by Theo Aronson
'What a pity Mrs G.K. is again to the fore!' commented Princess May. 'How annoyed Mama will be.'30
There can be no doubt that the constant presence of Mrs Keppel was one of the reasons why Alexandra played a less public role than might have been expected. While the Prince enjoyed what one observer called 'a good many small "Mrs George" dinners'31, the Princess remained at Sandringham or else travelled abroad – to her native Denmark or on Mediterranean cruises. 'When she gets stuck at Sandringham it is difficult to move her . . .' complained Princess May. 'It does not look good for her so constantly to leave him alone as she does.'32
With two of her daughters married (in 1896 Princess Maud married a Danish cousin who later became King Haakon VII of Norway), Alexandra clung, ever more possessively, to her remaining daughter, Princess Victoria. This daughter never married. In fact, from the increasingly embittered Princess Victoria, Alexandra demanded all the attention, companionship and loyalty so signally denied her by her husband.
But there were occasions when Alexandra's sense of fun, never far below the surface, overcame her sense of grievance. One day at Sandringham, on looking out of the window, she happened to see her husband and his mistress returning from a drive. The sight of this couple sitting sedately side by side in an open carriage like two plump pigeons (for Alice Keppel, unlike Alexandra, was putting on weight) greatly amused the childish Alexandra. Beckoning to her lady-in-waiting to join her at the window, she dissolved into peals of helpless laughter.
As always with the affable Prince of Wales, the emergence of a new love never meant the disappearance of an old. In the summer of 1898, for instance, he was asking Lady Sackville if she would invite not only Mrs Keppel, but Lady Warwick, to her large garden party at Knole. Bravely, Lady Sackville refused. She would far rather, she explained tactfully, 'ask some of the County ladies, especially as the Princess [of Wales] was coming'. His Royal Highness, she says, 'acquiesced and was very nice about it'.33
The Prince was also looking after the interests of his other old flame, Lillie Langtry. By this time Lillie's daughter Jeanne-Marie, who had been fathered by Prince Louis of Battenberg, was nearing her eighteenth birthday and Lillie was very anxious for the girl to be properly launched into society. Although Jeanne-Marie by now knew that Lillie Langtry was her mother and not her aunt, she – and most other people – believed that her father had been the late Edward Langtry. So there was no apparent reason why the young woman could not be presented at court, always provided a suitable sponsor could be found to do so.
At almost eighteen, Jeanne-Marie Langtry was a slender, attractive young woman. A reporter of the Sketch had described her, a couple of years earlier, as 'a simple well-bred looking girl, strongly recalling one or two of her mother's early portraits – those taken when Mrs Langtry was just bursting upon the world, the fairest among a world of fair women, and a dream of loveliness.'34 The fact that the reporter reserved his superlatives for Lillie indicates that the daughter, no matter how attractive, could not match the mother's marvellous beauty. About this, the forty-five-year-old Lillie would not have been unduly perturbed.
To arrange the complicated business of Jeanne-Marie's presentation, Lillie appealed to the Prince of Wales. He, with his penchant for protocol and his readiness to grant a favour, immediately put his mind to the problem. On meeting Gladys, Countess de Grey at a dinner party, he asked her to go and see Lillie – 'so as to give you advice about your girl going out into society'. Between the three of them, and after a series of letters between Lillie in London and Bertie in Cannes (where, in the spring of 1899, he was holidaying with Alice Keppel) the matter was resolved. Lady de Grey would present the daughter-in-law of one of Lillie's brothers, a 'Mrs H. Langtry', at a Drawing Room, at which, in turn, Mrs H. Langtry would present her cousin-by-marriage, Miss Jeanne-Marie Langtry. 'All you tell me,' wrote the Prince on receiving Lillie's final report on the plans, 'seems very satisfactory . . .'35
With Jeanne-Marie safely launched that season, Lillie made her own bid for respectability. Her husband's death in the Chester Lunatic Asylum, eighteen months before, had removed all obstacles to her remarriage and, after the obligatory year of mourning, Lillie felt free to find herself another husband.
