To Marry an English Lord

by gail maccoll

  Left: Edward and Alexandra at the State Opening of the first Parliament under his reign. Alexandra, in deep mourning, was nonetheless covered in diamonds.

  Right: Edward wearing St. Edward’s Crown, which had been made for King Charles II. During the coronation, owing to his ill health, he was actually crowned with the lighter Imperial State Crown, made for Queen Victoria.

  The new reign held great promise. The King had not become desperately serious. And although he was definitely making changes, they were all delightful ones. The Queen had written to him in 1868, “If you ever become King you will find all these friends most inconvenient, and you will have to break with them all.” Thirty-three years later he was king, he still had all these friends, and he was not finding them inconvenient in the least. Loyalty, after all, was one of Edward’s strongest characteristics.

  ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE

  Edward’s loyalty to his old friends—most particularly to the Americans—was the source of satisfaction to a large and by now powerful contingent in English society. The Buccaneers, the Self-Made Girls, the American Aristocrats had taken root. Married to some of the most prominent men in the land, they wielded no small influence themselves. This cabal was remarked upon in 1895, when America and Great Britain came very close to war over a border dispute in Venezuela. George Curzon for example, was Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs; Michael Herbert was British agent at the Tribunal of Arbitration. And, as the New York Journal put it, “There are in England’s heart. . . ten American women, true daughters of the United States who are working quietly and mightily to prevent war between the two countries.”

  The “American Bar” at a coronation bazaar. From left: Mrs. Choate, Lady Dufferin, Mrs. Hall Walker and Lady Craven

  * * *

  “The most astonishing feature of the present time is the sudden transition of this country from Anglophobia to the most exuberant affection for England and ‘Britishers’ in general.”

  SIR JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE, former British ambassador, to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (1898)

  * * *

  This genuine hostility turned to an inordinate fondness in 1898, when Britain sided with America in the Spanish-American War. The enthusiasm for an “Anglo-American alliance” was running high that year, and Joseph Chamberlain (who had an American wife), in a much publicized speech in Birmingham, called for “permanent amity with our kinsmen across the Atlantic.” Sir William Harcourt, leader of the Opposition in 1898 (and married to an American), stated that his “foremost object has been the cultivation of good relations with the United States.”

  Daisy, Countess of Warwick, got on the bandwagon and arranged a tea party for the Prince of Wales and the American wives of English aristocrats, to urge his support for the cause. She even flew the Stars and Stripes from the flagpole at Warwick Castle to make the Americans feel at home.

  REMEMBERING THE MAINE

  Though little of substance emerged from Daisy’s plots, American energy and organization benefited England when a group of American women met in October of 1899 to plan for a hospital ship to be sent to South Africa, where the British were fighting the Boer War. The ship, the nurses and the financing were to be American. Dashing widow Jennie Churchill (Randolph had died in 1895) was chairman, Mrs. Adair (née Cornelia Wadsworth of Geneseo, New York) and Fanny Ronalds were on her committee. There were fund-raising concerts starring American performers. An American shipping millionaire offered the ship—called the Maine after the boat sunk in the Spanish-American War. Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, whose husband would shortly be appointed American ambassador to the Court of St. James, supplied the medical staff from the Mills School of Nursing (founded by her father). It took only two weeks for the committee to assemble the staff and £15,000 in funds. There was even a benefit tea in New York, organized by Lillie Langtry, where the Earl of Yarmouth (not yet married to Alice Thaw), pursuing an acting career on Broadway, served as bartender and made no bones about accepting generous tips. The Earl was quoted by The New York Times as saying that his tending bar “may make a bit of a stench here, but it will do me a lot of good with the Prince.”

  Left: Jennie Churchill, shown with her son Jack, found that uniforms were becoming to ladies.

  Right: Winston, aged twenty-five, persuaded the Morning Post to send him to South Africa as a war correspondent.

  THOROUGHLY MODERN JENNIE

  When the Maine left England in December 1899, Jennie was on board, ostensibly to keep peace between various warring factions on the staff. That she was useful in an executive position, no one doubted. She certainly looked smashing in her nurse’s cap and cape. But she was also trying to keep an eye on Winston, who was in South Africa as a war correspondent. And, gossip had it, she wanted to be near her new love, George Cornwallis-West, called “the handsomest young man in England.”

  He was indeed handsome. And young—half Jennie’s age, a mere two weeks older than Winston. Jennie had met George, the only son of rival professional beauty Patsy Cornwallis-West, at a Warwick Castle garden party in 1898. The two had fallen in love. Which would have been fine if George, swept away by Jennie’s lush, kimono-clad figure, had not wanted to marry her.

  Jennie and George: even Sargent, in his charcoal sketch, couldn’t hide the fact that she was no ingenue, but perhaps that was what George loved about her.

