In 1900 also the King won the Grand National with Ambush II., and so carried off the biggest flat-race and the biggest steeplechase—double honours which no other owner had ever before gained, much less in the same year.
From the sport of kings we pass by a natural transition to the Royal and ancient game of golf. It is well known that golf was the favourite pastime of some of the Stuart kings of Scotland, and Mary Queen of Scots, her son, James I. of England, Charles I., and James II. all played. But from the death of James II. to the accession of Edward VII. none of our sovereigns were themselves golfers, though William IV. and the lamented Queen Victoria gave their patronage to the game.
The King learnt to play on the Musselburgh Links years ago when he was pursuing his scientific studies at Edinburgh, and Tom Brown, who had the honour of being His Majesty’s caddie, still lives in hale old age. In 1863 the King became Patron and then Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, and in 1882 he accepted the office of President of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club, to which the late Queen had granted the title “Royal.” His Majesty has played several times at Cannes and on the private links of the Grand Duke Michael, and his love of the game is notably shared by the Duke of Cornwall and York, the Duchess of Fife, and the Duke of Connaught.
The King has lived to see the extraordinary development of cricket, and its promotion to the rank of the typically national game which Englishmen take with them to the ends of the earth. We may be sure that the indirect political influence of the great contests between England and Australia, for example, and of the tours of Indian, South African, and West Indian teams, did not escape his quick intelligence. Certainly His Majesty has always supported cricket, though he never became so keen a player as the late Prince Christian Victor, for instance.
The King played at Oxford, and occasionally for I. Zingari. In 1866, at the Park House, Sandringham, His Majesty played against the Gentlemen of Norfolk for the Sandringham Household. He has frequently visited Lord’s to see the Eton and Harrow matches, and in 1899 he went there with the Duke of Cornwall and York when the M.C.C., of which club His Majesty is patron, played the Australians. He has also seen the Australians play at Sheffield Park. Kennington Oval being on the London estate of the Duchy of Cornwall, the King, when he was Prince of Wales, was ground landlord, and allowed the Surrey Club the use of the ground at a nominal rental. The Surrey Club has benefited greatly through the King’s generosity in this matter, and recently the Duchy of Cornwall granted the club a thirty years’ lease at a very low rent, considering the value of the property.
The King was for many years patron of both the Rugby Union and the Football Association, and after his Accession he was approached by both bodies with a view to his graciously continuing to grant them his patronage. The game under neither code was played much until the King had reached middle life, but he showed his interest in the popular winter pastime by visiting the Oval in March 1886 on the first occasion of a charity festival organised by the Rugby Union and Football Association.
There can be no doubt that the King owes his remarkable bodily vigour and healthy appearance to his love of all outdoor sports, for he was never so content as when enjoying a long day’s tramp over the stubble at Sandringham, or when deer-stalking in a soft Highland mist. His Majesty’s life as a sportsman began early. When he was quite a child he used to accompany Prince Albert on deer-stalking expeditions round Balmoral; somewhat later he hunted with the harriers, and when he was fifteen he could claim to be the best shot in his family.
Although the King has been a plucky and fearless rider from early childhood, he has not been so fond of hunting as of some other sports, and during the last few years he has seldom been seen following the hounds. When an undergraduate at Christ Church, he constantly hunted with Lord Macclesfield’s pack, and was then considered a very hard rider; and it need scarcely be said that the meets which take place at Sandringham are the most popular in Norfolk, and give both the King and Queen many opportunities of showing gracious and kindly hospitality, both to their wealthy and to their humble neighbours. The King is a firm friend to the hunting of the fox, and it is understood that a pack of fox-hounds is to be established in place of the Royal Buckhounds. In 1888 the members of the West Norfolk Hunt presented to the King and Queen Alexandra a beautiful silver model of a fox in full gallop as a memorial of their Majesties’ silver wedding, and in returning thanks the King said:—
“I can assure you that no present which has been offered for our acceptance has been received by us with more pleasure than the one which you have given us to-day—a model of the wily animal that we are all so fond of following. Norfolk has always been considered to be a shooting county; that may be so to a great extent, but I feel convinced that the hunting is quite as popular, and I sincerely hope that it will long remain so. There may be difficulties in preserving foxes, but I feel sure that where there’s a will there’s a way. For twenty-five years we have enjoyed hunting with the West Norfolk Hunt, both the Princess and myself; and our children have been brought up to follow that Hunt. I sincerely hope that for many long years we may be able to continue to do so.”
Before the King had been at Sandringham six months he made it quite clear that his country home should be in every sense a good sporting estate, and it has been one of his chief pleasures to entertain parties of keen sportsmen each autumn in Norfolk. Perhaps the best shooting season Sandringham has ever seen was that of 1885-86. The total bag was 16,131 head, including 7252 pheasants. The best day of that season was the last day of the year 1885, when ten guns killed 2835 head, including 1275 pheasants. The rabbit-shooting at Sandringham is also first-rate, and it need hardly be said that the foxes are watched over with the most tender anxiety.