Edward VII_The Last Victorian King

by Christopher Hibbert

  His appetite was not in the least affected by the huge cigars and the Egyptian cigarettes he smoked in such quantities. By the time he sat down to breakfast he had already had two cigarettes and one cigar; and often by dinner time he had smoked twenty more cigarettes — exhaling the smoke slowly and contemplatively through his nose — as well as twelve vast and pungent Coronay Corona, Henry Clay’s ‘Tsar’, or Uppmanns’ cigars. He never learned to smoke a pipe, which he said was something he had always wished to do as it was by far the most convenient form of smoking when out shooting, especially in a high wind. Frederick Ponsonby gave him one as a present, having taken

  an enormous amount of trouble to get one with a top fitted … but he was so long putting the metal top on when he had lit the pipe that it always went out. He had three tries and the more he hurried the more clumsy he became. After the third try proved a failure he produced a cigar and said, ‘This is, after all, far simpler’, and explained that it was the fault of the tobacco.

  If tobacco did not blunt his appetite, neither did alcohol. In earlier years he had drunk a good deal of champagne, preferably Duminy extra sec, 1883, which he had had decanted into a glass jug from which he helped himself; and he had been fond of making a powerful cocktail to a recipe sent to him from Louisiana and comprising champagne, whisky, maraschino, angostura bitters and crushed ice. But, as King, he rarely had more than two or three glasses of champagne at a time and he drank little other wine. He might enjoy a small cognac by way of a chasse Café but spirits held little appeal for him and he rarely drank port. Once the ladies had retired he was anxious to rejoin them as soon as possible, preferring their company to that of men; and for a short time he instituted the practice of taking the men away as soon as their hostess had ‘collected the eyes’ of the ladies. Indeed, any prolongation of the meal was tiresome for him. He grew impatient with guests who dawdled over their food and did not like the menu to be interrupted by sorbet or iced punch, though when his favourite rum-flavored sorbet was on the menu he could not resist it. Nor did he like his concentration on his food to be distracted by intellectual conversation, which always made him fiddle with the cutlery. Such talk, he considered, should be limited to the intervals between the courses, if tolerated at all. He preferred to listen to a good anecdote retailed by one of his amusing friends or a whisper of gossip from a pretty woman.

  He was not a gifted conversationalist himself, rarely speaking more than a dozen words at a time and usually framing these in the form of questions. He was extremely tactful, though, in asking the sort of questions which the guest to whom they were directed would have pleasure in answering. For he made a point of remembering people’s tastes and interests; and it was frequently noticed how, during those Sunday afternoon inspections of his estate at Sandringham, he would find in a cup or plate, or some other trophy he had won at a race meeting or regatta, a reason to talk about horses or yachts to a sportsman who had felt unable to comment sensibly on the fuchsias and tomato plants in the greenhouse. He was also exceedingly adept at bringing a difficult conversation to an end with a murmured, ‘Quite so, quite so’; and then immediately, and in as natural a way as possible, diverting it on to easier lines.

  Although everyone agreed with Lord Sandwich that he had ‘a marvellous memory’ and could — as he often did — recite the entire list of guests at house-parties he had attended years before, the King was an indifferent raconteur. He told his stories with too ponderous an emphasis on their introductory scene-setting, choosing to relate those which required a lightness of touch not at his command, and sometimes grasping a button on the coat of the man to whom they were principally addressed as though he sensed a wandering attention. He was also inclined to repeat his favourite stories until they became all too familiar. Whenever the name of the Shah of Persia was mentioned, for instance, he was as likely as not to remind his companions of the time he and the Shah had been fellow-guests of the Duke of Sutherland at Trentham and how the Shah had observed disapprovingly of their rich host, ‘Too grand for a subject. You’ll have to have his head off when you come to the throne!’

