The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses

by Theo Aronson

  The affair was conducted with great discretion. With Edward Langtry invariably away on what Lillie calls 'fishing trips', the couple would meet in the Norfolk Street house or in the country houses of sympathetic friends. That Louis was infatuated by Lillie there can be no doubt; but he could never have imagined that he might be able to marry her, even if she were to divorce her by now all-but-invisible husband. For a gentleman, let alone a prince, to marry a divorcée would be unthinkable. It would have meant, for Louis, dismissal from the navy, rejection by his family, social ostracism and a life of penurious exile on the Riviera. The Battenberg morganatic marriage had been bad enough: a Battenberg marriage to a divorcée would be considered disastrous.

  'Even the loss of a dear person is better than the general disgrace of a divorce,' declared the Princess of Wales's sister, the Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, on one occasion. And when, in 1912, one of the Empress's sons married his long-standing mistress who was a divorcée, she was thunderstruck. 'It is unbelievable!' she wailed. 'I can hardly understand what I am writing – it is so appalling in every way that it nearly kills me!' Unless the marriage were kept 'absolutely secret'17 she would not be able to show her face in public.

  Indeed, not until 1978 (after Edward VIII had abdicated his throne to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, and Princess Margaret had renounced the once-divorced Peter Townsend) was a divorcée allowed to marry into the British royal family. Having received the permission of Elizabeth II and renounced his own rights to the throne, Prince Michael of Kent married the divorced Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz.

  But even without the question of marriage ever seriously being considered, Lillie found herself facing a royal closing of ranks. By the autumn of 1880 she suspected that she was pregnant by Prince Louis. 'My own darling,' she wrote, not to Louis but to the faithful Arthur Jones with whom, throughout all the turbulence of her love life, she had kept up a loving relationship. 'I am not yet . . . I am sure there must be something wrong or what I took would have made me. Please go to a chemist and ask how many doses one ought to take a day as I must go on taking it . . .'18

  Once Lillie's suspicions were confirmed, she told Louis. He, in turn, told his parents. They acted with that instinct for self-preservation characteristic of all royal families. Louis was informed that there was no possibility of a marriage; an aide-de-camp was despatched from Hesse to arrange a financial settlement with Lillie; and the Admiralty, having kept Louis hanging about for months, suddenly found him an appointment. On 16 October 1880, he was sent away on the longest voyage he was ever to undertake.

  The man-o'-war on which he sailed had the unfortunate, if entirely appropriate, name of 'Inconstant'.

  All at once, Lillie's whole shiny, elaborate, painstakingly assembled house of cards began to collapse. The Prince of Wales was losing interest in her; society was beginning to cold-shoulder her; she was five months pregnant by Prince Louis who had deserted her; even her husband had all but disappeared. And, most immediately disastrous of all, her creditors were starting to close in.

  For years, as one of society's darlings, Lillie had lived well beyond her means. The Prince of Wales had usually paid her in kind rather than in cash. What with that, with Edward's financial fecklessness and with diminishing rents from the Langtry properties in perennially troubled Ireland, her income had reached, as she says, 'vanishing point'.19 No longer was she able to stave off her creditors with airy promises or pretty entreaties: more acutely than anyone, they sensed the way the wind was blowing. In the end, the bailiffs moved into the Norfolk Street house; the contents of her home were to be auctioned off to pay her debts.

  Although her maid, Dominique, who had been with her, as she puts it, 'through all my astonishing London experiences',20 managed to save a few pieces of jewellery by slipping them into the pockets or handbags of visiting friends, the rest of her possessions went under the hammer. 'Everything went for immense prices –' reported Lady Lonsdale to Lillie, 'your little tea-table with your initials on down to your skates – so I hope your horrid creditors are satisfied.'21

  For Lillie had not been there to witness this humiliation. With the sherriff's 'carpet flag' – the 'dismal emblem' of an auction – hanging from the drawing room window, she had fled the house forever.

