Page:King Edward VII. as a sportsman by Watson, Alfred Edward Thomas.djvu/47

 of giving for golf competitions, both at Marienbad and Biarritz, during his annual visits to those places, as may be readily imagined, stimulated and increased the golfing population of them both to an unheard of extent—all the more so as the fortunate prize-winners were sure of receiving the rewards of their skill from his own hand. However, there is no rose without its thorn, and what the unhappy gentleman went through whose sad fate it was to handicap the numerous ladies who competed for the King's prizes is better left to the imagination. Even the winners usually contended that they had been unfairly treated, and as for the numerous losers—but it is perhaps more discreet not to allude in any way to their very freely-expressed dissatisfaction.

Another aspect of sport which specially appealed to the King was its social and sociable side. As Lord Rosebery said of him, he was "eminently human"; and sport gave him the opportunity of moving freely among his fellow-men in a way which, apart from the excuse that sport afforded, would have been difficult for a reigning monarch.

Ascot Races, for instance, furnished an occasion for entertaining magnificently at Windsor a number of distinguished foreigners as well as the representatives of many of the great families of England. Pheasant-shooting and partridge-driving at Sandringham meant, again, large shooting-parties, in which, perhaps, the clement of old personal friends was predominant;