The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses

by Theo Aronson

  How much she knew at that stage of her life is debatable. But Stead must have felt very gratified.

  9

  The Socialist Countess

  IN DECEMBER 1893 Daisy's father-in-law, the Earl of Warwick, died, which meant that her husband became the fifth Earl of Warwick and that after being known for twelve years as Lady Brooke, Daisy became the Countess of Warwick.

  With her new title came a new home: Warwick Castle. Towering cliff-like over the wooded banks of the River Avon as it flows through Warwickshire, Warwick Castle is one of the most picturesquely sited and architecturally impressive castles in the country. Dating back to the Normans, it is, after Windsor Castle and the Tower of London, the best known and oldest continuously inhabited castle in Britain. Even the new Earl of Warwick, who tended to wax lyrical only about hunting and fishing, claimed that to stand by the banks of the River Avon 'in the earliest light of a June morning, when the colour of the castle walls was luminous pearl grey, when a full choir was wakening in the woods and great fish were leaping from the water, was to have sense of a beauty that remained secure against all the assaults of time and change.'1

  During the time of Daisy's father-in-law, the modest and frugal fourth Earl of Warwick, the castle had been a singularly cheerless place, but with the arrival of the energetic young Countess, fresh life – and a great deal of uncertain taste – was introduced into the ancient family seat. Among the many changes made by Daisy was the organising of a special suite for the Prince of Wales – a bedroom with a recessed and elaborately painted ceiling, a dressing room, a bathroom and a lavatory – situated a few yards from the door of her own 'Chinese' bedroom.

  Nothing, perhaps, better reflected the new chatelaine's love of gaiety and display than the great costume ball which she gave, in February 1895, to celebrate the end of the year of mourning for the late Earl and her own husband's entry into his inheritance. The Victorians dearly loved a fancy-dress ball; the more elaborate and expensive the costumes, the happier they were. Lady Warwick had stipulated that Louis XVI dress was to be worn, and with a colour scheme of white and gold (as it was mid-winter, arum lilies and lilies of the valley had to be brought from the South of France) she planned to create, for one night, the splendours of eighteenth-century Versailles.

  Daisy appeared, of course, as Queen Marie Antoinette. Her dress was of turquoise velvet brocade embroidered with real gold thread in fleurs-de-lis and roses. Diamonds flashed on her shoulders, about her neck and in her powdered hair. On her head towered a confection of pink, white and turquoise ostrich plumes, fastened by sapphires set in yet more diamonds.

  No fewer than four hundred guests, some accommodated in the castle and others arriving by special trains from nearby country seats, attended the great ball and banquet. With every well-known hairdresser in London already roped in for the dressing and powdering of the guests' hair, more hairdressers had to be brought over from Paris. Not even during the famous visit of Queen Elizabeth I, three centuries before, had Warwick Castle seen such a show of wealth, colour and beauty. 'The effect of the throng of splendidly gowned and costumed men and women in the setting of the noble rooms of the Castle seemed at the time to make the gathering worth while,'2 remembers Daisy.

  At the time, yes; but within a couple of weeks Lady Warwick was seeing it very differently. For the famous bal poudré at Warwick Castle – and its immediate aftermath – marked, she tells us, a dramatic turning point in her life. It became, in a way, her light on the road to Damascus.

  Extremely gratified by the various newspaper accounts of her ball, Daisy one morning came across an article, in a weekly journal, that was anything but complimentary. In a left-wing paper called the Clarion she read, in mounting indignation, a violent attack on herself. How, asked the writer, could the spending of thousands of pounds on a 'few hours silly masquerade'3 possibly be justified when so many people were forced to live in grinding and degrading poverty?

  Daisy could hardly believe her eyes. Her rage on reading the article was so violent, she wrote over thirty years later, that she could feel it still. For she considered the attack to be completely unjustified. Was she not known for her sympathy for anyone in distress? Had she not started a needlework school to help the unemployed; had she not become a trustee of the local workhouse? Had her ball not provided work for dozens of dressmakers, hairdressers, decorators, gardeners, cooks, maids and footmen?

