The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses

by Theo Aronson

  But, on alighting at Biarritz station the following day, Alice Keppel would look her usual glamorous self. For the sake of appearances she would neither be met by the King nor accommodated in his hotel. Her host would be Sir Ernest Cassel, who would have rented the luxurious Villa Eugenie – the restored seaside residence of the Second Empire court – which would be run for him by his widowed sister. Alice Keppel would have a floor to herself, her daughters being accommodated in the nursery wing which had once housed the late Prince Imperial. The girls were always hard put to keep up with Sir Ernest Cassel's beautifully-dressed granddaughters, Edwina and Mary Ashley. Could they not have real lace on their knickers, like the Ashley girls, begged Mrs Keppel's daughters.

  'Mrs Ashley can afford it,' was Alice's brusque answer, 'I can't.'5

  As Edward VII led no less highly organised a life at Biarritz than anywhere else, Alice would have to adjust her life to his. They would meet, each day, at a quarter past twelve exactly. By then the King, who always rose at seven no matter how late he had gone to bed the night before, would have had his warm bath and his glass of milk, been dressed in one of his immaculate suits, enjoyed a breakfast of boiled eggs, grilled bacon, freshly-caught trout and milky coffee, and spent a couple of hours at his writing desk.

  For even on holiday the sovereign is never free of constitutional duties. No matter where he or she might be, the monarch must attend to the 'boxes' – that collection of cabinet minutes, memoranda, despatches, reports, letters, departmental statements, documents for signature, petitions, appeals and protests. Each morning, at Biarritz, Edward VII would be faced by three large canvas bags brought over by special government messenger. 'The King,' writes one observer, 'examined all the despatches, studied them, annotated them, wrote to the prime minister in his own hand, himself treated all important questions, directed how the others were to be dealt with and divided the work between his equerries.'6

  Alice Keppel would join him at a quarter past twelve and together they would stroll along the promenade. The sight of this elegantly dressed couple – the King sporting one of his many walking sticks, all monogrammed with an E surmounted by a crown, and Mrs Keppel in a large veiled hat – was a familiar one to the people of the resort. At Biarritz, in marked contrast to Marienbad where the demented mayor was driven to nailing posters on every tree along the Kreuzbrunnen begging the public to leave their illustrious guest in peace, the inhabitants respected the King's wish for privacy. Indeed, some illustrated French papers even went so far as to airbrush out the features of Mrs Keppel whenever she was photographed walking by the side of her royal lover.

  There were a couple of locals, though, who made certain that the King was never ignored. These were two blind beggars who positioned themselves, at precisely noon each day, beside the road that led from the Hotel du Palais to the beach. The King never failed to drop a handful of coins into their begging bowls and to greet them with a reassuring 'Till tomorrow!' One day, however, there was only one beggar to be seen. The worried King was very relieved to find, the following morning, that the man was back in his place.

  'Were you ill yesterday?' asked the King.

  'No, monsieur le Roi,' answered the man.

  'Then you were late?'

  'Excuse me, monsieur le Roi,' stammered the embarrassed beggar. 'I beg your pardon. You were early.'

  The King was highly amused. 'A thousand apologies, '7 he declared.

  Always accompanying the King and Alice Keppel on their walk was his long-haired white fox terrier, Caesar. Edward VII doted on Caesar: on his collar the dog bore the proud inscription, 'I am Caesar, the King's dog.' Whenever Caesar accompanied his master to the Villa Eugenie, where the King enthusiastically joined Alice's daughters in their games, the excited dog would gnaw the chairlegs or rip the curtains. But no one, least of all the King, ever punished him.

