CHAPTER II 



GEORGE WYNDHAM'S IRISH LAND BILL, 1902 



King Edward VI Fs reign began with a fair promise for the 

 world, or at least for the British Empire, of peace; and there was 

 good reason to hope that a more reasonable foreign policy would be 

 pursued than that which had so violently disturbed the last years of 

 Queen Victoria's reign. King Edward was by nature and habit a 

 peacemaker, and one of his chief occupations as Prince of Wales had 

 been to use his social influence in composing his friends' quarrels. 

 It was disagreeable to him that persons of his Court with whom he 

 came in contact, and in whom he felt an interest, should be on ill 

 terms with each other, and he had long felt a pride in bringing them 

 together. His own life had not been altogether free from domestic 

 storms, but these had not been due to faults of temper on his part, 

 rather of conduct, for he was a lover of pleasure and allowed him- 

 self wide latitude in its indulgence. This had involved him in more 

 than one scandal out of which he had always managed to emerge 

 without serious injury to his reputation. These irregularities had in- 

 deed rather added to his popularity for they showed him to have a 

 kindly heart and he had always proved faithful to his friends. His 

 experience, too, had made him a good judge of character both with 

 men and women, and gave him a certain facility in his intercourse 

 with both which was not without it diplomatic uses. Thus when for 

 the first time he found himself in a position to influence the conduct 

 of foreign affairs (for Queen Victoria had been always jealous of his 

 being entrusted with state secrets) his natural instinct was to use it 

 in the interests of peace, especially with France, where the chief fric- 

 tion was found, and from the first days of his accession he busied 

 himself in bringing about a settlement of the international differences. 



As Prince of Wales he had been in the habit of spending a certain 

 number of weeks every year on the continent, and especially in Paris, 

 where he had become personally popular, through his somewhat Bo- 

 hemian tastes and love of the French stage. In Germany he was 

 almost equally at home, though not on the best of terms with his 

 nephew the Emperor William, and he was on pleasant terms, too, with 

 the Russian Court, and indeed all the Courts, having a family con- 

 nection with most of them. I knew much of his private life, more 



32 



