The Heir Apparent

by Jane Ridley

  The police at the door estimated that people filed through Westminster Hall at the rate of ten thousand per hour. The number who paid their respects to the King was estimated at four hundred thousand or more.136 No one had predicted so many. No one could explain it, either. Observers noticed that people “really are profoundly stricken, do firmly feel a personal as well as a State loss, and look upon the late King as a friend and protector.”137 Never in recorded history, boomed The Times, had the death of a sovereign caused such wide and impressive manifestations of sorrow.138 The crowds were bigger than at Queen Victoria’s funeral, and the public sorrow deeper. Bertie, the dissipated, self-indulgent Prince of Wales, had somehow transformed himself into the father of the nation.

  In spite of his passion for ceremonial and correctness, Bertie left no instructions for his funeral. The Archbishop of Canterbury suggested burial at Westminster Abbey, a radical proposal intended to commemorate the King’s unique relationship with his people—the fact that he was “the most ‘popular,’ in the true sense, of all England’s sovereigns.”139 George V insisted, however, that his father should be buried with his ancestors at Windsor, not beside his parents at Frogmore but in St. George’s Chapel.

  All through the night of Thursday, 19 May, people hurried into London. Crowds waited for twelve hours in torrential rain along the processional route of the King’s cortège on Friday, from Westminster Hall to Paddington station. Soon after nine a.m., the funeral procession began to assemble in New Palace Yard. Margot Asquith watched as the gun carriage, the King’s charger, with boots and stirrups reversed, and a kilted Highlander leading the wire-haired terrier Caesar waited in the grilling sun.140 Eight kings came to Edward VII’s funeral, and at ten o’clock the glittering procession clattered into the yard, led by George V with the kaiser on his right. As soon as Alix’s carriage drew up, the kaiser leaped from his horse and rushed officiously to the door, opening it before the servants could reach it, and ostentatiously planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.141 Alix stepped out, “a vision of beauty,” dressed from head to foot in black crêpe; Margot and the politicians’ wives curtseyed to the ground with bowed heads as she swished past them and into Westminster Hall in order to pay her final respects to the coffin. The kingsa remained seated on their horses; it was rumored that their poor horsemanship might cause complications if they attempted to dismount.142 Soon afterward, the coffin emerged and the procession formed up. Alix was seen to bend and pat Caesar, the King’s dog.

  Eight kings and one emperor rode behind the King’s coffin. Theodore Roosevelt, former president of the United States, traveled in a carriage wearing plain evening dress. But the sight that made everyone choke was small white Caesar, who walked behind his master’s coffin, on the instructions of the Queen Mother.b143

  In Whitehall, the pavement was black with people wedged so tight they could not move. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people crammed into Hyde Park; the crowd was a hundred yards deep and men climbed the trees, shinning up the barbed wire that had been wound around the trunks to stop them.144 Many had neither eaten nor slept since the day before, and 1,600 received medical attention.145 An iron wall of soldiers lined the processional route, many of them mounted, so the crowd could see very little of the procession, but there was no pushing or shoving. “The behaviour of the crowd was worthy of a democracy; it governed itself,” wrote The Times.146 As the funeral procession crawled past, the crowd fell eerily silent. No one smoked. Bare-headed, black-coated, hushed and awed, the people mourned their King.

  Who were they, these poorly dressed people with pale, pinched faces, known only collectively as the crowd? Their lives had never touched Bertie’s, but his death awoke powerful emotions of mute loyalty. What made the Tory diarist Lord Balcarres gulp was not the kings and the military bands, nor the death marches, but a wreath from “some embroideresses of Bethnal Green” or a handful of lilies of the valley in an old cardboard box.147 Thousands of plain laurel wreaths had been brought to decorate the funeral route. Six thousand policemen patrolled the streets, but not a single incident occurred. The presence of so many kings was an invitation to any anarchist, and Scotland Yard posted plainclothes detectives every twenty-two yards (the length of a cricket pitch) along the route. The crowd on the streets was wedged too tight for any man to raise his arm to throw a bomb; the commissioner of police Sir Edward Henry worried that an explosive might be dropped from a window above, but his fears proved needless.148

  All political lives, Enoch Powell once observed, end in failure, unless they are cut off in midstream. The life of Edward VII ended at the height of his political influence, but in death he achieved apotheosis.

