After the oath of allegiance had been taken by those present, the proclamation announcing the accession of the new Monarch was signed by the Duke of York--now also Duke of Cornwall,--the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Christian, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Mayor of London, and the other Privy Councillors present. The Houses of Parliament met shortly afterwards and the members took the oath of allegiance, while all around the Empire the same ceremony was being gone through in varied tongues and many forms and strangely differing surroundings. There was wide-spread interest in His Majesty's choice of a name, and the designation of Edward VII. was almost universally approved--the exceptions being in certain Scotch contentions that the numeral could not properly apply to Scotland as a part of Great Britain. The name itself reads well in English history. Edward the Confessor, though not included in the Norman chronology, was a Saxon ruler of high attainments, admirable character and wise laws. Edward I, was not only a successful soldier and the conqueror of wild and warlike Wales, but a statesman who did much to establish unity and peace amongst his people. Edward II. was remarkable chiefly for the thrashing which the Scots gave him at Bannockburn while Edward III. was the hero of Crecy, the winner of half of France, and a brave and able ruler. Edward IV. was a masterful, hard and not over-scrupulous monarch, and Edward V. was one of the unfortunate boys who were murdered in the Tower of London. Edward VI. was a mild-natured and honest youth who did not live long enough to impress himself upon a strenuous period, or upon interests with which his character little fitted him to deal. The last of the name had reigned, therefore, before the Kingdom of England got out of its national and religious swaddling clothes; before the reign of Henry VIII. had freed it from connection with Rome, or that of Elizabeth had founded the maritime and commercial empire which, in time, was to create the mighty realm over which the new Edward now assumed sway. INCIDENTS SURROUNDING THE ACCESSION