by Andrew Rose
An umbrella spontaneously burst into flames in Barrowgate Road, Chiswick. Sixteen deaths were reported by the Daily Mail in the first week of hot weather, during which The Times had solemnly warned its female readers, ‘wise women are buying Harris tweeds for the winter’. Two MPs defied convention and attended the House in shantung suits, but they were to have little opportunity of wearing them. The Times had been right. On Monday 16 July, temperatures plummeted, the heavens opened, and 1923’s summer was all but over. In pouring rain, Folkestone Town Council asserted the Englishman’s right to be miserable by voting 6–4 to ban Sunday dancing. ‘Praise God from Whom all Blessings flow’, sang the crowd of rejoicing, but bedraggled, Wesleyan and Baptist demonstrators outside the town hall.
That Monday, ‘a woman of a very ordinary type’ walked into 70 avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the premises of Louis Vuitton et Cie. The woman was Yvonne Alibert, who calmly asked for the two gold-fitted handbags (together worth nearly £4,000) ‘as they were the property of sister’. Mindful of Ali’s telegram and the shooting (which had been featured in the French press), as well as possible legal complications with the Fahmy family, Vuitton refused to hand over the goods (Marguerite, it will be remembered, had tried to get hold of one of the handbags in June). It looks as if Yvonne was acting on instructions from Marguerite, who was by no means isolated in prison. She could receive visitors, including her maid, Aimée Pain, who may have contacted Yvonne on Marguerite’s behalf.
Remand prisoners at this time had the liberty to correspond by letter or by telegram. Though her correspondence was subject to scrutiny and her visitors monitored, Marguerite was able to keep in touch with her friends and advisers in Egypt, as well as on both sides of the Channel. And sometimes she would contact an enemy. A large portrait photograph of Marguerite, discreetly veiled, taken at the ‘World Swiss Photo-Studio Cairo’, dated 1923, seems to have been sent by Marguerite to Ali’s sister, Mme Said after the killing. In Marguerite’s hand, a patently insincere endorsement reads ‘à Madame Said en toute sympathie. Mounira’ (‘to Madame Said with every sympathy. Mounira’).319
In the meantime, on 18 July, Marguerite had made her second appearance at Bow Street court. The air in Court Number Two was still as frowsty as ever, but slightly more bearable than it had been in the heat of the previous Tuesday. Shortly after midday, Marguerite again entered the crowded courtroom, now very much the grieving widow. Wearing no jewellery and dressed in a black crêpe-de-Chine ‘coat frock’, she pressed a dark fur to her face, the upper part of which was also obscured by a black waxed straw hat. More fashion-conscious reporters noted that she had cream silk stockings and high-heeled black patent-leather shoes. The Daily Graphic was not the only newspaper to take on board the image of ‘a frail figure … [in] deep mourning…’
Marguerite’s sister, Yvonne, now safely back from Paris, wept quietly, another Frenchwoman murmured ‘Bonne chance’, and an interpreter was sworn in to translate Said Enani’s evidence, given for a second time and, as at the coroner’s court, laboriously noted down in a longhand deposition. As Said told the now familiar story of marital disharmony, ‘tears rolled down [Marguerite’s] cheeks and fell on to her hands clasped in her lap’. Beattie’s evidence of the happenings that stormy morning caused ‘Madame Fahmy’s sobs to burst out anew … she buried her face in her arms…’, petulantly shrugging off the hand of a wardress, who had tried to give her prisoner a consoling pat on the arm. From time to time, it was said, Marguerite would look vacantly at the witness-box as the evidence was being given, heaving a long sigh.
Much the same pattern occurred at the adjourned hearing on Saturday morning, 21 July, when Dr Gordon gave his testimony. As he came to Marguerite’s allegations about her husband’s sexual behaviour (‘certain complaints which she attributed to her husband’s practices’), this increasingly important element in Marguerite’s defence was duly emphasised. She slumped forward on the wooden bench of the dock, covered her face with her fur, and sobbed convulsively. At intervals, a woman prison officer handed her a bottle of smelling salts. At the end of the hearing, Marguerite, apparently in a state of collapse, had to be helped from the dock by two wardresses.