The choice, even for her, was unconventional. Not only was Hugo de Bathe poor and foolish but he was eighteen years her junior: twenty-eight to her forty-six. His nickname was Suggie. On the other hand, Lillie, as a successful actress and racehorse owner, no longer needed to marry for money; nor, with women like Lord Randolph Churchill's widow, the forty-five-year-old Jennie, about to marry the twenty-five-year-old George Cornwallis West, did the age difference seem so remarkable. And then Suggie had, for Lillie, one overwhelming advantage: his father was a baronet. When old Sir Henry de Bathe died, his son would inherit his title and Lillie would become Lady de Bathe. For this alone, Lillie was apparently prepared to put up with the ineffectual, if not bad-looking, young man.
The ill-matched couple were married, very quietly, on 27 July 1899 in St Saviour's church in Jersey: the church where her father had been Dean and where, twenty-five years before, she had married Edward Langtry. So secret was the wedding that Lillie received, it is said, only one telegram. It was from the Prince of Wales, congratulating her on her horse Merman winning the Goodwood Cup that afternoon.
Lillie did not waste much time on a honeymoon. Within days she was back in London rehearsing a new play, while Suggie was heading for a stay at Carlsbad, 'for health reasons'.36 Before the end of the year he had sailed for South Africa to fight in the Boer War which had broken out that October. 'My heart is on its way to South Africa,' declaimed Lillie dramatically to a clutch of reporters; only the most naive amongst them would have believed her.
Lillie Langtry's new play was The Degenerates, a relatively outspoken piece in which she played an abandoned society woman whose career, it was maintained, closely resembled her own. So shocked, it appears, were London audiences by the low moral tone of the play that it did excellent business. When Lillie opened in it in New York early the following year, audiences were even more shocked, with the happy result that it did even better business.
Among the snowstorm of abusive reviews through which Lillie Langtry was obliged to battle as she toured the United States in The Degenerates was one which, in many ways, is a not entirely unfair summing-up of her theatrical ability. 'She does well enough when she has only to be conversational, graceful and slightly playful,' wrote the influential Arthur McEwan in the North American, 'but when more is demanded of her, passion, maternal feeling, agitation even, there is no response to the demand. She remains an amateur after all her years on the stage. One may not write truthfully of Mrs Langtry without seeming to be cruel, for it is impossible not to treat of the woman instead of the character she tries to assume. Mrs Langtry would offend in any play, not to speak of one for which she had supplied the least chaste materials.
'It is not as an actress that Mrs Langtry appears on the stage – her personal notoriety, not her talents, constitutes her claim upon the interest and pockets of the public in her country and ours. And Mrs Langtry knows this, and has always known it.'37
By now the Prince of Wales's other ex-mistress, Daisy Warwick, had embarked on a new love affair. In 1898, at the age of thirty-six, the irrepressible Daisy fell deeply in love with a thirty-one-year-old army captain named Joseph Laycock. Well-born, wealthy, Laycock was one of those not particularly handsome men who none the less possess a strong animal magnetism that can be very attractive to women. He was powerfully built and exceptionally energetic, with all the sporting enthusiasms of his type and class. Although Laycock epitomised, in many ways, the sort of conservative, landowning aristocrat against whose iniquities Lady Warwick so tirelessly campaigned, she was besotted by him. She 'worshipped' him, as she put it, 'wildly'.38
For Daisy, this was a very different love affair from her one with the Prince of Wales. 'If,' says Lady Warwick's biographer, Margaret Blunden, 'with the Prince of Wa
les, he had been the captive, she the conquering, he the adoring, she the adored, the reverse was nearer the truth with Laycock. Lady Warwick could still be imperious, was seldom less than demanding, but Laycock was ultimately in the happy position of being the one most desired, the one more loved than loving.'39
It was true that at the start of their stormy relationship the young captain was dazzled by the beautiful and celebrated Countess of Warwick and that he gave her the customary 'wedding ring' (one assumes that she took off the Prince's wedding ring first). He also tried to interest himself in her various humanitarian schemes, even to the extent of making generous donations towards them.
