With the event also came an Ode from Mr. Alfred Austin, entitled "The Crowning of Kingship." On August 11th the King held a Council at Buckingham Palace, attended by the retiring and new members of the Cabinet; invested many distinguished personages with their Coronation honours; and gave an audience to Sir Joseph Dimsdale, Lord Mayor of London, who presented the City's Coronation gift of $575,000 toward the King Edward Hospital Fund, in which His Majesty had so long taken so deep an interest and to which, on this occasion, there was contributed 20,000 penny donations from the poorest quarters of London.
Various functions of a Coronation character or connection ensued. On August 12th some 2000 Colonial troops who were present at the event, in a representative capacity, from British dominions beyond the seas, were received by the King on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Under the Royal canopy were the Queen and the children of the Prince of Wales, and in attendance were Earl Roberts, Lord Kitchener, Mr. Chamberlain and various Colonial Premiers, including Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier. After the march past, the King pinned a Victoria Cross on the breast of Sergeant Lawrence, and the Prince of Wales conferred Coronation medals upon the officers and men. His Majesty then addressed the troops as follows: "It has afforded me great pleasure to see you here to-day and to have the opportunity of expressing my high appreciation of your patriotism and the way you distinguished yourselves in South Africa. The services you have rendered the Mother-Country will never be forgotten by me, and they will, I am sure, cement more firmly than ever the union of our distant Colonies with the other parts of my great Empire."
On the following day the Indian troops sent from the great Eastern realm to honour the Coronation of its Emperor were reviewed at the same place. His Majesty wore a jewelled sword which cost some $50,000, and had been presented to him on the previous day by the Maharajah of Jaipur. The scene was a most brilliant and picturesque one. The British notables present wore military or Levée dress; the great lawn of the Palace was a splendid spectacle in red, yellow, green and blue; the Eastern Princes were gorgeous in jewels and many-coloured raiment, and the little Princes Edward and Albert of Wales constituted themselves Aides of the King and brought several general officers up to have an audience. After the march past and the distribution of medals at the hands of the Prince of Wales, His Majesty addressed the troops in the following words: "I wish to convey to all ranks the high satisfaction it has given me to see this splendid contingent from India. I almost feared, owing to my serious illness, that I would be prevented from having the advantage of seeing you, but I am glad to say that by God's mercy I am well again. I recognize among you many of the regiments I had the advantage of seeing at Delhi during my tour of India." During the next few days various minor functions took place, and the Colonial leaders especially were feasted and entertained in every possible way.
On August 17th the final event occurred in connection with the Coronation. It was the mighty greeting of a great fleet to the Sovereign of a wide-flung realm. It was the inspection of a naval force which a generation before could have dominated the seas of the world and put all civilized nations under tribute. Gathered together from the Home Station, the Channel squadron and the Cruising squadron; without the detachment of a ship from foreign waters or Colonial stations, it included 20 battleships, 24 cruisers and 47 torpedo crafts, with an outer fringe of foreign vessels contributed in complimentary fashion to honour the occasion. From Spithead to the Isle of Wight the horizon was black with great grim vessels of war decked out with flags, and as the King's yacht approached the first line of ships, a hundred Royal salutes made a tremendous burst of sound such as probably the greatest battle-fields of history had never heard. As the King, in Admiral's uniform, stood upon the deck of his vessel and passed slowly down the lines, a signal given at a certain moment evoked one of the most impressive incidents which even he had ever encountered—a simultaneous roar of cheers from the powerful throats of 50,000 enthusiastic sailors. The sound rolled from shore to shore, and ship to ship, was echoed from 100,000 spectators on land and sea, and repeated again from the battleships. The King was deeply moved by this crowning tribute of loyalty, and at once signaled his gratification to the fleet and an invitation to its flag officers to come aboard his yacht and receive a personal expression of his feelings. In the evening electric and coloured lights of every kind and in countless number combined with flashing searchlights to illuminate the great fleet and to cast a glamour of fairy land over the splendid scene.
Meanwhile, in the morning, His Majesty had received on board his yacht the celebrated Boer Generals, Botha, De Wet and De la Rey. Afterwards, in company with Lord Kitchener and Earl Roberts they had returned to London greatly pleased with the cordiality of their reception and especially gratified at the kind manner of Queen Alexandra. Following the official Naval Review, the King on the next day visited the fleet in a stormy sea and watched it go through certain manœuvres of a practical kind before being dispersed to its different local stations. On his return to London he found the Shah of Persia a guest of the nation and awaiting formal reception at the hands of its Monarch. And thus King Edward took up again his unceasing round of duty and ceremonial and high responsibility. In the past year or two he had gone through every variety of emotional experience and official work and brilliant ceremony—his mother's death and the consequent mourning of a nation and empire; his own assumption of new and heavy duties; the special labours of an expectant period; the time of serious illness and the anxieties of complex responsibility to a world-wide public; the realization of his Coronation hopes; the change from an old to a new period stamped by the change in his national advisers and the presence of his Colonial Premiers. He now entered upon his further lifework, with chastened feelings in a personal sense but, it is safe to say, with high and brilliant hopes for the future of his own home country and its far-flung Empire.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Reign of King Edward
The history of this reign—not long in years—is yet crowded with events, rich in national and Imperial developments, conspicuous in the importance of its discussions and international controversies. The first brief months, which have been already reviewed, saw the completion of the memorable Empire tour of the new Prince of Wales and the settling down of Australia to a life of national unity and progress; the conclusion of the South African War and the beginning of an extraordinary process of unification which was in a few years to evolve the Union of South Africa; the almost spectacular incidents of the Coronation and the important proceedings of the Colonial Conference of 1902. In July of this latter year the Marquess of Salisbury retired and was succeeded in the Premiership by his nephew, Arthur J. Balfour. To the King this meant the removal of a strong arm and powerful intellect and respected personality from his side and increased the importance of his own experience and prestige as a statesman.