The Marrying Americans
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THE MARRYING AMERICANS
BY
HESKETH PEARSON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
AUTHORITIES 4
ILLUSTRATIONS 7
CHAPTER 1—Pioneers 9
CHAPTER 2—A Love Match 17
CHAPTER 3—An Eventful Union 31
CHAPTER 4—Marlboroughs and Millionaires 51
CHAPTER 5—Wives of a Viceroy 60
CHAPTER 6—Money for Fun 76
CHAPTER 7—The Manchesters 85
CHAPTER 8—Love at First Sight 90
CHAPTER 9—Oscar Wilde Discourses 106
CHAPTER 10—A Misunderstanding 110
CHAPTER 11—Three Clever Women 116
CHAPTER 12—A Russo-American Alliance 125
CHAPTER 13—Sympathetic Matrimony 131
CHAPTER 14—Professorial and Parliamentary 145
CHAPTER 15—Managing a Genius 164
CHAPTER 16—A Producer Reproduced 178
CHAPTER 17—Royal Romance 188
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 194
AUTHORITIES
The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill by Mrs. George Cornwallis-West, 1908
The Autobiography of Margot Asquith, Vol. I, 1920, Vol. II, 1922
The Life of Sir William Harcourt by A. G. Gardiner, 2 vols., 1923
Confessions of the Marquis de Castellane, 1924
Letters of the Hon. Mrs. Edward Twisleton, Written to Her Family, 1852-62 with a Preface by Ellen Twisleton Vaughan, 1928
Daisy, Princess of Pless by Herself, 1928
The Life of Lord Curzon by the Earl of Ronaldshay, 3 vols., 1928
My Candid Recollections by the Duke of Manchester, 1932
The Life of Joseph Chamberlain by J. L. Garvin, Vol. II, 1933
More Memories by Margot Asquith, 1933 Curzon: The Last Phase by Harold Nicolson, 1934
The Story of My Life by Marie, Queen of Roumania, Vol. I, 1934
The Smith of Smiths by Hesketh Pearson, 1934
Portrait of an Era as Drawn by C. D. Gibson, a biography by Fairfax Downey, 1936
The Life of George Moore by Joseph Hone, 1936
The Saga of American Society by Dixon Wecter, 1937
Something of Myself by Rudyard Kipling, 1937
The Home of the Hollands, 1605-1820 by the Earl of Ilchester, 1937
Chronicles of Holland House, 1820-1900 by the Earl of Ilchester, 1937
Talking of Dick Whittington by Hesketh Pearson and Hugh Kingsmill, 1947
A King’s Story by H.R.H. The Duke of Windsor, K.G., 1951
The Life of Joseph Chamberlain by Julian Amery, Vol. IV, 1951
The Cloak That I Left, A Biography of Henry Rider Haggard by his daughter, Lilias Rider Haggard, 1951
Notable Cross-Examinations chosen and annotated by Edward Wilfred Fordham, 1951
Arnold Bennet by Reginald Pound, 1952
Hugh Walpole by Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952
Period Piece by Gwen Raverat, 1952
The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, 1953
Lost Splendour by Prince Felix Youssoupoff, 1953
The Fabulous Leonard Jerome by Anita Leslie, 1954
The Age of the Moguls by Stewart H. Holbrook, 1954
Rudyard Kipling by Charles Carrington, 1955
Harley Granville Barker by C. B. Purdom, 1955
Reminiscences by the Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, 1955
The Heart Has Its Reasons by the Duchess of Windsor, 1956
Free Love and Heavenly Sinners by Robert Shaplen, 1956
Beerbohm Tree by Hesketh Pearson, 1956
The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Diana Cooper, 1958
The Later Churchills by A. L. Rowse, 1958
Double Exposure by Gloria Vanderbilt and Thelma Lady Furness, 1959
Lord Randolph Churchill by Robert Rhodes James, 1959
Heiresses and Coronets by Elizabeth Eliot, 1959
Child of the Twenties by Frances Donaldson, 1959
A Silver-Plated Spoon by John, Duke of Bedford, 1959
The Light of Common Day by Diana Cooper, 1959
Edward Marsh by Christopher Hassall, 1959
One Man in His Time: The Memoirs of Serge Obolensky, 1960
I Am My Brother by John Lehmann, 1960
With Dearest Love to All: The Life and Letters of Lady Jebb by Mary Reed Bobbitt, 1960
Nancy Astor by Maurice Collis, 1960
Essays by Divers Hands, Being the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature (“Kipling and the Vermont Feud” by the Earl of Birkenhead), 1960
Curzon: The End of an Epoch by Leonard Mosley, 1960
Bernard Shaw (complete edition) by Hesketh Pearson, 1961
American and British Press
Dictionary of National Biography
Private Information
Personal Knowledge
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
1.—Consuelo Vanderbilt
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
2.—Jerome Bonaparte
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Betsy Patterson
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Elizabeth Webster
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
Lord Holland
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
3.—Jennie Jerome
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Lord Randolph Churchill
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
The 8th Duke of Marlborough
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Lily Hammersley
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
4.—The 9th Duke of Marlborough
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Anna Gould and the Marquis de Castellane
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
Lord Curzon
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Mary Leiter
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
Grace Duggan
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
5.—Consuelo Iznaga
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
The 8th Duke of Manchester
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
Joseph Chamberlain
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Mary Endicott
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
6.—Sir Bache and Lady Cunard
by permission of Radio T
imes Hulton Picture Library
Prince and Princess Obolensky
by permission of Mrs. Rory McEwen
Lord and Lady Astor
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Thelma Converse
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
7.—Mr. and Mrs. Rudyard Kipling
by permission of Radio Times Hulton Picture Library
Harley Granville Barker
by permission of C. B. Purdom
Helen Huntingdon
by permission of C. B. Purdom
8.—The Duke and Duchess of Windsor
by permission of Culver Pictures, Inc.
