Death of Queen Victoria: Accession of Edward VII

In January, 1901, alarming reports began to be circulated regarding the health of the queen; and on January 22, she died at the advanced age of eighty-two years. Never had the death of a monarch aroused such sincere and widespread grief. She had reigned nearly sixty-four years, the longest reign in history, and had seen greater changes in the conditions of human existence than had any sovereign who had preceded her. Between 1837 and 1901, the material, political, and social life, not only of England, but of Europe as a whole, had undergone a great transformation. During these years, Victoria had won not only the love and devotion of her subjects, the respect and veneration of the outside world for her nobility of life and character, but also the admiration of statesmen for her sanity of judgment and inflexible honorableness of conduct in politics and diplomacy. Said Lord Salisbury: “She has bridged over that great interval which separates old England from new England. Other nations may have had to pass through similar trials, but have seldom passed through them so peaceably, so easily, and with so much prosperity and success as we have. I think that future historians will look to the queen's reign as the boundary which separates the two states of England, and will recognize that we have undergone the change, with constant increase of public prosperity, without any friction to endanger the stability of our civil life; and, at the same time, with a constant expansion of an empire which every year grows more and more powerful."

Queen Victoria was succeeded by her eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who ascended the throne as Edward VII. In his coronation oath, he expressed his full determination to rule “ as a constitutional sovereign in the strictest sense of the word"; and "to work," he said, “ as long as there is breath in my body, for the good and amelioration of my people." On August 9, 1902, he was crowned as King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, and Sovereign of the Dominion beyond the Seas. On January 1, 1903, at a durbar held in Delhi, he was formally proclaimed Emperor of India. The Victorian Era had ended, and a period of British history, commensurate with the new century and characterized by new problems and new issues, had begun.

EDWARD VII.From a photograph.