The King is Dead, Long Live the King!: Majesty, Mourning and Modernity in Edwardian Britain

by Martin Williams

That February, the much-vaunted and fiercely protected Dreadnought lay at anchor off the coast of Dorset. Adrian and Cole planned to deceive their way aboard for a tour of inspection. In order to do so, they would have to adopt suitably convincing disguises. Building upon the ‘Sultan of Zanzibar’, they would, on this occasion, pretend to be Abyssinian royalty: not, as was subsequently claimed, the real-life Emperor, but his fictitious cousin, ‘Prince Makalen’, and a party of his attendants. Given that Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) was a bulwark against the expansion of the German Empire in East Africa, its representatives were likely to receive a warm – and, it was hoped, credulous – welcome. For Adrian, the risk, and therefore the flavour, would have a personal dimension. Since childhood, the Stephen siblings had regarded with distaste and derision the self-satisfied offspring of their maternal aunt Mary. One in particular was singled out for scorn: the priggish William Fisher, who was, at that very moment, serving as one of the Dreadnought’s senior officers. Just as Bloomsbury would enjoy pulling the wool over the eyes of the Royal Navy, so Adrian would delight in tricking his irritatingly conventional cousin.