  Bertie’s funeral procession reached Paddington station at eleven o’clock. At precisely the same time, a memorial service for the King was held in Paris in the English church on the rue d’Aguesseau. In the body of the church there assembled the politicians of the Republic, led by President Fallières, the first president to attend an English service in France, and including Georges Clemenceau and Théophile Delcassé, the architects of the Entente Cordiale. The galleries upstairs were reserved for members of society “personally known” to the late King, and the contrast in dress and manners between the republican bourgeoisie downstairs and the faded aristocratic beauties of Bertie’s Proustian Paris seated above was “very striking,” noted George Saunders of The Times. Among those in the gallery was Madame de Pourtalès, “once beautiful and still charming,” with whom the prince had once spent long afternoons on the rue Tronchet.149 “So ridiculous to think that everyone considered I had an affair with him,” she wrote in her diary after the service. “On ne prête qu’aux riches.”c150

  Meanwhile, at Windsor, the royal train bearing the King’s coffin and the members of the funeral procession glided into the station at twelve thirty. For the previous two hours, St. George’s Chapel had filled with politicians, ambassadors, and generals. Organization of the service was in the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal; charming, but hopelessly “fogged,” he was expected by all to “make a hash of it,” and he did not disappoint.151 He had deliberately avoided making a seating plan in order to prevent difficulties over precedence. The result was that the pew openers changed people’s places again and again, shoving them about when someone grander appeared, and the seating was a “mosaic of indecision and confusion.”152 When the procession appeared at the west door, the minor canons assembled to receive them craned their necks to see what was happening, the choir formed a huddled mob, and the Dean of Windsor, instead of keeping order, sat down among the spectators and became absorbed in conversation with a lady.153

  Mrs. Keppel and Agnes Keyser both attended on the invitation of the new King. Alice, wearing full widow’s mourning, was ushered in by Schomberg McDonnell, who met her at the cloister door.154

  As the ragged procession of splendidly robed clergy and heralds moved up the aisle, followed by the coffin, a whisper of surprise rippled through the congregation. The Queen Mother was walking behind the King’s body. Alix had been expected to watch the service unseen from the King’s Closet high above the north end of the altar. Yet here she was, deeply veiled, the blue of her Garter ribbon shining against her black dress, her right hand leaning on a stick, her left clasping the hand of her son George.155 Pedants hissed that she claimed a precedence that was not hers by right; Queen Mary’s sharp-tongued Aunt Augusta blamed the “pernicious influence” of the Empress Minnie, who had persuaded the widow Queen to push herself in front of her daughter-in-law, following Russian custom, which gave the widowed czarina precedence.156

  But protocol was no match for human sympathy. A wave of compassion swept through the church, heads bowed, and knees bent. “She has the finest carriage and walks better than anyone of our time,” wrote Margot, “and not only has she grace, charm and real beauty but all the atmosphere of a fascinating female queen for whom men and women die.”157 A prie-dieu was placed behind the coffin, and Alix took her place next to it. George
fell back, and Alix was left standing, erect and alone. When the coffin was lowered into the vault, she knelt down and covered her face with both her hands, and everyone wept. Margot watched from her seat in the choir nearby: “That single mourning figure, kneeling under the faded banners and coloured light, will always remain among the most beautiful memories of my life.”158

  * * *

  * Sidney Lee said as much in his Dictionary of National Biography article, and Davidson felt obliged to summon him and tell him how painful the visit had been: The sick King was oppressed by “the weight of anxiety on the political situation which never left him.” At this, Lee became “very much disturbed—moved about, asked how I knew etc, and when I told him I was there, said, This is one of those things that is really important, it is eyewitness evidence which cannot be ignored. I am bound to tell you though that this is not what I have been told.” (RA GV/GG9/189, Arthur Davidson to Dighton Probyn, 5 December 1912.)

  † The Oxford gray suit and flannel shirt he wore that day was auctioned in New York in 1937, slit in the back where it was cut away from his body. It was sold for $20. (Catalog of Royal Robes and State Gowns, American-Art Anderson Galleries, 5 May 1937, http://​www.​victoriana.​com/​library/​queen.​html.)