  She made for Jersey. But not even here could she find the anonymity she so desperately needed. 'Mr and Mrs Langtry have given up their London residence,' reported the New York Times that November, 'and for the present Mrs Langtry remains in Jersey. Is beauty deposed, or has beauty abdicated?'22 And if beauty had indeed lost her throne, who, wondered the Jersey gossips, was responsible for beauty's thickening waistline? Edward Langtry was certainly nowhere to be seen. Was the Prince of Wales the culprit?

  'I really don't know why we should blackguard the memory of Harry the Eighth,' wrote the indefatigable Adolphus Rosenberg, recently out of jail for his previous libelling of Lillie Langtry. 'True, he had a great weakness for the fair sex, but, unless history lies, he married all the women he fancied, which is not a bad trait in a prince.'23

  Nor was Lillie the only member of her family to be providing material for gossip. By now, apparently, the lecherous behaviour of her father, the Dean of Jersey, had so outraged his parishioners that he had been obliged to leave the island. Although he remained Dean of Jersey until he died, in 1888, his duties were taken over by the vice-dean. It was given out that, for the sake of his health, the Dean had been obliged to move to London. Not with the best will in the world, though, could anyone believe that the air of Kennington was so much more salubrious than that of Jersey. While claiming that the shame of her bankruptcy had forced her to seek sanctuary with her parents in Jersey, Lillie makes no mention of the fact that one of these parents was no longer there.

  Nor, of course, does she mention the birth of her illegitimate child. This event was wrapped in all the mystery characteristic of a Victorian melodrama. As the child could clearly not be born in Jersey (the birth certificate alone would present problems) Lillie made for the less restrictive atmosphere of France. With arrangements having been made, one assumes, by the Prince of Wales, Lillie gave birth to a daughter, in Paris, on – or about – 8 March 1881. She named the girl Jeanne-Marie. The child was handed over to the care of Lillie's mother and was brought up to believe that the dazzling creature who moved in and out of her life was her aunt. Jeanne-Marie was fourteen before she realised that Lillie was in fact her mother, and not until she was twenty-one was she told that her father had not been Edward Langtry but Prince Louis of Battenberg.

  By that time Prince Louis had married, very properly, one of Queen Victoria's many granddaughters, Princess Victoria of Hesse. The couple had four children and, in time, Lillie's illegitimate daughter found herself half-sister, not only to Lord Louis Mountbatten, but to Princess Andrew of Greece, the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh who, in turn, married the future Queen Elizabeth II.

  By this route are the descendants of Lillie Langtry, mistress of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, related to Charles, the present Prince of Wales and Britain's future King.

  Lillie Langtry was nothing if not resilient. 'Being young and of optimistic tendency,' she says, 'my nature quickly rebounded from the shock of misfortune . . . '24 Within a month of Jeanne-Marie's birth she was back in London. This time, accompanied by the faithful Dominique, she took a modest flat in Victoria Street. Resolutely, she began to rebuild her life. Although Lillie was without any income, things could have been worse. She still had the Red House in Bournemouth, which the Prince of Wales had given her and into which she now put her mother and Jeanne-Marie. The dramatic death of her brother Maurice (he had been mauled by a tiger in India) did bring one advantage: it allowed her to go into mourning. So it was back to the days of the black dress, enlivened with a white collar in the mornings and with a little jet trimming at night. Had she felt so disposed, she says meaningfully, she could have had many more dresses for the asking, but she did not. Her pride, in othe
r words, would not allow her to ask the Prince of Wales for money.

  What was she to do? Her few remaining friends were full of advice. Frank Miles, the artist, suggested market gardening, but Oscar Wilde professed himself appalled at the idea of the lovely Lillie 'tramping the fields in muddy boots'.25 Wilde's own advice was that she go on the stage. Whistler encouraged her to take up painting; others urged her to try millinery or dressmaking.

  In the end, her mind was made up, and her course set, by the redoubtable Mrs Henry Labouchère. Wife of the famous 'Labby' Labouchère, Radical member of parliament and founder of the outspoken magazine Truth, Henrietta Labouchère asked Lillie to take part in an amateur theatrical production which she was organising in cause of some charity. As far as the general public – and indeed Mrs Labouchère herself – was concerned, Lillie Langtry was still a celebrity. Her name on the bill would act as a powerful magnet. After a show of reluctance, Lillie agreed.

