Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

by Theo Aronson

  That this blend of magnificence and perfection should be the hallmark of the Edwardian court was due, very largely, to the new King's highly developed sense of style. His taste might not have been faultless – or even, for that matter, good – but he had an eye for the right setting. He knew how a king should present himself. 'I don't know much about arrt,' he once said in his gutteral fashion, 'but I think I know something about arrangement.' He did indeed, and his arrangements ensured that he was always seen against a suitably regal background.

  He lost very little time in sweeping away the graces of his mother's dowdy court. Her black-clad ladies-in-waiting were pensioned off. Her favourite Indian servant-companion, the Munshi, was sent packing. The innumerable busts, statuettes and memorials to an earlier favourite, John Brown, were likewise got rid of.

  There was a drastic reorganization of all household departments. The sedate afternoon 'Drawing-rooms' were replaced by evening 'Courts'. Osborne House was given to the Navy, on the understanding that the central part would be preserved as a family shrine. Balmoral Castle was centrally heated and the famous tartan stripped from the drawing-room walls (Lord Rosebery once remarked that he had always considered the drawing-room at Osborne to be the ugliest in the world until he saw the drawing-room at Balmoral.) Firm measures were taken to stop the excessive drinking of whisky at Balmoral. Windsor Castle was modernized and redecorated: the elephants' tusks, the marble busts, the cumbersome mahogany furniture were replaced by porcelain, jade and long-forgotten pieces from the Brighton Pavilion. Buckingham Palace became once again a home worthy of a monarch who held, as Queen Victoria used to say, 'the greatest position there is'. The King ordered its façade and its setting to be redesigned. Its galleries and staircases were recarpeted. Its chandeliers were electrified. Its reception rooms were regilded, refurnished and fitted with enormous looking glasses; on state occasions, they were filled with pyramids of roses, carnations and hydrangeas.

  The stage having been set, King Edward VII played his part with customary verve. Far from confining himself, as his mother had done, to the more inaccessible royal homes for the greater part of the year, Edward kept himself in the public eye. He was forever on the move. His annual routine was strenuous, if unvarying, and would have exhausted any man less energetic than he. Yet despite his restlessness, he kept to a strict timetable; he never broke an engagement. 'The punctuality and regularity of his yearly programme,' says his assistant private secretary, Ponsonby, 'is perhaps the most striking tribute to that love of order and sense of decorum which was one of his most marked characteristics.'

  The New Year found the King playing host to a stream of guests at Sandringham. At the end of January he moved to Buckingham Palace for the Opening of Parliament. Every night in February was given over to dinner parties or after theatre supper parties. March and April he spent abroad – in Paris, at Biarritz and cruising the Mediterranean. In May he returned to London for the Season. This entailed an unending succession of dinners, balls, receptions and presentation parties. In June he moved to Windsor for the racing at Epsom and Ascot. In July he visited some provincial centre. The end of that month found him at the Goodwood races; the beginning of August at Cowes. Then followed a month at Marienbad for a much-needed cure. By September he was back in England for the Doncaster races; in October he was at Balmoral. During November and December he moved between Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Sandringham, always spending Christmas and New Year – again amongst a host of guests – at Sandringham.

  If, since his accession, the King's life had become somewhat more formal, it was still far from staid. 'We shall not pretend,' lectured the London Times on his accession, 'that there is nothing in his long career which those who respect and admire him would wish otherwise.' If The Times imagined that the King was about to turn over a new leaf, it was being too optimistic by half: Bertie's behaviour might be a shade more circumspect but it was no less self-indulgent. He still ate enormous meals. He attacked them all – breakfast, luncheon, tea, dinner and supper – with equal zest. His dinner never consisted of anything less than twelve courses, with each course richer and more elaborate than the last. His favourite drink was champagne; he smoked almost continuously. On the very day of Queen Victoria's funeral, an assistant private secretary was horrified to find the King, the Kaiser, the King of the Belgians and the King of Portugal smoking cigars in the Great Corridor at Windsor Castle; 'no one had ever smoked there before', runs his shocked comment.