  'His Majesty,' reports Charles Stamper, the King's chauffeur, 'never beat Caesar. The dog and he were devoted to one another, and it was a picture to see him standing shaking his stick at the dog, when he had done wrong. "You naughty dog," he would say very slowly. "You naughty, naughty dog." And Caesar would wag his tail.'8

  The King and Mrs Keppel usually lunched together in his suite at the Hotel du Palais. The hotel waiters would wheel the trolleys of food to the door of the royal suite but it would be served by Edward VII's two personal footmen. Lunch invariably consisted of hard-boiled plover's eggs sprinkled with paprika, followed by fish – trout, salmon or soles – which was in turn followed by a meat dish. As His Majesty disliked red meat, this was usually chicken or game, with an occasional slice of lamb. His favourite vegetable was asparagus and his favourite fruit strawberries. With his meal the King would drink chablis and Perrier water, dry champagne and occasionally claret. He would always finish the meal with a balloon of Napoleon brandy and a Corona y Coronas cigar. A fast eater, he disliked spending longer than thirty minutes at table.

  Most of all, the King enjoyed his afternoon, or even day-long excursions with Alice Keppel. In his fleet of claret-coloured cars, which had been driven from England to be awaiting his arrival at Biarritz, the royal party would set out. With His Majesty always demanding change and variety, there was hardly an area of the surrounding countryside, including nearby Spain, that Alice Keppel did not come to know. Together, they would watch the pelota matches at Anglet or the races at La Barre; they would go lurching along the little mountain roads above Cambo and St-Jean-Pied-de-Port; they would cross the flat landscape lying to the north towards Bordeaux or negotiate the hazardous passes through the Pyrenees. Occasionally, to ensure an afternoon's complete privacy with Alice, the King would arrange for his 'double', Sir Ernest Cassel, to impersonate him by leaving the hotel in one of the royal cars.

  Unfortunately, and inexplicably, His Majesty had a preference for picnicking by the side of the road. Once he had chosen the spot, everyone would pile out and the footmen would set out table, chairs, linen table cloths, napkins, plates, glasses and silver. Cold food would be unpacked from hampers, hot food from deep dishes sunk into a large, heavily-padded box, and iced cup served from silver-plated containers. But as even in those more tranquil days the roads out of Biarritz were often crowded with cars and carriages, the party would be subjected to the stares of passers-by and to clouds of white dust. Gamely Alice Keppel would sit under her jewel-handled parasol (for to be tanned by the sun was unthinkable) while the King, happily oblivious to the fact that he was being recognised by every person who drove by, delighted in his anonymity.

  The ever-present Alice provided Edward VII not only with the pleasure of her company, but with a measure of protection from predatory females. In Biarritz he was relatively safe from the sort of adventuress who wanted to boast that she had slept with the King of England (in Marienbad one such huntress professed herself ready to settle for His Majesty's secretary if His Majesty himself were not available) but he remained in danger of those who wanted to claim him as a friend. One such social climber was a relentless American by the name of Mrs Moore. 'There are three things in life which one cannot escape,' the King used to sigh, 'l'amour, la mort and La Moore.'9

  Untiring, but unsuccessful, in her efforts to gain admission to the magic circle, Mrs Moore finally hit upon a way of doing so. She bribed one of His Majesty's drivers (one can only assume that it was not an official royal chauffeur) to feign a break-down on the way back to Biarritz from St-Jean-de-Luz. As the monarch sat fuming in his stationary car, a distant cloud of dust heralded the approach of another vehicle. The equerry flagged it down. Out clambered Mrs Moore, her motoring veil tied firmly under her chin. Could she possibly give His Majesty a lift to the Hotel du Palais? She could. And the citizens of Biarritz were presently treated to the sight of King Edward VII sitting in the back of an open car beside a triumphantly beaming Mrs Moore. It was her finest hour. When next she invited the King and Mrs Keppel to play a little bridge, he could hardly refuse.

  Other excursions brought other dilemmas. Once,
when Alice Keppel decided to go shopping in nearby Bayonne, the King was talked by the thirteen-year-old Violet Keppel into taking her to the carnival in San Sebastian. Both masked, the corpulent old man and the slender young girl were soon swallowed up by the surging, confetti-flinging crowd. Presently Violet noticed that Kingy was in trouble: his face was scarlet and his breathing laboured. Tearing off his mask, the frightened girl shouted, 'Es el Rey! Can't you see it's the King? You're suffocating him!' But at first the crowd refused to take her seriously; it was some time before they realised who he was and before a path could be cleared to allow him to reach his car and his distraught chauffeur.

