reign and unremitting
labours through sixty years. Yet it remains the function of the Crown to
mitigate the isolation of British politics and to remove the asperities which
may arise out of small matters as well as big. We do not doubt that the King
will work to that end, but statesmen also must remember that the removal of the
Queen makes a difference to the position of the country, that there is less
forbearance to be counted on, and that some mistakes may, therefore, be less
easy to retrieve.”
Taking
into consideration various “splits,” discontent, and restlessness in the
Churches, brief attention may here be called to the unnecessary announcement
made by Leo XIII. to the effect that he was “unwilling to be represented at
the funeral of a Protestant Queen,” and also to the equally gratuitous
information given out in all the Roman Catholic Churches that “no Masses would
be offered up for the soul of the Queen.” The Imperial English nation has not
asked for “Masses” for its late Queen, nor did His Majesty the King and
Emperor supplicate the Pope to represent himself at the world-famed obsequies.
Hence Roman Catholic dignitaries have had no cause whatever to make so loud and
public a statement of their particular form of bigotry, or to emphasize the
special width and height of their own little door into Heaven. Thanks be to God,
Heaven is wide, and the bounty and beneficence of the Creator are infinite, and
a pure and perfect soul will take its place among angelic and immortal spirits
without the assistance of finite persons, who, according to the words of Christ,
are “hypocrites,” who “shut up the Kingdom of Heaven.”
At
this particular moment when the great Timepiece of the Universe strikes away for
us one era and rings in another, it is well for us that we should be brought to
consider exactly where we stand in our national life, and to remember that
England has just completed a thousand years of historical upward progress. From
Alfred the Great to Edward VII., one thousand years intervene, and during that
immense period the rise of the English nation has been steady, glorious, and
supreme. And in this present year of our Lord, 1901, when we not only enter upon
the accession of Edward VII., but are also preparing to celebrate the thousandth
anniversary of Alfred the Great, it is curious and instructive to turn back to
very ancient records, and read what such an old-world chronicler as Stow, says
in his “Annales of Englande” of the Monarch, who though dead and buried for
such a vast period of time is still remembered for his good and useful deeds. In
an edition of the antique volume, dated 1605, occurs the following passage:
The
victorious Prince, the studious provider for widowes, orphanes, and poore
people, most perfect in Saxon poetrie, most liberall, endued with wisdome,
fortitude, justice, and temperance, the most patient bearer of sicknesse,
wherewith he was dailie vexed, a most discreete searcher of truth in executing
judgment, a most vigilant and devout Prince in the service of God, Alfrede, the
XXIX. yeere and sixt moneth of his raigne departed this life, the XXVIII. day of
October and is buried at Winchester. He ordained common schooles of divers
sciences in Oxonford, and turned the Saxon laws into English with divers other
Bookes. He established good lawes by the which he brought so great a quietnesse
to the country that men might have hanged golden bracelets and jewels where the
ways parted and no man durst touch them for feare of the lawe.
Since
then we may assert that we have made much progress; but assuredly our progress
has not been of such a character that we can “hang up golden bracelets and
jewels at the parting of the ways and no man durst touch them!” We have
discovered a good many things and invented a good many things; we have secured
many little comforts and conveniences for the greater ease of the lazy and the
slothful, and our mechanical appliances and contrivances for reducing human
labour are ingenious and numerous. Nevertheless, while gaining some little
useful information, we have lost much high faith and a great deal of happiness.
Some of us seem to be as it were “born tired,” and the fatigue of our minds
does not lessen with increasing knowledge. There is a deep symbolical truth in
the old Biblical legend which tells us how man, after having eaten of the Tree
of Knowledge, was driven out of the Garden of Eden, and that now, “lest he put
forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live for ever,”
there is indeed a “flaming sword” turning every way to keep him from the
fulfilment of his heart’s desires and dreams. East and West, North and South,
the sword turns invincibly, and we can never pass it, save as Victoria, by the
Grace of God, has passed it, across the dark river we call death! Forever we
strive to be what we consider “happy,” and the majority of us strive in
vain. Much of our restlessness combined with discontent is our own fault,
because so many of us go the wrong way to work with our lives, and try, not to
help each other, but to overbear each other down. Simplicity of life is best;
natural and innocent pleasures are best; and happiness comes quickest to those
who are not seeking it. Our late Queen chose a simple life because she knew it
was the wisest, the healthiest, and the nearest to God; she disapproved of
vanity, ostentation, and extravagance, because she knew that these things have
only one ending, vice and ruin. Her long and magnificent reign is much more than
a great Sovereign’s rule; it is a matchless Example which will shine in
history like a great Light for all time. None who saw it will ever forget the
great British Navy’s farewell to the little yacht Alberta as it bore across
the glittering Solent the “robed and crowned” coffin which held all that was
mortal of England’s Greatest Queen; none will ever forget the massed crowds of
loyal, patient, sympathetic people in London who rose in their thousands in the
chilly winter’s dawn, content to stand where they could, and how they could,
for hours and hours, just to breathe a prayer as that same robed and crowned
coffin passed them by. For many of them could not see it; many could only feel,
with deep and tender awe, the momentary presence of their dead Sovereign. It was
a wonderful sight; nothing so wonderful has ever been witnessed before in
England. It was the most eloquent, touching, and magnificent testimony of the
strong loyalty, love and truth of the British people that has ever been
chronicled in history.