These contributions were particularly welcome as Daisy's own finances were in a precarious state. For some – to her – inexplicable reason, her annual income had fallen from £30,000 to £6,000. That this should have been the direct result of her lavish entertaining and no less lavish philanthropy was something which she refused to believe. She, one of the most richly dressed women in society, would blithely protest that she cared not one jot for clothes and that she was able to make her money 'go further than most'.40
Laycock's departure to fight in the Boer War meant a period of anxiety for the lovelorn Daisy. It was an anxiety which paled into insignificance in comparison with the anguish which beset her on his return. For an accident on the hunting field, at which the injured Laycock was tended by the lovely Lady Downshire, led directly to a romance between them. Married, with three children, and eleven years younger than Lady Warwick, the Marchioness of Downshire proved a formidable rival. Daisy's letters to Laycock became progressively more frantic as his love for Kitty Downshire became more apparent. Torn by jealousy, sick with longing, driven to despair, poor Daisy poured forth her soul in page after page to her unfaithful lover. 'Joe. My Joe –' she scribbled in one letter, 'if you could see how my hand shakes when I write your name . . .'41
Daisy became more incoherent still when she heard that the Marquess of Downshire was about to divorce his wife for adultery, naming Laycock as co-respondent. Convinced that Laycock would marry Kitty Downshire once she were free, Daisy used every argument to prevent the 'ill-fated, impossible marriage'.42 She even appealed to her old love, the Prince of Wales, who had by that stage, become King.
'My darling –' she reported to Laycock one day in October 1902, 'I have such a rush to get home (to the Guild) – only just to say that the King more than nice to me – agrees about it all – only he says (as we do) you must go away for a bit then "things will be alright" and "a pity a man's life should be ruined" etc (He is very down on poor Lady D, but that I can tell you . . .)'43
But not even this hint of royal intervention could dissuade Laycock. In November that year he married Kitty Downshire. The embittered Daisy had to content herself with writing him a scathing letter for having forgotten her birthday on 10 December. From friends all over the world, she declared, she had received gifts and telegrams; even the King had sent her a diamond and turquoise bracelet. Only from Joe, to whom she had given everything – beauty, adoration and intellectual companionship – had she received nothing.
In spite of all this emotional turmoil, Lady Warwick still found time to attend to her manifold activities on behalf of the under-privileged: her work for the trades unions, for progressive education, for the physically handicapped. The nineteenth century, she declared ringingly on one occasion, 'has proved one thing to us, and that is that men will not rest content in the positions in which they were born.'44
One of her new enthusiasms was for an Anglo-American alliance. Encouraged by her mentor, W.T. Stead, and inspired by her hero, Cecil Rhodes, both of whom favoured the idea, Lady Warwick worked towards the fostering of an understanding between these two great nations. With the Stars and Stripes floating above the ramparts of Warwick Castle, the châtelaine guided American tourists through its halls and invited American dignitaries to spend the night. She blithely suggested to Stead that he go to America 'to find a millionaire who simply wants a motive given him for spending his hoards'. These hoards could then be used 'to found an ideal union between the whole English-speaking race'.45
Inevitably, Daisy tried to embroil the Prince of Wales in the enterprise. His Royal Highness refused to touch it. Although the Prince favoured an end to his country's policy of 'splendid isolation', it was towards Europe rather than the United States that he felt Britain should be looking for allies. Heartily as he might wish for an entente with America, replied the Prince tactfully, he could not give the scheme his open support. Not even Lady Warwick's tea party, at which the American wives of English aristocrats did their utmost to charm the susceptible Prince, could win him over. In any case, the Prince was in no position to implement, or even influence, British foreign policy. This was something which Lady Warwick never fully appreciated.
There were other occasions, though, when the Prince of Wales was still prepared to involve himself in Lady Warwick's affairs. When her eldest son, the seventeen-year-old Guy, persisted in going out to fight in the Boer War, the Prince – although deploring the fact that anyone so young should be on active service – suggested ways in which the youth could be usefully and safely employed. And throughout the war he took a kindly interest in the boy's doings. The Prince also supported Daisy in her efforts to dissuade her husband, the forty-five-year-old Earl of Warwick, from enlisting in the Imperial Yeomanry in order to go and serve in South Africa.