  Another of his favourite stories concerned an English officer who had been shot through the head during the Boer War and had been sent home to be operated on by Sir Frederick Treves. Finding the damage extensive, Treves had been forced to remove a large part of the brain; and, although the operation had been successfully performed, he felt obliged to reveal to his patient his apprehension as to the young man’s prospects in his career. ‘It’s very kind of you to take so much interest in my welfare, Sir Frederick,’ the officer replied, ‘but thank God my brain is no longer wanted. I have just been transferred to the War Office.’

  Such stories were well received since it was the King himself who told them. But a less courtly audience would, no doubt, have been less indulgent. The King’s tendency to jovial banter would also have been found less amusing in other men. Occasionally the King really was amusing, as when a neighbour, Somerville Gurney, inadvertently shot a hen pheasant one day late in the season when instructions had gone out that only cocks were to be killed. ‘Ah, Gurney,’ the King admonished his guest as the hen fell to the ground, ‘what a one you are for the ladies!’ The laughter his Majesty’s sallies aroused, however, encouraged him to continue the chaff to the point where the responses became dutiful rather than spontaneous.

  Sir Felix Semon was a common butt for the King’s insistent banter after he had shot a young stag below the minimum admissible weight. Ashamed of his action, Semon had retreated to a corner of the drawingroom where the guests assembled before dinner. But immediately on entering, the King went up to him and in a hoarse stage whisper, clearly heard throughout the room, accused him of being a ‘chicken butcher’. The remark was greeted by prolonged laughter which continued to punctuate the subsequent exchanges:

  ‘Oh, Sire, that is hard!’

  ‘Not too hard. It is thoroughly merited! How could you shoot such a miserable staggie? Defend yourself!’

  Semon protested that he had not intended to kill so young an animal.

  ‘That won’t wash. If you were a young lad who had gone out stalking for the first time I might possibly accept such an excuse. But you, you have killed hundreds of stags. Be ashamed of yourself! You will have to hear of this until your life’s end.’

  ‘I hope your Majesty will not be as good as your word.’

  ‘Won’t I? Well, you will see!’

  For several days the bantering continued with persistent references to ‘Sir Felix’s babies’ until Semon was reported to have caught a 15-pound salmon. The King publicly congratulated him; then, after a long pause, added the question, ‘Did it have horns?’

  More loud laughter broke out immediately; and there was further merriment the next day when Semon shot three fully grown stags before luncheon, during which the King told his eldest grandson to go up to Sir Felix and enquire ‘if he had killed a little staggie to-day’. At this there was ‘general laughter’.

  ‘Who set you on to this?’ Semon asked.

  ‘Grandpa,’ came the reply, ‘which set the laughter going again, the King shaking with mirth the whole time’.

  Tiresome as some guests found what the Duchess of Teck termed the King’s ‘odious chaffing’, everyone who knew him well agreed that he had a kind heart. This was never more obvious than it was at Christmas when he and the Queen spent hours together in the ballroom at Sandringham arranging presents on the trestle tables which were laid out around a big Christmas tree.

  He delighted in giving presents, whether chosen with care — like the huge silver-gilt inkstand he gave to the Gladstones on their golden wedding anniversary to make up for the impersonal telegram of congratulations from Queen Victoria — or given impulsively, like the gold cigarette-case he presented to Margot Tennant for having picked him out a winner at Ascot. When staying with friends he would often be driven to a nearby antique shop to choose them something he thought they would like; or, when special services h
ad been rendered, he would order a commemorative present to be specially made. To Sir Walter Campbell, Deputy Ranger of Windsor Park, who had cleared the park of rabbits which had become a pest there, he presented a silver model of a rabbit with the remark that there would at any rate be one rabbit left at Windsor. And to Lord Burnham of Hall Barn, Beaconsfield, he gave a silver pheasant ‘as a recollection of the best day’s shooting’ he had ever had. Friends going abroad were liable to be asked to buy him a selection of suitable gifts, as was a visitor to the Paris Exhibition to whom he sent 5,800 francs to spend ‘on any bibelots or objets d’art’ which took her own fancy and which he would find ‘useful as birthday and Xmas presents’.

