On February 18th, a number of appointments were made to the Household including Lord Suffield as Lord-in-Waiting with General the Right Hon. Sir D. M. Probyn, Sir John McNeill, Lord Wantage, V.C., Sir Fleetwood Edwards and Sir Arthur Bigge as Extra Equerries to His Majesty. General, Viscount Bridport and General the Duke of Grafton were appointed Honorary Equerries and Major-Generals Sir Henry P. Ewart and Sir Stanley Clarke to other positions at Court. Queen Alexandra appointed the members of her Household under date of March 8th and they included the Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry as Mistress of the Robes, the Countesses of Antrim, Macclesfield, Gosford and Lytton and the Lady Suffield and Dowager Countess of Morton as Ladies of the Bedchamber, Lord Colville of Culross as Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Gosford as Vice-Chamberlain, the Earl de Grey as Treasurer, and the Hon. S. R. Greville as Private Secretary. Numerous appointments of an honorary kind in connection with the Army and Navy followed and on July 24th the Earl of Pembroke was announced as Lord Steward of His Majesty's Household, the Hon. V. C. W. Cavendish M.P. as Treasurer, Viscount Valentia M.P. as Comptroller, Lord Farquhar as Master of the Household, the Earl of Clarendon as Lord Chamberlain, Major-General Sir Arthur Ellis as Comptroller of Accounts, the Duke of Portland as Master of the Horse, the Duke of Argyll as Governor of Windsor Castle and the following as Lords-in-Waiting: the Earl of Denbigh, the Earl of Kintore, Earl Howe, Lord Suffield, Lord Kenyon, Lord Churchill and Lord Lawrence.
Many of these names may be recognized as amongst the friends or officials of the King, in his later years as the Heir Apparent, or as companions in some of his travels. On March 24th, following the custom of British Sovereigns, several special Embassies were appointed and announced to carry to European Courts the official intimation of His Majesty's accession. That to Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Russia, Germany and Saxony, included the Duke of Abercorn, the Earl of Kintore, Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter and the Marquess of Hamilton, M.P. and that to Belgium, Bavaria, Italy, Wurtemberg and the Netherlands, included the Earl of Mount Edgecombe, Viscount Downe and Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour. Earl Carrington, the Earl of Harewood and others were appointed to France, Spain and Portugal and Field Marshal Lord Wolseley, Viscount Castlereagh and others to Austro-Hungary, Roumania, Servia and Turkey.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The First Year of the New Reign
The first year's reign of a Sovereign must always be important, and when that Sovereign rules over a third of the earth's surface and a quarter of its population, it is more than usually so. King Edward VII., when he came to the Throne, found himself the first of Mohammedan rulers, with more Moslem subjects than the Sultan of Turkey; the first of Brahmin and Parsee Sovereigns; the head of various Confucian colonies and the possessor of the most sacred of Buddhist shrines; the ruler of Christian sects and idolatries of every conceivable kind and variety. Almost every race in the world was included in his Empire—English, Scotch and Irish everywhere, French in the Channel Islands and in Canada, Italians and Greeks in Malta, Arab, Coptic and Turkish subjects in Egypt, Negroes of all descriptions in the Soudan and elsewhere, subjects of infinitely varied Asiatic types in India, Chinese in Hong-Kong and Wei-Hai-Wei, Malays in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, Polynesians in the Pacific, Red Indians in Canada and Maoris in New Zealand, Dutch, Zulus, Basutos and French Huguenots in South Africa, Eskimos in Northern Canada. The complicated issues involved in such a Government as that of the British Empire, with its curiously non-centralized system, were certainly sufficient to make a Sovereign inheriting the position, the opportunities, and much of the capacity of Queen Victoria, feel that he had, indeed, assumed heavy responsibilities.
His first step had been a most wise one, and in direct line with a policy carried out as Heir Apparent—the cementing of close and cordial relations with the German Emperor during his long and much-discussed visit to the dying Queen and mourning family. To this friendship and the enthusiastic and popular reception given William II. when leaving London on February 5th, 1901, was undoubtedly due the restraining influence held over a part of the press of Germany during the succeeding period of vile abuse of England regarding the South African War. Following this, on February 24th, was the departure of King Edward on a visit to his sister, the Empress Frederick, at Frederichshof, near Cronberg, where he was joined by the Emperor William. The King was accompanied by Sir Frank Lascelles, Ambassador at Berlin, and by his physician, Sir Francis Laking. The Empress was found to be very ill, but not dying, and after a few days her Royal brother and son returned to their respective capitals.
THE KING'S FIRST PARLIAMENT AND DECLARATION