And the Rest Is History

by Marlene Wagman-Geller

  His adventures were eagerly devoured by the British public, especially Isabel. She was horrified to read about his misadventure in Somalia, where warriors attacked his contingent. A javelin had impaled Richard’s cheek and exited from the other, leaving a lifelong scar. He made his escape with the weapon still embedded in his face. When the newspapers reported that Burton’s next venture was in the Crimea, the ever-faithful Isabel tried three times to join Florence Nightingale’s nurses, but was told she was too young and too inexperienced.

  However, in 1855, two months after Burton had arrived in England, he ran into Isabel where she was reading in London’s Botanical Gardens. For the next two weeks they met there every day, and finally Richard embraced her and asked if she would give up civilization for him. Isabel did not hesitate in her acceptance. “I would rather have a tent and a crust with you than be queen of all the world. And so I say now: Yes, yes, yes!” They sealed their engagement with a passionate kiss. Later she recalled that she “trod on air.” However, they decided to keep their romance a secret, as the Royal Geographical Society had engaged him to explore the east of Africa, where he was to lead an expedition which was to result in the discovery of Lake Tanganyika.

  Four years later when he returned, the impediment to their marriage was Isabel’s mother. She was a fervent Catholic and didn’t want her daughter marrying an atheist who would drag her beloved daughter off to some “heathen” outpost. Moreover, while Richard had achieved fame he had not gained fortune; his sole assets were his charisma and adventurous life. In addition to these concerns, there was the matter of his well-known fascination with sexuality. If all this were not enough, she did not appreciate his sense of humor. When she had confronted him regarding his intentions toward Isabel he had answered, “Strictly dishonorable, Madam. Englishmen who are restricted to one wife cannot be too careful.”

  In 1861, the couple married in a private ceremony without family, attended only by a handful of friends at the Bavarian Catholic Church. Afterward they retired to Richard’s bachelor quarters. Isabel recalled that although they had only a few pounds, “we were as happy as it is given to any mortals out of heaven to be.” Because of Burton’s fame, the prime minister hosted a dinner party to honor the newlyweds, and Queen Victoria, contrary to all precedent, allowed the bride of an elopement to be presented at court.

  Unfortunately, immediately after their marriage Burton entered the Foreign Service and was stationed in Guinea. As the climate was considered extremely unhealthy for Europeans, Isabel could not accompany him. She wrote of their separation, “I am neither maid nor wife nor widow.” However, they were reunited when Richard was transferred to Brazil.

  When Richard received a post in Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was able to engage in one of his other interests: writing. His best-known contribution to literature was when he translated foreign works into English, thereby giving the Western world The Kama Sutra. Its sexual content was considered the epitome of pornography. Another masterpiece he added to literary lore was his translation of The Arabian Nights, thereby introducing to the western world stories from the east: Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin’s Magic Lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

  Many felt that Burton’s travel books that delineated exotic sexual practices were based on primary sources. This aspect of her husband’s nature pained the extremely Catholic Isabel, as did his premise that polygamy was not immoral. Isabel was aware of the gossip bandied about that her conjugal bed was used to test Oriental sexual practices. However, she never regretted her destiny. As she wrote her mother, “I want to live ... I want a wild, roving, vagabond life ... I wish I were a man. If I were I would be Richard Burton: but, being only a woman, I would be Richard Burton’s wife.” Their marriage, despite her absorption with piety and his with pornography, was one of unending devotion.

  Public recognition and respect for Burton culminated with his knighthood: In 1886, they became Sir Richard and Lady Burton.

  In Trieste, in 1890, death found the man who had evaded it for so long when Burton passed away from a heart attack. By his side was his partner in wanderlust, his ever-devoted Isabel. During his final moments he used his wife’s nickname and made his final request. His last words were to his first love: “Quick, Puss, chloroform—ether—or I am a dead man.”

