Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad.
Edward VII on his deathbed, 6 May 1910, on being told his horse Witch of the Air had won at Kempton Park
Edward VII
parents: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
date and place of birth: 9 November 1841 at Buckingham Palace
wife: Alexandra of Denmark
date of marriage: 10 March 1863 at St George's Chapel, Windsor
children: Albert Victor, George (later George V), Louise, Victoria, Maud, Alexander John
years of reign: 1901-1910
date of coronation: 9 August 1902 at Westminster Abbey
date and place of death: 6 May 1910 at Buckingham Palace
place of burial: St George's Chapel, Windsor
Albert Edward, known in the family as Bertie, was the second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. His parents had a plan for him. Albert and his adviser, Baron Stockmar, designed an education to turn the boy into a model constitutional monarch, with lessons from dawn to dusk, few holidays and little contact with other children. It did not suit him. Bertie was sociable, affectionate and quick to pick up languages and people, but he could not concentrate on books, and his tutors reported tantrums and despair. His parents compared him unfavourably with his clever elder sister, Vicky, and never stopped telling him so.
The Curragh and Albert's Death
In 1861, during a summer of army training at the Curragh camp in Ireland, some fellow officers smuggled an actress named Nellie Clifden into the prince's quarters. The affair became gossip in London clubs, and in November it reached Prince Albert. Albert, already unwell, wrote his son a letter of anguish and travelled to Cambridge, where Bertie was studying, to talk to him. They walked for hours in the rain. Albert returned to Windsor exhausted and died on 14 December 1861, probably of typhoid. Victoria blamed her son. She wrote that she could never look at him without a shudder.
Marriage and the Marlborough House Set
His parents had already chosen him a wife, and in March 1863 he married Princess Alexandra of Denmark, a beautiful and warm-hearted eighteen-year-old. The wedding took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with Victoria, still in deep mourning, watching from a gallery. They had six children, of whom the youngest died the day after his birth. Alexandra suffered from inherited deafness that grew worse with age, and she spent much of her time with her children and her dogs.
The prince set up a rival social world at Marlborough House, his London home, and at Sandringham in Norfolk, which he bought in 1862. He kept the clocks at Sandringham half an hour fast to make the most of the shooting light. The Marlborough House set included aristocrats, bankers, Jewish financiers and American heiresses, which shocked older society, and the prince lived for pleasure: shooting, racing, gambling, yachting, theatre, Paris, huge meals and a series of mistresses, among them the actress Lillie Langtry, Daisy, Countess of Warwick, and later Alice Keppel. Alexandra put up with them.
Victoria, in her long seclusion after Albert's death, refused to give her heir any real work. She would not let him see cabinet papers until the 1890s. So he filled his time as he could, and the scandals followed. In 1870 he was called as a witness in the Mordaunt divorce case, where he denied under oath any improper relationship with Lady Mordaunt; no heir to the throne had stood in a witness box in living memory. In 1891 he appeared in court again, over an accusation of cheating at baccarat at a house party at Tranby Croft in Yorkshire, which revealed that the heir to the throne played an illegal card game for money.
Recovery and Popularity
The monarchy was at a low ebb in 1871, with Victoria invisible and republican clubs springing up in British cities. That November the prince fell dangerously ill with typhoid, the disease that had killed his father, at almost the same time of year. The country followed the bulletins for weeks. He recovered, and a thanksgiving service at St Paul's in February 1872 drew huge crowds and did much to restore the monarchy's popularity. Over the following decades the prince became a familiar public figure, opening hospitals and exhibitions, sitting on a royal commission on the housing of the working classes, and in 1875-76 making a long tour of India.
King at Last
Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901. Her son was fifty-nine, and he had been heir apparent for longer than anyone before him. He chose to reign as Edward VII rather than Albert I, saying that his father's name should stand alone. The coronation was set for 26 June 1902, but two days before it the king went down with appendicitis. The surgeon Frederick Treves operated on him in Buckingham Palace, a dangerous procedure at the time, and the coronation was put off until 9 August.
Edward brought colour back to the monarchy. He revived the State Opening of Parliament in person, which his mother had rarely attended, modernised the royal palaces with electric light and new bathrooms, and put on the ceremonies Victoria had neglected. In 1902 he founded the Order of Merit, for distinction in the arts, science and the military. He raced his own horses with success, winning the Derby three times, the last in 1909 with Minoru, the only time a reigning monarch has done so. The years of his reign, with their garden parties, motor cars and country-house weekends, gave their name to the Edwardian age, though it was also a time of widespread poverty, strikes, and suffragette campaigns.
The Peacemaker
Edward was related to most of the royal houses of Europe. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was his nephew; Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was his wife's nephew and married his niece. Edward could not make foreign policy, but he was a skilful diplomat in person. In May 1903 he made a state visit to Paris. The crowds were hostile at first, soured by the Boer War and years of rivalry in Africa, but he charmed them with speeches in fluent French about his love for the city. The visit prepared the way for the Entente Cordiale of April 1904, which settled Anglo-French disputes over Egypt and Morocco. In 1907 an agreement with Russia followed. Edward's nephew the Kaiser believed he was deliberately building a ring around Germany. The French called him "the Peacemaker."
The People's Budget and Death
The last year of his reign brought a constitutional crisis. In 1909 the Liberal Chancellor, David Lloyd George, introduced his "People's Budget," which raised taxes on land and high incomes to pay for old-age pensions and warships. The House of Lords, with its large Conservative majority, rejected it, breaking the convention that the Lords did not reject money bills. The Liberals won the election of January 1910 and moved to curb the Lords' power, and the king faced the prospect of being asked to create hundreds of Liberal peers to force it through.
Edward did not live to face the decision. He was a heavy smoker, of cigars and cigarettes, and suffered from bronchitis. In early May 1910 he returned from Biarritz with a chest infection and suffered a series of heart attacks. Told that his horse had won at Kempton that afternoon, he said he was glad. He died late that night. Queen Alexandra allowed Alice Keppel to see him before he died. At his funeral on 20 May, nine kings rode behind his coffin, and so did his fox terrier, Caesar. His son succeeded him as George V.
Link/cite this page
If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content.
Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. "King Edward VII" https://englishhistory.net/20th-century/king-edward-vii/, September 30, 2026