Royal Bastards

by Roger Powell

  Sonia, who was a striking looking woman and was photographed by Cecil Beaton, spent much of her later life writing. She published her autobiography in 1958 (which was republished in 1961), covering the first twenty years of her life and A Sovereign Lady in 1974 – being the life of Elizabeth Vassall, third Lady Holland and her family. She also wrote Three Brothers at Havana 1762, published in 1981, but her first book had been nearly fifty years previously when she wrote a novel, Sister of the Sun, published in 1932. This was reviewed as an ‘unadmiring’ assessment of Victorian and Edwardian society. Following her death in 1986 all her mother’s jewellery and objects de vitrine were sold by Sothebys at Hotel Beau-Rivage in Geneva. It signalled the end of her mother’s era.

  Their only daughter Rosalind Maud was born in 1921. Her coming-out dance in 1939 at Holland Park was attended by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and led to gossip about how forbearing the king was in attending a dance given by the daughter of his grandfather’s mistress. Others opined that the King was merely attending the dance of his half first cousin.

  Seven years later, Rosalind married Major Bruce Shand, MC and bar, late 12th Royal Lancers and a member of the Queen’s Body Guard, The Gentlemen at Arms. He was in the wine business and was a very popular man, having served as a joint Master of the Southdown Foxhounds. He also became the literary executor of his mother in law and was thus well versed in family matters. They lived at Plumpton in Sussex, where much time was spent in the saddle, but like her mother, Rosalind died in 1994 of osteoporosis, of which she had done much to raise public awareness. She left a son, Mark, and two daughters, the elder of which is Camilla Rosemary. He died in 2006.

  It is Camilla, born on 17 July 1947, who married in 1973 Andrew Parker Bowles (now a retired Brigadier of the Blues and Royals, from whom she is divorced), and who for many years has been the constant companion of the present Prince of Wales, her half second cousin once removed, if her grandmother’s father was, as is believed by many, Prince Charles’ great-great-grandfather. Camilla, it is said, much enjoyed the idea of history repeating itself. She has now become the Prince of Wales’s second wife, and is styled as HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, with the precedence of the fourth most important woman in the land. In due course she will be known as the Princess Consort when her husband succeeds to the Throne. She also descends from Louise de Keroualle, the French mistress of King Charles II, as do her own two children, Tom and Laura Parker Bowles, and her two royal step-sons.

  Certainly the late Theo Aronson in his scholarly works The King in Love and Royal Subjects was in little doubt that Edward VII was Sonia’s father, despite him writing ‘Alas, despite various pointers, I have never come across any firm evidence of Edward VII’s illegitimate offspring’. At Sonia’s birth, not only did the Prince send garlands of Marechal Niel roses, delivered by a liveried coachman, but those who saw Sonia, had no doubt that her face mirrored the baby features of the Prince of Wales as captured by the painter Sir William Ross in 1843. Four years later, when painted by Gertrude Massey, her likeness to the Prince was again noted, as observed by Raymond Lamont-Brown in his book Edward VII’s Last Loves – Alice Keppel & Agnes Keyser.

  Other members of the family, and in particular Bruce Shand, dispute this, but have little firm evidence to offer either. Their conviction is based more upon the obvious devotion that George Keppel had for the younger daughter throughout his life; upon possible family likenesses (and the Keppel hooked nose and eyes in particular) and her size, for Sonia was tall like George Keppel (who was 6’4” tall) in contrast to the King and her mother who were much smaller in size. Moreover there was also the fact that George and his wife Alice were apparently reconciled about the time of Sonia’s conception, despite the fact that Alice was still deeply involved with the Prince of Wales at that time. This view is also shared by Diana Southami in her book Mrs. Keppel and her daughter. So nothing is certain.

  But what is certain is the fact that history has repeated itself again, in that for many years, Alice Keppel’s great-granddaughter, Camilla Parker Bowles has been the close companion of King Edward VII’s great-great-grandson, the present Prince of Wales and indeed has now become his wife. Plus ca change! Whether or not they are also half second cousins once removed to each other has not yet been proved, although perhaps it seems more likely than not.

  Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (Eddy), KG, Duke of Clarence & Avondale (1864–92): Clarence Guy Gordon Haddon (1890 – ca. 1940)

  Much of the information about Clarence Guy Gordon Haddon and his alleged parents comes from the Sunday Times in an article published on 27 November 2005 by Peter Day and John Ungoed-Thomas entitled Royal cover-up of illegitimate son revealed, supplemented by the television programme on Channel 4 about the Duke of Clarence shown on 21 November 2005 which attempted to rehabilitate the Prince’s poor reputation.

  Until recently, there has been very little information available about the Duke of Clarence. His life has been subject to much speculation and conspiracy theories. His intellect, sexuality and sanity have all been the subject of various alternative theories. He is also alleged to have been Jack the Ripper, a serial killer in ninteenth century London, although there appears to be little hard evidence to support any of these allegations. He has often been dismissed as having been somewhat backward intellectually, whilst exhibiting marked playboy tendancies with a reputation as a womaniser and heavy drinker. Some have claimed that he was homosexual and that he had been involved in the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889, when the Metropolitan Police uncovered a male brothel which was frequented by some high profile members of London’s upper classes. Details of the scandal emerged with the release of police papers by the Public Record Office in 1975, and the publication of the letters of one of the other participants in the scandal, but there was no evidence that the Prince was involved. The official biography of Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy euphemistically stated that the Prince’s private life was ‘dissipated’. However the strict code of public morality at the time meant that even minor transgressions would have been severely censured.

  As a result, his early death at Sandringham aged only 28 from influenza must have been regarded as a merciful release for the monarchy, in that it enabled his younger brother George to come to the throne in his place. The official biographer of King George V, Harold Nicolson, stated in his diaries

  ‘that it appeared that Prince Albert Victor had been involved in a major scandal and there had been a cover-up at the highest levels. However, the establishment wished to emphasise the relative merits of the stolid George over his brother.’

  Robert Lacey, a royal biographer, commented that the prince

  ‘had a reputation as a somewhat debauched character and it’s interesting if there is evidence of a royal cover-up. There was always great anxiety among the royal family about protecting his reputation.’

  Moreover, there were many rumours and conspiracy theories surrounding his death for which there would seem to be no evidence at all. One theory states that he actually died of syphilis; another claims that he died of a morphine overdose, deliberately administered to him; yet another claims that he survived until the 1920s in an asylum on the Isle of Wight and that his death was faked to remove him from the line of succession.

  Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, KG, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, known as Prince Eddy, was born at Frogmore House, Windsor, on 8 January 1864, ten months after the marriage of his parents, The Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). Queen Victoria was on the throne and he was second in line to it after his father. He was educated at home with his younger brother George, eighteen months his junior, and in due course they both became naval cadets and travelled the world together. After a brief spell at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Eddy became involved in undergraduate rather than academic life, he left in 1885 to join the Army, in the 10th Hussars.

  The Channel 4 film noted that Eddy was said to have kept a mistress in St John
’s Wood, and that he shared her with his brother George, which seems to be taking brotherly love a bit far. He was also said to have fallen in love with a commoner, Sybil Erskine. But now that he was twenty-five years old, three women were being lined up as possible brides for him. The first, in 1889, was Princess Alix of Hesse (future Empress of Russia) who did not return his affection; the second, in 1890, was Princess Hélène of Orléans, a staunch Roman Catholic. So he succumbed to the third in the same year, and after a number of years of riotous living, Eddy became engaged to his second cousin once removed HSH Princess (Victoria) Mary (May) Augusta Louisa Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, LG (1867–1953), only daughter of HH The Duke of Teck, GCB, GCVO, by HRH Princess Mary Adelaide Wilhelmina Elizabeth, younger daughter of HRH 1st Duke of Cambridge (son of King George III). However, Eddy was to die unexpectedly within the next year and before their marriage could take place and his younger brother, George, gallantly stepped in to fill the breach by marrying her instead in 1893.