As the war in South Africa dragged on, the Prince wrote often to Lady Warwick. These letters 'would have to be quoted from, or given in full,' she claims, 'to get their flavour.'46 In fact, Daisy was a great admirer and, unfortunately, hoarder of, the Prince's letters. 'They reveal qualities that are none too common in any class, but rare indeed in Royalty,' she writes. 'They were essentially unselfish letters. The writer always makes light of his own troubles and discounts his own qualities and ability. He was, if anything, too humble about himself, and was always ready to praise other people and willing to believe that they were better than he. He would give the most detailed care to the consideration of other people's troubles and problems, was always ready to help and was full of wise counsel. Every letter reflected a kindly, generous, loyal nature. He gave to his private friendships the practical insight that might so well have served the State.'47
Early in 1899 the Prince, although by then deeply in love with Alice Keppel, wrote Daisy 'a charming letter reminding me of the tenth anniversary of our friendship'. Its contents were wide-ranging but 'the main theme was the reality and sincerity of our friendship which he averred nothing could alter'.48
If only the Prince had known that one day his darling Daisy was to use these affectionate letters to blackmail his son, King George V, he would have expressed himself with rather more circumspection.
'It would be wrong to assume,' wrote Margot Asquith, 'that the [Prince of Wales's] only interest in women was to have an "affaire" with them. That he had many "affaires" is indisputable, but there were a great many other women in his life from whom all he sought was a diverting companionship.'49
It is, perhaps, in this light that the Prince's strange relationship with Miss Agnes Keyser must be viewed. He first met the forty-five-year-old Miss Keyser in February 1898, about the same time as he met Alice Keppel. The daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, Charles Keyser, Agnes Keyser was an attractive and intelligent woman, with that strongly individual streak which the Prince always found so irresistible. It was this independence – allied to her financial independence – which led Agnes Keyser, in spite of her charm and beauty, to reject the conventions of her time and to take up nursing as a career. With the passing years she developed into a brisk, efficient, somewhat intimidating nursing sister, highly respected in her profession.
That the Prince should have been attracted to this nanny-like figure, so different from the sumptuously dressed and seductively mannered women in whose company he usually delighted, is revealing. Indeed, it was precisely these nanny-like qualities that appeale
d to him. In her comfortable home in Grosvenor Crescent, the Prince could be assured of the calm that was so conspicuously lacking in his daily life. With head sympathetically tilted, Agnes Keyser would listen to his troubles, discuss his health and advise him on personal problems. Serene and unaffected, she gave him a sense of security. In her reassuring company, the Prince felt completely at ease. She even tried to improve his eating habits. The Prince would often dine with Agnes Keyser, sometimes at a small table laid in front of a glowing fire, and instead of stuffing him with ortolans rôtis sur canapés or gâteau punch granit au champagne, she fed him with what, in those days, was considered healthy food: Irish stews and rice puddings. At least it was plain and wholesome, redolent of the nursery.
An added attraction, as far as the Prince was concerned, was that Agnes Keyser was an accomplished bridge player. Quite often she and her sister would join the Prince and Alice Keppel in a game. With his appreciation both of female company and of good bridge, the Prince greatly enjoyed these evenings.
When the Boer War broke out in 1899, Agnes Keyser decided to convert her Grosvenor Crescent house into a nursing home for officers. As not even her substantial private income could meet all the costs of equipping the hospital, she appealed to the Prince of Wales for help. He immediately set up a trust and coerced his many rich friends, such as Ernest Cassel, Arthur Sassoon and Nathaniel Rothschild, into subscribing to it. As the ineffable Rosa Lewis – the kitchenmaid who ended up presiding over the famous Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street – put it, the Prince 'got his snob friends to dole out'.50 After the Prince's accession to the throne, Agnes Keyser's nursing home, which she ran as matron, became known as King Edward's Hospital for Officers.
For twelve years, from 1898 until he died in 1910, King Edward VII kept up his close relationship with Agnes Keyser. Quite clearly, he was devoted to her. Whether or not it was anything more than an amitié amoureuse one does not know. Perhaps, for one of the greatest libertines of the time who never lacked sexual opportunity, it was enough that Agnes Keyser should be a comforting, understanding, all-forgiving presence – the quintessential mother-figure.