The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses
Page 1
The King in Love
Edward VII's
Mistresses
Theo Aronson
All rights reserved
This edition published in 2014 by:
Thistle Publishing
36 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BU
www.thistlepublishing.co.uk
For my family
the Manbys, the Pitchfords
and the Grants
Contents
Author's Note
Prologue:
THE PRINCE OF PLEASURE
1 'Whatever is most seductive'
Part One
'MY FAIR LILY'
2 The Jersey Lily
3 Royal Mistress
4 'Dreams of Fairyland'
5 The End and the Beginning
Part Two
'MY OWN DARLING DAISY WIFE'
6 The Heiress
7 'The Babbling Brook'
8 Independent Women
9 The Socialist Countess
Part Three
'BELOVED ALICE'
10 The Hon. Mrs George Keppel
11 La Favorita
12 La Maîtresse du Roi
13 'Kingy was such a wonderful man'
Epilogue:
'A WELL-REMEMBERED FRIEND'
14 Memories For Sale
Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations
1 Lillie Langtry's birthplace. H. T.Porter
2 Edward and Lillie Langtry. H.T.Porter
3 The young Mrs Langtry. From The Days I Knew by Lillie Langtry
4 The debonnaire Prince of Wales, aged thirty-five. Author's collection
5 'The Jersey Lily', Millais's famous portrait. Jersey Museums Service
6 Lillie Langtry, looking like a 'seductive Renaissance princess'. Jersey Museums Service
7 The Red House, Bournemouth, which the Prince of Wales built for Lillie. Pamela Hamilton-Howard
8 Lillie Langtry as the very picture of a royal mistress. From The Days I Knew
9 Queen Victoria presiding over the sort of'Drawing Room' at which Lillie Langtry was presented. From Black and White
10 Prince Louis of Battenberg who fathered Lillie's daughter. Illustrated London News
11 Lillie at the time of her liaison with Prince Louis of Battenberg. Jersey Museums Service
12 Lillie Langtry as a celebrated actress. H. T. Porter
13 Easton Lodge which Daisy Maynard (afterwards Warwick) inherited. Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England
14 A 'shooting luncheon' at Easton Lodge. From Life's Ebb and Flow by Frances, Countess of Warwick
15 Daisy, before her meeting with the Prince of Wales. From Life's Ebb and Flow
16 The Prince of Wales, at Homburg in the 1890s. Author's collection
17 The Wales family. Mary Evans Picture Library
18 Warwick Castle. From Life's Ebb and Flow
19 Royal Mistress: Frances (Daisy), Countess of Warwick. Mary Evans Picture Library
20 The Prince of Wales setting out from Marlborough House. Late Sir Arthur Bryant's collection
21 Princess Alexandra. Mary Evans Picture Library
22 Daisy Warwick in fancy dress. Mary Evans Picture Library
23 The long-suffering Earl of Warwick. From Life's Ebb and Flow
24 A German cartoon of the Prince of Wales 'comforting the wives and widows'. Author's collection
25 Daisy Warwick,'the Socialist Countess'. Mary Evans Picture Library
26 Duntreath Castle, Stirlingshire, birthplace of Alice Edmonstone (afterwards Keppel). John Phillips
27 Alice Keppel and her eldest daughter Violet. John Phillips
28 The King's Mistress: Mrs Keppel. From Edward VII by Philip Magnus
29 Edward VII at the time of his accession. From Edward VII
30 Edward VII hosts a garden party. Illustrated London News
31 The Hon. George Keppel. From Edwardian Daughter by Sonia Keppel
32 The King and Mrs Keppel on a golf course in the South of France. John Phillips
33 The King, with Alice Keppel, at a Chatsworth house party. Mary Evans Picture Library
34 Edward VII goes boating on Ascot Sunday. Mary Evans Picture Library
35 Edward VII in a royal box at the theatre. Illustrated London News
36 Queen Alexandra at her husband's deathbed. Illustrated London News
37 The mistresses in old age: Lillie. From The Gilded Lily by Ernest Dudley; Daisy. BBC Hulton Picture Library; Alice. John Phillips
Author's Note
AS MUCH as an account of the love-life of Edward VII, as Prince of Wales and King, this book is a study of the three women with whom he was most deeply in love: his 'official' mistresses, Lillie Langtry, Daisy Warwick and Alice Keppel. It is a composite biography of these three remarkable personalities, seen in relation to their royal lover. Given Edward VII's well-merited reputation as a womaniser – and the fascinations of his three mistresses – it is surprising that no such book has been written before. There have, admittedly, been a couple of studies of his individual love affairs, but this is the first time that the King's celebrated amatory activities, including his three main liaisons, have been so comprehensively treated. And although there have been several studies of Lillie Langtry, chiefly in her role as an actress, the lives of the King's other two mistresses have been strangely neglected. It is over twenty years since Margaret Blunden's The Countess of Warwick was published; and there has never been a biography of Alice Keppel.
