It was at teatime that those men who had arrived at the country house alone, in search of amorous distraction, took the opportunity to appraise the available married women. If a lady seemed interested, a swift but elaborate courtship would follow, with glances across the dinner table, a hand pat on a gloved elbow, a note on a breakfast tray, or an offer of a walk to the summer house. All these would lead, inevitably, to a late-night assignation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, never a fan of the Saturday to Monday, once remarked to Queen Victoria that, as far as he was concerned, country house weekends involved “a great too much both of eating and dressing.”13 Meals were certainly on an epic scale, to fortify the guests for the feats of athletic endurance ahead.
For breakfast, the guests either had a tray in the bedroom or came downstairs to find a dazzling array of silver chafing dishes lined up on the dining room sideboard, containing fried, poached, or scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, kedgeree, and cold ham. Luncheon often took the form of an elaborate picnic, with massive hampers of game pie, cold meat, and cheese, wine, and beer dragged out to the waiting guns, and spirit stoves lit to warm up tea and coffee.
Shooting was a predominantly masculine activity, although there were one or two enthusiastic “lady guns” among the parties as the years progressed. Alice Keppel, Bertie’s last mistress, was a keen sportswoman, happy to tramp across the grouse moors with her royal lover and exchange pleasantries with the beaters. Hunting was popular with both sexes; Daisy Brooke once left Windsor Castle early in the morning to attend a meet of the Essex Hunt, much to the disapproval of Queen Victoria. Daisy, who was still hunting in her forties, and survived several serious accidents, including one occasion when her horse rolled on top of her and broke her arm. By contrast, Lillie Langtry, often invited to country house weekends during her time as Bertie’s mistress, did not enjoy the sporting aspect of these occasions. Lillie once watched a stag being stalked, and recalled, “I felt so sick and sorry for the fine beast that I have never forgotten it.”14 The alternative, staying inside with the female guests, did not appeal to Lillie, either. Instead, the lively Lillie found other distractions during the longueurs of the country house; on one occasion, her host had to lock away his largest silver tray, as Lillie had insisted on tobogganing on it down the stairs of his stately home.
Late in the afternoon, the guns returned from the moor or the hill to a roaring fire, a well-stocked drinks tray, and an enormous tea. While edible temptation was laid out upon the table, the ladies were tempting, too. Having changed into their third outfit of the day, the women would be draped decoratively around the drawing room like gorgeous butterflies in their long-sleeved “tea gowns,” elaborate confections of sable-trimmed velvet, satin, brocade, silk gauze, and lace that contrasted vividly with the hairy tweeds and muddy gaiters of the men. The chief advantage of the tea gown was its ability to display the charms of the lady within, and its ease of access. If a spark of desire was ignited, and a couple stole away to a bedroom before dinner, a tea gown enabled swift and easy intimacy, unlike the long, narrow, whale-boned corsets of more formal dress, which made intimacy all but impossible.
Dinner was the most elaborate meal of the day, with thirty or forty people sitting down to eat at an elaborate dining table. The ladies glimmered in satin and jewels, roses in their hair, while the gentlemen wore full evening dress and military decorations. Their clothes were so perfectly in keeping with their setting that it seemed they had not a care in the world.
A typical country house dinner consisted of ten courses, including hot and cold soup, followed by whitebait and trout, quail and capon, asparagus, cold ham, roast mutton, elaborate puddings, a savory, and ice cream, all washed down with the appropriate sherry, wine, madeira, port, and brandy. The Prince of Wales loved rich, elaborate dishes: quail stuffed with pâté de foie gras, pheasants stuffed with truffles, snipe crammed with forcemeat, all garnished with truffles, mushrooms, oysters, and prawns and served in a thick, creamy sauce. If this was not enough to satisfy the pleasure-hungry guests, a late supper would also be available, with cold chicken and lobster salad, and sandwiches were provided in every bedroom.
After dinner, when the ladies had “retired” to the drawing room, the men were free to engage in the traditional masculine pursuits of card games and billiards, accompanied by brandy and cigars. And late at night, the real amusements would begin.
There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about an innocent young girl who once told a company of guests lazing in the garden that she believed Easton Lodge to be haunted. The night before, this debutante had seen a figure in white walking down a corridor, who had then suddenly vanished. There was no reaction to this statement, and a long silence followed. The experienced guests knew that the mystery figure was very much of this world and had vanished into a lady’s bedroom.
