Thread by @marinamaral2

After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of 1859, he spent the summer of that year studying at the University of Edinburgh under, among others, the chemist Lyon Playfair. In October, he matriculated as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford.

Now released from the educational strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed studying for the first time and performed satisfactorily in examinations. In 1861, he transferred to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was tutored in history by Charles Kingsley.

In 1860, Edward undertook the first tour of North America by a Prince of Wales. His genial good humor and confident bonhomie made the tour a great success. He inaugurated the Victoria Bridge, Montreal, across the St Lawrence River, and laid the cornerstone of Parliament Hill.

Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the British Army, but his mother vetoed an active military career. He had been gazetted colonel on 9 November 1858—to his disappointment, as he had wanted to earn his commission by examination.

In September 1861, Edward was sent to Germany, supposedly to watch military maneuvers, but actually in order to engineer a meeting between him and Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark and his wife Louise.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had already decided that Edward and Alexandra should marry.

They met at Speyer on 24 September under the auspices of his elder sister, Victoria, who had married the Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858.

Edward's elder sister, acting upon instructions from their mother, had met Princess Alexandra in June; the young Danish princess made a very favorable impression. Edward and Alexandra were friendly from the start; the meeting went well for both sides, and marriage plans advanced.

From this time, Edward gained a reputation as a playboy.

Determined to get some army experience, Edward attended maneuvers in Ireland, during which he spent three nights with an actress, Nellie Clifden, who was hidden in the camp by his fellow officers.

Prince Albert, though ill, was appalled and visited Edward at Cambridge to issue a reprimand.

Albert died in December 1861 just two weeks after the visit.

Queen Victoria was inconsolable, wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life and blamed Edward for his father's death.

At first, she regarded her son with distaste as frivolous, indiscreet and irresponsible. She wrote to her eldest daughter, "I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder."

Once widowed, Queen Victoria effectively withdrew from public life.

Shortly after Prince Albert's death, the queen arranged for Edward to embark on an extensive tour of the Middle East, visiting Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut and Constantinople.

The British Government wanted Edward to secure the friendship of Egypt's ruler, Said Pasha, to prevent French control of the Suez Canal if the Ottoman Empire collapsed. It was the first royal tour on which an official photographer, Francis Bedford, was in attendance.

As soon as Edward returned to Britain, preparations were made for his engagement, which was sealed at Laeken in Belgium on 9 September 1862.

Edward married Princess Alexandra of Denmark at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 10 March 1863. He was 21; she was 18.

The couple established Marlborough House as their London residence and Sandringham House in Norfolk as their country retreat. They entertained on a lavish scale.

Their marriage met with disapproval in certain circles because most of Queen Victoria's relations were German, and Denmark was at loggerheads with Germany over the territories of Schleswig and Holstein.

When Alexandra's father inherited the throne of Denmark in November 1863, the German Confederation took the opportunity to invade and annex Schleswig-Holstein. Queen Victoria was of two minds whether it was a suitable match given the political climate.

After the marriage, she expressed anxiety about their socialite lifestyle and attempted to dictate to them on various matters, including the names of their children.

Edward had mistresses throughout his married life: actress Lillie Langtry; Lady Randolph Churchill; Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick; Sarah Bernhardt; noblewoman Lady Susan Vane-Tempest; singer Hortense Schneider; prostitute Giulia Beneni; Agnes Keyser; and Alice Keppel.

How far these relationships went is not always clear. Edward always strove to be discreet, but this did not prevent society gossip or press speculation.

In 1869, Sir Charles Mordaunt, a British Member of Parliament, threatened to name Edward as co-respondent in his divorce suit. Ultimately, he did not do so but Edward was called as a witness in the case in early 1870.

It was shown that Edward had visited the Mordaunts' house while Sir Charles was away sitting in the House of Commons. Although nothing further was proven and Edward denied he had committed adultery, the suggestion of impropriety was damaging.

During Queen Victoria's widowhood, Edward pioneered the idea of royal public appearances as we understand them today—for example, opening the Thames Embankment in 1871, the Mersey Tunnel in 1886, and Tower Bridge in 1894.

Queen Victoria did not allow Edward an active role in the running of the country until 1898. He was sent summaries of important government documents, but she refused to give him access to the originals.

He annoyed his mother by siding with Denmark on the Schleswig-Holstein Question in 1864 (she was pro-German) and in the same year annoyed her again by making a special effort to meet Giuseppe Garibaldi.

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain was given a boost when the French Emperor, Napoleon III, was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and the French Third Republic was declared.

However, in the winter of 1871, a brush with death led to an improvement in both Edward's popularity with the public and his relationship with his mother.

While staying at Londesborough Lodge, Edward contracted typhoid, the disease that was believed to have killed his father.

There was great national concern, and one of his fellow guests (Lord Chesterfield) died. Edward's recovery was greeted with almost universal relief. Public celebrations included the composition of Arthur Sullivan's Festival Te Deum.

