“It is impossible,” wrote Queen Victoria in her Journal, “to describe how beautiful and imposing the effect of the whole scene was in the fine old chapel, with the banners, the music, and the light shining on the altar.” It was significant of the young Queen’s native simplicity that the Prince was only christened Albert, after his father, and Edward, after his grandfather, the Duke of Kent.

Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert soon showed that they were determined to allow nothing like publicity to come near their nurseries, and the public obtained but few glimpses of the Prince of Wales as a child. Prince Albert’s intimate friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar, wrote a year after his birth to one of his friends:—

“The Prince, although a little plagued with his teeth, is strong upon his legs, with a calm, clear, bright expression of face.” Before he was eighteen months old His Royal Highness had already sat for his portrait several times.

King Edward VII. was barely four months old when Baron Stockmar drew up a very long memorandum on the education of the Royal children. In this document he laid down that the beginning of education must be directed to the regulation of the child’s natural instincts, to give them the right direction, and above all to keep the mind pure. “This,” he went on, “is only to be effected by placing about children only those who are good and pure, who will teach not only by precept but by living example, for children are close observers, and prone to imitate whatever they see or hear, whether good or evil.” In the frankest manner the shrewd old German physician proceeded to point out that the irregularities of three of George III.’s sons—George IV., the Duke of York, and William IV.—had weakened the respect and influence of Royalty in this country, although the nation ultimately forgave them, because, “whatever the faults of those Princes were, they were considered by the public as true English faults”; whereas the faults of some of their brothers, who had been brought up on the Continent, though not at all worse, were not condoned, owing to the power of national prejudice.

The conclusion at which Baron Stockmar consequently arrived was, “that the education of the Royal infants ought to be from its earliest beginning a truly moral and a truly English one.” It ought therefore to be entrusted from the beginning only to persons who were themselves morally good, intelligent, well informed, and experienced, who should enjoy the full and implicit confidence of the Royal parents. The Baron did not mince matters with regard to “the malignant insinuations, cavillings, and calumnies of ignorant or intriguing people, who are more or less to be found at every Court, and who invariably try to destroy the parents’ confidence in the tutor.”

These principles commended themselves to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Her Majesty wrote the following interesting letter to Lord Melbourne on the subject:—

In his reply Lord Melbourne fully concurred in Baron Stockmar’s suggestion that a lady of rank should be appointed, and the choice of the Royal parents fell upon Lady Lyttelton, who had been a lady-in-waiting from 1838, and who appeared to possess the precise qualifications which the post demanded. The daughter of George John, second Earl Spencer, and his wife Lavinia, daughter of the first Earl of Lucan, she was born in 1787, married, in 1813, William Henry, afterwards third Lord Lyttelton, and died in 1870. Lady Lyttelton was installed as governess to the Royal children in April 1842, and discharged her duties with equal ability and devotion. Early in 1851 she laid down her office. Her young charges parted from her with sad hearts and tearful eyes, as Sir Theodore Martin records in the Life of the Prince Consort, while from the Queen and Prince Albert she received marked proofs of the deep gratitude which they felt for all that she had done.

In 1846 King Edward accompanied his parents on two yachting excursions, in August and September, on board the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert. Writing in her Journal on 2nd September, Queen Victoria says, with a pretty touch of maternal pride:—

“After passing the Alderney Race it became quite smooth; and then Bertie put on his sailor’s dress, which was beautifully made by the man on board who makes for our sailors. When he appeared, the officers and sailors, who were all assembled on deck to see him, cheered, and seemed delighted with him.”

Then, when the yacht arrived at Mounts Bay, Cornwall, Her Majesty records on 5th September that “when Bertie showed himself the people shouted ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”

Again, at Falmouth, on 7th September, the Queen says:—

“The Corporation of Penryn were on board, and very anxious to see ‘The Duke of Cornwall,’ so I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie, and Lord Palmerston told them that that was ‘The Duke of Cornwall’; and the old Mayor of Penryn said that ‘he hoped he would grow up a blessing to his parents and to his country.’”

At Sunny Corner, just below Truro, the whole population “cheered, and were enchanted when Bertie was held up for them to see. It was a very pretty, gratifying sight.”