By night, the passageways of the great country houses were alive with the sound of gently padding feet, the swish of dressing-gown cords and gently closing doors as the corridor creepers made their way to their secret assignations, and a certain amount of danger made the game more piquant. At Easton Lodge, Daisy Warwick always warned her visitors that the stable-yard bell rang at six A.M., a signal that ensured that all concerned were safely returned to their own beds before the maids arrived with early morning tea.
These late-night encounters were not always successful. There is one anecdote about the husband who, feeling hungry, carried off the plate of sandwiches that his wife had left outside her bedroom door as a signal to her lover. Or the tale of dashing Charlie Beresford, lover of Daisy Warwick, who tiptoed into a dark room and leaped into bed, only to discover that he was not in the arms of his mistress but those of the Bishop of Chester.15 There was even a rumor that one night a lady who did not respond to Bertie’s charms told him she would leave a rosebud on her bedroom door as a signal. Bertie duly arrived, opened the door, and crept into bed, only to encounter the kitchen maid whom the lady had substituted there instead. In the words of Hilaire Belloc:
There will be Bridge and booze ’till after three
And, after that, a lot of them will grope
Along the corridors in robes de nuit,
Pyjamas, or some other kind of dope.
A sturdy matron will be sent to cope
With Lord _____, who isn’t quite the thing,
And give his wife the leisure to elope
And Mrs James will entertain the King!16
Chapter One
A YOUTHFUL INDISCRETION
I never can or shall look at him without a shudder.
—QUEEN VICTORIA
Following a privileged but loveless childhood, the young Prince of Wales paid dearly for his sexual initiation. Indeed, if Bertie did not pay for it with his life, then he paid for it with another man’s life. This would be the verdict according to Queen Victoria, who believed that her son’s behavior contributed to the sudden death of Prince Albert at just forty-two years old.
Bertie had led a sheltered life, surrounded by nursemaids and tutors, trained for his role in the British royal family from his earliest years. To assist Bertie in this task, he had a “governor,” or mentor, in the form of Colonel Robert Bruce, who had accompanied Bertie on trips to Europe and America and for a year at Christ Church, Oxford, followed by further study at Trinity College, Cambridge.1 This latter experience of higher education confirmed that Bertie, though bright and alert, would never really be “university material.” As a result, Prince Albert decided that the nineteen-year-old Bertie would benefit from a spell in the army, which might be “a good field for social instruction.”2 During the Cambridge Long Vacation, which ran from June until the end of September, Bertie was attached to the Grenadier Guards for ten weeks at the Curragh, a military camp outside Dublin.3
At first excited by this taste of army life, Bertie was soon crestfallen to discover that the army was not just about horses, guns, and combat but was set about with rules and the Queen’s Regulatio
ns. Every moment of his time had to be accounted for, from dawn until dusk. Bertie was whisked from place to place so quickly, his “feet scarcely touched the ground” in the words of another famous cadet.4 Although Bertie dressed in the uniform of a staff colonel, as a concession to his birth, he was required to undergo a rigorous training “in the duties of every rank from ensign upwards.”5 It was confidently predicted that within ten weeks Bertie would acquire the skills to command a battalion and be competent “to manoeuvre a Brigade in the Field.”6 Alongside this, he had to acquire the appropriate social graces of an army officer, dining twice a week in the Grenadier Guards officers’ mess, once a week in other messes, and hold a dinner party for other officers. This was a tall order. If the Prince Consort had thought that this schedule would serve to keep his son out of trouble, he was wrong. After seven weeks, Bertie’s commanding officer considered him to be totally inadequate to perform the duties of a staff colonel. To make matters worse, when Bertie’s “Uncle George,” the Duke of Cambridge, visited the camp, Bertie’s CO ordered him to perform the duties of a subaltern while still dressed as a colonel. When Bertie protested, he was told that his drill was imperfect and his voice indistinct. “I will not try to make the Duke of Cambridge think that you are more advanced than you are.”7 The fact was that Bertie did not want to be a soldier. He possessed neither the inclination, the athleticism, nor the pure enjoyment of army life. It was also abundantly clear that an all-male environment was not for him. But army life did at least offer one compensation. A group of convivial young officers, shocked at Bertie’s sexual innocence, procured the services of a young Irish actress and good-time girl named Nellie Clifden. Nellie was smuggled into Bertie’s quarters and told to wait for him in bed. What happened next was clearly the most successful event of Bertie’s brief and otherwise unexceptional spell in the army. Bertie commemorated their subsequent meetings in his diary:
6 SEPT
CURRAGH
N. C. 1ST TIME
9 SEPT
CURRAGH
N.C. 2ND TIME
10 SEPT
CURRAGH
N. C. 3RD TIME 8
Bertie was smitten, and continued to see Nellie when he returned to England, “installing her at lodgings at Windsor.”9 Not only was Bertie grateful to Nellie for his sexual initiation, he seems genuinely to have fallen in love with her. Unfortunately, Nellie, who had also become the mistress of the young Lord Carrington, went around London boasting about her relationship with the young Prince of Wales and even hinting at their forthcoming nuptials. The potential embarrassment of Nellie’s presence cannot be overestimated, particularly as a suitable bride had already been selected for Bertie.