  But the recent release of various documents in the National Archives in Kew, have shed some new light upon Eddy’s lifestyle and have revealed that the Police conducted an intensive investigation into an alleged affair between Prince Eddy and a married woman, Margery Haddon, which, it was claimed, had resulted in the birth of an illegitimate son, Clarence Haddon. Their liaison is supposed to have started during a royal tour of India in the late 1880s that Eddy and George were making and it is said that they met in 1889 after a ball in Calcutta, which was the seat of power. Margery, described as ‘vivacious’, was the daughter of a civil servant who had been born and brought up there, and was by then the wife of Henry Haddon, a civil enginéer.

  It is alleged that Margery gave birth the following year in India to Clarence Guy Gordon Haddon and that Eddy was his father after whom the boy had been named, although he was given the surname of his mother’s husband. Of course, Eddy himself was to die two years later and so saw little or nothing of his alleged son, although it does seem that he may have been in correspondence with his mother in the interim. However, some twenty years later, when Margery’s life was falling apart from two divorces and drink-related problems, she travelled to London to stake her claim that she had conceived Eddy’s child. She made such a hullaballoo that she was even arrested outside the gates of Buckingham Palace for shouting out about this. But it is now clear that the Royal Family and Scotland Yard took the matter very seriously and a full report was ordered from Superintendant (later Sir) Patrick Quinn, Head of Special Branch. He is described in Who Was Who as attached to the Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard, 1883; to Special Branch 1887 as Superintendent of Special Branch, 1903; and that he had been engaged in the suppression of anarchism and kindred matters, and has been attached for duty to the suite of all foreign Sovereigns visiting this country officially.

  In July 1914, there is reference in these papers to a meeting held at Buckingham Palace between Quinn and the Rt. Hon. Sir William Carington, Keeper of the Privy Purse and formerly Controller and Treasurer to the Prince of Wales, in order to discuss the issue. During this meeting Carington invited Quinn’s opinion as to the wisdom of making a payment to Margery, for he was afraid that she might have some proof.

  There may indeed have been cause for some alarm. For it is said that Eddy’s military aide, Lieutenant George Rogers, who, inter alia had arranged for Eddy to meet Margery in the first place, was himself implicated in her divorce. The implication too was that he had fathered Clarence, although his family had told Police that he had acted as a royal scapegoat for this royal relationship and that his family had provided maintenance payments for Clarence even though he was not his true father – although whether this was on his own behalf or on behalf of Eddy is not clear. Moreover, an unnamed spokesman from Lewis and Lewis, the Duke’s solicitors during the divorce proceedings, agreed that ‘certainly there were some relations’ (between Margery and Eddy), although he denied that there was any child from the union.

  Documents also show that the Duke had written a number of letters to Margery and the Special Branch report dated July 1914 commented that ‘there were grounds for thinking Lewis and Lewis obtained those letters from her upon payment’.

  In the end, it was decided by Scotland Yard and Buckingham Palace that Margery should be removed from the country and a one-way ticket was bought for her back to India, all arranged for her by the political adviser to the Secretary of State for India. Clothes and other provisions were provided for her through a Scotland Yard account and she was also given £5 spending money. A secret account was also set up and a go-between arranged and Margery duly departed for India on 20 February 1915, never to return insofar as is known.

  And there the matter might have rested, had it not been for Clarence himself who decided to start a campaign to be recognised as a son of the Duke of Clarence. He wrote a book ‘My Uncle, King George V’, published in America in the early 1930s but not available at the British Library, and and he also wrote to King George V complaining of the ‘underhand’, ‘dirty’, and ‘unjust’ treatment that he had received. ‘I will not rest until the whole world will see these Royal methods in their true colours’, he wrote. Although officials had hoped that they would be able to deal with Clarence in the same way as with his mother, and duly provided him with a one way ticket to America, paid out of police funds, he later returned to England to pursue his claims. This was to result in his appearance at the Old Bailey in Jauuary 1934 when he was bound over for three years by Mr Justice Charles, on condition that he made no claim that he was the son of the Duke of Clarence. But he breached that condition and was jailed the following year for twelve months.

