VETERAN PEER

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 266, 6 August 1929, Page 11

VETERAN PEER

FRIEND OF KING EDWARD . ' ' FDominion Special Service. London, June 13. Viscount Halifax, who has just celebrated his ninetieth birthday, will always be remembered for the part he played in the efforts to secure the reunion of the Roman and Anglican Churches. His faith in the possibility of a united Christendom has been unfailing. Over 20 years elapsed between his abortive visit to Rome in 1895 and his initiation of the “Malines Conversations.” The former visit was followed by the issue of Pope Leo Kill's famous letter to the /English people, “desiring to recall you to this holy unity.” The implications of his phrase and the comment it called forth in Noncomformist quarters, might well have discouraged further efforts. The Malines Conversations. however, though they led to no positive results, at least created friendship, and Lord Halifax was at the bedside of Cardinal Mercier in 1926 and received from him a ring in token of this. But Lord Halifax has another claim to distinction. He was chosen in early youth by the then Prince Consort as a companion for King Edward. They were together at Eton and Christchurch. Strong ties of personal friendship sprang up between them, and after the King’s death Lord Halifax said: “I can recall playing with him in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. I remember the rides I had with him at Windsor when I was at Eton. and. counting up the years that are past. I see that it is just 53 years ago since I went with him to the English lakes, and later in the same year spent some time with him in Germany. And ever since those days, now so far away, I have nothing but an unbroken record of his unvarying kindness to recall. He was indeed one whom his servants and subjects might well love.” It is not to be wondered, therefore, that Lord Halifax has erected at Hickleton four cross-roads (near his Yorkshire home) a cross in memory of Edward VII.