The search had been on for a bride for Bertie since the prince turned sixteen. Bertie’s older sister, Vicky, now Crown Princess of Prussia, had been delegated to the task by the queen.10 King Leopold of Belgium and Queen Victoria’s trusted courtier Baron Stockmar had also been recruited to search for a wife who would keep Bertie “out of mischief.”11 When Baron Stockmar told Prince Albert that he could not, really, organize an arranged marriage, Prince Albert replied that everyone had told him, “You must marry the Prince of Wales soon, unless you do so he is lost.”12
During the summer of 1860, Vicky could be found underneath a chestnut tree, studying the Almanach de Gotha to find the right bride for her brother. The Almanach de Gotha, which might be described as the bloodstock manual for European royalty, was an indispensable authority on monarchies and their courts, reigning and former dynasties, princely and ducal families, and the genealogical, biographical, and titular details of Europe’s highest level of aristocracy. Vicky had her work cut out for her as she turned the pages of this royal mail-order catalog. Princesses did not grow on trees, and there seemed to be something wrong with every one of them, particularly as Queen Victoria would settle for nothing less than perfection.13 The fortunate princess would have to be beautiful, dutiful, clever, quiet, virtuous, Protestant, and royal.
Marie of Altenburg was dismissed on the grounds of dressing badly and being in possession of an offensive mother. Augusta of Meiningen was “a very nice, clever good girl” but too young. There was a choice of Weimar girls, but they had delicate constitutions and were not pretty. The Princess of Sweden was too young, and Princess Hilda of Dessau was too old. Princess Marie of the Netherlands was “clever and ladylike” but suffered from being plain and physically infirm. As for Princess Alexandrine of Prussia, she bore the crippling twin disadvantages of being “not clever or pretty.” Anna of Hesse looked like a good prospect, and had the “fewest disadvantages” according to Vicky, but even she suffered from twitchy eyes, bad teeth, and an abrupt manner. Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was “quite lovely” but ruled out on the grounds of being a Roman Catholic. Finally, Elisabeth of Wied, although somewhat dowdy, was a strong, healthy girl with a fresh complexion but was boisterous and uninhibited. Elisabeth subsequently became Queen of Romania and a prolific writer under the pseudonym Carmen Sylva.14
So many princesses having been ruled out, just one possibility remained: Princess Alexandra of Denmark, daughter of Prince Christian. However, despite Alexandra’s “beauty, her charms, her amiability, her frank natural manner and many excellent qualities,”15 there was just one thing wrong. Princess Alexandra was not “Prussian” and Queen Victoria wanted her son to marry a woman of German ancestry.16 The queen also disapproved of King Frederick VII of Denmark, Princess Alexandra’s colorful uncle, who “lived openly in sin and was seldom sober.”17 King Frederick’s first two marriages had ended in divorce, and his third wife, Louisa, was a ballet dancer. The king was rumored to be in a same-sex relationship with his close friend, Carl Berling, who had fathered a child on Louisa. But despite his eccentricities, alcoholism, and unconventional private life, King Frederick was much loved. He had the common touch, and could speak to anyone. As King Frederick had no official heirs, Princess Alexandra’s father, Prince Christian, a cousin, was appointed heir apparent and succeeded to the throne when Frederick died in 1863.
