“There were presentations and receptions, and receiving and answering addresses, processions, walking, riding and driving, in morning and evening, military, academic, and medieval attire. The Prince had to breakfast, lunch, dine, and sup, with more or less publicity, every twenty-four hours. He had to go twice to races, with fifty or a hundred thousand people about him; to review a small army and make a tour in the Wicklow mountains, of course everywhere receiving addresses under canopies and dining in State under galleries full of spectators. He visited and inspected institutions, colleges, universities, academies, libraries, and cattle shows. He had to take a very active part in assemblies of from several hundred to several thousand dancers, and always to select for his partners the most important personages.… He had to listen to many speeches sufficiently to know when and what to answer. He had to examine with respectful interest, pictures, books, antiquities, relics, manuscripts, specimens, bones, fossils, prize beasts, and works of Irish art. He had never to be unequal to the occasion, however different from the last, or however like the last, and whatever his disadvantage as to the novelty or dulness of the matter and the scene.”
Some amusing incidents happened. A loyal Irish girl, determined to have a good look at her future King and Queen, defied all rails and barriers, and, mounted on horseback, dashed through the crowd of sightseers and galloped past the Royal visitors, exclaiming, “Oh, thank you all, I have seen them and shall go home happy now.” King Edward, with a smile, raised his hat, which was certainly the most sensible thing he could have done in the circumstances.
The King has always shown great interest in Ireland and Irish matters, so much so that it has been more than once whispered that he is a Home Ruler. He gave his warm support and help to a fund for the relief of distress in Ireland, and more recently, during the annual Show of the Royal Agricultural Society, he took the opportunity to receive and entertain at Sandringham no fewer than three hundred and fifty Irish tenant-farmers.
On their way back from Dublin the Prince and Princess of Wales visited North Wales, and on landing at Holyhead they passed along the pier through a double line of aged Welshwomen, who were all wearing the tall hat and national dress of the Principality. At Carnarvon the Prince inaugurated some new waterworks, and after this ceremony the Royal party proceeded to the famous castle, where they were presented with an address from the Council of the National Eisteddfod. The Prince replied in a neat little speech, in which he observed that he and the Princess received the address with peculiar satisfaction on the anniversary of the birth, on 25th April 1284, and in the very birthplace, of the first Prince of Wales, “Edward of Carnarvon,” the son of Edward I.
King Edward’s fourth child, the Princess Victoria, was born on 6th July, and after a quiet summer spent at Sandringham the King and Queen, attended by a small suite, left Marlborough House in November for a long Continental tour, which extended over some months and enabled them to renew old ties and make new friendships. They spent a few days in Paris, and paid a visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French at Compiègne, where, during a stag hunt organised in honour of King Edward, an accident happened which might easily have cost him his life. As he was galloping along one of the grassy drives of the forest, a stag rushed from one of the cross-paths and knocked him and his horse completely over. Fortunately he was not hurt, though much bruised and shaken. Without alarming those about him, he again mounted and went on hunting to the end of the day. At this house-party the King and Queen had as fellow-guests Marshal Bazaine, Count von Moltke, and a number of other notable people destined to make history.
Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandra, and Princess Christian
Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde
Queen Alexandra about the Year 1865