  In death, as in life, Isabel remained devoted to Richard. She commissioned a mausoleum in the shape of a stone reproduction of a Bedouin tent. On its wall hang two portraits of husband and wife on their wedding day. When Isabel passed away she was buried beside her knight in the Arab-styled stone tent, under the British sky.

  Postscript

  The atheist Burton had three church services performed over him and 1,100 masses said for the repose of his soul. Four days later, Trieste gave the legend a full military funeral “such as is only accorded to royalty.” All the flags in the city were lowered to half staff and most of the 150,000 inhabitants turned out to view his coffin, draped in a Union Jack. Richard’s body was shipped to England, where it was temporarily laid to rest in a crypt under the altar in St. Mary Magdalene’s Church until his stone tent mausoleum (and six years later, Isabel’s as well) was completed.

  9

  Charles Parnell and Katharine O’Shea

  1880

  Throughout history, women have been portrayed as femmes fatales whose sexuality brought about the fall of great men: the mythological Pandora, the biblical Eve, the Egyptian Cleopatra, the Shakespearean Lady Macbeth. Ireland has its own such femme fatale; when Charles Parnell took Katharine O’Shea into his arms he brought his country to its knees, and thus, she was viewed as responsible for the downfall of the one she loved.

  Charles Stewart Parnell was born in Avondale, County Wicklow. His parents separated when he was six, and he was sent to school in England, eventually attending Cambridge. As an adult, he returned to Ireland and, as a landowner, his interests aligned with the nationalist political agenda: home rule—freedom from England’s yoke. He was elected president of the newly founded Irish National League and traveled to raise funds for famine relief. He was so well received in Toronto that he was dubbed “the uncrowned king of Ireland.”

  Parnell also became president of the Land League, which encouraged the Irish to protest against unfair rent by the mainly British landlords. The first English victim of this policy was Captain Charles Boycott, whose name has become part of the English lexicon. Parnell was known not only for his ability to lead men but also for the magnetic effect he had on women. However, he had no interest in the latter; his only mistress was his country.

  Parnell brought dignity and power to a people who for centuries had been robbed of it. Yet when the Irish looked to their leader to make home rule a reality, the man who had been faithful only to his cause realized that he had a greater love than Ireland.

  Charles’s destiny, Katharine, was born in England, the youngest of thirteen children of Lady Emma and Sir John Page Wood, an Anglican vicar. She was raised to acquire a husband, as were other proper Victorian girls. “Look lovely and keep your mouth shut,” a brother advised her, voicing the common wisdom of the age. Although they had the trappings of wealth (such as a mansion in Riverhall), the family lacked money. The only one who was well-to-do was Emma’s oldest sister Maria, who, when she married a man named Benjamin, was affectionately dubbed “Aunt Ben.”

  When Katharine went to visit her brother’s regiment, she met the Irish captain William O’Shea, whom she married at age twenty-two. He was chiefly known for his velvet jackets and his passion for get-rich-quick schemes. The childless Aunt Ben lavished a £5,000 dowry on her niece, but it quickly evaporated in William’s spendthrift hands.

  The O’Sheas had three children, and to support his family William abandoned business for Irish politics and became a member of parliament for County Clare. Cracks soon erupted in their marriage. William preferred a bachelor’s life with constant absences and excessive gambling, and his moderate income left the family in d
ire straits. As their finances deteriorated, Katharine made an arrangement with Aunt Ben to move into her home with the children. She would look after the now-elderly woman in exchange for room and board. She said this period was “narrow, narrow, narrow, and so deadly dull.” It was not how she had envisioned her life, and she desperately wished for another.

  In 1880, William O’Shea, eager to make the acquaintance of the man who was dominating the Irish political scene, urged Katharine to invite Charles Parnell to a dinner party. However, Parnell, a committed loner, was not one to socialize and ignored their letter. In the spirit of “if Muhammad will not go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Muhammad,” Katharine decided to attend Parliament.