  Like his mother, Clarence became an increasingly sad character, because all evidence relating to his alleged paternity had long since disappeared. He died a broken man and no one took his oft repeated claims seriously. Indeed, they were dismissed regularly by the authorities as ‘ridiculous’. However, virtually nothing is known about Clarence’s life, other than the fact that he spent much of his early life working overseas and had settled in the USA in the mid 1930s.

  However, he may have spent some time in Islington during the mid 1930s, because a Mr. Archibald Scott, a relieving Officer in Islington during that time, was given the job of arranging Clarence’s passage to America, when he came out of prison, so that he would be out of the country by the time of the Coronation.

  It is not known whether he married, although a photograph in the Sunday Times shows him with his unnamed fiancée. There is only one reference on the Internet to the unusual name of Clarence Haddon, and he is a black gospel singer rejoicing in the title of bishop with many songs to his name and very much alive!

  A brief perusal of the India Office records at the British Library did provide a few clues. Firstly, a search of the general catalogue of books produced none written by Clarence, Margery or Henry Haddon, although there were 955 references to the name. Secondly, in the Index of Bengal Marriages (including Calcutta), there was one relevant entry for a Haddon between 1880–92. This was a marriage on 22 December 1883 of Henry Edmund Haddon, an exec-enginéer of Indian State Railways, (of full age and therefore born before 1862), son of Henry Haddon, to Mary Jane Reid or Reed, (then aged eighteen and therefore born c. 1865). She was the daughter of Robert Reid/Reed and they married at St Bartholomew’s Church, Barrackpore, Bengal. References were also found to the births and baptisms of their three children in the Index of Bengal Baptisms 1885–1948 between the years 1883–93. Their son, Gerald Philip Haddon, was born on 11 March 1885, when his father was described as a civil enginéer. The elder daughter, Marjory Katherine Masters Haddon, was born on 5 May 1886 and baptised on the following 12 August, when her father was described as an executive enginéer in the Department of Public Works. The younger daughter, Dorothy Mary Kate Haddon, was born on 18 October 1887 and baptised on 10 March 1888.

  It later became clear from the English 1901 census, that these children, Gerald (16), was a student at Tonbridge,
Kent and that he and his sisters Dorothy (13) and Margaret (sic) (14) were living ten miles away in Frant. The Tonbridge Alumni, in which he was described as the only son, show that he was there from 1900-02 and then joined the Royal Navy rising to Paymaster Lieutenant Commander and being seconded to the Royal Canadian Navy, dying in Victoria, BC on 8 August 1926.

  There were no references to any Haddons in Indian Biographical Indexes, nor were there any references to these Haddons in the Indexes to the Register of births and of marriages in England & Wales and in the overseas section between the same years. However, in the List of Residents for 1890–93, there was just one reference to an H.E. Haddon, described as an exe.-engr at Bandikui Division of RMS (Rajputasa-Malwa Railway System) responsible for 800 staff, who must have been Henry Edmund Haddon. But in 1913, there was a reference to an H.E. Haddon, who was a Lt, Qr-mr, 119 Infantry (The Moolton Regt) at Ahmednager, who turned out to have been a Harold Esmond Haddon who was born 1895 and was educated at Tonbridge, being killed in action in 1915. It is probable that these two HE Haddons were uncle and nephew.

  A further search of the marriage records showed that on 24 February 1909, Henry Gorbold, 27, bachelor, Assistant to Cuthbertson Harper, of Calcutta, son of James Gorbold, married Marjorie Kathleen Haddon, 31, widow, of Calcutta, daughter of Robert Reed. At first sight this might appear to have been the daughter, born in 1886 who would therefore have been aged 23, not 31 and was not the daughter but the grand-daughter of Robert Reed. Her mother, although named Mary Jane, was certainly known as Margery, and was widowed, although we know not when. She was certainly the daughter of Robert Reed, although her age in 1909 would have been 44 and not 31. Was the mother lying about her age when marrying a 27 year old toyboy, as might seem to have been the case?