To Marry an English Lord

by gail maccoll

  COMME IL FAUT

  Menu cards, listing the dishes that footmen will offer for each course, are placed on the dinner table between every two guests. The polite guest will choose only one.

  Menus also had to be invented for the duration of the party, whether it was Saturday-to-Monday (never “the weekend,” which implied one had to be back at “a job of work”) or a full week. The chef must be interviewed. Could turtles be obtained for turtle soup? If salmon was served on Saturday, what would Sunday’s fish course be? The old Duchess was very fond of the prune soufflé, they must have that one evening. And were there enough lobsters on hand for His Majesty’s teatime treats? Although the houses that maintained good chefs were few—Blenheim, of course, was one—the sheer amount of food devoured was fantastic. The hostess, moreover, had to write out menus for every meal. These menus, placed between each pair of guests, were swiftly examined before service began, as it was not always possible to tell precisely what it was the footman was proffering. And one couldn’t ask.

  A strategic session with the housekeeper followed the planning with the chef. How many bedrooms would be made up? Did Milady remember that the chimney in the Tapestry Room smoked? And that the last time Lord Robert was put in the Tower Room, he complained that the bed was too short? There would be twenty for tea on Saturday, the same on Sunday, so the stillroom maid should make seedcake.

  Finally, consultation with the butler: the big épergnes for Sunday, filled with orchids, and the Meissen dinner service; so on Saturday the Sèvres, with the Bohemian crystal goblets, and white lilac. The four-ten and the five-ten and the six-thirty trains should all be met on Saturday, with wagons for servants and luggage, carriages for the guests.

  THE CROWNING TOUCH

  Even in New York, where the trappings of court seemed faintly silly, every woman with aspirations to a grand social life owned a tiara (though she couldn’t wear it unless she was married). And woe betide the Edwardian lady who chose to go without. “The Princess has taken the trouble to wear a tiara,” the Prince of Wales once scolded Consuelo Marlborough. “Why have you not done so?”

  Wearing a tiara could be troublesome indeed, since they were always diamonds—with, perhaps, another precious gem—set in gold or platinum and the bigger the better. An air of superbia, a carriage that yielded not a millimeter to the weight of the stones, was crucial. Helena Zimmerman, Duchess of Manchester, wore the family tiara (with heart-shaped scrollwork, roughly four inches high all the way round) with a look of misgiving, while Queen Alexandra could support even a massive Russian-style diadem with aplomb. “I’ve seen women turn actually grey under the weight of their tiaras,” says Lady Barnstaple in Gertrude Atherton’s American Wives and English Husbands. “Still, unless you blaze at a great party, you simply are not seen.”

  The Manchester tiara, worn by Consuelo.

  It was out of the question for an American woman not to be seen. So Jean Reid, at her marriage to John Ward, was given a diamond tiara containing over 100 stones, some a quarter-inch across; the headpiece was butterfly-shaped, and measured eight by three inches at the widest and highest points! And Nancy Shaw’s wedding gift from Waldorf Astor was a tiara containing the Sancy diamond, weighing in at fifty-three and a half carats.

  Nancy Astor’s tiara, centered with the Sancy diamond.

  Around 1905, a new style emerged. The very richest American matrons had their tiaras reset as copies of European crowns. Mrs. Charley Yerkes’ tiara duplicated a Spanish crown; Mrs. Howard Gould had a tiara patterned after one owned by Queen Elena of Italy. Mrs. Bradley Martin’s was the twin of Empress Josephine’s. And Mrs. John Jacob Astor and Mrs. Clarence Mackay both wore replicas of English crowns. There was no mistaking the message: America’s queens of society felt they were taking, at last, their rightful place among the royalty of Europe.

  The King and Queen on the royal yacht at Cowes in 1909. They both look younger than their years: unretouched photographs of them were rarely made public.

  * * *

  The 9th Duke of Marlborough hired a small black boy to act as page to Consuelo, and he followed her around Blenheim wearing an Oriental costume topped off by a turban.

