Saturday's Children

A humble subject of His Majesty named T. H. L. Hony of Fowey in Cornwall was creating a well-bred little Mayfair stir last week with his "discovery" that King Edward VIII, his brothers and King George V were all born on Saturday.

The new King last week on the 58th day of his reign held his first levee as Edward VIII. Hitherto these royal receptions of men have nearly always been held in St. James's Palace ("The Court of St. James") with the Sovereign driving thither in horse-drawn state from his residence at Buckingham Palace. This procedure Edward VIII, who has his apartments in a wing of St. James's Palace and uses Buckingham Palace merely as an office, varied in two precedent-shattering respects. He held his "Court of St. James" levee in Buckingham Palace, and he drove thither not by State Coach but for the first time in British history on such an occasion in a motor car, one of his father's high, maroon Daimlers.

At the levee the U. S. was ranked 30th in precedence down the list of States, the reason being the absence of U. S. Ambassdor Robert Worth Bingham, who was also absent at the funeral of King George and is still vacationing in the U. S. There was but one U. S. presentee outside the diplomatic circle: Mr. Caesar Augustin Grasselli.* Seated on a glittering throne, the new Sovereign received in all approximately 1,000 men--including the envoys of the Great Powers now bickering over the Rhineland Crisis (see p. 24)--in the record average time of 3 1/2 seconds each.

The distinguished persons moved past the Throne with such rapidity that a Buckingham Palace flunky was overheard to say of His Majesty: "He fair had them going at a dog trot."

"He's Good." Dog trot is the tempo of the new reign, and last week Britons were about ready to take preliminary stock of it. Out from Court circles rippled rumors that thus far every member of His Majesty's Government who has had private audience has afterward been heard to say, in effect, "He's good."

Every Minister, according to the Court ripples, finds that King Edward, when handed a document, puts on his glasses, attentively reads it through, asks quantities of running questions, listens closely to all the answers and only then signs "Edward R.I." The King makes the same flourish under his name he used to make when signing "Edward P." as Prince of Wales.

Speeches by His Majesty in which he takes a special interest, King Edward composes on his Underwood portable, using most of his fingers in striking the keys. He then hands this typescript to his advisers, who make suggestions by striking out or inserting between his double-spaced lines. Thus the word "radio" typed by His Majesty in composing his first broadcast was struck out and in was written "wireless." This suggestion His Majesty overruled and back the word went to "radio."

The corrected typescript goes finally to a stenographer who copies it according to the peculiar "Wales System" invented to aid him during his nervous youth when he suffered agonies of stage fright. Nothing pained Royal Edward so much as to have to continue reading a sentence while turning a page. Therefore the King's stenographer, after completing each paragraph or passage into which the words of His Majesty naturally fall, cuts off her roll of paper at that point. By this ingenious system King Edward is handed his speech in a clipped-together set of sheets of different lengths, each sheet ending at a natural pause. He never has to read while turning over.

Royal Household. Such sinecure-holders as the Clerk of the Closet (the Bishop of Oxford) and the Honorary Surgeon to the King in Scotland (James Roegnvald Learmonth) remain undisturbed in their decorative offices. As Lord in Waiting, the Earl of Dunmore (favorite of His late Majesty) has given place to that Conservative Party bigwig in North Paddington, Geoffrey William Richard Hugh FitzClarence, Earl of Munster.

No sinecures are the offices of Keeper of the Privy Purse, Private Secretary and Lord Chamberlain. The Britons who held these posts under King George have long been known to hold views in many cases diametrically opposed to those of King Edward. They were participants in unremitting efforts to bring about his marriage and to induce him to lead a private life more nearly corresponding to that of his great-grandfather, the Prince Consort Albert. Since in this respect Edward VIII takes after his grandfather, Edward VII, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, may be said to have "died at exactly the right moment," with the perfect tact of a faithful servitor.

Not dead is the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Cromer, but immediately after King Edward's accession a "diplomatic illness" seized Lord Cromer, who departed on a long cruise.

