During the days that followed, their Majesties received congratulatory visits from all the members of the Royal Family then in England, and from many distinguished personages. On the Sunday after his return, King Edward, accompanied by his Consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Duke of Connaught, attended divine service at Westminster Abbey in the afternoon, when special thanksgivings were offered up for His Majesty’s safe return from India.
Soon afterwards the King was entertained at a banquet and ball given by the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall. The temporary building erected for this brilliant assembly, to which over five thousand were invited, occupied the whole of Guildhall Yard. The reception hall was on the basement floor, the ballroom being built above it, and was beautifully decorated and draped with Oriental hangings. A daïs had been erected for their Majesties; and the scene is described as a combination of quaintly mediæval magnificence with modern luxury and elegance. The reception ceremony took place in the new library of the Guildhall, where an address of welcome, in a golden casket of Indian design, was presented to the King by the Lord Mayor. His Majesty, in a brief reply, said that it was his highest reward and his greatest pride to have received from the citizens of London and his countrymen such a welcome at the termination of a visit which had been undertaken with the view to strengthening the ties that bound India to our common country. The invitation tickets for this brilliant function were both beautiful and appropriate, the Star of India and the Taj Mahal at Agra figuring prominently in the design.
Among the other entertainments given in honour of the King’s return may be mentioned a concert at the Albert Hall. King Edward and Queen Alexandra on their arrival were received by a Guard of Honour of 120 bluejackets from the Serapis, the Raleigh, and the Osborne, under the command of Captain Carr Glyn, and in the vestibule were all the Council of the Albert Hall, wearing the Windsor uniform. At their head was the Duke of Edinburgh in naval uniform. The vast hall was crowded with a distinguished audience.
CHAPTER XIII
QUIET YEARS OF PUBLIC WORK, 1876-1887—VISIT TO IRELAND—QUEEN VICTORIA’S GOLDEN JUBILEE
The year 1876 was marked, in addition to King Edward’s return from India, by a curious example of His Majesty’s tact and courage. He consented to preside at the special Jubilee Festival of the Licensed Victuallers’ Asylum, and this action aroused an extraordinary amount of feeling in temperance circles. Before the day of the festival he had received more than 200 petitions from all over the kingdom begging him to withdraw his consent. His Majesty, however, attended the festival, and in his speech pointedly referred to his critics, observing that he was there, not to encourage the consumption of alcoholic liquors, but to support an excellent charity, which had enjoyed the patronage of his honoured father.
It is interesting to note the manner in which King Edward always refers to his father, with whom he undoubtedly has far more in common than is generally supposed. Perhaps the most conspicuous taste shared by the father and the son is a really keen and personal interest in exhibitions of all kinds. This was probably first realised by those about him twenty years ago, when the King accepted the onerous duties of Executive President of the British Commission of the Paris Exhibition of 1878. He threw himself with ardour into this work almost immediately after his return from India, and during a short visit which he paid to France in that spring he received a considerable number of official personages connected with the approaching exhibition.
The King, accompanied by Queen Alexandra, unveiled in the following July a statue of Alfred the Great at Wantage, the birthplace of the famous King. The statue was the gift of Colonel Lloyd-Lindsay (afterwards Lord Wantage), the sculptor being Count Gleichen (Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg). King Edward is a lineal descendant of King Alfred by the intermarriage of the Saxon with the Norman reigning houses in the eleventh century, and it was most appropriate that he should have been invited to perform the ceremony.