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King Edward was not friendly to press correspondents, especially if they tried to peep behind the scenes, but many times I used to go down to Windsor, sometimes to his garden parties, and often when the German Emperor or some other sovereign was a guest at the castle. I am sure there was more merriment in the Castle Inn where the journalists gathered than within the great old walls of the castle itself, where, curiously enough, my own father was born.

These royal visits were generally in the autumn, and the amusement of the day was a battue of game in Windsor Forest, in which the Prince of Wales, now King George, was always the best shot. The German Emperor was often one of the guns, but seemed to find no pleasure in that “sport”—which was a massacre of birds, and preserved an immense dignity which never relaxed. Little King Manuel, then of Portugal, shivered with cold in the dank mists of the English climate, and only King Alfonso seemed to enjoy himself, as he does in most affairs of life.