Edward VII

Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.

The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Edward, nicknamed "Bertie", was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During his mother's long reign, he was largely excluded from political influence and came to personify the leisured elite.

The Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society. Edward was succeeded as king by his only surviving son, George V.

Quotes

• I thought everyone must know that a short jacket is always worn with a silk hat at a private view in the morning.
  • To his secretary, Frederick Ponsonby, after Ponsonby suggested going with Edward in a tailcoat. Reported in Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh (London: John Murray, 1964), ch. 19, p. 365 · Christopher Hibbert, The Royal Victorians: King Edward VII, His Family and Friends (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1976), p. 195

• William the Great needs to learn that he is living at the end of the nineteenth century and not in the Middle Ages.
  • About his nephew, Wilhelm II of Germany. Reported in Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh (1964), ch. 11, p. 209

• We hear a great deal about the Eternal Father; but I am the only man afflicted with an Eternal Mother.
  • Joke attributed to Edward when Prince of Wales. Reported in J. Saxon Mills, Sir Edward Cook, K.B.E.: A Biography (London: Constable & Co., 1921), ch. 16, p. 271

• Gentlemen, you may smoke.
  • Attributed to Edward (whose mother, Queen Victoria, had banned the smoking of cigars in court) on the day he assumed the throne: announced to those attending him. Reported in Z. Davidoff, Le Livre du Connoisseur de Cigare (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1967)—translated by Lawrence Grow as The Connoisseur's Book of the Cigar (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p. 60d

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Edward VII on Wikipedia