  The King dined out – in restaurants or in private homes – as frequently as he had ever done. His suppers in the private room behind his box at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, were as lavish and as indiscreet as they had ever been. His liaison with the voluptuous Mrs Keppel continued; when in London, he visited her almost every day. The Pompadour of this Edwardian court, Alice Keppel was a figure of considerable importance; she could always be relied upon to keep the notoriously tetchy King in a sweet temper. 'Thank God,' exclaimed Sir Arthur Nicolson on joining the King's yacht for a cruise, 'Alice will be on board.'

  Nor was Mrs Keppel the only woman capable of diverting the King. Edward loved the company of beautiful, well-dressed women. 'What tiresome evenings we shall have!' he sighed when Queen Alexandra's mourning for the death of her father obliged him to hold a series of men-only dinner parties. He 'was never happier', claims Ponsonby, 'than in the company of pretty women.' During his continental holidays, his equerries were quite likely to come across him grappling with some picture-hatted, full-breasted beauty in a secluded arbour. And it is said that on one occasion a ship's officer, passing the porthole of the royal cabin, heard his sovereign's deep voice saying, 'Stop calling me Sir and put another cushion under your back.'

  To his credit, and unlike so many of his contemporaries, Edward was never hypocritical about his private life. Once, at Marienbad, he walked out of a revue called 'The Underworld' simply because he was bored by it and not because he was shocked by its somewhat improper tone. Within a day or two he was inundated with letters of congratulation for having made 'a firm stand in the cause of morality'. One of the most fulsome came from the Bishop of Ripon. When Ponsonby asked the King how he should reply to the Bishop's letter, Edward's answer was concise. 'Tell the Bishop the exact truth,' he said. 'I have no wish to pose as a protector of morals, especially abroad.'

  With his other duties – the private as opposed to the public aspects of monarchy – King Edward was less at ease. He had no taste for, and no experience of, desk work. Easily bored, lacking in concentration, hating to be alone, he was not nearly as conscientious or as well informed as his mother had been. Formal meetings with Ministers irked him; he much preferred to discuss things with them over a balloon of after-dinner brandy. Thus, when his Ministers proved uncongenial, matters tended to go undiscussed. As a result, the King complained, with justification, that they did not keep him well enough informed and that they did not trust his judgement.

  Edward was none the less capable, if the subject interested him, of applying himself to it with considerable zeal. Every detail of such things as the State Opening of Parliament or a foreign visit would be attended to by him personally. In these he was meticulous, demanding, almost tyrannical. He had very little interest in domestic or colonial politics; on the other hand, for foreign affairs and the armed forces he showed great enthusiasm. Here his influence – and influence was all that he was allowed to exert – was considerable. That the British Navy was reformed during the first years of the century was in no small measure due to the King's interest in the matter. And although his much vaunted diplomatic activity was never quite as effective as a great many people then, and since, imagined, it was certainly useful. His bonhomie oiled many a political wheel; his charm created a sympathetic climate. The ease and authority with which he moved amongst the diplomats, statesmen and sovereigns of Europe enhanced his own, and thus his country's, status.

  Having failed to match up to the exacting standards of his father, the Prince Consort,
in almost every sphere, King Edward VII, by exercising the two attributes never considered important by his father – personal magnetism and a sense of showmanship – developed into an influential and impressive monarch.

  Edward's diplomatic endeavours were made easier by the fact that he was so closely related to the various kings and queens of Europe. In an age when sovereigns still wielded considerable influence (and almost all the monarchs of Europe were in a position to exercise more personal power than he) King Edward's status proved very useful. Through his mother's wide-ranging connections he could claim relationship to almost every monarch on the Continent. To several of them he was very closely connected indeed. His sister Vicky was the Dowager German Empress. Her son – his nephew – was Kaiser Wilhelm II; her daughter – his niece – would one day be Queen Sophie of the Hellenes. Another of his nieces was the Empress Alexandra of Russia. Yet another would be Queen Marie of Romania. During Edward's reign his daughter Maud was to become the Queen of Norway and his sister Beatrice's daughter, Ena, the Queen of Spain.