  The first time Katharine met Charles was when she approached him as he was leaving the House of Commons and inquired why he had not responded to her invitation. Katharine recorded her first impression of Parnell: “He looked straight at me smiling, and his curiously burning eyes looked into mine with a wonderful intentness that threw into my brain the sudden thought: This man is wonderful—and different.” Her impression on Parnell was just as startling, and he later told her that from the first moment he gazed into her eyes he had known she was his destiny. As she was departing, Katharine leaned out of her carriage and a rose on her bodice fell. Parnell picked it up, kissed it, and placed it in his buttonhole. This rose was discovered years later by Katharine in an envelope with her name and the date on which they first met.

  After the encounter, the man who rarely wrote personal missives was constantly penning love letters. He also attended her next dinner party, which was followed by an evening at the theater, where they were engrossed in each other rather than the stage.

  Katharine knew the risks of an affair: Aunt Ben’s inheritance, the anger of her husband, and Victorian condemnation. Charles, knowledgeable about politics but naive about the dangers of gossip, believed there should be no “impediment to the marriage of true minds.” However, it was the marriage of bodies that courted disaster.

  The O’Shea relationship was a tightrope that Parnell walked for a decade. When in England, he lived with Katharine; when in Ireland, he wrote her countless letters that began “My Dearest Wifie.” In one he stated, “For good or ill, I am your husband, your lover, your children, your all. And I will give my life to Ireland, but to you I give my love, whether it be your heaven or your hell.”

  A year later, Parnell was arrested by the order of English prime minister William Gladstone for his continued disruption of Parliament and placed in Kilmainham Jail. However, instead of getting rid of the “Irish problem,” the plan backfired and Parnell was viewed as a martyr, which elevated him to hero status in Ireland.

  On the domestic front, Katharine was devastated by Charles’s absence. She was pregnant with his child and worried that his always-precarious health would suffer. When their daughter was born, Katharine sent him a snippet of the baby’s hair, which he placed in a locket that contained his lover’s portrait.

  Ireland had erupted into violence over Parnell’s arrest, so Gladstone reluctantly released the only man who could quell it. The Emerald Isle considered this a victory, and hopes for recognition as a sovereign nation reached a fever pitch. For his part, Parnell rushed to the side of Katharine, who was inconsolable at the loss of her baby six weeks after birth.

  For the next eight years, Charles and Katharine lived together in perfect propriety (other than their marital status). The three O’Shea children were joined by two more babies, both girls. Initially infuriated, Captain O’Shea challenged his rival to a duel. However, his anger abated when he learned he stood to inherit money from his wife’s aunt and Parnell could advance his political career. In 1886, he was given a position representing Galway City. His appointment caused one member to comment, “The candidate’s wife is Parnell’s mistress and there is nothing more to say.”

  By 1889, Ireland was ecstatic; it seemed that victory was imminent, and Irish home rule would be theirs. However, the house of cards began to collapse; William O’Shea filed for divorce on the grounds of his wife’s adultery, and Charles Parnell was cited as co-respondent. William’s breaking point was the death of Aunt Ben, who had left her inheritance in trust only in her niece’s name. William attempted to blackmail his wife and demanded £20,000. When she refused, he retaliated with divorce. The fallout was steeped in such drama that it could have been lifted from the pages of a Victorian novel. As Parnell was reduced to a running joke, his enemies took out their knives and went for blood. James Joyce wrote of his fall, “In his final desperate appeal to his countrymen, he begged them not to throw him as a sop to the English wolves howling around them. It rebounds to their honor that they did not fail this appeal. They did not throw him to the English wolves; they tore him to pieces themselves.”

  The Irish Roman Catholic Church withdrew its support for Parnell; he also lost the majority of his own party, which felt that a man who could sacrifice his career for a woman was not fit to hold the reins of power. The bitterness of the split would tear Ireland apart. Parnell’s enraged countrymen took to calling his love “Kitty,” slang for a prostitute. Joyce referred to her as “that bitch, that English whore.” She became the most reviled woman in Irish history.