  Jennie was free to marry, if not exactly eager. Lord Randolph Churchill had succumbed to syphilis three years earlier. Shortly before his death, Count Charles Andreas Kinsky, Jennie’s lover of many years, had finally despaired of ever getting her to divorce Randolph and married instead an Austrian countess. Jennie liked life as a widow. She was publisher and editor-in-chief of a lavish literary magazine called The Anglo-Saxon Review. She was Winston’s literary agent, hostess and political mentor. And she continued to have lovers. But none was as persistent or devoted as George. He was eligible for the hand of the noblest, wealthiest young women in England—and as such was irresistible to the forty-five-year-old ex-American heiress.

  When the idea was put about that the two might actually marry, George’s parents were aghast. The match was unflattering to Patsy and unpromising for the Cornwallis-West family fortunes. Jennie would be providing no dowry and, at her age, no heirs. Nevertheless, during Cowes Week—the same week Jennie and Lord Randolph had become secretly engaged a quarter-century earlier—Jennie and George announced their engagement. The New York Times headline declared, “British Society Astonished.”

  In fact, it was livid. Immediately pressure was applied from all sides to dissuade the two. George was summoned to the Britannia, where the Prince of Wales lectured him on the difference in ages. Bertie clearly objected to having Jennie taken out of circulation. Jennie’s sons expressed their apprehension. Then George’s commanding officer, Col. Arthur Paget, husband of Minnie and long-time friend of the Prince, asked for what George described as “a verbal understanding that I would not marry or become engaged before leaving for South Africa.” He agreed. The New York Times printed a cheerful retraction from Winston, and George went off to fight in South Africa.

  But by June 1900 George was back in England, the Maine had returned from service in Durban, and the engagement was on again. George’s commanding officer again interfered. This time George gave up his army career rather than Jennie, and the pair were married in July at St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge. George’s family stayed away, but much of London did not. There were no restrictions on entering the church to watch the service, and such was the public interest that police were required to control the rush for seats.

  Sunny, Duke of Marlborough, gave Jennie away. As Winston later wrote to his brother Jack, “The whole of the Churchill family, from Sunny downwards, was drawn in a solid phalanx, and their approval ratified the business.” The Prince signaled his consent by sending Jennie a jeweled gold pig as a wedding gift (she collected pigs) and suggesting George talk to the royal financial adviser, Sir Ernest Cassel, about the thorny problem of making a living. Jenni
e’s friends chipped in and bought her a pearl-and-diamond tiara. From Kinsky she received nought but a black-bordered card with the message Toujours en deuil (“Always in mourning”).

  The rest of English society, though not in mourning, continued to be unhappy about the match. The general air was conveyed by Lady Dorothy Nevill: when asked what she was up to as she strolled among the children in Hyde Park, the eighty-year-old grande dame replied, “Well, if you want to know, my dear, I am searching in the perambulators for my future husband.”

  Elaborate bindings were standard for Jennie’s magazine.

  * * *

  “What her ultimate influence on English life will be it is difficult to estimate at present; but there can be no doubt that, of all the factors that have contributed to the social revolution of London, there are few more important, and none more delightful, than the American Invasion.”

  OSCAR WILDE, in The Pilgrim Daughters

  * * *

  The crisis of the Boer War brought out the organizational tendencies of Jennie’s friends as well. Minnie Paget, who by now had a reputation as a formidable fund-raiser, masterminded a society theatrical benefit called The Masque of Peace and War. Theatrical producer Beerbohm Tree lent a theater, and all of society paid enormously high prices to see their friends onstage, singing music composed just for the occasion by Sir Arthur Sullivan. The Masque made over £6,000 for the widows and orphans of men killed in South Africa.

  AMERICANS IN LONDON

  The strong American presence in London was felt in less obvious ways as well. In 1899, for example, America’s diplomatic mission in Britain was upgraded to a full embassy, and New York lawyer Joseph Choate was appointed first U. S. ambassador to the Court of St. James. Queen Alexandra, who was rather deaf, took lip-reading lessons with Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough. American accents—for the clever women always kept their accents—could be heard cutting through the din at any ball or political reception. Upon the retirement of Sir Julian Pauncefote, long-time ambassador to the United States, every high-ranking diplomat considered to replace him had an American wife. (Sir Michael Herbert, Belle Wilson’s husband, was chosen because he was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt.)

  EARNING A TITLE

  Some of Edward’s earliest acts as king were to reward his loyal subjects for their service when he was Prince of Wales. Col. Arthur Paget, for instance, was elevated to a knighthood in recognition of his military deeds (although the one who had truly earned the reward was the indefatigable Minnie, Edward’s favorite hostess). Titles, from lowly, noninheritable knighthoods to full-fledged peerages, were usually conferred for outstanding political, military or diplomatic service, but Edward recognized other kinds of duty as well: financier Ernest Cassel, for example, who had lent him money, and Luke Fildes, who was responsible for the official coronation portrait, became Sir Ernest and Sir Luke.

  A large proportion of the husbands of American heiresses received honors for reasons that are difficult to discern from Burke’s Peerage. George Cooper was a Scottish solicitor who had married, in 1887, one Mary Emma Smith from Chicago. They lived rather quietly in Scotland until, on the death of her uncle, Mary Cooper inherited some £4 million. The Coopers promptly showed up in London, bought a house on Grosvenor Square and a country house in Oxfordshire, and spent thousands enlarging and decorating and subsequently entertaining. On King Edward’s Birthday List of honors in 1905, George Cooper was created a baronet.