CHAPTER 1—Pioneers
Betsy Patterson and Jerome Bonaparte
Elizabeth Webster and Lord Holland
The Pilgrim Fathers left England for the New World early in the seventeenth century. The Pilgrim Daughters began to leave America for the Old World early in the nineteenth century. The first were oppressed by the recently rich aristocracy; the second were encouraged by what had then become the impoverished ancient aristocracy. It is well to remember that most of the great English families in the nineteenth century had been founded on the plunder of the monasteries and the robbery of Church property in the sixteenth century. But time sanctifies theft; the passage of three centuries had hallowed their wealth; and the families which had been ruined by the gambling and extravagance of the descendants of the original spoliators were anxious to re-establish themselves with the wealth of America, while turning blind eyes to the unscrupulous methods by which it had been made.
There had been several Anglo-American marriages before the fashion began in the nineteenth century, but there was no general exchange of titles for cash until after the American Civil War, which revolutionized transport, necessitated the building of railways, turned farming districts into industrial centers, peopled the West, and lowered the moral tone of the community to such an extent that profiteers were the heroes of the future. Vast fortunes were made during and after the Civil War, the opportunities for loot being unlimited.{1} Crime, corruption and vice, the usual reactions from war, were rampant. A new plutocracy arose, and within a few years families that had been living in huts were inhabiting mansions. A well-known journalist of the time, Matthew Hale Smith, wrote that “the leaders of upper New York were, a few years ago, porters, stable-boys, coal-heavers, pickers of rags, scrubbers of floors and laundry-women. Coarse, rude, ignorant, uncivil and immoral many of them are still. They carry with them their vulgar habits, and disgust those who from social position are compelled to invite them to their houses.”{2}
The period succeeding the Civil War has been called “The Age of the Moguls,” when Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad magnate, John Rockefeller, the oil king, Andrew Carnegie, the steel and iron chief, followed by J. Pierpont Morgan, were the notorious figures in the United States. Smaller fry, but also millionaires, fought hard to achieve positions of prominence. One of them had a château built for him in France, and the architect asked if he would like a porte-cochere on it. “Hell, yes!” he replied. “Better put in five of ‘em, and make sure the flush don’t sound loud.” It was not easy for these newly rich men to get into the more select circles of New York society, and several aspirants tried to break the social barrier by first getting into the papers. One gave a banquet to pet dogs, when a hundred of the pets, mostly in fancy dress, were fed on liver and rice, fricassee of bones and shredded dog biscuit. Another host received his guests on horseback. A third placed a chimpanzee in the chair of honor. A fourth weighted his dinner table with a large tank in which a girl in golden scales swam to and fro. A fifth produced a vast pie, from which emerged an attractive wench and a covey of colored birds. Then they tried to draw attention to themselves by paying huge prices for pieces of furniture, two hundred thousand dollars for a bedstead, fifty-five thousand for a piano, and so on. Another method of obtaining publicity was to build the largest and most luxurious yacht in the world or the most sumptuous private railway carriage, and one or two of these hopeful souls purchased private trains.
In such an atmosphere a few less ardent but equally energetic folk thought that the time had come to form a social ring of the best people in New York, a ring of culture and good breeding that mere money and publicity could not pierce. It was created by Ward McAllister, who had made a fortune as a lawyer in San Francisco and by the eighteen-sixties had set himself up as an arbiter of taste and fashion in New York. He converted Newport, Rhode Island, from a village into a sort of Riviera for the rich, and assisted by others with a similar aim he chose the Four Hundred people who were supposed to represent the cream of New York society. The acknowledged Queen of this society for the last thirty years of the century, crowned and faithfully served by her prime minister McAllister, was Mrs. William Astor, always known as the Mrs. Astor. It was she who arranged or countenanced many of those Euro-American marriages of which we shall read, and the Four Hundred over whom she reigned were far more exclusive than any social set in London, though not a few people obtained a footing in her circle by relationship with the British peerage. While an American hostess in London, Mrs. Corrigan, was able to get the pick of society to her parties by giving an expensive present to each of her guests, money could not buy an entrée to the Astor mansion without some special qualification.