  On June 25, 1891, Katharine and Charles married in the Steyning registry office in Sussex, as the Church would not sanction their union. The bride’s bouquet consisted of white roses chosen by the groom. When they returned home, they were confronted with hordes of reporters. Charles told them to stand back and allow Mrs. Parnell to pass.

  Four months later, in an attempt to regain power, Parnell traveled to Dublin even though he was suffering from rheumatism. The fury of his erstwhile supporters was evidenced when local coal miners threw lime at his eyes. Undeterred, he gave a speech on a rainy day and began to feel even sicker, but he determined to carry on for Ireland’s sake. He returned to Katharine at the earliest opportunity. By the time he arrived home, he was so frail that his wife of four months had to help him from his carriage. A few nights later, lying in bed, he said his last words to his first love: “Kiss me, sweet wifie, and I will try to sleep a little.”

  The Irish vilify Kitty O’Shea for barring their entry to the Promised Land; however, for Charles, she was the one who had allowed him to experience love, a love that passed into legend.

  Postscript

  Katharine placed the rose that had fallen from her dress when they first met in Charles’s coffin. When it was sealed, a wreath was placed on top with the inscription To my own true love, my husband, my king. In Ireland (where Katharine was not welcome), Charles’s coffin bore a banner bearing his false last words: Give my love to my colleagues and the Irish people. On the coffin’s final journey to Glasnevin cemetery, it was drawn by six horses, with Parnell’s own horse, Home Rule, following immediately behind, boots and stirrups reversed. His interment was attended by more than two hundred thousand people. His gravestone, made of unhewn granite, bears just one word in large letters: Parnell.

  When Katharine Parnell died, her hearse passed unnoticed through the streets of Sussex to the municipal cemetery. A simple cross was erected over the grave by her daughter. Its inscription: To the beloved memory of Katharine, widow of Charles Stewart Parnell. Fide et Amore.

  10

  Nicholas Romanov and Princess Alix

  1884

  In most fairy tales, the handsome prince falls in love with the beautiful princess, they overcome the force of evil, and live happily ever after. In true-life love stories, however, the prince and princess don’t always get their happy ending.

  Princess Alix Victoria Helena Louise Beatrice was born in 1872 in a palace in the German Empire. She was the fifth of seven children born to Queen Victoria’s second daughter, Princess Alice. Her otherwise happy childhood was marred with the deaths of her brother, who passed away from hemophilia, and her mother and youngest sister, who succumbed to diphtheria.

  Alix’s destiny, Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov,
was born in the palace Tsarskoye Selo in Russia, the son of Tsar Alexander III—a six-foot-four man who cast his giant shadow over his hundred million subjects as well as his family. As tsarevitch, the young heir to the throne as well as the greatest fortune in the world was happy with his role as playboy prince, relishing having the best of everything without any attendant responsibilities. However, his life was forever altered when he met the princess for whom he would at last defy his father.

  The first time Alix met Nicholas was in St. Petersburg at the marriage of her older sister Elizabeth to Tsar Alexander’s brother, the Grand Duke Serge. During the wedding ceremony in the chapel of the Winter Palace, the twelve-year-old Alix stole side glances at the sixteen-year-old Nicholas. He reciprocated her interest and soon after gave her a small brooch, which she did not accept. However, this refusal was due to propriety rather than disinterest. After the ceremony, Alix scratched their names on the window of the Peterhof Palace.

  The two did not see each other again for five years, when she returned to Russia to visit her sister. They fell in love and spent all their time together, ice skating and attending balls; before she departed he threw her a party in Tsarskoye Selo. He wrote in his diary, “My dream is some day to marry Alix. For a long time, I resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true.” Alexander did not share his enthusiasm, declaring that a minor German princess was not a sufficient matrimonial prize to the heir to the Russian empire. Everything changed when the tsar became gravely ill at age forty-nine. The result was that the new tsarevitch received permission to marry the woman he loved. It also meant he had impossibly giant boots to fill.