Edward VII

by Catharine Arnold

  On the way back to England, Bertie caught another chill and developed bronchitis. Despite this, Bertie worked like a horse on his royal duties and social obligations, so much so that by the end of April Alice was sending him home early from a dinner, because he looked so unwell, breathless, coughing, and gray.4 The queen was sent for, and returned from Corfu to be horrified by Bertie’s appearance. By the following morning, May 6, Bertie was worse, but he insisted on getting up, getting dressed, and conducting business as usual. Sir Ernest Cassel arrived at lunchtime, bringing an envelope containing £10,000 (over £1.6m) in banknotes, a financial settlement for Alice, perhaps.5 Bertie must, by now, have understood that he was dying, and he needed to provide for Alice’s future. Despite a series of heart attacks in the afternoon, Bertie refused to go to bed and told the queen and his doctors that he intended to keep on working until the end. Bertie’s mood improved slightly later in the afternoon, when he was told that his horse, Witch of the Air, had won the 4:15 at Kempton Park.6 Bertie’s official famous last words were: “I am so glad.”7

  There is some dispute as to how Bertie passed his last night on earth. Some biographers have suggested that Alix sent for Alice Keppel when she knew that Bertie was dying. While it is tempting to think that the long-suffering, generous Alix was determined to do the right thing and offer Alice her chance to say farewell, other accounts, from Viscount Esher and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, present a different version of events. According to Bertie’s doctor, Sir Francis Laking, an increasingly frantic Alice Keppel had been calling at Buckingham Palace throughout the day, and had sent Alix the letter Bertie had written to her at the time of his appendix operation, which said that “if he were dying, he felt sure that those about him would allow her to come to him.”8 Alix had no option but to instruct Sir Francis Knollys to send for Alice.

  According to Alice, she was received by the queen in tears, who proceeded to sob on her shoulder and tell Alice not to worry, that the royal family would take care of her.9 Sir Francis Laking’s memory of the scene was somewhat different.

  Alice arrived, distraught with grief, and was ushered into the royal presence, where she curtsied to Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria and was led to sit down beside Bertie. Bertie was drifting in and out of consciousness by this time, and kept toppling forward in his chair. Indeed, it is unlikely that he realized who Alice was. The envelope of cash still sat beside him, untouched. According to Sir Francis Laking, Bertie took her hand, and told Alice not to cry, before calling out to Alix and asking her to join them. “You must kiss her,” he insisted to his wife. “You must kiss Alice.”10 This must have been a horrific request for Alix, but she complied and offered her cheek to Alice. Again, this peculiar request may have been the result of Bertie’s incoherence; perhaps he mistook Alice for a family member, and that is why he did not hand over the money.

  By this time, according to Sir Francis Laking, Bertie’s mind had begun to wander. Forgetting that he was in the presence of the queen, Bertie stuttered: “I want to pee.”11

  Mercifully, Alix was so deaf that she didn’t catch the meaning of his request. “What was that?” she asked Sir Francis. “He is asking for a pencil, Ma’am,” replied Laking, with presence of mind.12 As Bertie passed into unconsciousness again, and Alice had become hysterical, Alix whispered to Laking: “Get that woman away.”13

  This was not an easy task. Alice refused to leave Bertie’s side, until Laking told her sternly that the king had asked to be left alone with Alix. Led out of the room by Princess Victoria, Alice gave herself up to grief and shrieked, at the top of her voice, so that all the pages and footmen in the passage outside could hear, “I never did any harm, there was nothing wrong between us. What is to become of me?”14 Despite Princess Victoria’s valiant efforts to calm her down, Alice was carried into Sir Edward Ponsonby’s room in “a wild fit of hysterics,” where she remained for several hours.15

  It was, according to Lord Esher, a close friend of Bertie’s,16 “a painful and rather theatrical exhibition, and ought never to have happened.”17

  Sir Francis Knollys, when he discovered the envelope of money, returned it to Sir Ernest Cassel, who duly sent it back, saying that the cash represented “interest I gave to the King in financial matters I am undertaking.”18

  Bertie died just before midnight. Afterward, “in a terrible state of despair,” Alix told Francis Laking:

  I would not have kissed her, if he had not bade me. But I would have done anything he asked of me. Twelve years ago, when I was so angry about Lady Warwick, and the King expostulated with me and said I should get him into the divorce court, I told him once for all that he might have all the women he wished, and I would not say a word; and I have done everything since that he desired me to do about them. He was the whole of my life and, now he is dead, nothing matters.19

  Had the women been able to weep together and share their grief, Alice would have agreed with Alix that now that Bertie was dead, “nothing matters.” However, Alice had to ensure her own survival. For the first time, the knowledge that she was merely a mistress, and not a queen, hit home and the message was hard to take.

  After she left Buckingham Palace for the last time, Alice did not go back to 16 Portman Square. Indeed, she never went home again. Crowds had already gathered outside the house and she knew that once the king was dead, she and her family would be subjected to intense scrutiny. Instead, Alice went to stay with her friends Arthur and Venetia James in their house in Grafton Street. The sudden exit from Portman Square occasioned some comment among gossips and royal watchers. Was Alice bankrupt? they asked. Had she fled from her creditors? This rumor at least was unfounded. Alice was still wealthy.

  The following morning, Violet and Sonia woke to the news that Kingy had died. They were dressed in mourning, including underwear threaded with black ribbon, and escorted to Venetia James’s house, but they were not allowed to go straight to their mother. The next day, when Sonia and Violet were eventually ushered into Alice’s bedroom, she seemed almost like a stranger to them: “We went up to her bed and she turned and looked at us blankly, and without recognition, and rather resentfully, as though we were unwelcome intruders.”20

  Alice came to her senses in a day or so, and with her old resilience set off to Marlborough House to sign the book of condolence opened in Bertie’s memory. To Alice’s horror, she discovered that the new King George, and his wife, Queen Mary, had banned her from signing the book and she was refused admission. But instead of admitting defeat, even as she reeled away from Marlborough House, the scene of her past triumphs, Alice was already at work on her side of the story. Over the coming days, she circulated her version of events, in which Queen Alexandra sobbed on her shoulder and vowed to look after her. She even set about inviting small groups of former “friends” to dine with her, denying of course that there was anything so inappropriate as a dinner party during this period of heavy mourning, but was instead merely the opportunity for friends to talk about the past.21 Alice even asked if she could take on Caesar, Bertie’s dog. But this request, too, was denied, even though Alix had hated the fox terrier.22 Another snub came from the kaiser; when Alice wrote asking to meet him when he arrived in London for Bertie’s funeral, he refused to see her. That diplomatic breakthrough when Alice had sat next to him at dinner might just as well have never happened.23

  As a member of the Norfolk Yeomanry, the Hon. George Keppel should have played an important part in the funeral parade, but he was not invited. It had obviously been decided that having the late king’s mistress’s husband in the funeral cortege would be too embarrassing.

  There was to be no repeat of the notorious “loose box” at Bertie’s funeral. Alice was now outside the royal circle. But she did at least receive an invitation, and arrived, dressed in full mourning, as one observer snidely remarked (as though Alice would have worn anything else),24 slipping in discreetly by a side door.

  At Bertie’s funeral service, Caesar the fox terrier was among the mour
ners. Young Vita Sackville-West attended, with her father, and her diary entry captured the pathos of the scene: “Everyone cried when they saw the King’s little dog following the coffin.”25

  Little Sonia Keppel, distressed by her mother’s strange behavior, the death of Kingy, and moving house at short notice, burst into tears and wept in her father’s arms. “Why,” she asked George Keppel, “why does it matter so much, Kingy dying?”26

  “Because Kingy was such a wonderful man,” replied the Hon. George. “Poor little girl. It must have been very frightening for you. And for all of us, for that matter. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.”27

  Lillie before Langtry: the young Lillie Le Breton, c. 1872.

  Just married: the Langtrys, 1874.

  Lillie Langtry, in one of her many soap commercials, 1880.

  “Bertie” in Paris, c. 1895.

  “Daisy” Warwick, mistress of Prince Edward VII, as Marie Antoinette, 1894. (V&A Images)

  The wedding of “Daisy,” future Countess of Warwick, 1881.