  At Christmas at Sandringham guests were required to wait in the corridor outside the ballroom before dinner and to come in one by one to receive the gifts which had been wrapped up for them. Frederick Ponsonby thought this was

  a rather trying experience as one found the King on one side and the Queen on the other explaining who gave what present and giving particulars about the various articles. One stood gasping one’s thanks to each alternately, and it was always a relief when the next person was called in. It was impossible to make a set speech, and most people, including myself, continued gasping, ‘Thank you so much.’

  Ponsonby himself was quite overcome by the number of presents he received: ‘There were prints, water-colours, silver cigarette-cases, a silver inkstand, pins, studs, and several books.’ But it was all ‘beautifully done, and the pleasure of giving seemed never to leave their Majesties, as it so often does with rich people’.

  On Christmas Eve it was the turn for the families on the estate to gather near the coach-house door where the King and Queen sat to wish them a Merry Christmas and to give each family a joint of beef. And on New Year’s Eve all the servants collected outside the ballroom where huge piles of presents, about eight hundred in all, and each one numbered, were massed around the Christmas tree. As the servants entered the room they drew two numbers each and were handed the corresponding presents by one of the princesses or a member of the household. It was not a very satisfactory method of distribution, as ‘a housemaid might get a razor and a footman a powder-puff’; but it ‘seemed to give much pleasure. At the conclusion the Christmas tree was stripped and all the toys and sweets were given to the children’.

  The ballroom was also the setting for those occasional theatricals and musical performances which were intended to form one of the highlights of the Christmas festivities but which many of the guests found extremely boring. Indeed, a week-end at Sandringham, despite the informality of the atmosphere and the King’s efforts to make his guests feel at home, was sometimes a rather tedious affair, particularly as solitary pursuits and pleasantly lazy idling were discouraged. ‘What are you going to do to-day?’ the King would ask; and if no satisfactory answer were forthcoming, there would follow a recommendation of some activity which the guest might well feel totally disinclined to pursue. So, rather than be sent off to play billiards, to watch a game of golf or to join one of those games which were played after tea, the wary and experienced guest would say that he was on his way to read a book in the library or to have a look at the collection of fire-arms in the gunroom. Any excuse would satisfy the host; but some plan of action had to be given, otherwise the King would immediately propose one or endeavour to entertain the indolent guest himself. And his efforts in this respect were not always successful. Sir Felix Semon cited the example of an antiquated bishop who could not be sent off to play billiards or croquet and who, when his host endeavoured to engage him in conversation, seemed to share not a single interest with him. The King switched in despair from one subject to another without arousing the least response. At length, catching sight of a photograph of himself on a side table, he thought he would try that as a last resort. What did the bishop think of the likeness? The bishop put on his spectacles, peered at the photograph, then shook his head in a melancholy manner before replying, ‘Yes, yes, poor old Buller!’

  For those who did not play cards, the evening after dinner often seemed excessively long; while for those who did, it could seem even more so if they happened to be playing with the King. He was very fond of bridge, which he nevertheless did not play very well, soon losing interest when his cards were bad, yet never failing to criticize his partner’s mistakes without the least equivocation or apology. He soon recovered his temper, however, after even the most unsatisfactory game, accepting his winnings with complacent satisfaction and paying out his losses as though he were bestowing upon his opponent a most valuable present. And when he was ready to go to bed, between one o’clock and half past one, he was usually as affable as he had been during the day, making sure that everyone had a good supper, recommending the grilled oysters which were his own favourite refreshment at that time of night, going upstairs, as he had done in his youth, to escort the men guests to their rooms, to make sure that they had all that they could possibly require and to give a token poke to the fire in the grate.

