Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/625

 the morning saw his friend, Sir Ernest Cassel. As the day advanced, signs of coma developed. In the evening his Ma h 'i9lo state was seen * be hopeless. About ten o'clock at night he was put to bed. He died just before midnight.

The shock of grief was great at home and abroad. The public sorrow exceeded that mighty outburst which his mother's death awoke in 1901. Yet the king may fairly be judged to be ' felix opportunitate mortis.' To the last he was able to conduct his life much as he pleased. In the course of the illness he had faced without repining the j thought of death. He was spared any I long seclusion from society or that enforced | inactivity of slowly dwindling strength of which he cherished a dread. His popularity had steadily grown through his reign of nine years and three and a half months. There had been no conflicts with public i?utatfon P inion - Practically all his ac- tions, as far as they were known, had evoked the enthusiasm of the mass of his subjects. There was a bare possibility of his injuring, there was no possibility of his improving, his position, in which he had successfully reconciled pursuit of private pleasure with the due performance of public duty.

On 7 May the king's only surviving son met the privy council at St. James's Palace, and was proclaimed as King George V on 9 May. On 11 May the new monarch formally announced his bereavement in messages to both houses of parliament, which had been in recess and were hastily summoned to meet. Addresses of condolence were impressively moved by the leaders of the two great parties in both houses of parliament in the House of Lords by the earl of Crewe and Lord Lansdowne, and by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour in the House of Commons. Mr. Enoch Edwards, on behalf of the labouring population, also gave voice in the lower house to the general sentiment of admiration and grief.

Fitting funeral ceremonies followed. For two days (14-15 May) the coffin lay in state in the throne room at Buckingham Palace, and there it was visited privately by relatives, friends, and acquaintances. On 16 May the coffin was removed in cere- monial procession to Westminster Hall, and there it lay publicly in state for four days. Some 350,000 persons attended. The interment took place on 20 May. The procession passed from Westminster Hall to Paddington station, and thence by train to Windsor. After the funeral service in St. George's Chapel, the coffin was lowered to the vault below. Besides the members of the king's family the chief mourners included the German m peror (the king's nephew), the king of Norway (his son-in-law), and the kings of Denmark and Greece (his brothers-in-law). Four other kings were present, those of Spain, Bulgaria, Por- tugal, and Belgium, together with the heirs to the thrones of Austria, Turkey, Rou- mania, Servia, and Montenegro. There were also kinsmen of other rulers, the prince consort of the Netherlands, Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and the duke of Aosta. The American republic had a special envoy in Mr. Roosevelt, lately president, and the French republic in M. Pichon, minister for foreign affairs. No more representative assembly of the sovereignty of Europe had yet gathered in one place. The exclusively military character of the ceremonial excited some adverse comment, but all classes took part in memorial services and demonstra- tions of mourning, not only in London and the provinces but throughout the empire and the world. In India, Hindus and Mohammedans formally celebrated funeral rites. XV Edward VII eminently satisfied con- temporary conditions of kingship. He in- herited the immense popularity which b 10 ^ 6 ? to the crown at the close of his mother's reign, and his personality greatly strengthened the hold of royalty on public affection. The cosmopolitan temperament, the charm of manner, the social tact, fitted him admirably for the representative or symbolic function of his great station. A perfect command of the three languages, English, French, and German, in all of which he could speak in public on the inspiration of the moment with no less grace than facility, gave Him the ear of Europe. Probably no king won so effectually the good-will at once of foreign peoples and of his own subjects. He was a citizen of the world, gifted with abounding humanity which evoked a universal sym- pathy and regard.

The outward forms of rule were congenial to him. He deemed public cere The king mony essential to the royal and royal state, and attached high value **** to formal dignity. Spacious splendour appealed to nun. By all the minutiae of etiquette he set great store, and he exerted his authority in securing