  * * *

  Before the guests arrived, the hostess went round the rooms to ensure that everything was as it should be: plenty of coal in the grate, fresh ribbons threaded through the hems of sheets, clean blotting paper, new pens, a full ink bottle and various sizes of writing paper at the desk; fresh flowers, perhaps corsages for the ladies (a specialty at the Sackvilles’ Knole) and reading matter gauged to the occupants’ tastes. Consuelo Marlborough went down to Blenheim on Saturday morning to make these rounds, before the guests arrived in the afternoon.

  After her executive session in the morning, the hostess must be ready in the drawing room for Edward’s arrival, all nerves, rehearsing again and again the details of arrangements for his comfort. She would have coached the children: Leonie Jerome Leslie’s children remembered their mother issuing “paralyzing instructions to us boys ‘Never sit down while THEY stand, never start the conversation, never change the subject, never ask a question—and don’t touch the Bar-le-Duc jam!’“ All of those instructions (save the one about the Bar-le-Duc) applied equally to adults, and though they were second nature to court habitués, a slip would bring that freezing look of annoyance into the royal gray eyes.

  COMME IL FAUT

  The King and Queen enter a room when all the guests are assembled, and they are the first to leave.

  A HOSTESS’S DUTIES

  After tea and a stroll on the lawn on a fine evening, the guests returned to their rooms to change for dinner. In her boudoir, the American hostess took one more look at the guest placement. A leather pad, with slots cut in an oblong and cards with names inserted into the slots, showed who would sit where. The lady of highest rank at her husband’s right hand; the gentleman of highest rank at the hostess’s right hand. Everyone else followed according to rank. This was so important that Debrett’s Peerage assigned a number for each peer, peer’s wife, and children, right down through the hundreds of baronets. One need only consult this convenient Table of Precedence.

  Racing always entertained the King. Here, he leads home his Derby winner, Persimmon, in 1896.

  Left: The King was a fine shot, and the sport at Sandringham was some of the best in the country. An average of 30,000 birds a year were bagged there.

  Right: The ladies joining the “guns” at Laid Craven’s house, Coombe Abbey. Jennie, at the far light, keeps her profile to the camera.

  Watching the service during dinner, making sure the footmen kept the glasses filled, noting that the sauce on the partridges was curiously bitter, the hostess still had to keep conversation going. During the first course, one addressed the person on one’s right. As the second course was served, it was up to the hostess to “turn the table” by addressing herself to the gentleman on her left. And when dinner was over, when the last fruit knife had been laid at the side of a plate, the hostess rose and took the lady guests with her to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their port and cigars while they discussed the ruling of the country or the results of the Derby (more likely the latter in the King’s presence). Afterwards a band, shipped down from London, might provide music for dancing, or amateur theatricals, assiduously rehearsed for several days beforehand, might be presented. A ball at a neighboring country house might be the weekend’s peg, in which case the entire house party would bundle off into carriages to drive to a similar house where a similar house party was already in progress.

  On a shooting weekend, the entire group was expected at breakfast, though ladies never went out with the “guns.” Otherwise, mornings were quiet. While His Majesty was safely in his rooms reading official papers, his hostess reviewed her troops. The chef: what had been wrong with the partridges? The housekeeper: Lord Robert put his foot through the sheet. The butler: Lady Angela would like to ride at eleven, so a horse should be saddled for her, and w
as it fine enough for luncheon outside?

  The quiet was not always a blessing, however. “Sundays were interminably long,” wrote Consuelo Marlborough, “for a hostess who had no games wherewith to entertain her guests. Golf and tennis had not yet become the vogue nor would they have been played on the Lord’s Day.” Instead, at Blenheim, entertainment included two church services, morning and evening. (His Majesty often read the lesson.) “Promenades were the fashionable pastime, and the number of tête-à-tête walks she could crowd into an afternoon became the criterion of a woman’s social success. . . . Sometimes I had to find a recalcitrant swain to accompany a fair lady. One never knew where one’s duties as a hostess would end.”

