Investiture of Edward, Prince of Wales

The Bishop of St Asaph mentioned the idea of an investiture ceremony in Wales to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George.

The new king quickly agreed, seeking to provide a focus for national unity at a time of political and constitutional turmoil in the UK: Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909 was rejected by the House of Lords, followed by two indecisive general elections in 1910 resulting in two hung parliaments and a minority Liberal Party government supported by Irish MPs seeking Irish Home Rule, the prospect of disestablishment of the Anglican church in Wales, the Tonypandy riots, increasingly violent demands for and opposition to women's suffrage, the Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911, and the bill that became the Parliament Act 1911.

They travelled by train to Griffith's Crossing, where they were joined by an escort of Life Guards that accompanied a carriage procession on the 2.5 miles (4.0 km) by road to the castle.

Edward, in white satin breeches and purple velvet cloak, went ahead, and paused at Castle Square to address the crowd in Welsh: he had been tutored by Lloyd George to say "Môr o gân yw Cymru i gyd" ("all Wales is a sea of song").

In contemporary news reports, "Edward Prince of Wales" became "Iorwerth Tywysog Cymru", and his German motto "Ich Dien" (I Serve) became the Welsh "Eich Dyn" (Your Man).

John S. Ellis has argued that this was largely an "invented tradition" which broke from the previous Conservative government's preference for assimilation and cultural uniformity under English hegemony and instead symbolised the Liberal government's project of "unity in diversity", exemplified by reconciliation with the Boers in South Africa after the Second Boer War, with their self-government before inclusion in the Union of South Africa.

The new South African prime minister Louis Botha was the only prominent foreign dignitary at the investiture: he inspected a parade of boy scouts with his former enemy Baden Powell.