On 26 September 1875, Edward set off for India on an extensive eight-month tour; on the way, he visited Malta, Brindisi, and Greece. His advisors remarked on his habit of treating all people the same, regardless of their social station or color.

In letters home, he complained of the treatment of the native Indians by the British officials: "Because a man has a black face and a different religion from our own, there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute."

He returned to England on 11 May 1876, after stopping off at Portugal.

At the end of the tour, Queen Victoria was given the title Empress of India by Parliament, in part as a result of the tour's success.

The tradition of men not buttoning the bottom button of waistcoats is said to be linked to Edward, who supposedly left his undone because of his large girth.

His waist measured 48 inches (122 cm) shortly before his coronation. He introduced the practice of eating roast beef and potatoes with horseradish sauce and yorkshire pudding on Sundays, a meal that remains a staple British favorite for Sunday lunch.

He was an enthusiastic hunter and ordered all the clocks at Sandringham to run half an hour ahead to provide more daylight time for shooting. This so-called tradition of Sandringham Time continued until 1936 when it was abolished by Edward VIII.

In 1891 Edward was embroiled in the royal baccarat scandal, when it was revealed he had played an illegal card game for money the previous year. The Prince was forced to appear as a witness in court when one of the participants unsuccessfully sued his fellow players for slander

after being accused of cheating. In the same year Edward was involved in a personal conflict, when Lord Charles Beresford threatened to reveal details of Edward's private life to the press, as a protest against Edward interfering with Beresford's affair with Daisy Greville.

In late 1891, Edward's eldest son, Albert Victor, was engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. Just a few weeks later, in early 1892, Albert Victor died of pneumonia. Edward was grief-stricken.

To lose our eldest son", he wrote, "is one of those calamities one can never really get over". Edward told Queen Victoria, "[I would] have given my life for him, as I put no value on mine".

Albert Victor was the second of Edward's children to die.

In 1871, his youngest son, Alexander John, had died just 24 hours after being born. Edward had insisted on placing Alexander John in a coffin personally with "the tears rolling down his cheeks".

On his way to Denmark through Belgium on 4 April 1900, Edward was the victim of an attempted assassination when fifteen-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido shot at him in protest over the Second Boer War.

Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901 and Edward became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominions.

He chose to reign under the name Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to "undervalue the name of Albert" and diminish the status of his father with whom the "name should stand alone".

He donated his parents' house, Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to the state and continued to live at Sandringham.

He could afford to be magnanimous: his private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, claimed that he was the first heir to succeed to the throne in credit.

Edward's coronation had originally been scheduled for 26 June 1902. However, two days before he was diagnosed with appendicitis, which was generally not treated operatively and carried a high mortality rate, but developments in anesthesia and antisepsis in the preceding 50 years

made life-saving surgery possible.

Sir Frederick Treves, with the support of Lord Lister, performed a then-radical operation of draining a pint of pus from the infected abscess through a small incision (through ​4 1⁄2-inch thickness of belly fat and abdomen wall);

this outcome showed thankfully that the cause was not cancer. The next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar.

Two weeks later, it was announced that the King was out of danger. Treves was honored with a baronetcy (which the King had arranged before the operation) and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream.

Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902 by the 80-year-old Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, who died only four months later.

King Edward VII refurbished the royal palaces, reintroduced the traditional ceremonies that his mother had forgone, and founded new honors, such as the Order of Merit, to recognize contributions to the arts and sciences.

Edward was related to nearly every other European monarch, and came to be known as the "uncle of Europe". German Emperor Wilhelm II and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia were his nephews;

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden...

... Crown Princess Marie of Romania, Crown Princess Sophia of Greece, and Empress Alexandra of Russia were his nieces;

King Haakon VII of Norway was both his nephew and his son-in-law;

Kings Frederick VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece were his brothers-in-law;

Kings Albert I of Belgium, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and Charles I and Manuel II of Portugal were his second cousins.

There was one relation whom Edward did not like: Wilhelm II. Edward's difficult relationship with his nephew exacerbated the tensions between Germany and Britain.

Edward was rarely interested in politics, although his views on some issues were notably liberal for the time. He lived a life of luxury that was often far removed from that of the majority of his subjects.

However, his personal charm with people at all levels of society and his strong condemnation of prejudice went some way to assuage republican and racial tensions building during his lifetime.

In the last year of his life, Edward became embroiled in a constitutional crisis when the Conservative majority in the House of Lords refused to pass the "People's Budget" proposed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.

The crisis eventually led—after Edward's death—to the removal of the Lords' right to veto legislation. The King was displeased at Liberal attacks on the peers, which included a polemical speech by David Lloyd George at Limehouse.

Cabinet minister Winston Churchill publicly demanded a general election, for which Asquith apologized to the King's adviser Lord Knollys and rebuked Churchill at a Cabinet meeting.

