Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter

by Diana Souhami

  The Kaiser wrote to her protesting at ‘a Colonel of the Prussian Hussars embroiling himself in a gambling squabble’. The New York Times mooted that royalty had become an uneconomic proposition for the British taxpayer and The Times wrote:

  We profoundly regret that the Prince should have been in any way mixed up, not only in the case, but in the social circumstances which prepared the way for it. We make no comment upon his conduct toward Sir William Gordon Cumming. He believed Sir William had cheated; he wished to save him; he wished to avoid scandal; and he asked him to sign the paper. This may have been, and probably was, a breach of military rule; but with that the public at large does not concern itself. What does concern and indeed distress the public is the discovery that the Prince should have been at the baccarat table; that the game was apparently played to please him; that it was played with his counters specially taken down for the purpose; that his ‘set’ are a gambling, a baccarat-playing set … Sir William Gordon Cumming was made to sign a declaration that ‘he would never touch a card again’. We almost wish, for the sake of English society in general, that we could learn that the result of this most unhappy case had been that the Prince of Wales had signed a similar declaration.

  Bertie took lessons in virtue from no one. He did, though, part from Daisy in 1898 when she espoused socialism. She took to talking and writing about nationalization as a solution to ‘the great land problem’, said the landed classes ought to earn an honest living, that public schools like Eton should be done away with. She called the rise of the Labour Party the triumph of effort over privilege and said socialism ‘lies at the bottom of the salvation of our country’. She gave her money to the cause, started a magazine called Outspoken Review, turned her estate at Easton into a bird sanctuary and said the solution to life’s problems lay in the Gospel of Love. She advocated the emancipation of women and expressed scorn ‘at the hypocrisy that condemned a woman who made assaults on the Seventh Commandment and condoned any man who did so’.

  Like fidelity, homosexuality and suffrage, socialism was not a concept of which Bertie approved. She asked questions about privilege, power, merit and excessive wealth and why it was that his set should have the upper hand. None of it appealed to him. This was dissent. ‘Those who revealed unpleasant things were not liked the better for it,’ she wrote of him. ‘Only a sincere democrat desires to know the uncomfortable things of life…’. So it was timely when, in 1898, Mrs Keppel talked to the Prince the whole evening on the top landing of Lady Howe’s house and an understanding arose overnight of how they might meet each other’s needs and desires. For she knew a woman’s place, was glittering, witty, curvaceous, discreet and had no socialist leanings or desire to discomfort herself or her lover with the uncomfortable things of life.

  FIVE

  In an unpublished autobiographical piece Violet wrote of her childhood confusion over Bertie’s presence at the Keppel house at 30 Portman Square:

  Once upon a time there was a little girl who was usually exhibited when coffee was served. Her interest was centred mainly in the canards, those lumps of sugar grown-ups would dip into their coffee for her, a favour she used to ask of a fat, bald gentleman who smelt of cigars and eau-de-Portugal, whose fingers were covered in rings and to whom one curtsied endlessly. One day she took advantage of a lull in the conversation to inquire, ‘Mama, why do we call Grandpapa “Majesty”?’ A glacial silence ensued in which you could have heard a pin drop: ‘No more canards darling, you don’t look terribly well. Alfred, take Mademoiselle upstairs.’ Aware that she had uttered an enormity, the little girl let the footman lead her off to the nursery. Not Grandpapa – but who? What?

  Further questions were not encouraged nor the mystery explained. The little girl was left to work it out. Grandpapa suggested family. And this particular grandpapa was wooed, revered, served, far more than Papa who inspired no curtsies or special ceremony. In time, Mama’s sexual flair set a standard to emulate: ‘I adore the unparalleled romance of her life,’ was Violet’s refrain. ‘I wonder if I shall ever squeeze as much romance into my life.’

  The who and what of Papa was never clear either. He was not perhaps Papa. His significance to Mama was less than Grandpapa’s, round whom her world revolved. And if His Majesty was not Grandpapa and Papa was not Papa, then who and what of the little girl exhibited when coffee was served?

