Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/566

 EDWARD VII (1841–1910),, was eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. Their first-born child, Victoria, Princess Royal [q. v. Suppl. II], was born on 21 Nov. 1840.

I The prince was born at Buckingham Palace at 10.48 a.m. on Tuesday 9 Nov. 1841, and the birth was duly recorded in the parish register of St. George's, Hanover Square. The conservative prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, who had just come into office, with the duke of Wellington, the archbishop of Canterbury (William Howley), and other high officers of state, attended the palace to attest the birth. No heir had been born to the reigning sovereign since the birth of George IV in 1762, and the event was the signal for immense national rejoicings. The annual feast of the lord mayor of London took place the same evening, and the infant's health was drunk with abundant enthusiasm. A special thanksgiving service was arranged for the churches by the archbishop of Canterbury, and the birth was set as the theme of the English poem at Cambridge University for the next year, when the successful competitor was Sir Henry Maine. The child was named Albert Edward Albert after his father, and Edward after his mother's father, the duke of Kent. In the family circle he was always called 'Bertie,' and until his accession his signature was invariably 'Albert Edward.' He inherited according to precedent the titles of Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland, but by his parents' wish he was gazetted in addition as Duke of Saxony, his father's German title. The innovation was adversely criticised by Lord Palmerston and his friends, who disliked the German leanings of the court. On 4 Dec. 1841 he was further created, in accordance with precedent, by patent under the great seal, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

From the outset it was his mother's earnest hope that in career and character her son should be a copy of his father. On 29 Nov. 1841 she wrote to her uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, 'Our little boy is a wonderfully strong and large child. I hope and pray he may be like his dearest papa' (Letters, i. 456). A week later she repeated her aspirations to her kinsman : 'You will understand how fervent are my prayers, and I am sure everybody's must be, to see him resemble his father in every, every respect both in body and mind' (, Life of Prince Consort). From the boy's infancy to his manhood Queen Victoria clung tenaciously to this wifely wish.

The prince was baptised by the arch-bishop of Canterbury on 25 Jan. 1842 at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The boy's grand-uncle, the duke 25 Jan. 1842. of Cambridge, seventh son of George III, and his great-aunt, Princess Sophia, daughter of George III, were the English sponsors. The princess's place was filled through her illness by the duke of Cambridge's daughter Augusta, afterwards grand duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The other sponsors were members of German reigning families. At their head came Frederick William IV, king of Prussia, who was present in person with Baron Alexander von Humboldt, the naturalist, in attendance upon him. The king much appreciated the office of god-father. He was chosen instead of the queen's beloved counsellor and maternal uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, for fear of giving offence to her difficult-tempered uncle, King Ernest of Hanover, but the plan hardly produced the desired effect of conciliation. The other German sponsors were absent. They were Prince Albert's stepmother, the duchess of Saxe-Coburg, who was represented by Queen Victoria's mother, the duchess of Kent; Prince Albert's widowed kinswoman, the duchess of Saxe-Gotha, who was represented by the duchess of Cambridge ; and Prince Albert's uncle, Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was represented by Princess Augusta of Cambridge. The Queen specially asked the duke of Wellington to bear at the ceremony the sword of state.

Gifts and orders, which were always congenial to the prince, were showered on his cradle by foreign royalty. The king of Prussia, whose baptismal offering was an elaborate gold shield adorned with figures cut in onyx, conferred on him the Order of the Black Eagle. The Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, Emperor Francis Joseph's uncle, made the infant 'quite proud' with his present of the Grand Cross of St. Andrew on 18 June 1844. Louis Philippe sent him a little gun on his third birthday.

The lines which the education of the heir-apparent should follow became his parents' 