This book contains much previously unpublished material: material which has enabled me to reassess many aspects of the private lives of the four main characters, as well as to correct certain long-established myths. For this I am grateful to the Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, for permission to study the Secret Diary of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library for use of the Gladstone Papers; Mrs C. McFadyean (Lillie Langtry's granddaughter) for allowing me to study the correspondence between Lillie Langtry and her daughter, Lady Malcolm; the Société Jersiaise for permitting me to see certain letters from Edward VII and George V to Lillie Langtry; and Mr Brian Roberts for use of the letters of Abraham Hayward.
I must also thank, in alphabetical order, those many people who, to a greater or lesser extent, have helped me in the writing of this book. They are: Mrs Alison Adburgham; Mr Paul Barker, Custodian at Warwick Castle; Mr J. Black of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; Mr Gordon Brooke-Shepherd; Miss Anne Carter; Mr G.P. Drew of the Société Jersiaise; Miss C. Easterbrook of the States of Jersey Library Service; Miss Mary Gritfith; Mrs Pamela Hamilton-Howard of Langtry Manor, Bournemouth; Mr Keith Killby; Mr James Lees-Milne; Mr Michael Legat; the Countess of Longford; Mr I. Monins; Mrs Barbara North, who arranged for me to see the Disraeli Papers at Hughenden Manor; Mr John Phillips; Mrs R.M. Popham of the Lansdowne Library, Bournemouth; Mr H.T. Porter of St Helier, Jersey, who has been especially helpful; Ms Odette Rogers of the Fitzwilliam Museum; Mrs Betty Ross; the Hon. Giles St Aubyn; Mr Paul Sinodhinos; Mrs F. Spurrier, the Countess of Warwick's granddaughter, who advised me about photographs; Mr Hugo Vickers; the Earl of Warwick; Mr Christopher Warwick; Dr N.F. Whitehead; Mr Paul Woudhuysen of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
As always, Mr Brian Roberts has given me invaluable advice, assistance and encouragement.
I am grateful to the staffs of the British Library, the Newspaper Library at Colindale, the Bath Reference Library, the Bristol Reference Library, the Lansdowne Library, Bournemouth, the Library of the Société Jersiaise and the Central Library, St Helier, Jersey. I should like
to give a special word of thanks to Mrs S. Bane and the staff of the Frome Library for their helpfulness and patience.
Although I have listed all books consulted in the Bibliography, I am particularly indebted to the authors of the various lives of King Edward VII, as well as to The Countess of Warwick by Margaret Blunden, The Prince and the Lily by James Brough and The Gilded Lily by Ernest Dudley.
Prologue
THE PRINCE OF PLEASURE
1
'Whatever Is Most Seductive'
THE OCCASIONS which Queen Victoria had come to dread, almost above all others, were her audiences with Mr Gladstone. There she would sit, small, plump and high-coloured, with her white widow's veil cascading down her back, while her Prime Minister, whom she never allowed to sit, held forth in his hectoring fashion. Nothing seemed able to stop his flow. He would address her, it was said, as though she were a public meeting.