  Mrs Keppel’s photograph was frequently requested by magazine editors. Captions referred to her as the Prince of Wales’s friend, commended her looks and clothes, noted her presence at regal functions. In September 1899 a portrait of her with Violet by Alice Hughes was printed on the cover of Country Life. Dressed by Worth in yards of lace with flowers at her bosom, her hair waved, pearls in her ears, she gazes with devotion at the little barefoot girl on her knee. The intimacy is contrived. Such clothes were never meant for cuddling a child. She is about to put her down and pack her off with nanny.1

  Violet’s quarters at Portman Square were on the top two floors; ‘the fortress floors’ she called them. She shared them with her sister Sonia, Nana, who wore a starched uniform and a false hairpiece and had gout, a maid and, until she was ten, a governess, Miss Ainslie, who lost her fiancé in the Boer War.

  Sonia was born in 1900 when Violet was six, Queen Victoria ailing and Bertie soon to be King. Violet disliked the intrusion of her sister into her nursery world. She perceived her looks as plain, her teeth protruding and for ten years refused to talk to her. ‘With one terrifying exception I cannot recall one spoken word during that decade of time,’ Sonia wrote in Edwardian Daughter.

  Sonia was almost certainly George’s daughter for she had the Keppel nose. She adored her father, sided with him, and intimated her mother’s treatment of him was less than kind. As mistress to the Prince of Wales Mrs Keppel perhaps did not intend to have a child with her husband. Perhaps she placated George for his displacement. But eight months after Sonia’s birth Bertie was crowned and Alice elevated to the rank of Official Mistress to the King. It was not entirely appropriate for her to be mothering a baby.

  Margaret Greville of Polesden Lacey, a Regency mansion at Great Bookham, Surrey, was a close friend, had no children of her own, and offered to adopt Sonia. Mrs Keppel refused. ‘When Mamma had refused to let me go always she remained near enough at hand to be a delightfully indulgent godmother,’ Sonia wrote. Mrs Greville was the daughter of a millionaire Scottish brewer. Assertive and outspoken ‘her standard of luxury was of the highest’. Sir Osbert Sitwell called her ‘very ugly and spiteful but excellent company’. Sir Henry Channon wrote, ‘there is no one on earth quite so skilfully malicious as old Maggie.’ Gerald Berners liked to tell the story of when she gave Bacon, her drunk butler, a note one evening at dinner, ‘You are drunk. Leave the room.’ The butler put it on a silver salver and handed it to Sir Robert Horne, advocate, MP and third Lord of the Admiralty.

  * * *

  Grandpapa acceded to the throne of England on 22 January 1901. ‘He desires me to say,’ his Private Secretary wrote that evening to the Duke of Devonshire, ‘that he would propose to call himself Edward 7th.’ One critic said he should propose to call himself Edward the Caresser. Lord Randolph Churchill’s son, Winston, wrote to his mother about the impending coronation:

  I am curious to know about the King. Will it entirely revolutionise his way of life? Will he sell his horses and scatter his Jews or will Reuben Sassoon be enshrined among the crown jewels and other regalia? Will he become desperately serious? Will he continue to be friendly to you? Will the Keppel be appointed 1st Lady of the Bedchamber? Write to tell me all about this …

  The coronation on 9 August 1902 in Westminster Abbey was six weeks late. Originally planned for 26 June, a rehearsal was held on 27 May. Streets from Buckingham Palace to the Abbey were festooned with flowers and lights. The London Gazette gave details of routes, regulations, names of guests. Bertie prepared for the reception of foreign monarchs and heads of state. But the show was postponed. He developed acute appendici
tis. Surgery was hazardous, there were fears for his life. The previous May he had written to Mrs Keppel and, in a circumspect but unequivocal way, declared his commitment to her:

  May 1901

  Marlborough House

  My dear Mrs George

  Should I be taken very seriously ill, I hope you will come and cheer me up, but should there be no chance of my recovery you will I hope still come and see me so that I may say farewell & thank you for all your kindness and friendship since it has been my good fortune to know you.

  I feel convinced that all those who have any affection for me will carry out the wishes which I have expressed in these lines.

  Believe me

  Yours most sincerely

  Edward R

  Public comment on his sexual affairs and scrutiny by the law had made him chary. But the letter gave evidence of Mrs Keppel’s elevated status. It was an implicit instruction. Nine years later when Bertie was dying she sent this letter to Queen Alexandra. It contained too, perhaps, a signal of obligation that his financial adviser, Ernest Cassel, would have understood.

