Social Victorians/1887 American Exhibition/Jubilee Guests to the Wild West

Logistics

• 20 June 1887
• Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, brought visitors to Victoria's Jubilee to the Wild West
• Private performance for the royalty and nobility present in London for Victoria's Golden Jubilee
• Earl's Court fairgrounds

Related Events

• The American Exhibition, which opened on 6 May 1887

Prior Events

• 12 May 1887: Command Performance for the Queen

The Prince of Wales Brings Jubilee Guests to the Wild West

Cody's Probably Apocryphal Poker Joke

Kasson

A large number of royals from Europe and distinguished people from around the empire and the world were in London to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, brought a number of these visitors to the performance of the "Wild West" on the morning of 20 June 1887. According to Kasson,

the Prince of Wales escorted a group of royal visitors to a morning performance of the Wild West. On this occasion, the rulers of Belgium, Denmark, Greece, and Saxony rode in the Deadwood stage, together with the Prince of Wales. Cody and his publicists would tell and retell the witticism Buffalo Bill exchanged with the prince: "Colonel, you never held four kings like these before," said the prince. "I've held four kings, but four kings and the Prince of Wales makes a royal flush, such as no man ever held before."47 Poker was still an exotic game in England, introduced by American diplomats, and both the showman and the prince may have enjoyed this lowbrow reference, so difficult to explain to the royal relatives. (81)

John Springhall

John Springhall, however, says that there were not four kings, but <quote>only one reigning monarch, the King of Denmark, along with three Princes (two of them his own sons</quote> (107).

Cody's Version

The version in Cody's Autobiography insists on the four kings, but Cody is frequently guilty of hyperbole, and of course he may not have understood the complexities of his guests' titles and ranks:

One of the incidents of my program, as all who have seen it will remember, was an Indian attack on the coach. The royal visitors wanted a real taste of Western life — insisted on it, in fact, and the Kings of Denmark, Greece, Saxony, and the Crown Prince of Austria climbed to the box with me. I had secretly instructed the Indians to throw a little real energy into their pursuit of the coach, and they followed my instructions rather more completely than I expected. The coach was surrounded by a demoniac band of shooting and shouting Indians. Blank cartridges were discharged at perilously close proximity to the rulers of four great nations. Looking around to quiet my followers, I saw that the guests of the occasion were a trifle pale, but they were all of them game, and came out of the affair far less scared than were the absolutely terrified members of the royal suites, who sat in their boxes and wrung their hands in wild alarm. (153)

The Deadwood Coach

Cody

Cody describes the show for the guests of the Jubilee:

There came to Earl's Court, carried by a royal equerry, a further command from her Majesty conveying the royal pleasure that on the 20th of June a special morning exhibition of the Wild West should be given to the kingly and princely guests of Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Jubilee. This was the third entertainment given to royalty in private, and surely never before since the world commenced has such a gathering honored a public entertainment. Caesar and his captive monarchs, the Field of the Cloth of Gold — nothing in history can compare with that gathering of the mighty ones of the earth which honored our entertainment. The Queen was to treat them to a display of quite another kind in Westminster Abbey the following day; but the Wild West was beforehand with her Majesty as will be seen. I was getting fairly hardened to royalty by this time; I had exhibited before it; I had met it at private parties and at club-houses; and I had seen it in its best aspects, honoring and honored by communion with that other royalty of brains which holds high court in England as everywhere. But this was to be a knock-down in the royalty line — a regular wholesale consignment — a pack of cards all pictures and waited on by the brightest, best and bravest and most beautiful that all Europe and a good part of Asia could produce. The gathering of personages consisted of the King of Denmark, the King of Saxony, the King and Queen of the Belgians, and the King of Greece, the Crown Prince of Austria, the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, the Princess Victoria of Prussia, the Duke of Sparta, the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, Prince George of Greece, Prince Louis of Baden and last, but not least, the Prince and Princess of Wales with their family, besides a great host of lords and ladies innumerable.

Our good old Dead wood coach, "baptized in fire and blood" so repeatedly on the plains, had the honor of carrying on its time-honored timbers four kings and the Prince of Wales that day, during the attack of the redskins. Said His Royal Highness to me, when the show was over:

"Colonel, you never held four kings like these before."

"I've held four kings," said I, "but four kings and the Prince of Wales makes a royal flush, such as no man ever held before."

I suppose my old poker-playing experiences were instinctively in the ascendant and prompted the retort. The Prince took it, and went off with that hair-trigger laugh of his that is so well known to his intimates. To their European majesties the jokes [sic] was somewhat recondite, and I almost pitied the Prince as he tried to explain it in three languages to his wondering but obtuse auditors. They don't play poker yet at the continental courts, and come to think of it, the game does want a deal of learning before you get the hang of it properly. I hope their majesties enjoyed that ride, but the Indians put in their shooting with a lot of energy, and somehow the crowned heads appeared to be glad when it was over. ()

Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen

Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen went to London to celebrate Victoria's Jubilee and apparently rode the Deadwood Coach through Regent Street, Hyde Park, and London accompanied by performers from the show:

In 1887 he went to London for Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, which featured, among other entertainments, Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show. Georg, then more than sixty years old, rode through Regent Street, Hyde Park, and the City on top of the Deadwood Coach, pursued by Indians and protected by Buffalo Bill's men riding shotgun. His wife said the ride was worth the whole trip to England. (Koller 36)

Who Was Present

• Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra, Princess of Wales, with their family
• the Crown Prince of Austria
• Prince Louis of Baden
• the rulers of Belgium
• the Kind of Denmark, and his two sons
• the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany
• Prince George of Greece
• the Crown Prince of Norway
• the Princess Victoria of Prussia
• the Grand Duke Michael of Russia
• the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Meiningen
• ruler of Saxony
• the Duke of Sparta
• the Crown Prince of Sweden
• "besides a great host of lords and ladies innumerable" (Cody)

Bibliography

• Cody
• Kasson
• Koller
• Springhall, John.