Whereas dear Mr Disraeli used to chat about water-colour painting or the third cousinships of German princes, Mr Gladstone – so runs one inimitable account of these audiences – 'harangues her about the policy of the Hittites, or the harmony between the Athanasian Creed and Homer. The Queen, perplexed and uncomfortable, tries to make a digression – addresses a remark to a daughter, or proffers a biscuit to a begging terrier. Mr Gladstone restrains himself with an effort till the Princess has answered or the dog has sat down, and then promptly resumes. "I was about to say –." Meanwhile the flood has gathered force by delay and when it bursts forth again it carries all before it.'1
The subject upon which Gladstone was expounding one March morning in the year 1872 was his master plan for the Queen's heir, the thirty-year-old Prince of Wales. This, in turn, was an aspect of a still more extensive subject which the Prime Minister had entitled 'The Royalty Question'.
For some time now Gladstone had been worried about the public image of the British monarchy. A dedicated monarchist, he was afraid that the institution was in danger of losing its appeal. 'To speak in rude and general terms,' he confided, with rare succinctness, to a colleague, 'the Queen is invisible, and the Prince of Wales is not respected. '2
About the Queen's 'invisibility' there was nothing that the Prime Minister could do. Ever since the death of her adored husband, the Prince Consort, over a decade before, Queen Victoria had withdrawn from public life almost completely. All Gladstone's efforts to force her out of her seclusion had proved fruitless. The more robustly he insisted that the Queen show herself, the more resolutely she refused to do any such thing. Her Prime Minister's 'interference with the Queen's personal acts and movements was really abominable,' she exclaimed. Was she to be 'driven and abused till her nerves and health give way with this worry and agitation and interference in her private life?'3
Against this blend of obstinacy and indignation even Gladstone was powerless. In the Widow of Windsor, the Grand Old Man had met his match. 'The repellent power which she so well knows how to use has been put in action towards me,'4 he grumbled. But, never one to abandon a cause, the Prime Minister now turned his attention to that other aspect of 'The Royalty Question': the public life of the Prince of Wales. If the Queen was not prepared to play her royal role, then the heir-apparent must be allowed to play his.
Yet the exact nature of that role was difficult to define. What was an heir-apparent supposed to do? In the past, the Prince of Wales's predecessors – those wayward Hanoverian princes – had invariably set themselves up in political opposition to the monarch. But this prince, for all his feelings of frustration, would never have done that. So the problem remained unresolved. This dilemma, sighed the Prince's private secretary, was inherent in the very nature of sovereignty. 'It has been the same thing with heirs apparent from time immemorial and I fear will continue to be so as long as there are monarchies.'5 He was right. To this day, the question has not been satisfactorily answered. 'There is no set-out role for me,' the Prince's great-great-grandson, Prince Charles, was to complain over a century later. 'It depends entirely on what I make of it. '6
But Queen Victoria's heir was not allowed to make anything of it. The perennial difficulty was intensified by her own unyielding attitude. The Prince was left with no worthwhile occupation because this was precisely how his mother wanted it.
This had not always been her attitude. During their eldest son's boyhood, Victoria and Albert, all aglow with good Coburg intentions, had decreed that Bertie – as he was known in the family – 'ought to be accustomed early to work with [them], to have great confidence shown him, that he should be early instructed into the affairs of state. '7 Their admirable resolve had been short-lived. In spite of – or rather, because of – a system of educational force-feeding, Bertie had never matched up to their exacting standards. He had emerged from these years of intensive study as an amiable but far from intellectual young man. Of Prince Albert's earnestness, industriousness and high-mindedness, he showed no trace. He lived, the disapproving Queen would point out, purely for pleasure.
Not even when his father had died did his mother revise her poor opinion of Bertie's abilities. In any case, the broken-hearted widow was determined that no one, and certainly not her backward heir, should play the political role that her 'adored, Angelic Husband' had once done. Not only did she consider her son to be lacking in intellect but she found him irresponsible, immature and indiscreet. The Queen would neither confide in him nor consult him. The Prince must see nothing, she warned her ministers, of a confidential nature. When one Prime Minister asked if the heir might be allowed to know 'anything of importance' that took place in the cabinet, her answer was a firm 'No'. That would be quite 'improper'. The Prince had no right, she would announce blandly, to meddle.