  No one, however, was allowed to go to bed before the Queen retired at about midnight. One evening, finding the number of people downstairs to be one short, and imagining that the absentee must be one of the younger guests, he rang for a page and told him to go and fetch back the culprit, who turned out to be General Sir Dighton Probyn, the seventy-five-year-old Keeper of the Privy Purse, who had gone to bed because he was not feeling well. Ponsonby thought that the King was ‘very much amused by this episode; but Sir Dighton was not’.

  On leaving Sandringham the King frequently went to stay for a week or so with the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, or with Lord Iveagh at Elveden, the first of those several country house visits which he liked to make each year. In 1872 the then Duke had written a rather breathless letter from Chatsworth to his son Lord Hartington, who was staying at Sandringham: ‘Glad you are staying at Sandringham, for you will be able to get answers to several things I want to know. How long do they stay? How many servants do they bring? How many maids for the Princess? Do you think they could bring any horses? Am so afraid that our own may not stand the cheering …’

  A generation later the answers to these and other similar questions were well known at Chatsworth as they were in many other large country houses in England, the owners of which were put to a good deal of trouble and expense in providing the King with the comfort he had grown accustomed to expect.

  In the first place, his hosts were often required to accommodate an entourage of almost Elizabethan proportions. It was not unknown for the King to travel with two valets, a footman and a brusher; with a lordin-waiting, a groom-in-waiting, a private secretary and two equerries, all of whom had their own servants; with two chauffeurs, two loaders for the King’s guns and a loader each for the guns of the gentlemen attendants; with a gentleman-in-waiting and two ladies-in-waiting for the Queen, who also brought a hairdresser and two maids; with two detectives, two police sergeants and three constables; and with an Arab boy whose sole duty it was to prepare the royal coffee, which he served to his master on bended knee. The number of pieces of attendant luggage was likely to be equally prodigious. In the King’s trunks alone there would be as many as forty suits and uniforms and twenty pairs of boots and shoes even for a visit which was to last for no more than a week.

  Despite the cost and trouble of entertaining the King and his entourage there were, however, few places where they were not welcome. And hostesses whose houses were never included in the royal progresses were deeply jealous of those his Majesty favoured: the Saviles of Rufford Abbey with whom he often stayed for Doncaster Races and the Grevilles of Reigate Priory became known to the disappointed as the Civils and the Grovels.

  The King’s intimation of a proposed visit would be followed by a notification from a member of his Household as to the length of the stay. A list of guests would then be submitted for his approval; and occasionally he would add a name or, more rarely, cross one out. Except in the case of houses which were visited regul
arly, there would then ensue a lengthy correspondence about the arrangements for the reception of the royal party, the number of attendants and servants to be expected, the sort of accommodation to be provided for the detectives, the provision of a guard of honour, the speeches of welcome to be made at the railway station and the addresses to be handed to the King by various local dignitaries. When, for instance, the King proposed to visit Alnwick Castle to stay with the Duke of Northumberland in 1906, a cascade of letters, orders, questionnaires, invitations and prohibitions issued from the castle to ensure that all the arrangements were conducted in an efficient and seemly manner. Instructions were given for the railway station to be closed to ordinary traffic and to be decorated. The entrance gate to the castle was also to be decorated, while the front of the barbican was to be illuminated at night by gas flood-lighting. Triumphal arches were to be erected in the town, and tickets to be printed so that the Duke’s tenants would have the best view of his Majesty’s progress. Medals were to be issued so that the local schoolchildren would have a suitable memento of the auspicious event. Orders were given that the loyal addresses from the county council and urban authority should be inscribed and handed to the King, not spoken; and that no more than four members of the council were to be presented to him. Arrangements were made for a guard of honour from the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and for a sovereign’s escort. ‘There is one very important point to bear in mind,’ the Duke warned the councillor in charge of the civic welcome. ‘The Alnwick mob is all right till a procession has passed, but they have no idea of not breaking up and rushing after the carriage … [So] a considerable part of the escort must be placed behind the King’s carriage.’