The King.

Manawatu Herald, 28 June 1902, Page 2

The King.

It is well to remember that the King has been a sufferer from sickness during the time he was Prince of Wales, and after lingering for nearly a week between life and death he Was restored to health. That it may be so in the sickness that now attacks him is the heartfelt wish of all his subjects. Whatever importance attached to his life then, as heir to the throne, a greater importance is attached to it now that he has ascended the throne. Some years ago, Mr Stead writing on this subject, said I The suspense prolonged for nearly a whole week, with the intense realising sense of all that was involved in the struggle for life that went on in the sickbed at Sandringham, finally extinguished the last smouldering embers of Republicanism in England. The typhoid fever did more for the monarchy than the monarchy had done for itself, and when the solemn thanksgiving was held in St. Paul’s for the Prince’s recovery, the nation gave thanks not merely for the Prince restored to health, but for the deliverance of the British Monarchy from the danger which had apparently menaced its security.” Again in writing upon the late Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the King, the same writer says, “ Along with these were mingled a cheerful geniality and good nature and a kindly consideration and forethought for the feelings of others that extended to an almost extraordinary minuteness of detail, which he no less manifestly inherited from the Prince of Wales (the King). . . . There has probably never been a home in England where the parental and filial relationship was more unrestrained, or where the enjoyment of mutual affection between parent and child was bo absolutely without a flaw.”

These remarks are pleasing to recall at a time like the present as it brings to mind that the Royal invalid is as one of the people, and the nation can feel that it is one of themselves that is now suffering, and thus we are bound together in far closer ties than those which existed in days of yore between serf and baron.