1910] King Edivard's Death Described 305 



cal crisis indefinitely postponed by the King's death, and that Asquith 

 will be able to potter on now till the end of the year. They tell me 

 the new Court is going to be a very moral one, but they hope it will 

 be saved from dullness by becoming intellectual, but we fear it is 

 not likely to attract many geniuses. 



" 13th May. — Everybody has gone into black for the King's death, 

 and some enthusiasts talk of going on mourning for a year. It is 

 all very absurd, considering what the poor King was, but the papers 

 are crammed with his praises as if he had been a saint of God. All 

 the week since his death has been one of storms and tempests attri- 

 buted to a comet so diminutive that nobody has seen it yet, and last 

 night one of the great beech trees was thrown down in the park. 

 I saw it lying uprooted on my way to the station this morning, symbol 

 of the dead King, quite rotten at the root, but one half of it clothed 

 with its spring green. 



" Arrived in Chapel Street, I went at once to see Lady C, who 

 had written me asking me to come, as she had things to tell me she 

 could not put on paper. She gave me a graphic account of the King's 

 death as she had heard it from the King's doctors, Laking, Reid, 

 and Dawson. ' The King,' she said, ' has had a swelling in the 

 throat for three or four years past, with latterly a chronic catarrh, 

 but it was not cancer. He had a very bad attack at Paris on his 

 way to Biarritz in the winter, where Reid was with him, treating it 

 with injections recommended by Laking. It was a more or less ex- 

 perimental treatment, and, she says, did him more harm than good. 

 Nevertheless he was very well in his general health when he arrived in 

 London, but the doctors could not keep him quiet. He would not stay 

 at home at night or go to bed early ; he must have people with him and 

 go about to theatres and sit up playing cards till two or three in the 

 morning. 



" The King had been much worried about the Veto by Asquith and 

 his Ministers. He was written to about it three times while he was 

 at Biarritz, but had evaded it, saying each time that he would attend 

 to it when he returned to England ; but on his return they worried 

 him, and he had lost his temper with Asquith, when Asquith pressed 

 him, saying he should resign. Asquith had told him the King ought 

 to send for Lloyd George in his place. This roused the King, who, 

 as a rule, had good command over himself, for they all hate Lloyd 

 George, and the King was quite upset by it. The King rather liked 

 Churchill because he is a gentleman, but Lloyd George he could not 

 stand. Queen Alexandra is furious with Asquith, and said he killed 

 the King. She is going to have Marlborough House probably for her 

 life, but she will not live there, as she is going back to Denmark, where 

 she will keep house with her sister, the Russian Empress. The morn- 



