An Invitation to the Coronation of King George V, Signed by Him

Very uncommon, the first such invitation we have had

The Edwardian Age – the years of the reign of King Edward VII – lasted from 1901-1910. It was a romantic golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties, basking in a sun that never set on the British Empire. Britannia ruled the waves, and the carnage of World War I was unimaginable and still in the future. Rapid industrialization increased economic opportunity, creating conditions that allowed for more social mobility and prosperity, and with it more social change. There was also a rise in social concerns and attention to the plight of the poor, as well as a push for women’s voting rights that would soon be successful.

King Edward VII died on May 6, 1910, at age 68, bringing an end to the Edwardian Age. He lay in state at Westminster Hall, where a quarter of a million people filed past his body. On May 20 he was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The funeral procession saw a horseback procession, followed by 11 carriages. Those attending included the Kings of Great Britain, Spain, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Belgium, plus Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose assassination would start World War I), the brother of the Tsar of Russia, and former president Theodore Roosevelt representing the United States.

The coronation of Edward’s successor, King George V, was set for June 22, 1911, and the great men of the realm were invited to attend. This is one of those invitations.

Document signed, London, May 24, 1911, addressed to John Savile Lumley-Savile, 2nd Baron Savile. He was a British diplomat and sportsman, and a large landowner, holding 34,000 acres in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. “Trusty and Wellbeloved, We greet you well. Whereas the twenty second of June next is appointed for the Solemnity of Our Royal Coronation. These are to will and command you and the Lady your wife (all excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance on Us at the time abovementoined, furnished and appointed as to your Rank and Quality appertaineth, there to do and perform all such services as shall be appointed and belong unto you respectively, Whereof you and she are not to fail. And so we bid you most heartily farewell.” The document is signed by the Earl Marshal, who was traditionally the Duke of Norfolk.

The reign of George V was turbulent and utterly unlike that of his father. First, just four years into his reign, came the disastrous First World War, in which a million Britains were killed and two million wounded in a nation of but forty millions. The 1920s saw the Irish war for independence, massive labor strife, and the first Labour Party government. In 1928 he developed the lung disease that would take his life. Then in the 1930s came the Great Depression. George died in 1936.