  Bertie as seen from France (a criticism of Britain’s position over the Boer War), 1901. (Mary Evans Picture Agency)

  Coleman’s starch advertisement showing the coronation of King Edward VII, 1902. (Mary Evans Picture Agency)

  King Edward VII with his dog, Caesar, c. 1903. (Mary Evans Picture Agency)

  King Edward VII at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire, with Alice Keppel, standing, fourth from left, 1905. (Mary Evans Picture Agency)

  Lillie as Lady de Bathe, with Sir Walter and Lady de Frece, c. 1928.

  AFTERTHOUGHTS

  In the second volume of Daisy’s memoirs, Afterthoughts, she recalled Lillie Langtry in later life, during World War I:

  Lady de Bathe was certainly one of the loveliest creatures I have ever seen. I have often remembered a conversation that we had as we strolled through the gardens at Easton one summer evening during the War.

  “Whatever happens, I do not intend to grow old!” exclaimed Lily [sic] Langtry suddenly, and with these words I saw a flash of her beautiful eyes. “Why shouldn’t beauty vanquish time?”

  I forget what I answered, for I was busy analyzing what she had said. I stole a glance at her, and certainly Time’s ravages, although perceptible to the discerning eye of one who had known her at the zenith of her beauty, were disguised with consummate artistry, while her figure was still lovely.

  But it came to me then that there was tragedy in the life of this woman, whose beauty had once been world-famous, for she had found no time in the intervals of pursuing pleasure to secure contentment for the evening of her day. Now that she saw the evening approach, Lily [sic] Langtry could only protest that it was not evening at all, but just the prolongation of a day that was, in truth, already dead.… The Jersey Lily clung to her beauty even when it was passing … the world of easy triumphs was slipping from her grasp.1

  Daisy went on to conclude that she felt Lillie was living in the past, while she, Daisy, preferred to live in the future. “I have found that life becomes increasingly interesting the more I identify myself with worth-while causes, and the less I think about personal matters and my own age.”2

  Daisy’s worthwhile causes included standing for the parliamentary seat of Warwick and Leamington Spa as the Labour party candidate in 1929, against the charming and debonair young Anthony Eden, rescuing circus ponies, and adopting a pet monkey, which set fire to Easton Lodge, burning a substantial part of the mansion to the ground. Faced with bankruptcy, Daisy even attempted to blackmail King George V with a cache of letters from Bertie. When this failed, Daisy brought out two volumes of memoirs instead, Life’s Ebb and Flow and Afterthoughts. Touted as deeply shocking, these books instead provide a wealth of insight into the privileged life of the Marlborough House set and the British upper classes before World War I. Eccentric and life-affirming to the end, Daisy had a huge circle of friends, including H. G. Wells and Charlie Chaplin. Daisy died in 1936, aged seventy-eight.

  In Afterthoughts, Daisy wrote: “As I strolled along the garden paths with the Jersey Lily I was deeply sorry for her, realising as I did that she had no resources within herself and was living on memories—for memories do not carry one forward, and inevitably one reaches a period when one has exhausted them.”3

  In fairness to Lillie, she had a lot to remember. Lillie achieved great fame as a celebrity, rather than an actress, became a successful racehorse owner, and in 1907 attained the respectability she craved when her young husband, Hugo de Bathe, succeeded to the title of baronet, but their marriage was a troubled one and the couple lived apart, Lillie in Monaco and Hugo in Venice.

  There exists an extraordinary photograph of Lillie in her final years, taking a stroll after lunch in Monte Carlo; elegant Mediterranean palms are visible in the background. Imperious in a cloche hat and fur coat, Lillie is flanked by Sir Walter de Frece and his wife, “Lady de Frece.” In a previous incarnation, Lady de Frece was music hall star Vesta Tilley. In this early example of a “pap” shot, Sir Walter, in tweeds and homberg, is staring warily down the camera and grasping his walking stick as though about to lash out at the photographer. It is a snapshot of Britain’s vanished stage aristocracy: Lillie, the mistress of the Prince of Wales, now married into the peerage; Vesta, the male impersonator who once twirled a top hat and cane in white tie and tails while claiming to be “Burlington Bertie,”4 the epitome of the idle aristocrat, now immaculate in a fur-trimmed coat, eyes demurely downcast. None of these people want to be in the photograph. A curious state of affairs for two women who once courted fame.