  Always impulsive, Lady Warwick got out of bed, dressed, and without a word to her guests, took the first train to London. By midday she was in Fleet Street, looking for the editorial offices of the Clarion. On finding them, on the top floor of a dingy old building, she burst into the editor's office unannounced. If Robert Blatchford – for that was the editor's name – was surprised by the sight of this beautiful and fashionably dressed woman standing opposite his desk, he did not show it.

  'Are you the editor of the Clarion?' she demanded.

  He merely nodded,

  'I came about this,' she continued, thrusting the paper at him.

  Still he said nothing.

  'How could you be so unfair, so unjust? Our ball has given work to half the county, and to dozens of dressmakers in London besides.'

  At last Blatchford spoke. 'Will you sit down,' he asked, 'while I explain to you how mistaken you are about the real effect of luxury?'4

  And this is what, with great eloquence and persuasiveness, Blatchford proceeded to do. He told her, in no uncertain terms, what he thought of 'ladies bountiful'. He explained to her the differences between productive and unproductive labour. He made clear to her that the making of expensive costumes for the wealthy, the providing of rich delicacies for the overfed, and the erection of temporary pavilions for the already well-housed was so much wasted effort: it was like digging holes in the ground and then filling them up again. 'The great ball and all its preparations,' realised Daisy, 'had not added one iota to the national wealth.'5

  Although Daisy could not take in everything that Blatchford was saying, she was profoundly shaken by his arguments. Quite forgetting about lunch, she sat listening to him all through the winter's afternoon. When, finally, she left to catch her train home, she felt dazed. 'During the journey home I thought and thought about all that I had been hearing and learning. I knew that my outlook on life could never be the same as before this incident . . . I was as one who had found a new, a real world.'6

  Perhaps Daisy Warwick's conversion to socialism had not been quite as dramatic as she claimed when she came to write about this incident many years later. After all, she had already shown signs of a stirring social conscience and for some years now W.T. Stead had been channelling her yearnings towards a more productive existence. Nor did the falling of the scales from her eyes mean the sudden end of her extravagant social life, or of her love affair with the Prince of Wales. Lady Warwick's socialism was always to be of an unorthodox, highly individual brand. But her meeting with Blatchford did set her fashionably shod feet on a different course.

  'It would be idle,' she says frankly, 'to try to follow the often circuitous path I trod, but it was Robert Blatchford's honest talk on that memorable day that gave me a vision of how it would be possible to change and modify the unjust conditions of our modern life.'7

  And who could tell: might she not be able to take her royal lover by the hand and lead him along that same, enlightened path?

  In the meantime, the Prince's previous mistress, Lillie Langtry, had acquired yet another rich protector.

  Back permanently in Britain after her years in the United States, Lillie had taken a house in newly fashionable Pont Street, off Sloane Street. In pride of place among her many souvenirs, most of them brought from America – the white fur rugs, the embroideries from San Francisco's Chinatown, the huge stuffed grizzly bear – was a large photograph of the Princess of Wales. Lillie was always quick to point out that the picture, signed 'Alexandra', had been presented to her by the Princess herself.

  It was in the course of a lunche
on party in this Pont Street house in 1892 that Lillie began to take a serious interest in the man whom she calls 'an eccentric young bachelor, with vast estates in Scotland, a large breeding stud, a racing-stable, and more money than he knew what to do with.'8

  What this eccentric young bachelor was doing with his superfluous money, before very long, was spending it on Lillie. Thirty-one to Lillie's thirty-nine, George Alexander Baird was the son of a Scottish ironmonger who, on coming of age, had inherited – as well as those 'vast estates in Scotland' – three million pounds. Racing was his passion; Baird lived for the turf. Under the nom de course of 'Mr Abington' or 'the Squire', this stooped, slender young man was one of the best amateur jockeys of the day. But in spite of his great wealth, Baird detested the racing gentry; he was far happier among the 'race-course riff-raff '.9 Never moving without a gang of thugs – ex-boxers, petty crooks, drunks – he was forever in the police station or the law courts. As dedicated a philanderer as he was a fighter, he was involved in countless marital scandals.