  Alice was waiting for them on the steps of the Villa Eugenie. 'I was sent straight to my room,' reports Violet. 'As for the poor King, it was decidedly the last time that he gave in to one of my childish whims.'10

  The afternoon's excursions – whether successful or not – over, the King would spend another period at work with his equerries and then dress for dinner. This would be served at eight-fifteen, again in the royal suite and would be a full dress occasion – the men in white tie and tails, the women in evening dress and jewels. Never more than ten sat down to the meal; often Alice was the only woman present. The menu would again be, as one guest tactfully puts it, 'pretty copious'.11 After dinner there would be bridge, with Alice always playing at the King's table. Towards midnight the party would break up.

  But perhaps one may be allowed to imagine Alice remaining behind for a further half-hour while the King drinks his last whisky and soda and smokes his last cigar on the canopied balcony outside his suite. Sometimes in April, along this usually bracing Basque coast, comes a balmy night, rich with the promise of summer, with a full moon reflected in the inky waters of the Atlantic; on such a night, in the company of his beloved Alice, the normally fidgety, perennially restless King of England is able to enjoy a period of blissful contentment.

  Any hopes that the Countess of Warwick might have harboured of becoming an éminence grise of the Edwardian reign were soon dashed. A matter of months after Edward VII had ascended the throne, Daisy was visited by Viscount Esher, the true éminence grise of the new reign. In his charming, tactful fashion, this polished courtier told her, she says, 'that he thought it would be as well for all concerned if my close association with great affairs were to cease, as it was giving rise to hostile comment which distressed Queen Alexandra.' Just before Esher's visit, continues Daisy, the Queen 'had written me a letter – a very kind letter – to the same effect.'12

  Although Daisy had never been as closely associated with 'great affairs' as she would like us to believe, it was quite clear that Queen Alexandra wanted the King to have nothing more to do with her. Having fondly imagined that her carefully composed letter of renunciation, written to her royal lover at the end of their affair, would ensure her continued access to him, Daisy was proved wrong. Queen Alexandra had had quite enough of Lady Warwick: of her immoral reputation and her radical opinions. Yet, in her memoirs, Daisy is at pains to point out that the Queen's attitude merely confirmed her own; that it was she who had refused to take advantage of her continuing friendship with the King. 'I had been most scrupulous, since he came to the throne,' she asserts, 'in seeking nothing for myself or my friends.' Her noble withdrawal, she claims, astonished the King's circle. One of his rich friends – and here she surely means Cassel – even went so far as 'to ask me bluntly why, in a season when so many favours were being dispensed, I remained so quietly in the background'.13

  Yet Edward VII, as was his way, never completely broke with Daisy Warwick. They continued to see each other from time to time and always exchanged gifts and greetings on their birthdays. But she was never again to have any influence over him.

  The fact that Lord Esher's courteously worded warning was delivered in 1901 and that Daisy Warwick did not officially become a socialist until late in 1904 gives the lie to two frequently repeated claims: that Edward VII broke with Lady Warwick because she joined a socialist party, and that Lady Warwick joined the socialists because she was annoyed with the King for having deserted her for Alice Keppel. The truth is that their affair had ended before the Prince of Wales met Alice Keppel and that not until six years later did Lady Warwick join the Social Democratic Federation.

  Until then, despite her humanitarian activities, Daisy Warwick had regarded herself as standing above party politics. But having finally joined the Social Democratic Federation – the most radical and militant of the contemporary left-wing groupings, well in advance of the Independent Labour Party – she worked for it with unflagging enthusiasm. There always remained, though, something paradoxical about her position. Despite her proletarian sympathies, Lady Warwick was still very much the grand lady. Swathed in furs, she would address co-operative society meetings; roped in pearls, she would entertain trade unionists in her Italianate London home. In her forty-horse-power Wolseley she would tour the country campaigning for free meals for children; in her special train she would travel to workers' rallies. From Nawton Towers, the luxurious country house of her son-in-law Viscount Helmsley, prospective Conservative candidate, she would sally forth to make speeches on behalf of the local Labour candidate.