Princess Mary of Cambridge, afterwards the much-loved and lamented Duchess of Teck, gives a delightful picture of the Royal children in a letter written in 1847 to Miss Draper, her governess. Princess Mary was then about fourteen, and King Edward was rather more than five years old:—

“We paid a visit to the Queen at Windsor on New Year’s Eve, and left there on the 2nd. The Queen gave me a bracelet with her hair, and was very kind to me. The little Royal children are sweet darlings; the Princess Royal is my pet, because she is remarkably clever. The Prince of Wales is a very pretty boy, but he does not talk as much as his sister. Little Alfred, the fourth child, is a beautiful fatty, with lovely hair. Alice is rather older than him; she is very modest and quiet, but very good-natured. Helena, the baby, is a very fine child, and very healthy, which, however, they all are.”

In August 1847, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with the Queen’s half-brother, the Prince of Leiningen, went for a tour round the west coast of Scotland, taking with them their two eldest children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. This is notable as King Edward’s first visit to Scotland, for he was too young to accompany his parents on their first tour in Scotland in 1842; while when the Queen and Prince Albert visited Blair-Atholl in 1844 they only took with them the little Princess Royal.

Of this tour round the west coast of Scotland we obtain some delightful details in the late Queen’s Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands. The Royal party started from Osborne in the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert, and they took the opportunity, after leaving Dartmouth, of visiting the Scilly Islands. The Queen writes:—

“Albert (who, as well as Charles, has not been unwell, while I suffered very much) went with Charles and Bertie to see one of the islands. The children recover from their sea-sickness directly.” By “Charles,” it should be explained, is meant the Prince of Leiningen. Naturally, when the Royal yacht arrived in Welsh waters, there was the greatest enthusiasm among the inhabitants at the sight of their little Prince. It must be remembered that at that time practically nothing was known by the general public about the Royal children, for their parents had very wisely resolved that they should as far as possible enjoy a natural, happy childhood, that being the best possible preparation for the public life that awaited them. However, evidently no harm was done by the notice which was taken of the Royal children on this tour. At Milford Haven their loving mother writes:—

“Numbers of boats came out, with Welshwomen in their curious high-crowned men’s hats, and Bertie was much cheered, for the people seemed greatly pleased to see the ‘Prince of Wales.’” Then again at Rothesay, when the yacht had passed up the Clyde:—

“The children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and excitement wonderfully. The people cheered the ‘Duke of Rothesay’ very much, and also called for a cheer for the ‘Princess of Great Britain.’ Everywhere the good Highlanders are very enthusiastic.”

With regard to her son’s title of Duke of Rothesay, Queen Victoria appends the following interesting note:—

“A title belonging to the eldest son of the Sovereign of Scotland, and therefore held by the Prince of Wales as eldest son of the Queen, the representative of the ancient Kings of Scotland.”

At Inveraray, which was next visited, the little Prince first met his future brother-in-law, the Marquis of Lorne, whom the Queen describes, in words which have often been quoted but will bear repetition, as “just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother: he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket, with a ‘sporran,’ scarf, and Highland bonnet.”

Naturally a good deal of interest was taken in the little Prince of Wales by those who had an opportunity of seeing him. When the great geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, went to Balmoral, the Queen’s eldest son, “a pleasing, lively boy,” gave him an account of the conjuring of Anderson, the “Wizard of the North,” who had just then shown the Court some marvellous tricks. Said the Prince in an awestruck tone:—

“He cut to pieces Mamma’s pocket-handkerchief, then darned it and ironed it so that it was as entire as ever; he then fired a pistol, and caused five or six watches to go through Gibbs’s head; but Papa knows how all these things are done, and had the watches really gone through Gibbs’s head he could hardly have looked so well, though he was confounded.”

Gibbs, it should be mentioned, was a footman.

The late Archbishop Benson, before he went up to Cambridge, was tutor to the sons of Mr. Wicksted, then tenant of Abergeldie Castle. Writing to his mother on 15th September 1848, young Mr. Benson gives the following interesting description of a glimpse which he had of the King as a little boy:—

“The Prince of Wales is a fair little lad, rather of slender make, with a good head and a remarkably quiet and thinking face, above his years in intelligence I should think. The sailor portrait of him is a good one, but does not express the thought that there is on his little brow. Prince Alfred is a fair, chubby little lad, with a quiet look, but quite the Guelph face, which does not appear in the Prince of Wales.”