Edward was so dispirited at the tone of class warfare—although Asquith told him that party rancor had been just as bad over the First Home Rule Bill in 1886—that he introduced his son to Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane as "the last King of England".

After the King's horse Minoru won the Derby on 26 July 1909, he returned to the racetrack the following day, and laughed when a man shouted: "Now, King. You've won the Derby. Go back home and dissolve this bloody Parliament!"

In vain, the King urged Conservative leaders Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne to pass the Budget, which Lord Esher had advised him was not unusual, as Queen Victoria had helped to broker agreements between the two Houses over Irish disestablishment in 1869 and 1884.

On Asquith's advice, however, he did not offer them an election (at which, to judge from recent by-elections, they were likely to gain seats) as a reward for doing so.

The Finance Bill passed the Commons on 5 November 1909, but was rejected by the Lords on 30 November.

They instead passed a resolution of Lord Lansdowne's stating that they were entitled to oppose the bill as it lacked an electoral mandate.

The King was annoyed that his efforts to urge passage of the budget had become public knowledge and had forbidden his adviser Lord Knollys

who was an active Liberal peer, from voting for the budget, although Knollys had suggested that this would be a suitable gesture to indicate royal desire to see the Budget pass.

In December 1909, a proposal to create peers (to give the Liberals a majority in the Lords) or give the prime minister the right to do so was considered "outrageous" by Knollys, who thought the King should abdicate rather than agree to it.

The January 1910 election was dominated by talk of removing the Lords' veto.

The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Liberal government dependent on the support of the third largest party, the Irish nationalists.

Pressure to remove the Lords' veto now came from the Irish nationalist MPs, who wanted to remove the Lords' ability to block the introduction of Irish Home Rule. They threatened to vote against the Budget unless they had their way (an attempt by Lloyd George to win their support

by amending whiskey duties was abandoned as the Cabinet felt this would recast the Budget too much).

Asquith revealed that there were no guarantees for the creation of peers. The Cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a Conservative government.

The King's Speech from the Throne on February made reference to introducing measures restricting the Lords' power of veto to one of delay, but Asquith inserted a phrase "in the opinion of my advisers" so the King could be seen to be distancing himself from the planned legislation

The Commons passed resolutions on 14 April that would form the basis for the 1911 Parliament Act: to remove the power of the Lords to veto money bills, to replace their veto of other bills with a power to delay, and to reduce the term of Parliament from seven years to five.

The Budget was passed by both Commons and Lords in April.

By April the Palace was having secret talks with Balfour and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who both advised that the Liberals did not have sufficient mandate to demand the creation of peers.

The King thought the whole proposal "simply disgusting" and that the government was "in the hands of Redmond & Co".

Edward habitually smoked twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day. In 1907, a rodent ulcer, a type of cancer affecting the skin next to his nose, was cured with radium. Towards the end of his life he increasingly suffered from bronchitis.

He suffered a momentary loss of consciousness during a state visit to Berlin in February 1909. In March 1910, he was staying at Biarritz when he collapsed. He remained there to convalesce, while in London Asquith tried to get the Finance Bill passed.

The King's continued ill health was unreported and he attracted criticism for staying in France while political tensions were so high. On 27 April he returned to Buckingham Palace, still suffering from severe bronchitis.

Alexandra returned from visiting her brother, King George I of Greece, in Corfu a week later on 5 May.

The following day, the King suffered several heart attacks, but refused to go to bed, saying, "No, I shall not give in; I shall go on; I shall work to the end."

Between moments of faintness, his son the Prince of Wales (shortly to be King George V) told him that his horse, Witch of the Air, had won at Kempton Park that afternoon.

The King replied, "Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad": his final words.

At 11:30 p.m. he lost consciousness for the last time and was put to bed.

He died 15 minutes later.

Alexandra refused to allow the King's body to be moved for eight days afterwards, though she allowed small groups of visitors to enter his room.

On 11 May, the late King was dressed in his uniform and placed in a massive oak coffin, which was moved on 14 May to the throne room, where it was sealed and lay in state, with four guardsmen standing at each corner of the bier.

On the morning of 17 May, the coffin was placed on a gun carriage and drawn by black horses to Westminster Hall, with the new King and his family walking behind.

Following a brief service, the royal family left, and the hall was opened to the public; over 400,000 people filed past the coffin over the next two days.

Before his accession to the throne, Edward was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. He was surpassed by his great-great-grandson Prince Charles on 20 April 2011.

Edward has been recognized as the first truly constitutional British sovereign and the last sovereign to wield effective political power.

Though lauded as "Peacemaker", he had been afraid his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, would tip Europe into war.

Four years after Edward's death, World War I broke out.

He received criticism for his apparent pursuit of self-indulgent pleasure but also received great praise for his affable manners and diplomatic tact.

Reign: 22 January 1901 – 6 May 1910.

*Done*