  Although, when the great test came in 1914, these family relationships proved to be of very little value, this unhappy fact was largely unsuspected during this high summer of European monarchy. The sovereigns of Europe, patriarchal, colourful and moving always in a blaze of glory, were still looked upon as representatives of their people. They were considered to be the most important figures on the European scene. Their state visits were regarded as acts of considerable political significance. What better guarantee of international goodwill than this close relationship between the royalties of Europe? Were they not all members of a royal clan, the descendants, or at least the relations, of the great Queen Victoria? How could Uncle Bertie ever allow his country to go to war against his nephew Willie's Germany? Surely cousin Willie would never think of taking up arms against cousin Nicky's Russia?

  And of all these inter-related monarchs, none moved across the European stage more reassuringly and with greater majesty and aplomb than Queen Victoria's eldest son. It was no wonder that people not only called King Edward VII, but believed him to be, 'The Peacemaker'.

  Edward VII's first journey abroad as King was to visit his dying sister, the Empress Frederick, at Kronberg. On 23 February 1901 he crossed the Channel in the Victoria and Albert. At Flushing, and at several stations en route to Homburg, he was greeted by crowds singing what his entourage assumed to be the same hymn over and over; 'a very proper way of spending a Sunday evening', noted Frederick Ponsonby. Only on inquiry did Ponsonby discover that they were singing the Boer National Anthem. This particular show of hostility was preferable, none the less, to the singing of the British National Anthem, which was done by a party of schoolgirls, on Düsseldorf station, at two in the morning. The girls were said to have been bitterly disappointed at the non-appearance of the King in response to their earnest serenading.

  The King was met at Homburg by his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and from there they made for Friedrichshof. Vicky was delighted to see her brother. With the passing years these two very dissimilar personalities had grown closer. 'There is not a kinder brother in the world,' said the Empress to her daughter Sophie, 'and I cling to him in my loneliness very much.'

  Deeply distressed by his sister's sufferings, King Edward urged his own doctor, Sir Francis Laking, to induce the German doctors to prescribe larger doses of morphia. This the Empress's doctors refused to do. The King, appreciating how often his sister had been criticized for her supposed preferences for all things English, including English doctors, did not press the point.

  If, in the mind of Frederick Ponsonby, there was any doubt about the Empress's distrust of German doctors, there was soon none about her distrust of her eldest son, the German Emperor. Sending for Ponsonby one evening, the Empress, looking 'as if she had just been taken off the rack after undergoing torture', asked him to do her a favour. She wanted him to take some of her letters back with him to England. These were bound copies of her letters to Queen Victoria which the Empress had once borrowed, possibly with a view to publishing them. As they formed such an indictment of the Kaiser and such a vindication of her own behaviour, the Empress possibly suspected that her son would never allow them to be made public. They were her one means of clearing her name; of correcting Bismarck's presentation of her as an anti-Prussian and politically ambitious virago. Remembering how the Kaiser had ransacked the rooms of the Neues Palais on the death of the Emperor Frederick, the Empress was obviously determined that these letters should not fall into his hands. 'I don't want a soul to know they have been taken away,' she said to Ponsonby, 'and certainly Willie must not have them, nor must he know that you have got them.'

  Late that night two enormous boxes were delivered to Ponsonby's room. He claims that only by the exercise of considerable ingenuity was he able to get them past the Kaiser and out of Friedrichshof the following day. Almost thirty years were to go by, however, before – in 1928 – a selection of the correspondence was published. This Ponsonby did on his own initiative. With the publication of the Letters of the Empress Frederick the world was able to learn, for the first time, something of the sufferings of this impetous but high-minded woman at the hands of Bismarck and her eldest son.