In September 1848 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert established themselves with their six children at Balmoral, and Her Majesty records her first impressions of the place which was to be for so many years her much-loved Northern home. After describing her own and Prince Albert’s rooms, she says, “Opposite, down a few steps, are the children’s and Miss Hildyard’s three rooms.” Only a few days later we hear of the little Prince of Wales going out with his parents for a “drive” in the Balloch Buie. “We then mounted our ponies, Bertie riding Grant’s pony on the deer-saddle, and being led by a gillie, Grant walking by his side.” Grant, it should be explained, was head keeper, and much trusted by the Queen and Prince Albert, and for him was built a pretty lodge called Croft, a mile from Balmoral. “We scrambled up an almost perpendicular place to where there was a little box, made of hurdles and interwoven with branches of fir and heather, about five feet in height. There we seated ourselves with Bertie.” It can readily be imagined with what excitement the little Prince waited for nearly an hour till his father obtained a shot. The Queen records how her son helped her over the rough ground until they all gathered round the magnificent “Royal” which had fallen to Prince Albert’s gun.

The life at Balmoral was as far as possible shorn of Royal state, and was much the same, no doubt, as that which was led under many another hospitable roof-tree in the country round about. Queen Victoria devoted herself to her husband and children. Thus she records, on 11th September 1849, “The morning was very fine. I heard the children repeat some poetry in German.”

The life at Windsor Castle was scarcely less simple. Writing to an intimate friend, the late Duchess of Teck thus describes a dramatic performance at the Castle in January 1849, in which King Edward appeared, in spite of an accident which he had had a few days before:—

“Last Wednesday we went to Windsor Castle to remain till Friday. The visit went off very well indeed. The Queen and the children are looking very well, and the latter much grown. The poor little Prince of Wales has disfigured his face by falling on an iron-barred gate, and the bridge of his nose and both his eyes are quite black and bruised, but fortunately no bones were broken. The first evening we danced till twelve o’clock. Next day, … dinner was very early, and at eight o’clock the Play began. ‘Used Up’ and ‘Box and Cox’ were chosen for that night, and I was much pleased at seeing two very amusing pieces. They were very well acted, and we all laughed a great deal. The Theatre was well arranged, and the decorations and lamps quite wonderfully managed. It was put up in the Rubens-room, which is separated from the Garter-room by one small room where the Private Band stood. In the Garter-room was the Buffet, and in the centre hung one of the beautiful chandeliers from the pavilion at Brighton. The four elder children appeared at the Play, and the two boys wore their ‘kilts.’ The two little girls had on white lace gowns, over white satin, with pink bows and sashes. Princess Royal wears her hair in a very becoming manner, all twisted up into a large curl, which is tucked into a dark blue or black silk net, which keeps it all very tidy and neat.”

CHAPTER III
THE KING’S BOYHOOD

In view of all that has been said in the last chapter to show how anxiously Queen Victoria and Prince Albert considered the education of the future King of England, it is amusing to record that the latter was quite five years old before it occurred to the public to take an interest in the question. It was then that a pamphlet was published, entitled Who should educate the Prince of Wales? This contribution to the subject was carefully read by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Baron Stockmar drew up another long memorandum, dealing this time with the question of the Prince’s education alone. He was fully sensible of the importance of the subject.

“On the choice of the principles on which the Prince of Wales shall be educated,” he wrote, “will in all probability depend whether the future Sovereign of England shall reign in harmony with, or in opposition to, the prevailing opinions of his people. The importance of the selection of principles is increased by the consideration that opinion in Europe is at this moment obviously in a state of transition, and that by the time the Prince shall ascend the throne many of the maxims of government and institutions of society now in the ascendancy will, according to present probabilities, have either entirely passed away, or be on the very verge of change.”

After enlarging on this topic, the Baron lays down that the great and leading question is—whether the education of the Prince should be one which will prepare him for approaching events, or one which will stamp, perhaps indelibly, an impression of the sacred character of all existing institutions on his youthful mind, and teach him that to resist change is to serve at once the cause of God and of his country. Baron Stockmar recommends the former course, but he utters the warning that:—

“The education of the Prince should, however, nowise tend to make him a demagogue or a moral enthusiast, but a man of calm, profound, comprehensive understanding, imbued with a deep conviction of the indispensable necessity of practical morality to the welfare of both Sovereign and people. The proper duty of the Sovereign in this country is not to take the lead in change, but to act as a balance-wheel on the movements of the social body. When the whole nation, or a large majority of it, advances, the King should not stand still; but when the movement is too partial, irregular, or over-rapid, the royal power may with advantage be interposed to restore the equilibrium. Above all attainments, the Prince should be trained to freedom of thought and a firm reliance on the inherent power of sound principles, political, moral, and religious, to sustain themselves and produce practical good when left in possession of a fair field of development.”