  Baird seemed, on the face of it, an odd choice of lover for the socially ambitious Lillie Langtry. But she needed his money. Since returning to Britain she had had a run of bad luck: not even her still undiminished attractions were able to overcome a series of theatrical failures. Illness, bad weather, poor plays, over-extravagant productions – all these had swallowed up a great deal of her ready cash. At one time she had to apply to Alfred Rothschild for what she calls 'temporary help'.10

  So when, one day at Epsom, Lillie was introduced to the tough, wiry and wealthy Baird, she was immediately interested. At luncheon in her Pont Street house the following day, he made his reciprocal interest only too apparent by offering to present her with a two-year-old colt named Milford. 'My life,' she would like us to believe, 'had been consecrated to the theatre for so many years that any extraneous interest seemed superfluous.'11 But, in the end, she allowed herself to be 'persuaded' into accepting the gift.

  This luncheon marked the start of the most turbulent love affair of Lillie Langtry's amorous career. When Baird was not showering her with gifts, he was beating her up. In the course of one violent quarrel, he is said to have given her a black eye, ripped her clothes to shreds and thrown her jewellery out into the street. To atone for this particular bout of brutality, he bought her a 220-foot steam yacht, 'White Ladye'. ('Black Eye', said the wags, would have been a more appropriate name.) Costing £100,000 and twice the tonnage of the Prince of Wales's yacht 'Britannia', 'White Ladye' was a superbly appointed vessel. She was perfectly happy, Lillie would maintain, to sit reading on deck with her little dog beside her; one would have imagined that sitting aboard one's own yacht, with its crew of thirty and its dining saloon that could seat forty, counted among life's simpler pleasures.

  In 1893, the year after they met, Baird set off for New York with the intention of seeing a certain prize fight. When it was cancelled, he made for New Orleans; his route marked, it is said, 'with drinking bouts, bar brawls and street fights'.12 One more drinking bout finished him. Baird caught pneumonia and died, two days later, in the St Charles Hotel, New Orleans. He was thirty-two.

  Amongst Baird's many tangible legacies to Lillie were several race horses, including the first one that he had given her, Milford. Milford's string of successes encouraged her to take up racing more seriously. At one stage, she had over twenty horses in training. Choosing fawn and blue as her racing colours and assuming the nom de course of 'Mr Jersey' (she did not want the gallery audience shouting to her on stage for racing tips, she explains) Lillie very quickly made a success of her new career. She bought what she calls 'a tiny cottage', Regal Lodge, at Kentford, near Newmarket: it was, in fact, a sizeable, sprawling, mock-Tudor house, surrounded by stables and paddocks and staffed by twenty people.

  All this racing brought Lillie, once more, into the orbit of the Prince of Wales. Not long after she had bought Regal Lodge, the Prince was advised by Lord Marcus Beresford, his stud manager, to move his racing stables to Egerton House, which backed on to Newmarket racecourse. This meant that he and Lillie would often meet, not only on the racecourse and in neighbouring houses, but at Regal Lodge itself.

  During these years the Prince was invariably accompanied by Lillie's successor, Lady Warwick. 'Life,' remembers Daisy in a honeyed description of the scene at Newmarket, 'was simple, pleasant and unadorned in Cambridgeshire in those days. One rose early and rode out in the brisk morning air, in order to see the horses at exercise. Then we came home to breakfast – a jolly, social meal – and later on changed, but always into country clothes, and, in due course, went to see the races.

  'At the Summer Meeting there would be picnic lunches in marquees. Where the Grand Stand dominates the countryside today, there was then a pleasant wood, where, in July, one could enjoy an alfresco meal and a quiet ramble with a friend . . .'13

  Much as she enjoyed the atmosphere of Newmarket – 'where one was surrounded by one's best friends, the best horses and the best jockeys'14 – Daisy could not pretend to be very interested in the racing itself. This is where she differed from Lillie Langtry. The always practical Lillie was fast becoming a knowledgeable and enthusiastic owner, well able to discuss, not least with the Prince of Wales, all the finer points of the sport.