But the Majesty on Fifth Avenue was accessible to the pride of pedigree at a time when American families who could trace coats-of-arms back to the sixteenth century held their heads high, and a marquis had a better chance of meeting her than a millionaire. Croesus was of course a fairly common figure in a land where everything was described in superlatives; and though we must allow for the exuberance born of limitless horizons when we hear that every American ball is the most brilliant of all social events, that every American statesman is the greatest of all orators, that every American heiress has the most dazzling of personalities, and that every American novel is a breathtaking masterpiece, we need not doubt that American money magnates have surpassed all the other cash collectors on record. But their presumptions did not impose on Mrs. Astor, who really could have been described, in words familiar to Martin Chuzzlewit, as one of the most remarkable women in the country.
It is difficult nowadays to picture such a person, but we must not make the mistake of those professional historians who, wishing to monopolize their special epochs, criticize trespassers in their province for not being sufficiently soaked in their periods. As Shakespeare and Shaw perceived, in order to understand any age a writer merely has to understand his own, because human beings never change and human passions remain the same under different disguises. Though the subjects with whom we are to deal may seem a little strange at first, it will be found on a closer inspection that their main difference from ourselves is in the fashion of their clothes or in certain social and moral attitudes which are balanced by those we have adopted. Peculiar genius apart, men and women do not vary much down the ages; and it happens that we shall begin with a girl from Baltimore whose husband sacrificed a wife for a throne, and end with a girl from Baltimore whose husband sacrificed a throne for a wife.
We may take as pioneers of a movement to promote banns across the sea two women whose careers were widely dissimilar, the first being Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson, daughter of a Baltimore merchant, who married Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, in December 1803. Jerome was only nineteen years of age at the time, and it is more than likely that Betsy, aged eighteen, was the provocative partner. But Jerome was a lively lad who had fought a duel in which he was wounded and had then been transferred to the navy. After cruising for a short time in the West Indies, he left his ship for a sight-seeing tour of the United States. At that period Baltimore was the gayest city in the Union, and Jerome, quickly responding to the gaiety, found himself united to Betsy before he could appreciate his position. He took her to Europe in 1805, but Napoleon had other plans for his brothers and issued an order excludi
ng Betsy from his realm of influence. Jerome vainly attempted to make his imperial brother take a human interest in his happiness, but was promptly put in command of a small squadron in the Mediterranean, while his wife retired to the village of Camberwell, near London, where she gave birth to a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. After the battle of Jena, the Patterson marriage was annulled by imperial decree. On appeal Pope Pius VII refused to declare the marriage invalid, but Napoleon was standing no nonsense from the Pope and Jerome was ordered to marry Catherine of Württemberg, after which he was made King of Westphalia as a result of the Treaty of Tilsit.
Betsy meanwhile enjoyed herself in England; one of Napoleon’s relations who had nevertheless incurred the Emperor’s wrath being a person of note entitled to popularity. But she longed to repeat her social success among her own people and sailed for America, where she created a sensation. She set a fashion in clothes which was soon imitated, though it was generally agreed that no one could vie with the naked portions of her back, shoulders and bosom. Her dress at a Washington ball was a topic of conversation for weeks, and a puritanical person named Simeon Baldwin wrote to his wife that “several of the gentlemen who saw her say they could put the clothes she had on in their vest pocket....Though her taste and appearance was condemned by all those who saw her, yet such fashions are astonishingly bewitching and will gradually progress, and we may well reflect on what we shall be when fashion shall remove all barriers from the chastity of women.”{3} Perhaps Simeon liked writing this rather more than his wife enjoyed reading it, but he would not have been pleased by Betsy’s opinion of himself and his fellow countrymen. She dismissed them all as merchants who could only talk of money-making, and in her opinion, commerce, “although it may fill a purse, clogs the brain. Beyond their counting-houses they possess not a single idea.” But their interests expanded in the next generation, and Betsy lived to hear them talk of chemical manures, patent machinery, unexplosive petroleum, and similar exciting themes.
The last eighteen years of Betsy’s life were spent in a cheap boarding-house at Baltimore, though at her death in 1879, at the age of ninety-four, she left a million and a half dollars to her only son Jerome, who lived in the same city. His father had made him a large allowance and they had occasionally met on friendly terms. His son, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, grandson of the ex-King of Westphalia, made a name for himself in American politics, being Secretary of the Navy in President Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet from July 1905 to December 1906, and later Attorney-General of the United States until March 1909. So, in spite of her famous brother-in-law’s decree, Betsy had some slight effect on political history.