It wasn’t just Princess Alexandra’s wicked uncle whom Queen Victoria objected to. The queen had also taken a dislike to Princess Alexandra’s mother, who came from the House of Hesse-Cassel, a dynasty noted for being high-spirited, pleasure-loving, and frivolous,18 characteristics embodied by Princess Mary, so fat she needed two chairs to sit on and was a notorious flirt.19
In fact, Princess Alexandra’s mother was a devoted homemaker who raised her children to be practical and self-reliant. Princess Louise even had her own rejoinder to the worried comments about Princess Mary, telling Princess Alexandra that if she ever saw her flirt like Mary, she would box her ears.20
Despite Queen Victoria’s misgivings, it was clear that young Princess Alexandra was a keeper. Mrs. Paget, wife of Augustus Paget, the British diplomat to Copenhagen, confided in the queen that “it would be impossible to find anywhere a Princess better suited than Alix to be the wife of the Prince of Wales.”21 A photograph was procured, and shown to Prince Albert, who took one look at it and said, “From that photograph, I would marry her at once.”22
Vicky interviewed Princess Alexandra’s former nanny, who confirmed that Alix was “the sweetest girl who ever lived, full of life and high spirits, with a good constitution, and had never suffered from anything worse in her life than measles.”23 When Vicky finally got to meet Alix for herself, she was entranced and wrote home that “I never set eyes on a sweeter creature. She is lovely! She does not seem the least aware of her beauty and is very unassuming. You may go far before you find another princess like Princess Alix. Oh, if only she was not a Dane and not related to the Hesses I should say yes—she is the one a thousand times over.”24
By this point, Queen Victoria was beginning to overcome her initial hostility toward Alix. Apart from anything else, she did not want to lose Alix to the Russian tsar, who had also expressed an interest. “It would be dreadful,” Vicky reminded the queen, “if this pearl went to the h
orrid Russians.”25
Bertie was finally allowed to have some say in the matter after leaving the Curragh in September 186126 when he was invited to meet Alix for himself. Bertie traveled to Germany, where the Christians were staying at their shabby, run-down castle near Frankfurt, and the couple were finally introduced at the Cathedral of Speyer. As the bishop was showing the royal party around the frescoes, the two young people became detached from the party and wandered off by themselves. The next day, Bertie wrote home and told his parents that he had enjoyed meeting “the young lady of whom I had heard so much; and I can now candidly say that I thought her charming and pretty.”27
There was just one problem. Although Bertie had admired Alix, he now showed a peculiar reluctance to marry her and settle down.28 Perhaps Bertie entertained some preposterous fantasy of marrying Nellie Clifden; perhaps he was genuinely in love with Nellie, finding her far more appealing than Alix, who was, after all, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. Prince Albert, who knew nothing of Nellie’s existence, simply reproached his son with a stern letter, telling Bertie that he must marry early because “it would be impossible for you to lead, with any chance of success or comfort to yourself, a protracted bachelor life.”29 Bertie replied that he wanted to meet Alix again before he made up his mind, and was told that if he did so, he must propose to her immediately or release her from any further obligations.30 Bertie procrastinated and returned to Cambridge to continue his studies, which chiefly consisted of hunting with Natty Rothschild and expeditions to London to see Nellie. It was at this point that Lord Torrington, a courtier and gossip,31 took it upon himself to inform Prince Albert about Bertie’s fling with Nellie.
The scene may be imagined: the queen, who had been supplied with a censored version of events but could understand their significance, called down fire and brimstone upon her firstborn son, while Prince Albert was horrified but characteristically measured and conscientious in his reaction. The prince resolved to find the truth about these allegations, despite being exhausted by a debilitating combination of neuralgia, toothache, insomnia, and anxiety. The prince was also deeply concerned about the effect this news would have on his wife’s state of mind. Queen Victoria had recently lost her mother, a “DREADFUL, DREADFUL terrible calamity,” causing her “fearful and unbearable outbursts of grief.”32 The queen had retreated from public life, dining alone, spending considerable periods of time sitting in her late mother’s rooms, and accusing Bertie of being insufficiently grief-stricken. In addition, Prince Albert’s beloved young cousin, King Pedro V, had died of typhoid in Portugal. Now came the news that Bertie had been seduced by Nellie Clifden, already known in London society as “the Princess of Wales,” and worries that this would endanger the marriage plans. Prince Albert was appalled, not just because Bertie had gone off the rails, but because Nellie might conceive Bertie’s child, or pass off another man’s baby as his.
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