Matthew Glencross

Epilogue: The Rise of ‘The Queen’

This draws together the threads explored in the previous chapters, and examines the conclusions which can be drawn from these, as understood in the context of the Queen’s long reign as part of a consideration of the survival chances of the Windsor dynasty. The consciousness of the royal family, particularly the Queen herself, of being strongly associated with a Windsor approach to the monarchy as an institution is assessed, because of her very visibility. The implications of these factors for the future of the dynasty, and the institution, are also suggested. Issues such as the potential power still possessed by the monarchy via the royal prerogative are highlighted as matters for further investigation, but in the light of future events as these develop, including the potential issues which will necessarily arise surrounding any future Windsor accessions.

George V and the New Royal House

The extended opening chapter which comprises the first part of this collection explores how, although 1917 marked the formal name change of the house, George V had already begun to change the royal house from 1910, both in practical terms and in spirit. Its argument is that George V’s approach to kingship marked a clear break with that of his predecessors by eschewing the grandeur of his father and grandmother in favour of a more human monarchy anchored by his humility when dealing with subjects. Its claim is that a new unofficial motto came into being under George V that has echoed down the line of the Windsor dynasty to this day: the pre-eminence of duty to country. A core Windsor belief stemming from that, it is argued, has been that kingship or queenship is not a privilege or a right but an important role that a sovereign has to play for the good of the nation, even at the sacrifice of personal happiness. It also insists that in more practical terms George V created several royal traditions that are still practised today.

The Diplomatic Margins: State Visits to Scandinavia

The inclusion of a whole chapter on Edward’s Scandinavian tours in this volume may be surprising to readers accustomed to thinking of British diplomatic efforts in relation to the Great Powers as being more important than consideration of state visits to nations which were, in terms of their global status, minor powers.1 Why have these not been included as a footnote or preliminary to another chapter dealing with one of the major flashpoints for British diplomacy in this period, rather like the private visit by Edward to Kiel Week in 1904? While Spain was also a peripheral power in many ways, it was important to British diplomacy because of the coincidence of imperial interests and, above all, because of Gibraltar. As the last chapter also highlighted, it was important because it was a state visit organised not by the King, but by the British government. The state visits to Scandinavia were not linked to any major piece of pre-war British diplomatic policy such as the Entente Cordiale or the Anglo-French agreement with Spain, so they have not drawn the attention of diplomatic historians. There was also no scandal or courtly intrigue linked to the Scandinavian enterprises, and so the interlude has not been of interest to Edward VII’s biographers — at most, they simply acknowledge he went there.

Epilogue: After Edward

On 6 May 1910, Edward VII died at Buckingham Palace. Although he had been in poor health for the majority of his reign, he had rapidly declined since his trip to Berlin, despite being determined to work until the end. As the last chapter has shown, he did his best to manage — at least through his heir — the elaborate expectations of the return state visit by Nicholas II to Britain. By the time of his death, Edward had earned himself the reputation of being a peacemaker and one of Europe’s premier travelling sovereigns — all of which attests to the fact that contemporaries identified him, as a sovereign, as a leading royal diplomat.

The Modern Revival of Royal Diplomacy

It is important to note that state visits overseas were not a modern phenomenon: diplomacy evolved out of visits between royals or their representatives. The modern concept of the summit meeting was, in the historical past, encapsulated in the royal visits exchanged between sovereigns. As the concept of the state emerged, royal visits became merged into something that was more than a personal power-play, and the terminology of the state visit began to emerge. From the start, such royal exchanges were integral to a ruler’s role in safeguarding the lands over which they claimed suzerainty, through the making and sustaining of alliances of offence and defence. Consequently, at times of turmoil such as the Middle Ages, there are many examples of rulers undertaking personal journeys in order to conduct diplomacy face-to-face, as when Richard I of England visited the French King to secure his goodwill so that Richard could securely leave Europe for his Crusade to the Holy Land.1 Public display of royal might and power was not automatically a core element in these visits, though undoubtedly ritual and ceremonial within the royal courts, by both hosts and visitors, would have been an important aspect of the power negotiations. It was during the early modern period, the supposed golden age of European kingship that succeeded the age of Christendom, that a more public dimension to royal displays became significant.