The Private Secretary, diligent and worthy Lord Wigram, was expected last week to carry on his duties until after the Coronation of the King next year, then giving place to Sir Godfrey John Vignoles Thomas, Tenth Bart. Sir Godfrey has been in attendance upon the Prince of Wales since 1919 and Private Secretary to Royal Edward since 1921.

The Keeper of the Privy Purse having died, speculation was keen this week as to whether his duties of spending the King's money and banking the King's revenues will now go to the salty, dynamic seadog who is "the logical man" because from 1920 he was Comptroller and Treasurer to the Prince of Wales. Once a lieutenant aboard Queen Victoria's royal yacht, Lionel Halsey thrust along to be Captain of the Fleet at Jutland aboard the Iron Duke, later commanded the Royal Australian Navy (1918-20).

This thrusting and competent admiral next conducted Edward of Wales's tours to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan, where H. R. H. posed for photographs as a ricksha boy with Admiral Halsey as his passenger (see cut). They have shot, fished, golfed and gallanted together. King George always appeared satisfied that his eldest son's purse strings were well managed by the Dogger Bank and Jutland Admiral.

At 64, Sir Lionel is ripe to manage the money of a King of 41 whose capital is estimated to be increasing $2,000-every day of the year. Edward VIII has $2,000,000 in his father's postage stamps alone and $10,000,000 in solid gold plate in the vaults beneath Buckingham Palace.

Saturday & Sunday. Saturday (or Friday afternoon) finds the King putting down his horn-rimmed glasses, laying aside the royal pen which has signed during the week some 200 State papers. Then he motors out through the grounds of Windsor Castle to merry Fort Belvedere, which for years has been his Bachelor Hall.

London editors continued last week to wastebasket quantities of letters from Church of Englanders urging that the Court Circular again announce every Monday morning that the King had attended divine service. Of all Saturday's Children the most scrupulous in church-going was King George, and the letter-writers insist on bringing up the fact that King Edward VIII is now titular head of the Established Church.

King Edward VII had his greatest difficulties with village parsons who could not be stopped from popping up in their pulpits to preach, without mentioning names or places, against "vice in the highest circles." It finally became necessary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to engage publicly in moral acrobatics. For example, His Lordship took the position that it was not "gambling" for His Majesty to play baccarat because the wealth of the participants was such as to make it immaterial whether they won or lost. In any true estimate of the new reign last week the fact had to be noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England was on pins & needles awaiting the first outburst from the as yet Unknown Clergyman.

"A Great King." Stockbrokers from Wall Street to Threadneedle Street have been hearing that Edward VIII is "going to make a Great King," the financial communities sensing that Capitalism has few exponents more personally popular with the proletariat.

In highest British political circles Edward VIII was said to have the chance of turning out to be a "Great King" because of that very strength of will which made him a trial to his mother & father. Every monarch at his accession is green at being King. Vigorous Edward VIII at 41 was almost frightening the elders & youngsters of His Majesty's Government last week by giving them a sense of personal dynamics without having yet given them an inkling of in what directions his dynamics may operate. With handsome young Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and such other Conservative candidates for power as swank young War Secretary Duff-Cooper, new King Edward is not on terms of intimacy. The same is true of Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. It was said in Cabinet circles, "We'll have to try him out in a small crisis"--the present Rhineland Crisis being obviously too immense to be within the scope of influence by a green and Constitutional Monarch.

It is British custom that "the King is never quoted." Yet exceptions are now being made without objection from official circles. Last week Lord Melchett quoted publicly the most thought-filled words Edward VIII is known by his people to have uttered since he ascended Britain's Throne. The King, according to Quoter Melchett, asked after inspecting Britain's new superliner Queen Mary, a question which no press dispatch carried at the time:

"How do you reconcile a world that has produced this mighty ship with the slums we have just visited?" asked His Majesty, only to answer himself: "That is the problem we have to solve, and it is useless to go out and solve scientific problems if we cannot solve that!"

* Descendant of fragrant Lake Como's chemicals-drugs-perfumes clan, grandson and namesake of the founder of Grasselli, N. J., the late Knight of the Order of the Golden Crown of Italy Caesar Grasselli, and president of Cleveland's Grasselli Chemicals Co.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.