Edward VII - "Uncle of Europe"

"Uncle of Europe"

As king, Edward's main interests lay in the fields of foreign affairs and naval and military matters. Fluent in French and German, he made a number of visits abroad, and took annual holidays in Biarritz and Marienbad. One of his most important foreign trips was an official visit to France in spring 1903 as the guest of President Émile Loubet. Following a visit to the Pope in Rome, this trip helped create the atmosphere for the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, an agreement delineating British and French colonies in North Africa, and ruling out any future war between the two countries. The Entente was negotiated between the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, and the British foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne. Signed in London on 8 April 1904 by Lansdowne and the French ambassador Paul Cambon, it marked the end of centuries of Anglo-French rivalry and Britain's splendid isolation from Continental affairs, and attempted to counterbalance the growing dominance of the German Empire and its ally, Austria-Hungary.

Edward was related to nearly every other European monarch and came to be known as the "uncle of Europe". The German Emperor Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, Duke Charles Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Duke Ernst August of Brunswick were Edward's nephews; Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden, Crown Princess Marie of Romania, Crown Princess Sophia of Greece, Empress Alexandra of Russia, Grand Duchess Alexandra of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Duchess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen were his nieces; Haakon VII of Norway was both his nephew by marriage and his son-in-law; George I of Greece and Frederick VIII of Denmark were his brothers-in-law; Albert I of Belgium, Charles I and Manuel II of Portugal, and Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria were his second cousins. Edward doted on his grandchildren, and indulged them, to the consternation of their governesses. However, there was one relation whom Edward did not like and his difficult relationship with his nephew, Wilhelm II, exacerbated the tensions between Germany and Britain.

In April 1908, during Edward's annual stay at Biarritz, he accepted the resignation of British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. In a break with precedent, Edward asked Campbell-Bannerman's successor, H. H. Asquith, to travel to Biarritz to kiss hands. Asquith complied, but the press criticised the action of the King in appointing a prime minister on foreign soil instead of returning to Britain. In June 1908, Edward became the first reigning British monarch to visit the Russian Empire, despite refusing to visit in 1906, when Anglo-Russian relations were strained in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, the Dogger Bank incident, and the Tsar's dissolution of the Duma. The previous month, Edward visited the Scandinavian countries, becoming the first British monarch to visit Sweden.