Read it through once

So unexpected was any serious or immediate issue of His Majesty's condition that the Queen was still on the Continent when he was taken ill and the King himself was transacting state business in an arm-chair the day before he died. A pathetic incident of the latter date was the bearing of the well-known purple and gold colours to victory at Kempton Park Races by "The Witch of the Air." When the news came it was hard to believe. People throughout the Empire were entirely unprepared. In Britain, Canada, Australia, etc., public functions and social arrangements were at once cancelled; black and purple drapings rapidly covered the important buildings--and many that were even more important as representing individual and spontaneous feeling--of the British world; mourning was seen everywhere in the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent in the other countries; papers appeared universally draped in black. In Canada, H. E. the Governor-General cabled to Lord Crewe an official expression of regret--one which was real as well as official: "The announcement of the death of King Edward VII, which has just reached Canada, has created universal sorrow. His Majesty's Canadian Ministers desire that you will convey to His Majesty, King George, and the members of the Royal family, an assurance that the people of Canada share in the great grief that has visited them. In discharge of the duties of his exalted station His late Majesty not only won the respect and devotion of all British subjects, but by his efforts on behalf of international harmony and good-will he became universally esteemed as a great Peacemaker. Nowhere was this gracious attribute of Royal character more deeply appreciated than in His Majesty's Dominion of Canada."