As regards the religious faith in which the future King was to be brought up, the law prescribed that of the Church of England, and Baron Stockmar therefore does not discuss that point, but he does put a question arising out of it, which naturally seemed in that year—1846—more difficult than it would seem nowadays. The Baron asks in effect whether the Prince should be made acquainted with the changes then going on in public opinion in regard to matters of faith, and the important influence on the minds of educated men which the discoveries of science were likely to exert in the future? Without suggesting a definite answer to his own question, the Baron goes on to say:—

“The Prince should early be taught that thrones and social order have a stable foundation in the moral and intellectual faculties of man; that by addressing his public exertions to the cultivation of these powers in his people, and by taking their dictates as the constant guides of his own conduct, he will promote the solidity of his empire and the prosperity of his subjects. In one word, he should be taught that God, in the constitution of the mind and in the arrangement of creation, has already legislated for men, both as individuals and as nations; that the laws of morality, which he has written in their nature, are the foundations on which, and on which alone, their prosperity can be reared; and that the human legislator and sovereign have no higher duty than to discover and carry into execution these enactments of Divine legislation.”

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert also consulted the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Wilberforce) and Sir James Clark, both of whom recorded their views in long and carefully considered papers, in which they came to conclusions substantially the same as those of Baron Stockmar. On these principles, therefore, King Edward VII. was educated, namely, that the best way to build up a noble and princely character was to bring it into intelligent sympathy with the best movements of the age.

After some further discussion Prince Albert opened negotiations with Mr. Henry Birch, afterwards rector of Prestwich, near Manchester, the gentleman who was ultimately entrusted with the responsible position of tutor to the future ruler of the British Empire. This young man had been educated at Eton, where he had been captain of the school and obtained the Newcastle medal. He had taken high honours at Cambridge, and had then gone back to Eton as an assistant master.

The Prince Consort had an interview with Mr. Birch in August 1848, and says in a letter to Lord Morpeth, “The impression he has left upon me is a very favourable one, and I can imagine that children will easily attach themselves to him.” Writing to his stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha, in April 1849, Prince Albert observed:—

“Bertie will be given over in a few weeks into the hands of a tutor, whom we have found in a Mr. Birch, a young, good-looking, amiable man, who was a tutor at Eton, and who not only himself took the highest honours at Cambridge, but whose pupils have also won especial distinction. It is an important step, and God’s blessing be upon it, for upon the good education of Princes, and especially of those who are destined to govern, the welfare of the world in these days very greatly depends.”

During the years 1848 to 1850 a Mr. George Bartley, well known at that time as an actor, was engaged to read at Buckingham Palace translations of the Antigone and the trilogy of Œdipus. Queen Victoria was so much pleased with the ability which Mr. Bartley showed that she engaged him to give lessons in elocution to her eldest son, who certainly profited by them, to judge by the ability which His Majesty afterwards showed as a public speaker.

In the summer of 1849 King Edward VII. visited Ireland for the first time. He landed with his parents at Queenstown, and received a splendid welcome, which probably laid the foundation of his hearty sympathy with and liking for the Irish character. Queen Victoria, after vividly describing the enthusiasm with which the Royal visitors were greeted at Dublin, Cork, and elsewhere, writes in her Journal on 12th August:—

“I intend to create Bertie ‘Earl of Dublin,’ as a compliment to the town and country; he has no Irish title, though he is born with several Scotch ones (belonging to the heirs to the Scotch throne, and which we have inherited from James VI. of Scotland and I. of England); and this was one of my father’s titles.”

Accordingly the Prince of Wales was soon afterwards gazetted Earl of Dublin, but in the peerage of the United Kingdom, not, as had been done in the case of the Duke of Kent, in the peerage of Ireland.

It is a curious fact that King Edward visited Ireland, and, as we have seen, Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland, and made an excellent impression upon the “Celtic fringe” before he was brought before the public notice of his future English subjects.