  The Kaiser, by then in exile in Holland, did his utmost to prevent publication of the letters but, being unsuccessful, insisted on writing a preface to the German edition of the book. His mother, he wrote, was 'very sensitive and everything wounded her; she saw everything in shadows, everything hostile, saw want of sympathy and coolness where there was only helpless silence, and her temperament made her use bitter words about everybody. Therefore the reader should not believe implicitly everything she wrote.'

  For five months after King Edward's return to England, the Empress lived on. In July, Princess Sophie of Greece joined her sisters, Moretta and Mossy, at Friedrichshof and on 4 August, Wilhelm and his wife Dona arrived. The following day, 5 August 1901, was one of brilliant sunshine. As the Empress lay dying, a butterfly flew in by the open window and fluttered about her head. As it returned to the window and floated out into the sunlit garden, Vicky died. She was sixty years of age.

  Calumnies pursued her beyond her death. Despite the fact that her orders for a simple funeral were faithfully carried out (she was buried beside her husband at Potsdam) the most scurrilous stories about her dying wishes circulated Berlin. She had insisted, they whispered, that she be buried, not as a German sovereign, but as an English princess. An Anglican bishop was to conduct the funeral service according to the rites of the Anglican Church. She was to be laid naked, wrapped in a Union Jack, in a coffin specially brought over from England and the body then sent back to England for burial at Windsor. Only an admirable firmness on the part of the beloved Kaiser had prevented such scandalous proceedings. One could imagine, clucked one of her enemies, how hurt the people of Berlin had been by the behaviour of the Princess 'who in dying showed her contempt of everything that was German'. She was die Engländerin, it seemed, to the very end.

  The legend of Vicky's unremitting Anglophobia, carefully fostered by Bismarck, continued for many years. Her enemies refused to see in her undeniable love for her native country anything other than a hatred of Germany. Yet all Vicky had wished to do was to introduce into the national life of her adopted country all that was best in her own. Where other British princesses were content to bring the language and the customs of their homeland into their husband's households, Vicky had been determined to inculcate more important values into her husband's country.

  Her championship of Britain was not mere jingoism; she believed that it was the only country 'that understands liberty, the only one that understands true progress, the only happy, the only really free and above all the only really humane country.' It was these virtues that she tried, so tirelessly, to reproduce in Germany. Her overwhelming urge, says one of her biographers, was 'to help others, to better them, to guide them towards those material, moral and social standards that she had first imbibed in
England'. In this, she had come up against, first, the blood and iron autocracy of Bismarck, and then the militarily dominated autocracy of her eldest son.

  'Why were we, so to speak, in opposition?' she once explained after the death of her husband. 'Because our patriotism wanted to see the greatness of our fatherland connected with the noble sense of right, morality, for freedom and culture, for individual independence, for the improvement of the single person as man, as German, as European and as cosmopolitan. Improvement, progress, ennoblement – that was our motto. Peace, tolerance, charity – these most precious possessions of mankind, we had to see them trampled upon, laughed at . . . Blood and iron alone made Germany great and unified – all national vices were called patriotism.'

  That these passionately expressed ideals were never put into practice in Germany is one of the great tragedies of the nineteenth century. Had Kaiser Frederick III come earlier to the throne or reigned longer than ninety-eight days, the Second Reich would have taken a very different road. The régime would have been liberalized and Germany would almost certainly have formed an alliance with Great Britain. These had always been Vicky's fondest hopes. But it was not to be. Almost every one of those schemes with which, as a young, idealistic bride Vicky had arrived in Berlin, had turned to ashes. Her crown, more so, perhaps, than that of any other of Queen Victoria's descendants, had turned out to be what the Queen used to describe as 'a crown of thorns'.