  THE ROYAL GUEST

  When the King was one’s guest, those duties never ended at all. His lightest whim, of course, was a command. Thus when an equerry sought out the American hostess to suggest that His Majesty might enjoy a slice of rare roast beef before retiring, the roast beef would materialize even if the servants went hungry. The Tatler, in 1909, listed some of his likes and dislikes. He rose early, and had coffee and a roll in his room, then went for a walk with his host, who should be sure to be available for this event.

  Always fond of novelty, the King loved motoring. Here, he poses in a 1900 Daimler.

  OUT OF THE PAST

  Shut out in New York, Mrs. John Mackay had become an important London hostess by the end of the ’80s. But, eagerly as she took advantage of that city’s social tolerance, she didn’t like to see it applied indiscriminately. In particular, she didn’t like seeing it applied to Charles Bonynge, who had returned to England with his pretty daughter and stepdaughter (eventually Lady Maxwell and Viscountess Deerhurst). It was his American career as a broker of mining stocks that offended Louise Mackay; in the rudimentary social pecking order of her hometown, Virginia City, Nevada, a stockbroker was beneath the notice of a miner’s wife.

  Mrs. Mackay had not forgotten that distinction. She entertained widely in London, but Charles Bonynge she ignored. During the season of 1889, the American minister Phelps remonstrated, suggesting that Mrs. Mackay put aside her prejudice for the unity of the tight-knit American community, but still she refused. There was no reason, she maintained, to “invite a C Street broker to my house.”

  Though Louise had successfully translated herself since her Virginia City days, when she gave piano lessons and took in sewing to make a living, her past had followed her to London. Nasty little stories were often leaked to the British press, claiming that she’d run a boarding house or been a washerwoman, and that John Mackay had been one of her customers. Who in London had known her in Virginia City? Charles Bonynge. And she was sure he was behind some of those nasty tales.

  A little feud born in the dusty hills of Nevada couldn’t block her ambition for long, of course, and soon Mrs. Mackay had achieved her goal. The morning after a party at her home, attended by the Prince of Wales, all the guests received newspaper clippings and an ill-spelt pamphlet repeating the washerwoman story. A successful lawsuit stopped the publication of further gossip, but Bonynge himself could not be chastened until the day he met John Mackay unexpectedly in a banker’s office. Mackay punched him in the eye, knocking him down, and later told reporters with satisfaction how Bonynge’s blood “poured all over my trousers.” The Wild West vendetta that carried over into English court circles had finally been settled—frontier style.

  John Mackay wasn’t afraid to use his hands to defend his wife’s honor.

  After breakfast in his room and an hour or so spent on state duties, His Majesty was ready for relaxation. He was an avid racegoer and a keen shot (though he didn’t hunt). Out shooting, he liked to have the ladies join the “guns” for lunch, but he didn’t like them around when the shooting resumed. Bad weather could be disastrous. One might take the King motoring, or get up a rubber of bridge, but as the Tatler reminded its readers, Edward possessed “a very restless nature” and looked for “constant amusements when staying with any of his subjects.”

  * * *

  By 1902, Edward VII’s chest and waist both measured forty-eight inches.

  * * *

  In the evening he liked cards and music; he also liked formality. One of the Blenheim servants remembered the sight of the dinner table when the then Prince visited the Marlboroughs: “I think the first thing that struck me was the flashing headgear of the ladies. The Blue Hungarian [band] was playing and there was the Prince himself looking really royal and magnificent in military uniform. The table was laid of course with the silver-gilt service. . . and the royal footmen waiting side by side with our own.” That dinner followed a torchlight parade in the park. On the last night of the royal visit, the Marlboroughs had a concert to which they invited some of the prominent county families, and Consuelo describes how “the royal procession wound its way through the throng of bejeweled women and men in knee breeches and uniforms and stopped here and there for a word of greeting.”

  She was vastly relieved when the royal party left, as, in all probability, were most hostesses. The King would affably give autographs and always signed the visitors’ book (taking up almost a page with his signature), so there it was, in writing, proof of his royal condescension—“the accolade,” as Nancy Astor’s biographer said, “of fashionability.” That would show them back in New York!

  Edward leaving Blenheim after a visit in the late 1890s. Consuelo stands on the steps, on the red carpet laid down for the royal visitor.