He made his first official appearance in London on 30th October 1849. It had been arranged that Queen Victoria was to be present at the opening of the Coal Exchange, but she was not able to go as she was suffering from chicken-pox. Accordingly it was arranged that the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales should represent their Royal mother.

“Puss and the boy,” as the Queen called them, went with their father in State from Westminster to the city in the Royal barge rowed by twenty-six watermen. All London turned out to meet the gallant little Prince and his pretty sister. Lady Lyttelton, in a letter to Mrs. Gladstone, gives a charming account of the event, and tells how the Prince Consort was careful to put the future King forward. Some city dignitary addressed the young Prince as “the pledge and promise of a long race of Kings,” and, says Lady Lyttelton, “poor Princey did not seem to guess at all what he meant.” In honour of the Royal children a great many quaint old city customs were revived, including a swan barge, and both the King and the Empress Frederick seem to have retained a very delightful recollection of their first sight of the City.

It must have been about this time that Miss Alcott, the author of Little Women, paid a visit to London, and sent home to her family the following description of the Prince:—

“A yellow-haired laddie, very like his mother. Fanny, W., and I nodded and waved as he passed, and he openly winked his boyish eye at us, for Fanny with her yellow curls and wild waving looked rather rowdy, and the poor little Prince wanted some fun.”

Two years later the King was present at the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and in the following year Mr. Birch retired from his responsible post, greatly to the sorrow of his young pupil, who was a most affectionate and open-hearted little boy.

In June 1852 Viscountess Canning wrote from Windsor Castle:—

“Mr. Birch left yesterday. It has been a terrible sorrow to the Prince of Wales, who has done no end of touching things since he heard that he was to lose him three weeks ago. He is such an affectionate, dear little boy; his little notes and presents, which Mr. Birch used to find on his pillow, were really too moving.”

As was natural, there were many discussions as to who should become the Prince’s next tutor. On the recommendation of Sir James Stephen, Mr. Frederick W. Gibbs was appointed. He remained in his responsible position till 1858, and was rarely separated from his Royal pupil during those seven years.

But although so much attention was devoted to the education and mental training of the King, he spent a very happy and unclouded childhood; and, like all his brothers and sisters, he retained the happiest memories of the youthful days spent by him at Balmoral, Osborne, and Windsor.

The Baroness Bunsen in her Memoirs gives a charming account of a Masque devised by the Royal children in honour of the anniversary of the Queen and the Prince Consort’s marriage. King Edward, then twelve years old, represented Winter. He wore a cloak covered with imitation icicles, and recited some passages from Thomson’s Seasons. Princess Alice was Spring, scattering flowers; the Princess Royal, Summer; Prince Alfred, Autumn; while Princess Helena, in the rôle of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, who was, according to tradition, a native of Britain, called down Heaven’s benedictions on her much-loved parents.

Shortly before this pretty scene took place, King Edward had made his first appearance in the House of Lords, sitting beside his Royal mother upon the Throne. It was on this occasion that the addresses of the two Houses in answer to the Queen’s Message announcing the beginning of hostilities in the Crimean War were presented, and there is no doubt that the sad and terrible months that followed made a deep and lasting impression on the King’s mind. He took the most vivid interest in the fortune of the war, and in March 1855 went with his parents to the Military Hospital at Chatham, where a large number of the wounded had recently arrived from the East.

The popular concern was exhibited in many ingenious and touching ways. An exhibition was held at Burlington House in aid of the Patriotic Fund, and all the Royal children who were old enough sent drawings and paintings, the King’s exhibit obtaining the very considerable sum of 55 guineas.

The worst of the terrible struggle was over by the time King Edward and the Empress Frederick accompanied their parents to Paris in August of the same year. The visit was in many ways historically eventful. Queen Victoria was the first British Sovereign to enter Paris since the days of Henry VI., and the Royal Party received a truly splendid welcome. The young Prince and his sister, however, were not allowed to be idle, and, though they shared to a great extent in the entertainments organised in honour of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, their headquarters remained the whole time in the charming country palace of St. Cloud, and after sightseeing in Paris all day, they were always driven back there each evening. It is undoubtedly to the impression left by this visit that the King owes his strong affection and liking for France and the French people. When present at a splendid review, held in honour of Queen Victoria, he attracted quite as much attention as any of his elders, for he was dressed in full Highland costume, and remained in the carriage with his mother and the Empress, while the Emperor and Prince Consort were on horseback.