Marguerite was committed to stand her trial at the Old Bailey, where her case would receive the formal judicial title ‘R v. Marie Marguerite Fahmy’. The ‘R’ stood for ‘Rex’, for all prosecution on indictment was in the name of the King. The fate of this Frenchwoman, former mistress of the King’s eldest son, would be decided by a judge and jury, the bedrock of the English legal system, which – in theory – was immune to outside influence.
14
Noble Rot
Although they were going to have to deal with the crisis provoked by Marguerite by killing her husband, both Thomas and Lascelles were relatively young (in their mid-thirties) and would have sought advice from the most senior royal counsellors, those closest to the King. ‘Just at the end of the Mall loomed the Olympian figures of Lord Stamfordham … and his assistant Clive Wigram.’320 Stamfordham and Wigram, military men, were both eminent Victorians of a very different stamp from Thomas and Lascelles. Some nine years earlier, as we shall see, Stamfordham had skilfully protected the reputation of another member of the Royal Family, in circumstances that had some similarity to the problems faced by Thomas and Lascelles.
Lord Stamfordham, as Sir Arthur Bigge, had been appointed Private Secretary to George V in 1910. Son of a Nothumberland vicar, his social background was relatively modest, but redeemed by a good showing as an officer in the Royal Artillery. Stamfordham served as Private Secretary to Queen Victoria in the last years of her reign and, by 1923, had spent many years in royal service. A small, neat man, Stamfordham was notable for his ‘rasping voice, old-fashioned courtesy and an irrepressible penchant for sporting metaphors’. Reactionary in many of his attitudes, ‘a very strong Tory’,321 he nevertheless could exhibit a measure of practical good sense. After the inconclusive election of late 1923 and facing the prospect of the first-ever Labour government, Stamfordham wisely conceded, ‘if Labour is to have a run, let’s give them a fair one’.322
Wigram, ‘tall, handsome and athletic’, came from the family of an Indian civil servant. After Winchester came service as an officer in the Indian Army. Wigram has been described as ‘sporty and down-to-earth’ with the ‘chauvinistic views typical of many army officers’.323
Neither man could be accused of being intellectual, but in 1915 Stamfordham’s cunning had prevented another royal scandal involving love letters and attempted blackmail from becoming public. His experience would prove helpful in dealing with the new challenges facing the Royal Household.
The scandal that Stamfordham had so expertly spiked related to some thirty incautious love letters written by an earlier Prince of Wales, the Prince’s grandfather (Edward VII), to Daisy, later Countess of Warwick, his mistress during the late 1880s and early 1890s, celebrated as ‘one of the most beautiful and interesting women of the age’.324
In the first years of the twentieth century, the Royal Household seems to have been morbidly concerned with destroying private correspondence to avoid damaging revelations. Much of Queen Victoria’s private diary has been consigned to the flames and, in accordance with the will of Edward VII, a ‘vast number’ of his unsorted papers, including many personal letters, were burned by Regy Esher, who assisted Lord Knollys (Edward’s Private Secretary) in the dismal task. During 1913, an extraordinary act of vandalism took place after George V ordered ‘the destruction of a mass of material relating to George IV’, held in the Royal Archives.325
By 1914, the extravagant Daisy Warwick was desperately short of money and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Her financial embarrassment was, of course, relative. ‘When she inveigled eloquently against the evils of capitalism at drawing room meetings and Fabian conferences she was conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time.’326 Daisy was still able to travel, lux
uriously accommodating herself as befitted the wife of an English peer, but she needed serious money to maintain her lifestyle.
