King Edward VII A Biography Part II

1927. The Reign, 22nd January 1901 to 6th May 1910. A biography of King Edward VII, by the English biographer and critic, Sir Sidney Lee, who is best-known for A Life of William Shakespeare. Edward VII was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Victoria, true to the Hanoverian name, saw the worst in Edward. She and Albert imposed a strict regime upon Edward, who proved resistant and resentful throughout his youth. Victoria consistently denied her son any official governmental role. He rebelled by completely indulging himself in women, food, drink, gambling, sport and travel. His wife, Alexandra, turned a blind eye to his extramarital activities, which continued well into his sixties and found him implicated in several divorce cases. Despite Edward’s colorful personal life and Victoria’s perceptions of him as profligate, Edward ruled peacefully (aside from the Boer War of 1899-1902) and successfully during his short reign, which is remarkable considering the shifts in European power that occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century.