Nor would she dream of allowing him to represent her in public. 'Properly speaking, no one can represent the Sovereign but Her . . .' she once informed a Home Secretary. 'Her Majesty thinks it would be most undesirable to constitute the Heir to the Crown a general representative of Herself, and particularly to bring Him forward too frequently before the people. This would necessarily place the Prince of Wales in a position of competing, as it were, for popularity with the Queen. Nothing should be more carefully avoided.'8
In short, it was a hopeless situation. Denied the opportunity either of working with his mother in private or representing her in public, the Prince was obliged to lead an aimless existence. Yet the Queen would cite that very aimlessness as justification for not giving him anything worthwhile to do.
But despite his shortcomings – and there was some substance in the Queen's complaints – the Prince of Wales was not nearly as worthless as his mother imagined. He had considerable diplomatic gifts, great panache and exceptional vitality. These qualities could have been of real service to his mother. Given some active employment and some real responsibility, there was no reason why the Prince of Wales could not have been a credit to the monarchy.
This was certainly Gladstone's view. While appreciating that the Prince was no paragon, the Prime Minister was alive to his good points. The Prince's social ease and sense of showmanship were exactly the qualities which Gladstone found so disturbingly lacking in the Queen. 'He would make an excellent sovereign,' he once said. 'He is far more fitted for that high place than her present Majesty now is. '9
It was by making use of the Prince's social talents that Gladstone hoped to compensate for the Queen's regrettable absence from the public stage. Facing her, on that early spring day in 1872, the Prime Minister unveiled his plan for a 'remodelling' of the heir-apparent's life. The Prince of Wales must become the Queen's permanent representative in Ireland; in other words, her viceroy. In this way he would be given 'a worthy and manly mode of life'10 and at least one leading member of the royal family would be seen to be pulling his weight. And just think of the good it would do for permanently troubled Ireland.
The Queen would not hear of it. Within a day or two of the audience she had returned the ponderously-worded memorandum with which Gladstone had backed up his arguments. The
scheme was acceptable to neither Her Majesty nor His Royal Highness. The Queen had always considered it 'a stupid waste of time to try and connect the Royal Family with Ireland'11 and the Prince of Wales would prefer some employment nearer home. The truth was that Bertie had no intention of exchanging the sophistication of London for the provincialism of Dublin.
But Queen Victoria's blunt rejection did nothing to deter the tenacious Gladstone. Warming to his task, he worked out a still more elaborate plan. This he presented, in the form of a long letter, in July 1872. Now, not only should the Prince represent the Queen in Dublin but he should deputise for her during the London season and spend one month, each autumn, with the army. To this even longer, more presumptuous and more insulting memorandum, the Queen gave an even more crushing reply. She ended by declaring that this was a question 'which more properly concerns herself to settle with the members of her family as occasion may arise.'12 In other words, it was none of Mr Gladstone's business.
By now anyone else in the kingdom would have let the matter drop. But not Gladstone. Announcing that he had not yet 'discharged his full responsibility in the matter',13 he ploughed remorselessly on. This time he sent the Queen two communications: a letter in which, under two headings, he again discussed his plans for a reshaping of the Prince's life, and an even longer memorandum in which, under six headings, he set out to prove that the Queen's objections to his scheme were unfounded.
Victoria was astonished. Once again she gave him short shrift. 'The Queen therefore trusts,' she wrote firmly, 'that this plan may now be considered as definitely abandoned.'14
Incredibly, it was not. Gladstone wrote a fourth time, mercifully reducing to five the number of headings by which he refuted the Queen's arguments. A brief note from Her Majesty informed him that it was 'useless to prolong the discussion.' Finally beaten, the unconvinced Gladstone contented himself with bemoaning the fact that his views had been 'so unequivocally disapproved by Your Majesty in a matter of so much importance to the interests of the Monarchy.'15