The Life of King Edward VII / with a sketch of the career of King George V

by J. Castell Hopkins

In preparing a national memorial to the eminent Liberal leader the Prince of Wales accepted the post of President of the General Committee with the Duke of Westminster as Chairman of the Executive. With Mr. Cecil Rhodes, he was long upon terms of intimacy and never concealed his admiration for the great Imperialist's career and objects. There can be no doubt that he knew much of South African affairs and was instrumental in the Duke of Fife taking a place on the Directorate of the South African Chartered Company. The only occasion upon which the Prince ever withdrew from a prominent Club was his retirement from the Traveller's because they had black-balled Mr. Rhodes. Not the smallest evidence of statecraft which the Prince of Wales showed, in a semi-personal way, was his warm sympathy with the emancipation of the Jews and his belief in their absorption into the life and interests of England. His presence at the marriage of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild caused, long since, a sensation in Jewish circles but it was only the first of many compliments which the Heir Apparent bestowed upon the "chosen people" up to the days when one of them became Prime Minister and a daughter of the House of Rothschild married a future Premier—the Earl of Rosebery. The late Baron Hirsch, the present Lord Rothschild. Sir Reuben Sassoon and Sir Moses Montefiore were amongst his personal friends and he made a thorough study of the position of the Russian Jews—showing them practical sympathy in various indirect ways. Of course, this partiality was open to misconstruction and the rumour of indebtedness to Jewish financial interests was so prevalent at one time that Sir Francis Knollys had to write a correspondent, who directly asked the question, an official statement as Private Secretary to the Prince, that the latter had no debts worth speaking of and could pay every farthing he owed at a moment's notice.

There is no question, however, that this friendship with a powerful financial class, ruling great interests in every nation, gave the Prince of Wales a much enhanced influence abroad. In the same way his obvious liking for American men and women of standing and ability was marked and did undoubted service in promoting good feeling between the two countries—where it was not grossly and untruthfully misrepresented by sensational journals. Really distinguished visitors from the United States, whether rich or poor, always found a welcome at the hands of His Royal Highness and amongst those whom he appears to have especially liked were James Russell Lowell, Thomas F. Bayard, Whitelaw Reid and Chauncey M. Depew. American women who have been absorbed into English life and society like Lady Harcourt, Mrs. Chamberlain and the Duchess of Marlborough were always treated with marked courtesy by both the Princess and himself. His visit to the United States in 1860 had also taught him something of conditions there which those around him were not always fully aware of. Hence the value of the message which was sent to the New York World in the name of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York during the Venezuelan crisis. If it be true that a private letter, a word spoken in season, or a brief drawing-room conversation, is often more influential than a cloud of newspaper writing, then the Prince of Wales was for years a potent force in promoting good-will between the Empire and the Republic.

As a diplomatist there can be no doubt of the Heir Apparent's influence. He succeeded, in fact, to much of the power held in that respect by the Prince Consort. It was the post of an unofficial and secret personal mediator between the Sovereign of Great Britain and those of other countries. Thoroughly acquainted with the personality of foreign rulers, related to the majority of those in Europe, knowing their degrees of national influence and personal power, familiar with the statesmen's position in Court and Legislature, associated more and more closely as the years went on with Queen Victoria's personal view of foreign policy, the Prince's position was one of very great indirect power. Through his heirship to the British throne he was naturally upon terms of something like equality with those whom he met as rulers at Berlin or St. Petersburg, at Paris or Vienna, and more in sympathy with their point of view than men of less than Royal rank. To quote Mr. George W. Smalley in McClure's Magazine of March, 1901: "His is a strange nature. He has, very fully and strongly, the pride of Kings and what the pride of Kings is, a republican who has lived all his life in a republic can hardly conceive. He has behind him, moreover, the loyalty of an expectant nation." Upon the other hand he knew more about the people and was more of them than any other hereditary ruler or prospective ruler in the world. Hence the strength of his position when conferring with a German Emperor, or a Russian Czar, or talking quietly with some Foreign Minister at a time of crisis.