  On 23 June 1902 Bertie had his infected appendix removed. As he came round from a chloroform haze his first words were ‘Where’s George?’ His surgeons supposed him to be asking for his son.

  On 9 August at eleven in the morning a slimmer Prince of Wales left Buckingham Palace in a gilded coach. The ceremony lasted three hours, the congregation filled Westminster Abbey. There were sacramental vessels of gold and precious stones, magnificent robes, choirs singing hosannas. The Duke of Marlborough carried the crown on a velvet cushion, the Duchess, in velvet, ermine and a tiara, was canopy bearer to the Queen. At the altar Bertie took the Coronation Oath. He promised, with his hand on the Great Bible, to govern the peoples of Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon. He swore to defend the Church of England, to maintain the laws of God and uphold the Gospel. He accepted the Sword of State, the homage of bishops, dukes and peers. He left the Abbey with the crown of supreme office on his head, the orb symbolizing the domination of the world by Christ in his left hand and the sceptre, symbolizing supreme authority in his right.

  Mrs Lionel Sackville-West was there with her daughter, Vita. She wore the Knole tiara made from Marie Antoinette’s diamonds. Mrs Keppel, Sarah Bernhardt, and ‘a number of other decorative ladies whose only claim to an invitation was His Majesty’s esteem’ watched the ceremony from a special box in the Abbey. Some wit called it the King’s Loose Box.

  * * *

  As sole mistress to the crowned King, Alice needed money. She was unofficial Queen but not on a payroll or accorded public acknowledgement of the cost of her responsibilities. The King was a stickler for attention to details of dress, etiquette, ceremony and protocol. His standards, in consumer terms, were high. Wine on the royal yacht was drunk from golden cups. Such rituals required commensurate sartorial style. He was known to chide a man for not wearing a silk top hat at the races or for pinning on his medals upside down. To the Duchess of Marlborough, wearing a diamond crescent in her hair at a dinner in his honour, he said, ‘The Queen has taken the trouble to wear a tiara. Why have you not done so?’

  George could not meet Alice’s needs. Once Sonia heard him say he was ‘facing a financial crisis’. With Bertie’s intervention he was found employment that paid a salary, got him out of the house at teatime and took him on business trips overseas. He was to work for Bertie’s yachting friend Sir Thomas Lipton, ‘the grocer millionaire’, who owned vast tea plantations in Ceylon. He was given a job in Lipton’s Buyers’ Association selling groceries, bedding, tobacco, cartridges, coal, motor cars. His office was at 70 Wigmore Street. On 8 April 1901 Lady Curzon wrote to her husband of

  the complete supremacy of Mrs George Keppel over ‘Kinje’ [Edward VII] & Sir Thomas Lipton just presented with a high class Victorian Order because he has made George Keppel his American messenger & sent him out to the States.

  These were changing times. Trade, regarded as vulgar by aristocrats for whom riches were a birthright, had the virtue of yielding money. George’s eldest brother Arnold, Lord Albemarle, accepted cash in exchange for letting his name appear on the letterhead of a company that promoted tyres, bicycles and cars. For George, serving the king required personal adjustments as a letter from him in 1902 to Bertie’s friend the Marquis de Soveral shows:

  Dear Soveral

  My wife tells me you contemplate buying a small motor car for use in London. May we offer our services in the matter…?

  The offer, a ‘great bargain, only used for 4–5 months and in perfect condition’, was a twelve-horse-power Sidley, £440 new, but to Soveral a snip at £300.

  Mrs Keppel’s wealth was acquired with the skilled intervention of Sir Ernest Cassel. Bertie called him ‘the cleverest head in England’. Known as the ‘King’s Millionaire’, he worked magic on Bertie’s money. They looked alike. Both had beards, paunches, guttural voices, protuberant eyes, beringed hands and smoked cigars. ‘Always curtsy to the King, dear,’ the Keppel nanny adjured Violet and Sonia when she exhibited them in the drawing room as coffee was served. Sonia, as confused as Violet as to the significance of Majesty, curtsied to Cassel too. Both he and Bertie frequently gave the girls presents – a Fabergé egg, a jewelled bracelet. ‘I came to rely on him as a living form of gilt-edged security,’ Sonia said of Cassel, ‘a likeness which was enhanced by his wearing shirts with parallel stripes on them, like the bars in front of a cashier’s desk.’ He was a frequent visitor at 30 Portman Square and Mrs Keppel relied on him in such a way too.