  ‡ This seems more believable than the version give by one biographer, who recorded that the King’s last words were: “I have done my duty.” (Holmes, Edward VII, vol. 2, p. 598.) Laking told Skittles that as Bertie’s mind began to wander, he cried out, “I want to p—.” “What is it he said?” asked the Queen. “He is asking Ma’am for a pencil,” said Laking. (Fitzwilliam, Wilfrid Blunt Papers, MS 11–1975, Diary, 14 December 1910.)

  § The idea of styling Queen Alexandra “Queen Mother” rather than “Queen Dowager” originated with Archbishop Davidson. The only precedent for this was Henrietta Maria, who was known as Queen Mother after 1660. (Kuhn, Democratic Royalism, pp.101–2; Bell, Davidson, p. 609.)

  ‖ Even in death, however, his uncle haunted William. In 1941, an old man living in exile, William declared of Edward VII: “It is he who is the corpse and I who live on, but it is he who is the victor.” (Lamar Cecil, “History as Family Chronicle,” in Rohl and Sombart, Wilhelm II, p. 111.)

  a As well as George V, there were present the kings of Norway, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Portugal, and Belgium. Of these the worst horseman was King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, “who sat his horse like a sack, holding tight to the pommel.” (PRO Northern Ireland, D/4091/A/6/1, Schomberg McDonnell’s journal, “Edward VII,” May 1910, pp. 42–43.)

  b Not that Alix was especially fond of the dog. When Margot Asquith visited her afterward and remarked on its touching devotion, Alix replied: “Horrid little dog! He never went near my poor husband when he was ill!” On Margot remarking that Asquith had seen the dog lying at the dead King’s feet, Alix responded, “For warmth, my dear.” (St. Aubyn, Edward VII, p. 477.) However, the inscription she wrote on the dog’s grave at Marlborough House suggests a change of heart: “Caesar. The King’s Faithful and Constant Companion until Death and My Greatest Comforter in My Loneliness and Sorrow for Four Years after. Died April 18th 1914.”

  c “He had such a reputation!”

  CONCLUSION

  Biographical hindsight can be misleading. There was, in fact, nothing inevitable about Bertie’s story, which can be constructed as a narrative that follows the trajectory of Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, the dissolute prince who reformed after his accession to become the model king. It is easy to forget how different things might have been.

  Bertie might have predeceased his long-lived mother, dying young like his own son Eddy. He nearly succumbed to typhoid when he was thirty. He almost died before his coronation and only survived thanks to the most recent medical advances. The doctors warned in 1907 that his health was being seriously undermined by his lifestyle of smoking, overeating, and overwork, and he was lucky to live as long as he did.

  This book has revealed the angry feelings—at times murderous—of Victoria toward her eldest son. It sometimes seemed that she could never forgive Bertie for his “Fall,” which, she believed, had caused Albert’s illness and death. Even by the standards of the Hanoverians, who, “like ducks, produce bad parents. They trample on their young,” Victoria was a brutal mother to Bertie.1 Throughout the eighteenth century, Hanoverian Princes of Wales had quarreled with their fathers and formed a rallying point for political opposition. What if Bertie had rebelled openly against Victoria?

  Max Beerbohm drew a cartoon of the middle-aged Prince of Wales standing in the corner like a naughty child cowering from the terrifying figure of Queen Victoria. Victoria used Bertie’s scrapes and his reputation for indiscretion as an excuse to deny him access to government secrets. But it was he who enabled her to behave as she wished and to live in seclusion, hiding from her people for forty years. Bertie and Alix together performed the ornamental public role that Victoria declined. Had Bertie refused to do this—had the social functions of monarchy fallen into disuse—Queen Victoria’s position would have been barely tenable.

  What if twenty-one-year-old Bertie had not colluded and agreed to his arranged marriage with Alexandra of Denmark? The consequences of his alliance with the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg princess were surprisingly far-reaching, especially in foreign policy. Without Alix, Bertie would surely not have sided with Denmark against the rest of his family—his sister Vicky and Victoria herself—who supported Prussia over the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864. What began as a family rift eventually triggered a realignment of dynastic diplomacy that was ultimately to see Britain entering the First World War on the side of Russia and France.