  The move to Newmarket seems to have brought luck to both the Prince and Lillie: during the 1890s each enjoyed a string of successes and earned a great deal of money. Lillie's horse Lady Rosebery won, among others, the Lanark Cup and the Jockey Club Cup; and among the many wins for her most famous horse, Merman, were the Cesarewitch, the Ascot Gold Cup, the Jockey Club Cup and the Goodwood Cup. The Prince of Wales's most celebrated win was the Derby, with Persimmon, on 3 June 1896. Few things guarantee the British monarchy more popularity than a royal win at the races, and the Prince of Wales went to bed that night, says one of his biographers, 'the happiest as well as the most popular man in the kingdom'.15

  Unlike Daisy Warwick, and in spite of her outrageous private life and unconventional attitudes, Lillie Langtry always managed to keep on good terms with the Prince's family. Years after the liaison had ended, she was still being entertained by the Fifes (the Prince's eldest daughter, Louise, had married the Duke of Fife in 1889) and when, in 1893, the Prince's second and only surviving son, Prince George – by now Duke of York – married his late brother's fiancée, Princess May of Teck, Lillie kept in touch with them as well. They wrote occasional letters to each other, they exchanged photographs; in one note the Duke of York even hopes that 'the stuff I gave you for your hay fever will do it good'.16

  It says a great deal for Lillie Langtry's unfeigned charm and social adroitness that she – who was often regarded as a scheming adventuress – was able to sustain this friendship, not only with the future King Edward VII, but with that far more straight-laced couple, the future King George V and Queen Mary.

  Seldom was Lady Warwick's tendency to involve the Prince of Wales in her histrionic acts better illustrated than during her blaze of jingoism in the early months of 1896. This blaze was sparked off by the Jameson Raid. The incident, in which an apparently unsanctioned British force secretly invaded the Boer republic of the Transvaal with the intention of overthrowing its government, was a manifestation of imperialistic and capitalistic buccaneering at its least defensible. Yet it was stoutly defended by, among a multitude of others, Lady Warwick.

  Viewed today, her attitude seems inexplicable. To the late-twentieth-century mind, imperialism and liberalism make strange bedfellows. And the fact that someone like Daisy Warwick could reconcile her – admittedly idiosyncratic – socialism with such fervent jingoism seems stranger still. But at the time it did not look so odd; in fact, it did not look odd at all.

  During the last decades of the nineteenth century, imperialism was generally regarded as a noble, romantic, almost mystical creed. It had none of that stigma of racialism and exploitation of which it was subsequently to stand accused. Its aim – to bring the benefits of peace, religion, enlightenment
, trade and education to the uncivilised areas of the world – was regarded as highly praiseworthy. Interpreted by the socialist John Ruskin at his famous Inaugural Lecture at Oxford in the 1870s, and embraced by radical liberals such as Daisy's mentor, W.T. Stead, British imperialism had all the appeal of a latter-day crusade.

  Stead was particularly enamoured of that quintessentially imperialistic figure of the age, Cecil John Rhodes. To Stead, Rhodes's self-appointed mission of spreading 'Anglo-Saxon civilisation' not only throughout his own sphere of influence – Southern Africa (Rhodes was the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony) – but throughout the world, appeared wholly admirable. Regarded today, not entirely accurately, as the very personification of a grasping, power-hungry megalomaniac, Rhodes was, to the altruistic Stead, a hero. And he was no less of a hero to the Prince of Wales and Lady Warwick.

  When, on 29 December 1895, Dr Leander Starr Jameson invaded the Transvaal with a detachment of men from Rhodes's South Africa Company, Lady Warwick was all approval. She took Jameson's reasons for invading the Boer republic – published in the form of a letter to The Times – at face value. She was quite ready to believe that he had answered an appeal from the largely British, largely gold-mining contingent living in the Transvaal, for protection against the iniquities of the Boer government. In the event, the raid failed and the invading force surrendered.

  As far as Daisy was concerned, the capture of the British invading force by the Boers was bad enough, but when certain British newspapers condemned the raid, she was incensed. She was more incensed still when, on 4 January 1896, it became known that the German Emperor, Wilhelm II, had sent President Paul Kruger a telegram of congratulation for having repulsed the raiders.