While in Paris, she met Frank Harris, the seedy journalist and dubious friend of Oscar Wilde, now best known for the claims of sexual prowess set out in his autobiography My Life and Loves. Harris, then an undischarged bankrupt who had fled to France to avoid his own creditors, assured Daisy that her memoirs, if sold in America, could earn an enormous sum of money. This was a typical instance of absurd exaggeration by Harris, but Daisy was impressed by his glib patter. Years before, Max Beerbohm took a shrewder view of the man, writing in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trial, ‘Frank Harris is going about as a howling cad seeking whom he may blackmail.’327
Word reached the Royal Household that the letters might soon be on the market. Stamfordham was shown some of the letters and considered them to be ‘very bad’, particularly the references to Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales.328 King George V, naturally anxious to protect his mother from ridicule, commanded his Private Secretary to resolve the matter without publicity.329
One of Daisy’s chief creditors was Arthur du Cros, an Irish businessman and MP, founder of the Dunlop Rubber Company. A social climber, du Cros was anxious to present himself as a loyal servant of the Crown. Stamfordham wisely had no intention of negotiating directly with Daisy at this stage. On the other hand, du Cros was in regular touch with her and, also in contact with Stamfordham, acted for a time as a useful go-between, unconnected with any legal manoeuvring.
Unknown to Daisy, Harris and du Cross however, Stamfordham is said to have employed private detectives to shadow the parties.’330
Buoyed up by Harris’s blarney, Daisy fired off an ultimatum to the Royal Household, threatening to sell the letters in America. In the end, the strongest weapon in the royal armoury proved to be the law of copyright. Though the letters were the property of Daisy Warwick, the copyright was vested in King George V as heir and successor of his father, who was the author. A secret interlocutory injunction was obtained by the Royal Household in July 1914, prohibiting Daisy for the time being from parting with or showing the letters, but she disobeyed and was suspected of renewing her attempts to sell them.
Stamfordham contemplated an application to commit Daisy to prison for contempt of court, but realised that this could end in disaster, with an appeal and the possibility of the whole affair becoming public. In 1915, he consulted the Prime Minister. H. H. Asquith, evidently rather amused by all the fuss, dubbed Stamfordham ‘the Impeccable’ and ‘the Sinless One’ in a private letter written to his confidante, Venetia Stanley. Nevertheless, Asquith appreciated why Stamfordham was so worried about the letters and was aware of the considerable disquiet felt in the Royal Household. Stamfordham was deeply concerned that the letters would reveal ‘corruption around the court … precipitating a constitutional crisis’.331
Fearing that Harris had taken some of the letters to America, Stamfordham at last decided to approach Daisy directly. She was questioned by Stamfordham and the then royal solicitor, Charles Russell, at her home, Easton Lodge in Warwickshire. Afterwards, showing ruthless determination on the part of the Royal Household, a watch was put on Daisy’s movements and her mail was intercepted’.332
In July 1915, at a further hearing on the application for an injunction, the matter was finally resolved (after private negotiations between legal representatives) by an undertaking by Daisy’s solicitor that the letters should be destroyed. A large proportion of Daisy’s debts was paid off by du Cros. He was knighted the following year.
Stamfordham had succeeded in preventing the name of an earlier Prince of Wales from being dragged into a major scandal arising from failure to observe the hoary adage, ‘Do right to every man. Don’t write to any woman.’ Although the present problem facing the Royal Household bore some similarity to the Warwick case, major differences in factual background ruled out many of the options available to Stamfordham in 1914–15. The scene was set for a highly sophisticated cover-up, orchestrated by the talents of Godfrey Thomas and Tommy Lascelles, already veterans in the thankless task of clearing up after the Prince of Wales.
15
Conspiracy
Smart plotters do not leave a paper trail and criminal agreements are not, as a rule, written down in neatly typed paragraphs to be signed, sealed and delivered. For fear of prosecution, such compacts are best not physically recorded at all. The Gunpowder Plot was exposed by an incautious letter. In the 1920s (long before shredding and deleted emails) an open fire or a stove was the conspirator’s best friend.
Finding out what has been carefully concealed by clever people is challenging. A holistic approach is the best (perhaps the only) way to get an idea of what was agreed, when it was agreed, and by whom. Assessment must begin with careful consideration of direct factual evidence, drawing reasonable inferences where necessary. In unravelling conspiracies, the most valuable assistance frequently comes from circumstantial evidence. ‘Circumstantial evidence is very often the best. It is evidence of surrounding circumstances which, by undesigned co-incidence, is capable of proving a proposition…’333
In this story, all these elements taken in the round disclose a wealth of coincidence, undesigned or otherwise. This shows that the Establishment, in the form of the Royal Household, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the trial judge, agreed to do whatever was necessary to preserve the reputation of the Prince of Wales, even if this meant interfering with due process of law.
