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 Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

to take place in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

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 Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

's eldest daughter

Victoria, Princess Royal Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; 21 November 1840 – 5 August 1901) was German Empress and Queen of Prussia as the wife of German Emperor Frederick III. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingd ...

, 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 George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...

became Prince of Wales in November 1901. After the death of

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...

in 1910, his eldest son acceded to the throne as

and George's eldest son Edward became

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

. Edward was created

by letters patent on 23 June 1910, his sixteenth birthday. The Bishop of St Asaph mentioned the idea of an investiture ceremony in Wales to the Chancellor of the Exchequer,

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...

. Lloyd George been MP for

Caernarvon Boroughs Caernarfon was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Caernarfon in Wales. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system. The constituency was created in 1536 as a District of Boroughs, represented in ...

since 1890 and

Constable of Caernarfon Castle A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

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

People's Budget The 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blo ...

of 1909 was rejected by the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

, followed by two indecisive general elections in 1910 resulting in two

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...

s and a minority Liberal Party government supported by Irish MPs seeking

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the e ...

, the prospect of disestablishment of the

Anglican church in Wales The Church in Wales ( cy, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The pos ...

, the

Tonypandy riots The Miners Strike of 1910-11 was an attempt by miners and their families to improve wages and living conditions in severely deprived parts of South Wales, where wages had been kept deliberately low for many years by a cartel of mine owners. Wha ...

, increasingly violent demands for and opposition to

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

, the Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911, and the bill that became the

Parliament Act 1911 The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5 c. 13) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two Houses of Parlia ...

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 Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

on 22 June 1911. To prepare for the ceremony, the castle was repaired by

Frank Baines Sir Frank Baines, KCVO, CBE, FRIBA (1877–1933) was chief architect at the British Office of Works from 1920 to 1927. His most famous work was Thames House and its neighbour Imperial Chemical House (1929–30) in London. Thames Hous ...

, an architect seconded from the

Office of Public Works The Office of Public Works (OPW) ( ga, Oifig na nOibreacha Poiblí) (legally the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland) is a major Irish Government agency, which manages most of the Irish State's property portfolio, including hundreds of o ...

: he had overgrowth of ivy cleared and then the structure was repaired using stone from the original quarry and also oak imported from Canada. A ceremonial canopy was erected in the castle's outer bailey, with stands for 12,000 invited spectators on the sides of both inner and outer baileys, and space for a large Welsh choir, but most of the attending public remained outside the castle walls. A large body of soldiers was drawn from Western Command, with heavy representation from Welsh regiments.

Ceremony

Despite fears of rain, the day of the investiture was hot and sunny. The Royal Family arrived at Holyhead on the 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 {{cvt, 2.5, miles, 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

Gorsedd of Bards A gorsedd (, plural ''gorseddau'') is a community or meeting of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is spelled gorsedh in Cornish and goursez in Breton. When the term is used without qualification, it usually ...

arrayed in their new silk robes, and by peers in scarlet and ermine robes. The King was attended by the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

and the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

– respectively Herbert Asquith and

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

– both in formal

court dress Court dress comprises the style of clothes and other attire prescribed for members of courts of law. Depending on the country and jurisdiction's traditions, members of the court ( judges, magistrates, and so on) may wear formal robes, gowns, ...

. 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

Honours of Wales The Honours of the Principality of Wales are the regalia used at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, investiture of the Prince of Wales, as heir apparent to the British throne, made up of a coronet, a ring, a Staff of office, rod, a sword, a ...

: a mantle and a coronet as a token of his princely rank (the coronet had been made for his father in 1901), a sword as a symbol of justice, a golden ring as a token of duty, and a golden rod as a symbol of government. The regalia incorporated gold mined in Merionethshire or Gwynedd, and the

Welsh dragon The Welsh Dragon ( cy, y Ddraig Goch, meaning 'the red dragon'; ) is a heraldic symbol that represents Wales and appears on the national flag of Wales. As an emblem, the red dragon of Wales has been used since the reign of Cadwaladr, King of ...

is featured on the rod, ring and sword. Edward was then presented to the people of Wales, as Edward II had been centuries before. (Edward II was born in Caernarfon in 1284, and reputedly presented to the Welsh as a prince born in Wales and unable to speak English, before being appointed as the first non-native Prince of Wales (and Earl of Chester) in 1301.) The 1911 investiture regalia are on loan to the

National Museum of Wales National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

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 The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

, with their self-government before inclusion in the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tran ...

. The new South African prime minister

Louis Botha Louis Botha (; 27 September 1862 – 27 August 1919) was a South African politician who was the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa – the forerunner of the modern South African state. A Boer war hero during the Second Boer War, ...

was the only prominent foreign dignitary at the investiture: he inspected a parade of boy scouts with his former enemy Baden Powell.

References

"The Investiture of the Prince of Wales, July 13th, 1911"
Pathé
"The Investiture of the Prince of Wales, July 13th, 1911"
Pathé
Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle
BFI
Honours of the Principality of Wales
royal.uk * Ellis, John S. "Reconciling the Celt: British National Identity, Empire, and the 1911 Investiture of the Prince of Wales." Journal of British Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, 1998, pp. 391–418. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/175965. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.
Investing the Prince of Wales – Caernarfon, July 1911
International Churchill Societ
Christopher Williams, ''The Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle, 13th July 1911''
Royal Collection Trust
''The Investiture of the Prince of Wales, 1911''
Art UK
Investiture 1911
Carnarvon Traders

BBC Wales History, 25 July 2011
Eugène Louis Gillot, ''Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarvon''
museum.wales 1911 in Wales Ceremonies in the United Kingdom Caernarfon

Background

Preparations

Ceremony

See also

References