In August 1902, King Edward VII's coronation was delayed six weeks because his royal physician made a split-second call in a dimly lit bedroom — and the man he consulted first, a hay-fever specialist summoned for an entirely different problem, was the only reason anyone caught it in time. That delay reshuffled a guest list, rerouted a naval fleet, and left a deputy in charge of negotiations that quietly transformed British colonial policy from India to the Cape — because the king's backup plan was never meant to be anything but a backup.