Available evidence points to a compact made between the Royal Household and Marguerite, which involved the return of the letters (possibly in exchange for money), associated with an undertaking that Marguerite’s full character would never be revealed to the jury. There would be no reference to the Prince’s affair with Marguerite and his name would be kept out of the trial. For these vital purposes, the Royal Household colluded with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the trial judge. Arguably, this created a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Inevitably, York House in St James’s Palace lay at the epicentre of the conspiracy. Although the successful suppression of scandal in the Warwick case was in the relatively recent past, present circumstances posed new dangers. Marguerite, though physically within the jurisdiction of the English courts, was a French national, resident in Egypt. Copyright in the letters belonged to the Prince of Wales, but seeking to restrain Marguerite from publishing or selling the letters by English court injunction was pointless, even dangerous. Stamfordham’s tactics had succeeded in 1915, but this was during the first year of the war, when media attention was focused elsewhere. On that occasion, he had succeeded in preventing virtually all documentary evidence of the proceedings from reaching the public domain, but there was no guarantee that Thomas would be able to do the same in changed circumstances.
Eight years after the Warwick case and in peacetime, the woman in question had been charged with the capital offence of murder, with every indication of a sensational trial to come. Irrespective of any revelations about the Prince, Marguerite’s predicament was going to be the focus of intense media interest. Even modern ‘super injunctions’, giving anonymity to applicants and ordering the suppression of evidential detail, do not always prevent the ultimate exposure of wrongdoing by celebrities. In 1923, before these legal developments, a civil court process running in tandem with preparations for Marguerite’s murder trial would have been too risky and was not a credible option.
Marguerite, legally represented at Bow Street Police Court on the morning of the murder, had the benefit of independent legal advice at an early stage. She might want to make reference to the Prince during her evidence, perhaps with a view to gaining sympathy with the jury or to enhance her character in some way. Marguerite might blurt out anything. She was a loose cannon, as Thomas and Lascelles must have known.
One bonus point for the Royal Household was that Marguerite had been remanded in custody awaiting trial (in those days, bail was not grant
ed to defendants charged with murder). Although she could still make mischief for the Prince by communicating with associates in France and elsewhere, the Royal Household at least knew where she lived – in Holloway Prison, very much her fixed abode for the next month or so.
How, then, to communicate with Marguerite? How ‘to square this case’, how to ‘get all these letters back’, as the Prince had written so desperately in 1918? Although, in the Warwick case, Asquith agreed with ‘the Impeccable’ that ‘it is a golden rule never to traffic or parley with blackmailers’, the problem posed by Marguerite demanded a more devious approach, consistent with Godfrey Thomas’s training in the Foreign Office. The Royal Household benefited from the contribution of two young courtiers, well versed in the ways of the post-war world. Thomas, steeped in Foreign Office methods, knew the value of secrecy and disinformation. Lascelles, his sharp intellect superbly focused on the job in hand, was a worthy assistant.
With secrecy as the watchword, there was a distinct downside in trying to negotiate with Freke Palmer, Marguerite’s solicitor. Marguerite’s instructions to Freke Palmer were, of course, privileged and confidential. In the first days after the shoooting, Thomas would have had no idea what Marguerite had said or might be saying to her solicitor, but if she had not yet talked about the letters and revealed her relationship with the Prince, there was no point in spreading knowledge of the affair wider than it had already gone.
Furthermore, attempts by a third party to persuade Freke Palmer into advising his client to stay silent on particular matters could be construed by a prickly lawyer as an attempt to interfere with the course of justice. Even if Freke Palmer had been aware of what was at stake, a canny advocate might not relish the prospect of being drawn into a matter oblique to the defence of his client, who faced the capital charge of murder, which on its particular facts was unconnected with the predicament facing the Royal Household.