  Her performance, in the Twickenham town hall, was judged a great success (The World described her voice as 'full, round and vibrant'26) with the result that Henrietta Labouchère had very little difficulty in persuading Lillie to tackle something more ambitious.

  That well-known pair of actor-managers, Mr and Mrs Bancroft, lessees of the Haymarket Theatre, were talked by the enthusiastic Mrs Labouchère into giving Mrs Langtry a part in the charity matinée which they were planning in aid of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. She would play Kate Hardcastle in Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. Any reservations the Bancrofts might have had about the 'startling proposition' of allowing a celebrated but complete amateur to appear in an otherwise professional cast melted in the face of two major considerations. 'The extraordinary career of popularity which has been Mrs Langtry's lot for several London seasons,' decided Bancroft, 'must have destroyed all fear of complete failure, for the ordeal of "facing the public" had already been often and gracefully passed through.'27 The second consideration he left unsaid. This was that the inclusion of Mrs Langtry would ensure, not only a large and fashionable audience, but the attendance of the Prince of Wales.

  Bancroft was proved right on all counts. Lillie's performance won high praise (the critic on The Times expressed himself astonished 'at the ease with which she glided into the part, the accuracy of the conception, and the felicity of the execution throughout'), the theatre 'overflowed with rank, fashion and celebrity'28 and the Prince and Princess of Wales were in the royal box.

  'Yesterday,' reported the Prince to his sixteen-year-old son, Prince George, then serving as a midshipman aboard HMS Bacchante, 'we went to a morning performance at Haymarket Theatre and saw Goldsmith's comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, in which Mrs Langtry acted with a professional company. It was her début, and a great success. As she is so very fond of acting, she has decided to go on the stage and will, after Christmas, join Mr and Mrs Bancroft's company at the Haymarket.'29

  Quite clearly, Lillie was still in close touch with the Prince of Wales. For it had been only a week or so before that charity matinée that she had decided to accept the Bancrofts' offer of a contract. Having watched her rehearsing, the couple felt that she had the makings of an actress. And although Lillie was not as 'fond of acting' as Bertie suggests ('after all the adulation and social éclat that had fallen to my lot',30 appearing in public held, she protests, no especial thrill for her) she could not afford to turn down the chance of making some money. So she accepted the Bancrofts' offer.

  One thing, though, still bothered her. By becoming an actress, she would jeopardise whatever chance she had of regaining her social standing. Amateur acting was one thing; professional acting quite another. Actresses, in mid-Victorian society, were never ladies. Often synonymous with prostitutes, they certainly ranked no higher than tradespeople. Actors were received neither at court nor in society. The days of actors actually being knighted still lay in the future and even this would not give them an automatic entrée into aristocratic circles. 'The only actress at that time to be received in the "inner circle" of Society'31 says Lillie, was Madge Robertson – Mrs Kendal. The rest had to be content with being entertained in what Lillie dismisses as the 'pleasant' enough houses of the nouveaux riches or by such unconventional society hostesses as Lady Sebright. Even when, in 1882, the Prince of Wales took the unprecedented step of inviting several members of the acting profession to a banquet at Marlborough House, it had to be an all-male occasion. And the meal was cut down, it was noted, to a mere nine courses.

  So not only had Lillie lost the protection of her royal lover, she was in danger of becoming a social outcast. What she needed, to bolster her position and to counteract the faintly disreputable aura associated with treading the boards, was the patronage of some important figure whose respectability was beyond question.

  Who better than that pillar of Victorian respectability – the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone?

  Hitherto, Lillie Langtry's biographers have assumed that her intriguing relationship with Gladstone dated from the early days of her rise to prominence and that throughout her years of social success (and at the request of the Prince of Wales) Gladstone had been her friend and 'mentor'. The assumption is inaccurate. It is true that they had once met, briefly and casually, at Millais's studio, but from then on, until January 1882, after Lillie had joined the Bancrofts' company, there was no personal contact between them. Nor, when they again met, was it Gladstone who sought her out; the approach came from Lillie.

