Witness of a Century

Prince Arthur was Queen Victoria's favourite sone, the Duke of Wellington's Godson, Edward VII's brother, George V's uncle and the great-uncle of Edward VIII and George VI. His life holds a mirror to personalities and developments of nearly a century from the Crimean War to the Battle of Alamein. Highly sociable, an accurate observer and inveterate correspondent and diarist, his view is of a unique spectrum of peple from President Taft to the Emperor of Japan, Lord Wolsely to Arabi Pasha, Ethel Smyth to Melba, Gladys Deacon to Nancy Astor, Rudyard Kipling to Lord Esher, Gladstone to John Brown. He fought at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, served in India and was a principal actor in the drama of the Esher army reforms. As Governor-General of Canada (1911-16) he calmed tensions between British and French Canadians and resolved disputes between Canada and USA through his easy access to the White House. He inaugurated the Indian constitutional reforms in 1921. His life also offers an insight into the development of the monarchy and the ways of the Sovereign in relation to the political and social life of the nation over a long period. His descendants are the King of Sweden and the Queen of Denmark.