There
are more reasons than our own personal sense of deep loss which make us linger
round the tomb of Victoria the Great and Good, with aching hearts and tearful
eyes. Under the fragrant wreaths of violets and the great garlands of lilies, by
the side of the husband she loved so well, the body of our noble Queen rests, in
peace and honour, while her Soul has “passed,” like Arthur’s:
To
the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea.
The
golden gates of Heaven have opened to receive Her who was so long England’s
Good Angel; she has entered into her well-earned joy and rest. Age has fallen
from her as falls a worn-out garment; and she has taken upon herself the nature
of immortal youth, eternal love, and endless happiness. But for us who remain
behind, striving to peer beyond “the portals of the sunset”; — for us who
enter on a new era without her, there are dim shadows of fear and doubt which we
cannot altogether dismiss from our minds. They may be vain shadows — deceptive
and transitory like the mists which sometimes herald the breaking of a glorious
summer day, but they are sufficient to make such of us as take the trouble to
think about anything but ourselves, pause, ere we turn away from the grave of
our late beloved Monarch, and with all our hearts and minds, in loyalty and
faith and hope, pray beside that grave for our Sovereign Lord, the King! Who can
forget his careworn face, as he rode, Chief Mourner for the noble dead, behind
his Mother’s coffin! — who was there amid all the gazing thousands that
watched him on that memorable Funeral Day, that did not feel the deepest
compassion for the grief which so visibly and heavily weighed upon him! Never
was a sadder countenance than that of him whom we have loved as our ever genial,
ever kindly, ever popular Prince of Wales; and when we think of the immense
burden of public duty now laid upon his shoulders, the thousand and one things
which claim his attention, the importance and necessity of his constant and
unremitting study of all the affairs of State, we shall do well to remember once
and for all that he is about the most hard-worked man in the realm, with the
least independence, and the smallest chance of having any relaxation from the
routine of his onerous splendour. And it is in the most noble and manful spirit
that he has accepted his great task, with such straight and simple words as
should never be forgotten:
“Encouraged
by the confidence of that love and trust which the nation ever reposed in its
late and fondly mourned Sovereign, I shall earnestly strive to walk in Her
Footsteps, devoting Myself to the utmost of My powers to maintaining and
promoting the highest interests of My People, and to the diligent and zealous
fulfilment of the great and sacred responsibilities which, through the Will of
God, I am now called to undertake.”
And
he is “called to undertake” much that ordinary people would resent, and
would never have either the strength or the patience to perform. Hating
ceremony, he must now always be surrounded by it; loathing the servility of
courtiers and the etiquette of Court functions, he must now of all these things
be the chief and centre; loving freedom, peace and privacy, he must now be
everywhere in evidence, with every word commented upon, and every action noted.
His position, stately and magnificent and imperial as it is, is less to be
envied than that of any “gentleman at ease” living on his private means,
with liberty to do as he likes — for while a monarch is not always made aware
of disloyal hearts, he has ever found it difficult to be sure of true ones,
inasmuch as “they do abuse the king that flatter him.”
Self-interest
often wears the garb of honesty, and it is only the quickest ear that can catch
the Falstaffian whisper: “I will make the king do your grace; I will leer upon
him as he comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me!” All
thrones are surrounded by such time-servers and creatures of circumstance, yet
it is likely that the throne of King Edward VII will be more than lavishly
supplied with their company. The good heart, the generous nature, the invariable
kindliness of the King’s disposition shed forth a sunshine and honey which
must needs attracts flies. God save him, therefore, not so much from foreign
foes, for he can quell them, but from treacherous friends! God save him from the
liar and the sycophant — the self-seeker and the hypocrite! God save him from
from the false heart which offers the open hand! These are the enemies against
which mighty armies are of no avail, and cannons thunder in vain. These are not
fair foes; they do not march out on the open field; they are cowards who shun
discovery. God
save the King! Again and yet again we offer up this prayer,
kneeling among the flowers which cover our greatest Queen’s last
resting-place! God save him, and endow him with such high faith as shall befit
England’s highest ideals — strengthen his spirit that he may unfalteringly
lift the glory of the Empire to still greater glory — grant to him and his
fair Queen-Consort full grace of good days and happy life, and may we, his
faithful subjects, love and honour him for high purposes, great deeds and kindly
words, as we have loved and honoured his Mother, our late dear Sovereign-Lady
Victoria! More love he could not ask from us — and less we will not give!
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