Investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales

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Members of the British royal family leave Caernarfon Castle following the investiture of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, on 13 July 1911.
William Goscombe John
Honours of the Principality of Wales
– sceptre, sword, crown, ring, and clasp for his mantle – which, apart from the crown, were designed by Goscombe John in 1911

The public investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle on Thursday 13 July 1911. This was the first investiture of the Prince of Wales to take place in Wales for centuries: since the 18th century, the Prince of Wales had been invested with his insignia of office privately, outside Wales.

Background

The genesis of the 1911 investiture ceremony may be traced to a suggestion made by Queen Victoria's eldest daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, to the Bishop of St Asaph in 1893. She suggested that the next Prince of Wales should be invested at Caernarfon Castle, to revive ancient Welsh traditions. This suggestion was overlooked when the future George V became Prince of Wales in November 1901.

After the death of

Caernarvon Boroughs since 1890 and Constable of Caernarfon Castle since 1908. (Less romantically, a similar suggestion was made in the press in 1910 by the medievalist Owen Rhoscomyl
.)

The new king quickly agreed, seeking to provide a focus for national unity at a time of political and constitutional turmoil in the UK: Lloyd George's

Anglican church in Wales, the Tonypandy riots, increasingly violent demands for and opposition to women's suffrage, the Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911, and the bill that became the Parliament Act 1911
.

Preparations

A royal proclamation was issued on 4 February 1911, announcing an investiture ceremony to be held at Caernarfon on 13 July. This ceremony would be less than a month after the Coronation of George V and Mary was held at Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911.

To prepare for the ceremony, the castle was repaired by

Welsh regiments
.

Ceremony

Despite fears of rain, the day of the investiture was hot and sunny. The Royal Family arrived at

Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert, returning from the King and Queen's coronation tour to Dublin. They travelled by train to Griffith's Crossing, where they were joined by an escort of Life Guards
that accompanied a carriage procession on the 2.5 mi (4.0 km) by road to the castle. Edward, in white satin breeches and purple velvet cloak, went ahead, and paused at Castle Square to address the crowd in Welsh: he had been tutored by Lloyd George to say "Môr o gân yw Cymru i gyd" ("all Wales is a sea of song"). Lloyd George only had a small role on the day: he presenting the key to the castle to the king when he arrived 20 minutes after Edward.

Once the king and his party were in place at the canopy in the outer bailey, Edward was escorted there by the

Herbert Asquith and Winston Churchill – both in formal court dress
. Churchill had a prominent role: he read out the letters patent appointing Edward as Prince of Wales.

The king presented Edward with the insignia of his office – the

National Museum of Wales
in Cardiff. The rod, ring and sword were re-used at Prince Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, but a new coronet was made as Edward took his father's coronet into exile as Duke of Windsor and refused to return it.

The ceremony is depicted in a painting by the Welsh artist Christopher Williams commissioned by George V and held by the Royal Collection, with a different version of the scene held by Caernarfon Royal Town Council.

After the ceremony, the royal party rejoined the royal yacht off the North Wales coast, and continued the royal coronation tour to Scotland.

In contemporary news reports, "Edward Prince of Wales" became "Iorwerth Tywysog Cymru", and his German motto "Ich Dien" (I Serve) became the Welsh "Eich Dyn" (Your Man). Royal links with Wales were emphasised by noting Edward's descent from Henry Tudor and Henry VIII, and Pathé newsreel coverage mentioned the "medieval rites and ceremonies handed down through centuries of history". John S. Ellis has argued that this was largely an "invented tradition" which broke from the previous Conservative government's preference for assimilation and cultural uniformity under English hegemony and instead symbolised the Liberal government's project of "unity in diversity", exemplified by reconciliation with the Boers in South Africa after the Second Boer War, with their self-government before inclusion in the Union of South Africa. The new South African prime minister Louis Botha was the only prominent foreign dignitary at the investiture: he inspected a parade of boy scouts with his former enemy Baden Powell.

See also

References

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