The British Royal party remained in France eight days. The last gala given in their honour was a splendid ball at Versailles, and on this occasion both the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal were allowed to be present, and sat down to supper with the Emperor and Empress. A dance had not been given at Versailles since the days of Louis XVI.

One of the most pleasing traits in Napoleon III.’s character was his great liking for children. As was natural, he paid considerable attention to his youthful guests, who both became much attached to him; and later, when he was living at Chislehurst a broken-hearted exile, King Edward never lost an opportunity of paying him respectful and kindly attentions. Indeed, the King enjoyed his first Continental holiday so heartily that he begged the Empress to get leave for his sister and himself to stay a little longer after his parents were gone home. When with some embarrassment she replied that Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort would not be able to do without their two children, he exclaimed, “Not do without us! don’t fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don’t want us”; but it need hardly be added that this naïve exclamation did not have the desired effect, and the young people duly returned home with their parents.

A few days later, the Prince Consort, writing to Baron Stockmar, observed: “You will be pleased to hear how well both the children behaved. They made themselves general favourites, especially the Prince of Wales, qui est si gentil.” And on the same topic Prince Albert wrote to the Duchess of Kent: “I am bound to praise the children greatly. They behaved extremely well and pleased everybody. The task was no easy one for them, but they discharged it without embarrassment and with natural simplicity.”

When the King was fourteen he started on an incognito walking tour in the West of England with Mr. Gibbs and Colonel Cavendish. His father wrote to Baron Stockmar: “Bertie’s tour has hitherto gone off well and seems to interest him greatly.” Then followed a short time spent in Germany, as to which Prince Albert wrote to Baron Stockmar on 26th July, 1857: “Bertie set out to-day at noon for Königswinter—he will take a week to get there. Of the young people only Lord Derby’s son will go with him in the first instance; Wood, Cadogan, and Gladstone will follow.”

This visit of the Prince of Wales to Königswinter was for purposes of study, and he had with him General Grey, Colonel (afterwards General) H. Ponsonby his domestic tutor, Mr. Gibbs his classical tutor, the Rev. Charles Tarver (afterwards Canon of Chester), and Dr. Armstrong. During the Prince’s stay at Königswinter Mr. W. Gladstone, Mr. Charles Wood (now Lord Halifax), the present Lord Cadogan, and the present Lord Derby, then Mr. Frederick Stanley, were with him as companions. It may be conveniently recorded here that in 1858, when Mr. F. W. Gibbs retired, Mr. Tarver was appointed the Prince’s Director of Studies and Chaplain, in which capacity he accompanied him to Rome, Spain, and Portugal, and then went with him to Edinburgh, remaining with the Prince till the autumn of 1859, when his education ceased to be conducted at home.

The King was confirmed in 1858, and the Prince Consort, writing to Baron Stockmar on 2nd April, gives an interesting account of the ceremony:—

“They were all three [Lords Palmerston, John Russell, and Derby] yesterday at the confirmation of the Prince of Wales, which went off with great solemnity, and, I hope, with an abiding impression on his mind. The previous day, his examination took place before the Archbishop and ourselves. Wellesley prolonged it to a full hour, and Bertie acquitted himself extremely well.”

The day following his confirmation the King received the sacrament with his father and mother, and here may be fittingly ended the story of His Majesty’s boyhood.

CHAPTER IV
OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE, AND THE CURRAGH

King Edward had now emerged from boyhood, and his loving parents set themselves to make the arrangements suitable for his growing years. What these arrangements were will be clear from the following passages in the Prince Consort’s letter to Baron Stockmar of 2nd April 1858:—

“Next week he [the Prince of Wales] is to make a run for fourteen days to the South of Ireland with Mr. Gibbs, Captain de Ros, and Dr. Minter, by way of recreation. When he returns to London he is to take up his residence at the White Lodge in Richmond Park, so as to be away from the world and devote himself exclusively to study and prepare for a military examination. As companions for him we have appointed three very distinguished young men of from twenty-three to twenty-six years of age, who are to occupy in monthly rotation a kind of equerry’s place about him, and from whose more intimate intercourse I anticipate no small benefit to Bertie. They are Lord Valletort, the eldest son of Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who has been much on the Continent, is a thoroughly good, moral, and accomplished man, draws well and plays, and never was at a public school, but passed his youth in attendance on his invalid father; Major Teesdale, of the Artillery, who distinguished himself greatly at Kars, where he was aide-de-camp and factotum of Sir Fenwick Williams; Major Lindsay, of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who received the Victoria Cross for Alma and Inkermann (as Teesdale did for Kars), where he carried the colours of the regiment, and by his courage drew upon himself the attention of the whole Army. He is studious in his habits, lives little with the other young officers, is fond of study, familiar with French, and especially so with Italian, spent a portion of his youth in Italy, won the first prize last week under the regimental adjutant for the new rifle drill, and resigned his excellent post as aide-de-camp of Sir James Simpson, that he might be able to work as lieutenant in the trenches.

