I felt sure this old Sir Francis Knollys was the prototype of Shakespeare's Polonius, and I could give a dozen reasons for my belief.
One day I detailed them to Sir Francis Knollys, who was delighted with the identification, a little to my surprise, for Polonius does not cut a heroic figure in Hamlet. I learned to like Knollys with heart and head: he was not only kindly and fair-minded, but absolutely loyal to his friends, and more than anything else I appreciated that loyalty in London, where everybody seems inclined to run his friend down and depreciate even good ideas and unselfish endeavor.
Snobbery is the religion of England. I had always regarded Edmund Yates, owner and editor of the weekly paper, The World, as a friend of mine, and I had taken care to have him asked to the meetings of the Damien Committee, but now he came out with a long article in The World, declaring that I had jumped from Father Damien's shoulders through the window of Marlborough House-the whole article a mere sweat of envy. I never laid any stress on the fact that Prince Edward was kind to me. But to Edmund Yates, who pretended to be my friend, my little social success was much more important than my writing or my friendship. The incident only confirmed my growing belief that most men give themselves much more readily to hatred than to love.
The reasons why the Prince disliked Germany, in spite of his German upbringing, have never yet been told in print. Nevertheless, they are interesting and show how petty slights and foolish misunderstandings may help to cause the greatest wars and deluge Europe with blood.
For many years Prince Edward had been an ardent admirer of Germany and most German institutions.
After the German Emperor began to take up yacht-racing there was a dinner at Cowes, in the early nineties, at which Prince Edward declared that there was no such enviable position in all the world as that of the German Emperor.
"He is the greatest influence in the world," he declared, "for good or evil.
Whatever he does is accepted and copied. All his subjects now are taking up yacht-racing because he wishes it and he'll do great things yet, you'll see: to be German Emperor is to be a god on earth."
But when the Kaiser visited England frequently the glamor disappeared and the real difference in the nature of the two men became apparent.
The uncle was prepared to look up to the nephew who wore the crown, but he was not content to be treated with contempt. On the other hand it was perfectly plain that the German Emperor regarded Prince Edward as a fat elderly person who sacrificed the dignity and serious purposes of manhood to the vices and amusements of youth.
I was once at a dinner at Osborne toward the end of Victoria's life which tells the whole story.
By the wish of Victoria the German Emperor was treated with special reverence. The famous gold dinner service even was brought from Windsor to Osborne to do him honor. The Queen would have had even the weather regulated to suit the convenience of her beloved grandson.
The kinship and likeness between grandmother and grandson were extraordinary. They both had the same serious view of life and the same conventional view of morals. All through the dinner the Queen spoke to no one except the German Emperor, who was on her right. There was scarcely any conversation among the other diners.
Occasionally Prince Edward, who sat opposite the Kaiser, ventured a remark, but neither of the sovereigns paid much attention to him.
Grandmother and grandson talked together in excellent German in a low tone at the head of the table, and it took a very bold spirit among the rank and file of the guests even to whisper to his neighbor. The Prince, who sat opposite the German Emperor, was evidently ill at ease; his usual bonhomie was blighted. As the meal drew to an end he fidgeted about, looking the picture of discomfort.
Suddenly the Queen got up to go. Everybody stood up and the German Emperor and the Prince accompanied her to the door. When the Queen disappeared there was a sigh of relief. The ice was broken. The air of constraint vanished; every one began to talk. Prince Edward was all smiles.
The German Emperor walked back to the table and took his seat again still in profound thought. As Prince Edward seated himself, he asked the Emperor, with a smile, to take the head of the table. The Kaiser did not appear even to hear him, but with clouded brow appeared to be in deep thought: suddenly he pushed back his chair, got up and went hastily out of the room after the Queen, without a word to the Prince, leaving the whole assembly gasping.
Prince Edward flushed; the slight was manifest. He so far forgot himself for the moment as to exclaim: "German manners, I suppose," then went on talking as usual; but the table remained in expectancy; there was a certain embarrassment in the air; the dinner was a failure.
From that time on Prince Edward stood, not with the German Emperor, but opposed to him, and in private did not hesitate to criticize his manners and his want of consideration for others. In fine, he began to look for his nephew's faults and not for his qualities.
A wit at the time summed the whole matter up in the phrase that has more truth than humor in it: "Morals and manners are always at daggers drawn." It was certainly the brainless rudeness of the German Emperor that first made the breach.
When Edward succeeded to the throne, the ever-widening breach became apparent to every one. The German Emperor was not run after nor his visits solicited. When he came to England, he would stay with Lord Lonsdale or some other friend, but there was no public reception; he came and went unheralded and unwelcomed so far as the court was concerned.
Edward's early experiences as king almost forced him to take a new attitude towards affairs. The Queen had died in the early part of the South African war. King Edward hated the war-was liberal-minded enough to feel that war in one of her colonies was not likely to do England any good; he shared, too, the common feeling that the German Emperor was giving the Boers at least moral support. Every setback in the field made the King more determined to put an end to the war, and as soon as Pretoria was taken and President Krueger had fled the country, he used all his influence to bring about peace, peace at almost any price.
It will be remembered that peace was made possible at length by the promise of England to give three million pounds to the Boers to rebuild the farm houses that Lord Kitchener had burnt down. That this proposal of Botha's was accepted was due to King Edward's personal intervention. With the common sense of a man of the world, he saw that fifteen million dollars was a flea bite, not worth talking about. More, as he said, would be spent in a week's war. It was absurd to haggle over such a sum.
As soon as peace was established, everyone felt grateful to the King for having divined the unconscious wishes of his people. He was put on a pedestal; many persons remembered that he had broken the habit of drink in England, and now he had brought about peace in South Africa; almost everyone began to hope that the kindly, good-natured man of the world might be a better ruler than his all too severe and moral mother.
If there was one thing King Edward appreciated and knew all about, it was popular opinion. He soon saw that he had won the confidence of earnest and serious people and at once began to take himself seriously. Everything he did had turned out to be right; why should he not assume the initiative in politics? Not only did he leave the Kaiser uninvited, but he paid a visit to Paris-a state visit-and so pleased the great body of English Liberal opinion, which naturally preferred democratic France to imperial Germany.
Then in 1905 he invited the French fleet to Cowes and gave the French admiral and his officers a great banquet at the Royal Yacht Squadron Club when the Entente Cordiale was confirmed.