  Daisy was right about the tragedy. Before Lillie married Hugo in 1899, she had a violent and unhappy relationship with George Alexander Baird, an amateur jockey and boxer known as “the Squire.”5 A violent alcoholic, the Squire would beat Lillie up one day and shower her with diamonds the next. The Squire would doubtless have killed Lillie, but in 1893 he was found dead in his New Orleans hotel room following a massive binge. Lillie became estranged from her daughter, Jeanne-Marie, over the vexed issues of Jeanne-Marie’s paternity, although Lillie had the comfort of seeing Jeanne-Marie marry into the peerage.

  Lillie retired to Monte Carlo, a sad and bitter woman who lived alone apart from her devoted maid, Mathilde Peat. “I have lost my daughter, the only thing that is dear to me, my life is sad indeed,”6 Lillie told one old friend; an employee from Lillie’s Monte Carlo villa recalled that Lillie cried herself to sleep every night. Lillie died of complications following bronchitis in 1929.

  As for Ned Langtry, his story was never going to end happily. While Lillie’s star ascended and she became a household name, Ned succumbed to alcoholism. He was occasionally to be found outside theaters where Lillie was playing, desperate to see her. One night, Ned was picked up in Liverpool, after stumbling deliriously off the Belfast ferry. Drunk and confused, possibly after a head injury, he was taken to Chester Asylum, where he died. Nobody believed his claims to be the husband of Lillie Langtry.7

  After the death of Bertie, Alice Keppel exploited her fame as the late king’s mistress, although the family of King George V regarded her as an embarrassment. In later years, Alice became something of a parody of herself, and inspired a memorable portrait in Virginia Woolf’s diary for March 10, 1932: “I had lunched with Raymond [Mortimer, the critic] to meet Mrs Keppel; a swarthy thick set raddled direct—‘My dear’, she calls one—old grasper: whose fists had been in the moneybags these 50 years: And she has a flat in the Ritz.”8 Alice also had a Rolls-Royce waiting. But under the magnificent furs and great pearls, Alice’s dress was shabby. On one level, Woolf rather admired Alice’s directness and humor, but she was dismayed to learn that Alice was off to Berlin to hear Hitler speak.

  Alice Keppel’s older daughter, Violet, who grew up to be self-centered and attention-seeking, claimed that she was Bertie’s daughter until the day she died. There was no evidence for this. Violet Keppel was born in 1894, four years before Alice was introduced to Bertie, and there was no suggesti
on they had met before that time. It is possible, however, that Sonia was the daughter of Alice and Bertie. Born in 1900, Sonia did have a likeness to Bertie, and later wrote Edwardian Daughter, in which she did nothing to dispel this rumor, as both sisters lived on in the shadow of their increasingly eccentric and difficult mother. Sonia married Henry Cubitt and their granddaughter, Camilla, was for many years the mistress of Charles, the current Prince of Wales. Charles and Camilla were married in 2005.

  The image of Daisy and Lillie, all rivalry behind them, walking arm in arm in the gardens of Easton Lodge is a compelling one. Those gardens are a ruin now, despite the best efforts of volunteers, but on a warm, quiet day in the summer, it is possible to roam alone through what remains of Easton Lodge and catch a glimpse of times past: the Edwardian long golden afternoon, an echo of laughter, a splash of sunlight through flickering leaves, the scent of Eau de Portugal cologne, the faint whiff of cigar smoke, a stifled giggle. If one is to catch something of Bertie’s spirit, it is here, in the ruins of Daisy’s beautiful gardens.

  NOTES

  Please note that some of the links referenced throughout this work are no longer active.

  INTRODUCTION

    1.  Theo Aronson, The King in Love: Lillie Langtry, Daisy Warwick, Alice Keppel and Others (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), p. 219.