The King’s love for all that is military dates from his earliest childhood, when his great delight was to watch the change of the royal palace Guard from his nursery window. His boy regiment is now almost historical. Many of its members still talk of their delight at its promotion to the dignity of a Mauser gun of a most professional calibre. Their young Captain’s power of resource and command was evidenced in the way he carried the day in a wager made with his child soldiers that they should not on the morrow meet the admiring eyes of their parents at that part of the royal palace where the Foreign Office then had its bureaux. The following day the young battalion approached the palace. The little subalterns, about to glance at the windows, thought they had won the bet, when lo! in clear sharp young tones there rang out the command: “Vista à la derecha!” (Look to the right!). Not an eye was turned towards the palace windows, and the royal commander scored.
Early rising has, of course, been always an essential part of the young King’s programme, or he would not have time for such pursuits as photography (developing his own plates, and in this he excels), swimming, bicycling, music, painting, etc., as well as his graver studies.
During his minority Alfonso XIII. rose at 7 o’clock, and, after a cold bath and some exercise in the gymnasium near his bedroom, he had a light breakfast with his mother and sisters. From 9 to 10 o’clock came a lesson in French from Don Luis Alberto Gayan, or in English from Don Alfonso Merry de Val. At 10 o’clock he went for a ride on horseback until 12 o’clock, when he lunched with the Queen and the Infanta. Then, after a lesson in German or music from Señorita Paula Czerny, or in painting from Don José Pulgar, the King again walked or rode, generally in the company of his mother. At 2 o’clock he had military instruction, and between 3 and 4 o’clock a lesson in universal history, or in fencing with other boys, under Don Pedro Carbonell. From 5.30 to 6.30 came a lesson in political law and administration, and once a week a lesson in general Spanish literature and classics. Dinner was at 7.30, and the remainder of the evening would be passed pleasantly in conversation or in playing duets with his sister Maria Teresa until it was time to retire to rest.
This programme was punctually adhered to, under the direction of Don Aguirre de Lejada, the director of His Majesty’s studies, and excepting when the King went to church on a Saturday afternoon at 5 o’clock with his mother and sister, it was rarely relaxed.
It was the royal youth’s natural simplicity, combined with his splendid education, that saved him from embarrassing self-consciousness on the great occasion, when on May 17, 1906, he took the Constitutional oath (the Jura), which gave him the full rights of a King, in the Houses of Parliament (Palacio del Congreso), before the brilliant assembly of Princes, Ambassadors, and Ministers assembled for the occasion. The words were simple, but impressive:
“I swear before God upon the Holy Gospels to maintain the Constitution and the laws. If I do so, God will reward me, and if not, He will require it of me.”
All present were touched at the young monarch’s evident disinclination to take precedence of his mother when leaving the Palacio del Congreso. But the law of etiquette had to be observed: the Regency was over, the reign had commenced; the Queen’s power had ceased, the King’s sway had commenced, and, as the first person in the realm, he had to precede his mother.
But that very day the King issued a decree to the nation by which the royal mother retained all the privileges of the position she had held as Regent, which permits no one but the possible future wife of the King to take precedence of her. This, the first royal proclamation, shows the devotion of the son to the mother, for as Queen Cristina is out of the line of possible inheritance to the crown, she would otherwise have taken lower rank than her sisters-in-law or her daughters.
THE QUEEN-MOTHER MARIA CRISTINA OF SPAIN