INCIDENTS OF DIPLOMATIC INFLUENCE

This personal influence of the Heir Apparent was a factor often ignored. "Again and again," says Mr. Smalley, from the point of view of one who watched for years at the source of power in London, "the Prince has gone abroad as—in effect, though of course never in name—an Ambassador from the Queen to some Sovereign on the Continent. He has laid her views at some critical moments before the German Emperor and carried home the Emperor's response." This sort of personal intercourse must, many a time, have solved vital and serious issues. When William II. visited Windsor in 1899 and the Queen, with the aid of the Prince of Wales, Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, evolved the terms upon which the countries were to stand in regard to the coming South African war, can there be any doubt as to the place in these negotiations which the Heir Apparent held, or as to the advantage which his many earlier visits to Berlin in the days of Bismarck and the Kaiser's initiatory years of rule, must have been to him? The result of this intercourse was, in the end, the turning of a possible national enemy into a friend; the change of the Emperor who wrote the famous Transvaal cablegram into the ruler who took the first train and boat to Windsor and bowed his head at the death-bed of Queen Victoria.

Another interesting incident in this connection may be found in the friendship known to have existed between the Prince of Wales and the Czar of Russia. Nicholas II. bore the same relationship of nephew to him that was borne by William II. and, like the other Imperial ruler, came to bear a similar feeling of respect and regard for his uncle—sentiments not always felt between relations, royal or otherwise. It was on August 31st, 1894, that the Princess of Wales received a despatch from her sister, the Czarina, that Alexander III. was nearing his end in the far-away Palace of Livadia. As rapidly as train and ship could carry them the Royal couple travelled to Russia, but only in time for the prolonged and splendid ceremonial of a state funeral. In this great and solemn pageant, lasting a week, and extending from Livadia to St. Petersburg, the Czar and the Prince were constantly together, in the most intimate relations, at a moment when the former was just emerging—as yet a young and inexperienced man—into the responsibilities of perhaps the most difficult position in the world. It was little wonder if the youthful autocrat of ninety millions took counsel of his experienced and genial relative, and found in his society comfort and knowledge and the basis of a lasting friendship. Let Mr. W. T. Stead in the Review of Reviews, of January, 1895, describe the situation:

It was fortunate for every one that he stood where he did, as no one outside the Royal Castle could have been to the young Czar what the Prince was at Livadia, and afterwards. In the long and almost terrible pilgrimage to the tomb which followed, when the corpse of the dead Czar was carried in solemn state from the shores of the Black Sea to the tomb in the Cathedral that stands on the frozen Neva, the Prince was always at the right hand of the Czar. Alike in public or in private, the uncle and the nephew stood side by side. After the first gush of grief had passed, it was impossible but that thoughts of the relations between the two Empires should not have crossed the minds of both. These two men share between them the over lordship of Asia. To the Czar, the north from the Oural to the far Sagahlien; to the other, the south from the Straits of Babel Mandeb to Hong Kong. No two men on this planet ever represented so vast a range of Imperial power as the first mourners at the bier of Alexander the Third.

At St. Petersburg, the Duke of York joined the mourning group of Royal personages, and there, on November 26th, the young Czar was married to his cousin, Princess Alix of Hesse, and a still closer tie of relationship formed with the Royal House of England. From this time forward the diplomatic relations of Russia and Great Britain steadily improved and there has never been any doubt amongst those in a position to judge that it was very largely due to the close friendship between the Prince of Wales and his Imperial nephew. In France, and especially amongst its leading men, His Royal Highness was for long an influential factor in keeping the wheels of international relations moving smoothly. Personally popular, his tactful course at critical periods helped greatly in maintaining official amity. The root of this wide-spread influence and practical statecraft, in addition to elements already indicated and covering more directly the personal equation, was well described by Mr. Smalley in an article already quoted: "First of all, the impression of real force of character. Next, that combined shrewdness and good sense which together amount to sagacity. Third, tact. Add to these firmness and courage, and base all of these gifts on immense experience of life by one who has touched it on many sides and you will have drawn an outline of character which cannot be much altered. Add to it the Prince's constant solicitude about public matters and his intelligent estimate of forces—which last is the chief business of statesmanship. Add to this again the effect upon the hearer of conversation from a mind full, not indeed of literature, but of life; a conversation of wide range, of acuteness, of clear statement and strong opinion, of infinite good humour."