-- - T . . 



PART II. LOCAL 



SECTION I. THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

 Tirfj/n !<;J .hooljfii v fin ./. F 



^uObn^aW ENGLISH POLITICAL HISTORY 1 



7. rfo Ooww. 



King Edward. VII died on May 6, 1910, and was succeeded on the throne by his 

 only surviving son as George V, whose consort Queen Mary, by the Regency Act 1910, 

 was at once nominated to be regent in the event of a demise of the Crown 

 * De f re the next in succession arrived at the age of eighteen. As their 

 eldest son, Prince Edward, was born on June 23, 1894, a Regency Act 

 was a temporary constitutional necessity; but he was created Prince of Wales on his 

 sixteenth birthday, and, before attaining his majority in 1912, he had completed his 

 naval education at Osborne and Dartmouth (gazetted midshipman June 22, 1911, and 

 appointed to '.the u Hindustan " for a three months' cruise ending October 26th). The 

 young Prince then returned to private studies, paying a visit in the summer of 1912 to 

 Paris, with his tutor, Mr. Hansell, as guest of the Marquis de Breteuil, and in the 

 October term he went into residence at Oxford, as a commoner of Magdalen. The 

 new Civil List for the Crown, as approved by Parliament in 1910, was fixed at 470,000 

 a year, but Parliament was not asked to provide for the Prince of Wales, his income from 

 the Duchy of Cornwall (87,000) being sufficient. 



An important change, which had been mooted but not proceeded with when King 

 Edward came to the throne, was made at King George's accession, in the alteration of 

 Change the Sovereign's declaration respecting his religion, the terms of which, 



in the as provided in 1689 by the Bill of Rights, had long been resented by Roman 



Accession Catholics. After other unsatisfactory suggestions had been made, the 

 Accession Declaration Act of 1910 finally substituted a short and simple 

 formula for the more detailed " no-Popery " manifesto which, it was generally agreed, 

 was no longer needed. The following were the new terms provided: 



"I (name of Sovereign) do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify 

 and declare that lam a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of 

 the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold 

 and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to Law." 



At his first opening of Parliament, according to the practice, King George made 

 this declaration, and the whole question was removed from further controversy. 



At the death of so active, popular, and influential a sovereign as Edward VII, in 

 the midst of grave parliamentary difficulties and a condition of social-economic unrest 

 The Throne which was soon to be fertile in industrial conflict, the country was fortunate 

 and the at any rate in this, that the Throne had already established itself in the 

 Country. hearts of the people, as a central and unifying force, distinct from all 

 party considerations. The Royal Family, without exception, were known to be active 

 in all that their position enabled them to do for the furtherance of the public welfare; 

 all classes of the community recognised the value of this factor in English social life, 

 and took a proud and affectionate interest in the manifest determination both of the 

 Throne and of individual members of the Royal Family to do their duty and to justify 

 the public trust. The first two years of the new reign made in this respect an auspicious 

 start, and it was soon realised that the consolidation of the Monarchy, begun under Queen 

 Victoria and so remarkably continued under Edward VII, was being effectually carried 

 on, with high ideals and in an earnest spirit, under the Sailor- King, whose 'exhortation 

 " Wake up, England," in his speech at the Guildhall when returning from his Colonial 

 tour as Prince of Wales in 1901, had already made history as a general signal to the 

 nation. At King Edward's death there were some who thought that, under his succes- 



1 For the course of events immediately preceding this narrative see Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica, Arts. ENGLISH HISTORY (vol. ix, pp. 532, 533), EDWARD VII (vol. viii), GEORGE 

 V (vol. xi), ASQUITH, H. H. (vol. ii), LLOYD GEORGE, D. (vol. xvi), BALFOUR, A. J. (vol. 

 iii), CHAMBERLAIN, J. (vol. v), PARLIAMENT (vol. xx), and BRITISH EMPIRE (vol. iv). 



tfiJucr 475 