  Bertie was not defined by his marriage, in the way that Victoria and Albert were. In spite of his genuine affection for Alix, he neglected her during her illness and pregnancies, and seemed incapable of being faithful to her. He was Edward the Caresser, notorious for his philandering. Margot Asquith wrote: “Women have been the excitement and the joy, the achievement of his life.”2 As a young man, however, he treated women with a thoughtlessness that bordered on cruelty. His flirtation with Harriett Mordaunt landed him in court, but he showed no remorse for her subsequent descent into insanity. When his pregnant mistress Susan Vane-Tempest—the only woman by whom he is known definitely to have fathered an illegitimate child—implored him to see her, he broke off contact.

  In middle age, however, Bertie changed. He grew up. His life splits into two parts, divided by the tragedy of the death of Prince Eddy. Bertie fell in love with Daisy Warwick at the age of forty-eight, and the intensity of that affair is revealed in this book. He enjoyed an on-again, off-again (and most likely physical) relationship with Jennie Churchill over several decades. He rewarded Alice Keppel for her discretion, political advice, and skill at the bridge table with the things that mattered to her—money and acceptance at court. To these women—and many more—Bertie was loyal and generous long after the end of any physical relationship.

  Bertie’s survival as serial adulterer depended partly on the silence of the press in an era when, outside the divorce court, sexual gossip was considered off-limits. More important, however, was a compliant wife. What if Alix had refused to tolerate his unfaithfulness? Public confrontation in the style of Queen Caroline, the estranged wife of George IV, was not in her nature, but unofficial separation was certainly an option. The truth can be found in Alix’s newly discovered letters to her sister Minnie. These private and revealing documents give a picture of Alix’s deep affection for Bertie and her devotion to family life; leaving Bertie would have been unthinkable to her. Her loyalty was his most precious asset.

  The climax of King Edward’s reign, as Lytton Strachey wrote, was “the unresolved drama of its tragic close.”3 Bertie died suddenly and dramatically at the height of a constitutional crisis. At the time he seemed the only man capable of resolving the political conflict. King Edward was somehow above party, the nation’s savior. No one could have foreseen that the spoiled young p
rince of fifty years before—the son whose accession Queen Victoria dreaded—would have been universally mourned.

  Money and sexual scandal have been the twin demons of monarchy since the twentieth century. Neither troubled Bertie while he was King, and this was largely due to the lessons he had learned as Prince of Wales. Victoria and Albert had projected an image of the “royal family” as the embodiment of bourgeois domestic values. Bertie, by contrast, was King alone. In paintings and photographs he appears by himself, wearing military uniform, Highland dress, or a double-breasted suit—the public face of the sovereign. He made no attempt to “market” his family or lay claim to domestic virtue. How could he, when as Prince of Wales his gambling and adultery had made him notorious, and now as King he was openly accompanied by his acknowledged favorite, Mrs. Keppel? If anything, his outrageous flouting of middle-class morality endeared him to his people. As Logan Pearsall Smith quipped: “A virtuous king is a king who has shirked his proper function: to embody for his subjects an ideal of illustrious misbehaviour absolutely beyond their reach.”4 Refusing to parade the “royal family” was politically wise, however. As Bertie’s successors were to discover, projecting monarchy as the “family firm” placed an unreasonable pressure on its members to lead exemplary lives.

  Bertie the debt-ridden prince turned into an unexpectedly wealthy King. This was largely due to Ernest Cassel. By paying off Bertie’s debts as Prince of Wales, Cassel ensured that he seemed solvent on his accession. Like the court Jews who had propelled the absolutism of small German states in the eighteenth century, Cassel made the King stronger in his relations with Parliament. Edward VII’s finances were not an issue during his reign. He had no need to ask the government for extra funds, and this ensured that he avoided the humiliation and annoyance of parliamentary inquiry and debate. The sum of money that Bertie owed to Ernest Cassel has never been fully calibrated, but Cassel’s role in underpinning the Edwardian monarchy was incalculable.