“Besides these three, only Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Tarver will go with him to Richmond. As future governor, when Gibbs retires at the beginning of next year, I have as yet been able to think of no one as likely to suit, except Colonel Bruce, Lord Elgin’s brother, and his military secretary in Canada, who now commands one of the battalions of Grenadier Guards, and lives much with his mother in Paris. He has all the amiability of his sister, with great mildness of expression, and is full of ability.”

Of these early companions of the King, Lord Valletort succeeded to the Earldom of Mount Edgcumbe in 1861, Major Teesdale was afterwards well known as Sir Christopher Teesdale, while Major Lindsay was appointed extra equerry to the Prince of Wales in 1874, and was created Lord Wantage of Lockinge in 1885.

While the Prince of Wales was at White Lodge, where the suite of rooms which he occupied still bears his name, he saw much of his relations at Cambridge Cottage; he often rowed up from Richmond or Mortlake, and mooring his boat alongside the landing-stage at Brentford Ferry, would get out and take a stroll in the gardens with his aunt and cousin. The first dinner-party the Prince attended was at the Cottage on Kew Green.

By Queen Victoria’s special desire, Charles Kingsley about this time delivered a series of lectures on history to her eldest son, and the Prince remained fondly attached to the famous author of Westward Ho, who, till his death, was an honoured guest at Sandringham and at Marlborough House.

On 9th November of the same year the King attained his eighteenth year, and became legally heir to the Crown. Queen Victoria wrote him a letter announcing his emancipation from parental control, and he was so deeply touched by its perusal that he brought it to General Wellesley with tears in his eyes, and we have the impartial testimony of Charles Greville as to the character of the epistle, which was, says the famous diarist, “one of the most admirable letters that ever was penned.” On the same day he became a Colonel in the Army (unattached), and received the Garter, while Colonel Bruce became his governor.

Exactly a month after his birthday, the King started on a Continental tour, travelling more or less incognito as Lord Renfrew. He was accompanied by Mr. Tarver, who had just been appointed his chaplain and director of studies. The King stayed some time in Rome and visited the Pope, but on 29th April 1859 the Prince Consort wrote to Baron Stockmar: “We have sent orders to the Prince of Wales to leave Rome and to repair to Gibraltar.” For it was very properly considered, that owing to the Franco-Italian and Austrian imbroglio, it was far better that the heir to the British throne should be well out of the way of international dissensions.

The King reached Gibraltar on 7th May, and visited the south of Spain and Lisbon, returning home in the middle of the next month; and then, after having seen something of the world, he again took up a very serious course of study, this time at Edinburgh. Meanwhile the education and training of the Heir-Apparent was being watched very carefully by the British public, and a good many people began to consider that their future King was being over-educated; indeed Punch, in some lines entitled “A Prince at High Pressure,” undoubtedly summed up the popular feeling, not only describing the past, but prophesying, with a great deal of shrewd insight, the future course of the Prince of Wales’s studies:—

But the Prince seems to have borne his course of study very well, and after his son had been in Edinburgh some three months the Prince Consort wrote to Baron Stockmar:—

“In Edinburgh I had an Educational Conference with all the persons who were taking part in the education of the Prince of Wales. They all speak highly of him, and he seems to have shown zeal and goodwill. Dr. Lyon Playfair is giving him lectures on chemistry in relation to manufactures, and at the close of each special course he visits the appropriate manufactory with him, so as to explain its practical application. Dr. Schmitz (the Director of the High School of Edinburgh, a German) gives him lectures on Roman history. Italian, German, and French are advanced at the same time; and three times a week the Prince exercises with the 16th Hussars, who are stationed in the city. Mr. Fisher, who is to be the tutor for Oxford, was also in Holyrood. Law and history are to be the subjects on which he is to prepare the Prince.”