  She was of immense value to the cause. 'We are having fine meetings with the Countess of Warwick as a speaker or in the chair,' reported one leading socialist to a friend. 'There is of course a lot of snobbery in this, but what matter? People would come to see and hear her who would never come to see or hear you or me. Last Friday at the Memorial Hall on a frightful night the place was packed with over 2000 people, many, perhaps the majority, of the well-to-do class.'14

  Indeed, in common with Edward VII's other old flame, Lillie Langtry, Daisy Warwick had the ability to draw an audience. Like Lillie, too, she was making her own mark in the world, quite independent of her status as a royal mistress.

  Leading such an active political life, Daisy was understandably surprised to discover, in the year 1904, that she was to give birth to another child. 'Oh, Mercy!' the forty-two-year-old Lady Warwick exclaimed on realising that she was once again pregnant; and Mercy was the name that she gave to her daughter. But to Mercy, Daisy was able to give even less attention than she had to her other children. The girl was left in the care of nurses while the mother went off to campaign on behalf of those other mothers with a dozen children and no food, let alone nurses.

  One of the ways in which Daisy Warwick differed from Lillie Langtry was that she had no head for figures. By 1907, at the age of forty-five, she was experiencing considerable financial difficulties. Short of money and harried by creditors, she was obliged to sell off properties and close down some of her charitable institutions. There was, of course, one way by which she could have recouped her losses: by writing her memoirs. It was at this time, she says, that she was 'approached with offers of very large sums of money'15 for her reminiscences. This is hardly surprising. As the one-time mistress of the reigning sovereign, the intimate friend of many prominent men, the lover of many others, a celebrated society hostess, a fashionably dressed beauty, a repository of a great deal of gossip and a peeress who had become a socialist, Daisy Warwick had more than enough material to write a bestseller.

  But she resisted the temptation. With almost all her circle, including Edward VII, still alive, the undertaking would be fraught with difficulties; and no publisher was going to advance her those 'very large sums of money' for a compilation of tame social chit-chat and tedious socialistic moralising. The idea was shelved. Times would have to become more difficult still before Lady Warwick would be ready to convert her secrets into hard cash.

  Another setting against which Edward VII's love affair with Mrs Keppel was played out was Paris. The Biarritz holiday over, the King and the Keppels would move on to the French capital. Here, with Edward VII in his usual suite at the Hotel Bristol, Alice and her family would stay in Sir Ernest Cassel's spacious apartment in the Rue du Cirque. In Paris Alice Keppel, like Lillie Langtry and Daisy Warwick before
her, was able to shop at Worth.

  'I have vivid memories of the first time I accompanied my mother to the dressmaker, where she was received like a goddess,' writes Violet Keppel, 'Monsieur Jean (Worth) supervising her fitting in person, the vendeuses quite shamelessly forsaking their other clients to vie with each other in flattering epithets. Il y avait de quoi. My mother had everything that could most appeal to them, lovely, vivacious, fêted, fashionable, with a kind word for each of the anonymous old crones who had been for years in the establishment . . .' 16

  And although Violet does not say so, her mother's chief attraction for these fluttering vendeuses was her status as la maîtresse du Roi.

  Again, like her predecessors, Alice would be taken to Edward VII's favourite Parisian restaurants. But whereas in his days as Prince of Wales, he could occasionally give his French detectives the slip, now he was kept under close and constant surveillance. Yet knowing how much the King hated to be watched, this surveillance was kept as discreet as possible. On one occasion the King, Mrs Keppel and a party of friends were lunching in a garden restaurant at St Cloud. As they sat there in the leaf-dappled sunlight, Alice, always concerned about her lover's well-being, became more and more nervous about the apparent lack of police protection. Eventually she confided her fears to one of the King's secretaries, Frederick Ponsonby. Anyone, she whispered, could come in through the open garden gate; the diners on either side of the royal table looked very suspicious; one of them had a particularly 'villainous' face. She felt sure that the police had been given the wrong name of the restaurant at which the King would be lunching and that he was now at the mercy of any assassin.