  In the end, an American heiress who had not managed to marry a titled Briton could often rectify that omission. Her money, her charm, and her skill at keeping her sovereign entertained could make her a Lady after all.

  Minnie Paget, finally titled like her fellow Buccaneers after her husband was knighted by King Edward.

  MARCH OF ANGLOMANIA

  American newspaper coverage of U. S. participation in the coronation was comprehensive.

  The importance of the American community in London was also marked by commercial venture, when an enterprising publisher began producing Bancroft’s Guide to Americans in London. The 1901 edition devoted nineteen pages to a residential directory. Most entries gave little biographies, and a separate section listed titled American women. The introduction to the 1902 edition (for Mr. Bancroft’s directory was profitable enough to warrant annual revisions) claimed to give “the names, addresses, and titles of those men and women who constitute what may be called American Society in London.”

  CORONATION FEVER

  The coronation was scheduled for the summer of 1902. Mourning for Queen Victoria was finished, and by late spring the London season was shaping up to be the most glamorous ever. Of course, those Americans who were married to Englishmen would be entertaining. So would the handful of wealthy American families who had moved to England. Waldorf Astor, owner of the Pall Mall Gazette, would have house parties at Cliveden. The Michael Graces, with their three lovely daughters, would no doubt be eager to host fellow Americans at historic Battle Abbey in Sussex. (Grace, originally from Ireland, had done very well with his brother William in Peru, and while William occupied himself with New York politics, Michael oversaw the English side of the Grace shipping empire.) Then the Anthony J. Drexels, of the Philadelphia banking family, had become deeply entrenched in English life: their son went to Eton, their yacht was moored mostly in English waters, and during the season they entertained brilliantly at their vast house off Grosvenor Square.

  A large New York contingent set out on the Kronprinz Wilhelm, while a larger New York contingent said goodbye from the pier.

  The resident contingent was augmented, in the 1902 season, by every ambitious American who could organize a steamer ticket and a place to stay. The Tatler, England’s society magazine, stated as early as August of 1901 that “preparations are already being made for next season among the army of Americans who propose to storm these shores during that period. The characteristic transatlantic desire to be ‘on the spot’ for the coronation festivities and ceremonials is rising to fever heat.”

  The Tatler got in on the act with its own timely features. From the top: Lady Newborough, the Marchioness of Dufferin and Lady Lister-Kaye.

  By June of 1902 the Tatler’s predictions had been borne out. The Savoy, the Berkeley, the Carl ton and Claridge’s hotels were full, with names like Widener, Schwab, Elkins, De Young and Yerkes on the registers. The W.K. Vanderbilt Jrs., the Alfred Vanderbilts, the Peabody Wetmores, the Lorillards were all in town. Mrs. Mackay, once snubbed by New York, had achieved such a position in London that her musicale at Carlton House Terrace (Caruso and Emma Calvé performed) was one of the high points of the season. The Drawing Rooms were packed with American débutantes in their Worth presentation gowns, and American papers breathlessly covered the London engagements of visitors like the Whitelaw Reids, who were scheduled to dine with the Prince of Wales (later King George V), the King and Queen, Lord Pembroke and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, and who were also to go to Blenheim for a weekend. It was noted that Oliver and Alva Belmont were the only Americans present at a dinner given by Lord and Lady Rothschild for the King and Queen. Much was made of the fact that Queen Alexandra’s coronation gown was to be made of fabric embroidered in India and chosen by Lady Curzon.

  Consuelo Marlborough in her coronation robes. In her memoir she smugly recalled her foresight in ordering a new, small coronet that would fit neatly inside her tiara.

  London was full of exotics: not merely Americans but Indian princes, a delegation of Japanese, and monarchs from all over Europe who had come to see their relative crowned. As it had been sixty-five years since the previous coronation, no one remembered quite what the ceremonial was, but the Duke of Norfolk, England’s hereditary Earl Marshal, had come up with something that was suitably hierarchic, dignified and colorful. Then the King fell ill and, two days before the coronation, had an emergency operation for peritonitis. The coronation had to be postponed. The bunting was taken down, food for the celebratory banquet was given to the poor, and
the exotics left without having had a chance to wear their coronation finery.

  THE CROWNED KING

  On August 9, in a shortened but nonetheless glorious ceremony, Edward was finally crowned. True, the foreign monarchs had all gone home, but everyone said that made it a more profoundly English event. The Abbey was filled with peers and peeresses, diplomats from all over the world, English politicians. The American women among the peeresses were, as at most London gatherings, the handsomest, best-dressed and most impressively bejeweled ladies present. Consuelo Marlborough, one of the four tall, beautiful duchesses carrying Alexandra’s canopy, was singled out for her grave charm. What impressed the King most was the moment when, after the coronation of Queen Alexandra, each of the peeresses put on her own coronet. The simultaneous movement of those hundreds of white arms, the rustling of robes, the flashing of the jewels made him think of a scene from a ballet.