  Bertie when he became King said he wanted enough to ‘do it handsomely’. Parliament, with persuasion from his friend Sir Edward Hamilton, Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, granted him an annual income of £470,000 – £85,000 more than to his mother and the equivalent of about £15 million now. But Bertie, a big spender, still had debts. His annual bills on his estates at Osborne on the Isle of Wight and Balmoral in the Highlands of Scotland alone were £40,000. Cassel helped. The poet and diarist Wilfrid Scawen Blunt recorded that at the time of the coronation the King’s debts were paid off by his friends, ‘one of whom is said to have lent £100,000 and satisfies himself with £25,000 in repayment plus a knighthood’.

  On 7 March 1901, six weeks into his reign, Bertie gave Cassel all his spare capital to invest. At his office at 21 Old Broad Street, London, Cassel wrote in a ledger:

  I hereby acknowledge having received from His Majesty the King the sum of twenty thousand six hundred and eighty five pounds. This sum is deposited with me for the purpose of being invested. The records of this and any future investments I may make on behalf of His Majesty will be kept in an account opened on my books this day entitled Special AA Account.

  The following year Bertie asked him for £10,000 as he was ‘most anxious to pay off an acquisition of property’ near Sandringham. A few weeks after this payment Cassel wrote to Bertie: ‘Referring to our conversation about your Majesty’s investments, I have the honour to report that there is upwards of £30,000 available.’ Within a year, under Cassel’s husbandry, £20,685 had multiplied into more than £40,000.

  The relationship was symbiotic. Bertie grew rich on Cassel’s ‘sagacious advice’, Cassel thrived on the King’s endorsement, the flurry of honours received, the sanction of the aristocracy, the peerage, the elite, the landowning class that dominated parliament and the armed and civil services, made the laws and owned most of the nation’s wealth. Bertie’s head endorsed the £7 million Cassel accrued as his private fortune.

  After his coronation, Bertie made him a Privy Councillor. Cassel swore to ‘give his mind and opinion to the King’, to give ‘faith and allegiance’, to ‘keep secret all matters committed and revealed to him’. The King took him to the centre of his private life. Cassel dined and played bridge with him, absorbed his concerns about money, placed his bets, dealt with begging letters from ex-lovers, gave him and Mrs Keppel the use of his apartm
ent in Paris and of his villas in Austria, Switzerland, Biarritz.

  Giving faith and allegiance involved acceptance of the King’s special relationship with Little Mrs George. ‘My dear Cassel,’ Bertie wrote in September 1901 to him at Grosvenor Square, a few doors down from where Mrs Keppel would in time reside:

  I have since heard that Mrs K will be back at the end of this month. So if you write to her at Hotel du Palais, Paris, I think she would probably be able to dine with you on Sunday week.

  Cassel made Mrs Keppel and a number of influential aristocrats very rich – he invested for Lord Knollys and for Randolph and Winston Churchill. Lord Esher, responsible for the upkeep of the royal palaces, wrote of a visit to Churchill’s Bolton Street house in April 1908:

  The drawing room is all in oak with books and one picture by Romney which is quite beautiful. The whole a gift from Cassel! These financiers always take up with the young rising politicians. It is very astute of them.

  Cassel, though useful to the aristocracy, was not one of them. He was an arriviste, a Jew, without the genealogical credentials for acceptance into their closed world. He took no real pleasure in Edwardian patrician pursuits: country house weekends, shooting, bridge, gambling, adultery. He liked business, making money, acquiring status. His wealth secured him invitations, not friends. It kept at bay the anti-Semitism which writhed through patrician circles, detectable in the snide aside, private letter and dropped remark. Bourgeois, conservative and well-to-do, he wanted to assimilate. Proud to serve an English king, he avoided his fellow Jews and gave to gentile charities. Because of Bertie’s endorsement he did not have to hear what aristocrats really thought of him: ‘Israel in force,’ Lord Carrington wrote of a dinner for Bertie given by Albert Sassoon in July 1900, ‘Reuben Sassoon, Mr and Mrs Leo and Alfred Rothschild and that awful Sir Ernest Cassel who is in the highest favour, and of course Mr and Mrs George Keppel.’