Dealing with the Great Bear: Edward VII’s Visit to Russia

In the aftermath of the development of the Entente Cordiale, and other international developments, the British government was modifying its foreign policy in the direction of a new entente with the Tsarist state. For most of the nineteenth century, Russia had been seen as the greatest threat to Britain’s imperial interests. In the post-‘splendid isolation’ diplomatic world with which this volume is concerned, Britain had been reconsidering its imperial over-stretch, and as a result, during 1907, Britain and Russia came to a series of diplomatic agreements. This took the shape of a substantial number of individual treaties dealing with a range of aspects of Anglo-Russian imperial tensions in regions stretching from Afghanistan to Persia. Effectively, it was the ending of the Great Game. The resulting Anglo-Russian Entente, similar to that Britain had with France and Spain, was more to do with a lessening of tension than with formal treaties, however. In this particular process, there seemed to be neither a role nor a need for royal diplomacy. The Anglo-Russian Entente was achieved without a state visit. However, in its aftermath, a state visit was made in 1908 by Edward VII to Russia, followed by a 1909 return formal visit by the Tsar to Britain. These visits are significant, especially the former, because of the further insight given into the pomp and ceremonial aspects of royal diplomacy.

‘The Most Powerful and Influential Diplomat of His Day’: Edward VII’s Final State Visits

In 1909 Edward made his final foreign visit, which also happened to be his first full state visit to Germany, and received his last from a senior European royal, in the person of the Tsar. The visit to Germany took place in February, between his own 1908 visit to Russia and the Tsar’s return state visit to Britain in August 1909, which will also be discussed in this chapter. The background to both is the failing health of the King and, in spite of this, his continuing commitment to royal diplomacy. This requires a reassessment of the state visit to Germany, often wrongly described as a ‘failure’ because in later assessments of it the emphasis has been placed on his poor health, rather than on what he achieved during that visit.1

A Virtual Royal Occasion: Edward VII’s 1907 Visit to Spain

Immediately after the royal visits to Italy and France, Edward VII made a number of other overseas royal visits, but these were either unofficial family visits — especially those to Denmark — or visits to Germany, where they assumed the same quasi-state nature as the 1901 visits there had done. The Kaiser had no intention of letting a visit to his domains by the King of England pass unnoticed when it could in any way be used to boost his own profile at home. Because this volume focuses on state visits, the private family visits are not discussed in detail. Even the quasi-state visits to Germany are not directly relevant to the main focus on the evolution of state visits, because they were substantially replicas of the events in 1901 and so add little to the analysis. After all, while he made use of them, Wilhelm himself did not count these post-1903 visits in the same way as the first visits by the new King in 1901. He later complained that Edward had yet to make what he called a visit to Germany: what he meant was a formal state visit to his country — something which irritated his uncle, who pointed out ‘the sheer volume’ of visits he had made to Germany in the previous seven years.

The First Royal Visits

Edward’s trip to the German Empire in February 1901 to see his dying sister (the Dowager Empress) marked his first trip abroad as sovereign. It was followed by a subsequent trip in August to attend her funeral. Neither of these royal visits was the first made to Germany by Edward VII, but they were the first he made in his new role as monarch. This chapter explores the revival of British state visits, as opposed to the royal visits overseas by Victoria and her family on pleasure trips or to visit relatives on the continent. Germany had been a regular destination, but so had France, for the British royal family, as reports in both the British and continental media of the nineteenth century show. Equally, in the last forty years of the nineteenth century, European royals had regularly undertaken family visits to their British royal relatives and also enjoyed a share of leisure activities, taking part in events such as Cowes Week. Thus, interchanges between royal individuals across state boundaries were fairly commonplace for the British as well as other European royal families.1

Edward VII’s Gift to Diplomacy? 1903 Visit to Paris

Edward VII’s most famous and most exhaustively discussed state visit was his trip to Paris, following on from his trip to Italy, which had concluded a Mediterranean cruise in the spring of 1903. Indeed, the extent of the discussions makes it almost tempting to keep the Paris visit to a footnote to the Italy chapter, since there is no need to go over the narrative details of what is already such a well-trodden path in diplomatic histories of the period. However, what these histories do not do is locate this state visit in the framework of the new diplomacy, with its emphasis on the cultural and symbolic significance of such enterprises. In terms of the significance of the visit, Edward has often been popularly credited with being the architect of the Entente Cordiale — but, as figures like George Monger point out, he played no part in the initial negotiations that laid the foundations for the Entente.1 Nor, afterwards, can he be shown to have been particularly interested in the diplomatic niceties of its actual operation. Yet this chapter still insists that his visit was essential to the establishment of the Entente Cordiale, both in the initial achievement and in its maintenance, because of the symbolic importance of his public endorsement of the value of the link between Britain and France. We are often taught to think of a royal tour as being an ornamental addition to the daily duties and achievements of diplomacy.