The King has lived to see the extraordinary development of cricket, and its promotion to the rank of the typically national game which Englishmen take with them to the ends of the earth. We may be sure that the indirect political influence of the great contests between England and Australia, for example, and of the tours of Indian, South African, and West Indian teams, did not escape his quick intelligence. Certainly His Majesty has always supported cricket, though he never became so keen a player as the late Prince Christian Victor, for instance. The King played at Oxford, and occasionally for I. Zingari. In 1866, at the Park House, Sandringham, His Majesty played against the Gentlemen of Norfolk for the Sandringham Household. He has frequently visited Lord’s to see the Eton and Harrow matches, and in 1899 he went there with the Duke of Cornwall and York when the M.C.C., of which club His Majesty is patron, played the Australians. He has also seen the Australians play at Sheffield Park. Kennington Oval being on the London estate of the Duchy of Cornwall, the King, when he was Prince of Wales, was ground landlord, and allowed the Surrey Club the use of the ground at a nominal rental. The Surrey Club has benefited greatly through the King’s generosity in this matter, and recently the Duchy of Cornwall granted the club a thirty years’ lease at a very low rent, considering the value of the property. The King was for many years patron of both the Rugby Union and the Football Association, and after his Accession he was approached by both bodies with a view to his graciously continuing to grant them his patronage. The game under neither code was played much until the King had reached middle life, but he showed his interest in the popular winter pastime by visiting the Oval in March 1886 on the first occasion of a charity festival organised by the Rugby Union and Football Association. There can be no doubt that the King owes his remarkable bodily vigour and healthy appearance to his love of all outdoor sports, for he was never so content as when enjoying a long day’s tramp over the stubble at Sandringham, or when deer-stalking in a soft Highland mist. His Majesty’s life as a sportsman began early. When he was quite a child he used to accompany Prince Albert on deer-stalking expeditions round Balmoral; somewhat later he hunted with the harriers, and when he was fifteen he could claim to be the best shot in his family.