  Her approach was made through that influential contemporary figure, the essayist and raconteur, Abraham Hayward. In many ways, Hay ward was typical of the sort of person – now largely forgotten but then socially powerful – who pervaded Victorian society. Relatively humbly born, he had, by virtue of a lively mind, an amusing tongue and an informed interest in cultural and political affairs, gained admittance into the grandest salons in the land. Few social gatherings were complete without the slight, sprightly figure of Abraham Hayward.

  It was, in fact, Hayward who had given Lillie Langtry that glowing review in The Times for her performance in She Stoops to Conquer. (His private opinion was somewhat less effusive; his review may well have been written with one eye on Marlborough House.) Lillie had then, on the advice of another society gossip, Lord Torrington, written to thank Hayward for his kind words. And not only to thank him but to ask him to do her a favour. Or so it appeared.

  Among Gladstone's papers in the British Library is this letter from Abraham Hayward, dated 8 January 1882.

  'My dear Gladstone,

  'Mrs Langtry, who is an enthusiastic admirer of yours, told me this afternoon that she should feel highly flattered if you would call on her, and I tell you this, although I fear you have other more pressing overtures just at present. Her address is 18 Albert Mansions, Victoria Street, and she is generally at home about six.'32

  It seemed, on the face of it, to be an extraordinary imposition on Lillie's part. Why should the Prime Minister of Great Britain bother himself with the likes of her? But Lillie, as always, knew exactly what she was doing. For Gladstone was not nearly the moral paragon of popular imagination. A small circle of his intimates were only too aware of this: they knew all about the Prime Minister's bizarre sex life. And Lillie, through her liaison with the Prince of Wales, would have known about it too. It was this knowledge which emboldened her to write to Gladstone.

  Even in his seventies Gladstone remained a robust, energetic, full-blooded man. Tall and craggy-featured, the Prime Minister still had the body, reported his doctor in 1882, 'of some ancient Greek statue of the ideal man'.33 By nature impetuous and passionate, he had all his life exercised an iron self-control. In this he was helped by two things: his exceptional strength of character and his unquestioning belief in God. All instincts towards self-gratification had to be repressed, he maintained; humility and self-mortification must be the ideal.

  To few aspects of his life did Gladstone apply this belief more rigorously than to his sex life. Faced with a sexual drive n
o less vigorous than his other drives, he did his utmost to sublimate it. In the main, this sublimation took an unexpected form: a lone campaign against prostitution. Throughout his long life, Gladstone set himself the task of rescuing and reforming prostitutes.

  There was no shortage of possible candidates. The field in which he so zealously carried out his self-imposed mission – an area bounded by Soho, Piccadilly and the Thames Embankment – was swarming with street-walkers. Late at night, armed with a stick for protection, Gladstone would roam the foggy, gas-lit pavements. Sometimes waiting to be accosted, sometimes making the first advance himself, sometimes even going into brothels, he would endeavour to talk the women into giving up their way of life. He might offer to take them home for a meal, he might give them gifts of money, he might send them to some institution for 'fallen women'. Not only did he make generous contributions to rescue homes but he was instrumental in founding several of these institutions.

  Inevitably, his strange behaviour led to gossip. From time to time he was spotted in conversation with a prostitute, or entering a brothel, and on one occasion an attempt was made to blackmail him. Few men – the worldly police among them – could believe that his interest was purely philanthropic. Occasionally his parliamentary colleagues would warn him of the dangers, both to his career and to his Party, but Gladstone refused to listen. So candid, so innocent, so honest seemed his reaction to these warnings, that his friends could not believe that his behaviour was inspired by anything other than the highest motives.

  And so it may have been, but in not quite the way that they imagined. For Gladstone took his determination to be humbled and mortified very far indeed. To control his sexual torment, to master temptation, he is said to have read pornography and to have resorted to what he himself called 'strange and humbling' acts with the prostitutes whom he visited. And if he felt that his mortification at the hands of these women had not been severe enough, then, on reaching home, he would flagellate himself.