Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/607

 on 1 July. The three associates were acquitted, and Sipido was held irresponsible for his conduct. Ordered to be kept under government supervision till he reached the age of twenty-one, he soon escaped to France, whence he was only extradited by the Belgian government after a protest by British ministers. There was much cause for friction at the time between England and Belgium. Not only had the Boer war alienated the Belgian populace like the other peoples of Europe, but the old cordiality between the royal houses had declined. The close h intimacy which had bound Leopold II, Queen Victoria to her uncle the Bei!iaas he lato ki g' Leopold I, had been echoed in the relations between his successor King Leopold II and the prince. But the queen's sense of propriety was offended by reports of her royal cousin's private life, and the charges of cynical cruelty to which his policy in the Congo gave rise in England stimulated the im- patience of the English royal family. After the outrage at Brussels, the prince and King Leopold II maintained only the formalities of social intercourse. The hostile sentiment which prevailed in Europe deterred the prince from attending the Paris International Exhibition of 1900. . This was the only French venture of the kind in the long series of the century which he failed to grace with his presence. As in the case of 1878 he was president of the royal commission for the British section, and he was active in the preliminary organisation. During 1899 he watched in Paris the beginnings of the exhibition buildings. But the temper of France denied him the opportunity of seeing them in their final shape. IX Early in 1901 the prince's destiny was at length realised. For some months Queen Victoria's strength had been slowly failing. In the middle of January 1901 physical prostration rapidly grew, and on 20 Jan. her state was critical. The Prince of Wales arrived at Osborne on that day, and was with his mother as life ebbed away. Her last articulate words were an affectionate mention of his name. Whatever had occasioned passing friction between them, her maternal love never knew any diminution. The presence of his nephew, the German emperor, at the death -bed was grateful to the prince and to all members of his family. Queen Victoria died at Osborne at half-past six on the evening of Tuesday, 22 Jan. 1901. Qnen Victoria's

Next morning the new king travelled to London, and at a meeting of the privy council at St. James's Palace took the oaths of sovereignty under the style of Edward VII. ' I am fully determined,' he said, * to be a constitutional sovereign in the strictest sense of the word, and as long as there is breath in my body to work for the good and amelioration of my people.' He explained that he had resolved to be known by the name of Edward, which had been borne by six of his ancestors, not that he undervalued the name of Albert, but that he desired his father's name to stand alone.

King Edward's first speech as sovereign, deliberately and impressively spoken, was made without any notes and without con- sultation with any minister. According The new to n * s h aD i* h e had thought it king and over during his journey, and when he had delivered it he embarrassed the officials by his inability to supply them with a written copy. He had expected a report to be taken, he explained. The published words were put together from memory by some of the councillors and their draft was endorsed by the king. The episode, while it sug- gested a certain unfamiliarity on his part with the formal procedure of the council, showed an independent sense of his new responsibilities. A few days later (29 Jan. 1901) the king issued appropriate addresses to the army and the navy, to his people of the United Kingdom, to the colonies, and to India.

In the ceremonies of Queen Victoria's funeral (2-4 Feb.) the king acted as chief mourner, riding through London behind the bier from Victoria station to Paddington, and walking through the streets of Windsor to St. George's Chapel, where the coffin was first laid. On Monday he again walked in procession from the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor to the burial place at the Royal Mausoleum at Froginore. His nephew, the German emperor, was at his side throughout the funeral ceremonies. The emperor's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, and his son the crown prince were also in the mourning company. Almost the first act of the king's reign was to give public proof of his good relations with his royal kinsmen of Germany. It had been Queen Victoria's intention to invest the crown prince her great-grandson with the order of the Garter. This intention the king now carried out; at the same time he made the Queen Victoria's funeral.