  “I thought everyone must know that a short jacket is always worn with a silk hat at a private view in the morning.”

  What Edward wore, other men soon copied. When he arrived at Marienbad to take the cure, tailors from all over Europe recorded any new crease, or collar on the royal person. If he appeared at Longchamps Races in a strangely shaped hat, the boulevards of Paris were soon full of men sporting similar hats.

  No one was exempt from a royal rebuke on the subject of what he was wearing. “Trousers are always worn on board ship!” Edward said to a minister who appeared on the Victoria and Albert in knee breeches. And, to a groom-in-waiting: “Is it possible you are thinking of going to a wedding in a black waistcoat?” On one occasion, he spied medals arrayed in the wrong order on the chest of the Swedish ambassador. “Hunt and Roskill, 148 Piccadilly,” he quickly whispered, apparently feeling that only a personal visit to the court jewelers would set this miscreant straight.

  Edward the trend-setter, dressed for town and country.

  Edward’s own sartorial subtlety knew no bounds. Once, when approaching the coast of Scotland, he requested that his valet put out something “a little more Scottish” for the next day—not completely Scottish, mind you, since he wasn’t yet in Scotland. So much did he care about the correct outfit, be it ceremonial or sporting or something in between, that he changed what he was wearing at least half a dozen times a day. He traveled with two valets, while another two stayed behind to tend the royal closets, where costumes were stored for every variation of climate and occasion in every corner of the world.

  Clockwise from top: The Admiralty effect, with Garter insignia; a Scottish sporran for the accessory-lover; the original “Prince of Wales” plaid; full Masonic regalia.

  FASHIONS BY EDWARD

  DINNER JACKET. Born on a trip to India, when Edward replaced the traditional swallowtail coat with a short dark blue jacket over black trousers, with a black bow tie.

  CREASED TROUSERS. Edward tried on a pair that had been lying folded and liked the slimming effect. He took it one step further and tried trousers folded across to disguise his bandy legs, but this look never caught on.

  HATS. Owner of over 100 different hats, Edward introduced the black Homburg and lent his approval to the Tyrolean. He detested the Panama and anybody who wore one.

  UNBUTTONED BUTTON. Dressing hurriedly for dinner, Edward neglected to do up the bottom button of his waistcoat. (Still the correct—and, for larger men, more comfortable—way to wear a waistcoat.

&
nbsp; NORFOLK JACKET. Flattered the royal figure—and those of stout men everywhere.

  TWEED AT GOODWOOD. When Edward substituted a tweed suit for his usual frock coat at the season’s last race meeting, everyone, according to Winston Churchill, “followed the King’s sensible example.” And still does.

  THE LAST MARRIAGES

  During the decade following the annus mirabilis of 1895, the year that saw so many notable Anglo-American matches, the pace tapered off. Daisy Leiter’s marriage to the Earl of Suffolk was one of the few notable matches of 1904; there were none in 1905. The American Aristocrats were staying home. But there were still Americans in London, and several of them had daughters. These girls were heiresses of yet another new breed.

  “For richer, for poorer . . . ”

  Helen Post, for example, had lived for years as an English girl; her mother had come to London as the widowed Mrs. Arthur Post and in 1889 had married Lord Barrymore. Margaretta Drexel’s parents were well established in London, with one of the largest town houses and one of the most famous chefs in London. Jean Reid was the ambassador’s daughter, living in splendor at Dorchester House, and Mildred Carter’s father was secretary of the embassy. All these girls had London débuts; in fact, when John Carter was recalled to the United States, Mildred was sent back to London for the season and chaperoned by Mrs. Reid.

  The new heiresses had English friends, English educations, even English accents. They were cosmopolitan, and there was never any sense about them that being American required an apology. The Tatler, describing Jean Reid, stated that she “in common with most of her heiress compatriots might have been born in the very midst of the purple for all she shows of her yeoman descent.” Only thirty-five years had passed since the Marlboroughs thought Jennie Jerome nearly savage. The United States had grown up in the world, and its daughters now took their place with confidence and command. Daisy Miller, with her audacity and innocence, had been superseded by a thoroughly sophisticated young lady.