The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses

by Theo Aronson

  The Queen's final verdict on the project was characteristically forthright. Whenever she had a strong conviction about something, she told the Foreign Secretary, 'she generally found she was right.'16

  So the Prince of Wales remained unemployed. Never again would any serious attempt be made to find him something to do. Now and then a sympathetic Prime Minister might pass him some information but it was not until 1892, when the Prince was over fifty, that he was finally given unrestricted access to all official papers.

  But not even his most dedicated apologist could pretend that his lack of any meaningful employment was the only reason for the Prince's frivolous way of life. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, was a hedonist from the crown of his already balding head to the soles of his elegantly shod feet. Ever since his marriage – in 1863 to the beautiful Princess Alexandra of Denmark – had given him his independence, the Prince had lived in what Queen Victoria called 'a whirl of amusements'. By the 1870s he had established himself as the most fashionable figure in European society.

  His lack of good looks – he was short, plump, bulbous-eyed and weak-chinned – were admirably compensated for by his stylish clothes and engaging manner. That thinning hair was invariably covered by a sharply tilted hat. His flaccid lips and receding chin were disguised by a neatly-trimmed beard and moustache. His thickening waist was minimised by superb tailoring. The fashionable cut and often daring fabric of his suits ensured that he never looked insignificant. He was regarded, in the jargon of the day, as a 'heavy swell'. He loved uniforms. Few things delighted him more than sporting the dress uniforms of those honorary colonelships and admiralships so readily bestowed on him by foreign sovereigns.

  His charm and geniality were exceptional. 'Warm human kindness,' wrote one Foreign Secretary, 'were the very substance of the man.'17 He had a genuine desire to please; he loved to be surrounded by happy faces. His thoughtfulness towards servants, his politeness towards strangers, his loyalty towards his friends were legendary. Except in the presence of his formidable mother, the Prince's demeanour was one of complete self-assurance.

  The pace of his life was frenetic. Easily bored, averse to reading, wary of intellectual talk, lacking in application, hating desk-work, unappreciative of serious music or anything other than the most blandly representational painting, he flung himself into a ceaseless round of amusements. Between rising early and going to bed late, he filled every minute of his day. There were, of course, minor public duties of the foundation-stone-laying, exhibition-opening variety to be carried out, but by far the greater part of his time was spent in a relentless pursuit of pleasure. He was seen everywhere: at balls, banquets and garden parties; at Goodwood, Doncaster or Ascot for the races; at Cowes for the yachting; on country estates for the shooting; at Covent Garden or Drury Lane; at his own club, the Marlborough, which he had founded after he had fallen foul of stuffier establishments such as White's and the Travellers'; playing baccarat; attending dinner parties or more intimate supper parties; visiting pleasure gardens, music halls or night clubs.

  None of this is to say that the Prince of Wales was indistinguishable from any other roistering youngish man-about-town. He never let anyone forget who he was. No matter how informal the occasion, how drunken the company or relaxed the atmosphere, he was very conscious of his dignity. Even his closest companions faced the dilemma of all those who are befriended by members of the royal family, then and now: where to draw the line between friendliness and familiarity. With the Prince, it was a very nicely positioned line indeed. While joining wholeheartedly in the pranks and practical jokes he would freeze at any undue show of presumption or disrespect. Then his pale blue-grey eyes would turn steely and his celebrated affability evaporate.

  Once, when an acquaintance with whom he was playing billiards greeted a bad shot with a jocular 'Pull yourself together, Wales!', the Prince promptly sent for the man's carriage. On another occasion, when he gently reproved a badly behaved guest by saying 'Freddy, Freddy, you're very drunk', and the guest retaliated – using the Prince's forbidden nickname and imitating his rolling 'r's – with 'Tum-Tum, you're verrry fat!',18 the Prince ordered the guest's bags to be packed before breakfast.

  Yet the fear of exposing himself to over-familiarity never prevented him from choosing his friends from the widest, most unlikely circles. Quite naturally, he moved amongst the great aristocratic families, or at least, those families who were rich enough to entertain him and amusing enough to divert him. But he was just as ready to befriend anyone whom he found interesting. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales were refreshingly free of social and religious bigotry. To their homes – Marlborough House in London and Sandringham House in Norfolk – were invited a great company of the witty, the worldly or the simply attractive. The Prince had a penchant for rich, self-made men: Jewish bankers, South African millionaires, American manufacturers, Midlands industrialists.

  'I find the company pleasant and civil,' wrote Bishop Magee of Peterborough after arriving at Sandringham one day in December 1873, 'but we arc a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir Anthony de Rothschild and his daughter; an ex-Jew, Disraeli; a Roman Catholic, Colonel Higgins; an Italian duchess who is an Englishwoman, brought up a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young Lords and a bishop . . .'19

  The Prince's life, for all its variety and restlessness, was lived within a strict framework. The most punctual and punctilious of men, he insisted on a regular routine. His year followed an unvarying pattern. January and February were spent at Sandringham, shooting, and entertaining that kaleidoscopic collection of guests. From the beginning of March he spent five weeks, en garçon, on the French Riviera, including a few days stay in Paris at either end. During the summer he was in London for the season; in August he spent a couple of weeks yachting at Cowes. Sometimes accompanied by Princess Alexandra but more often alone, he enjoyed a much needed cure at some German or Austrian spa. By October he was grouse-shooting or deerstalking in Scotland, and by November he was back at Sandringham.

  And wherever he was, either at home or abroad, he would indulge in the one activity which he preferred above all others. For more than racing, shooting, yachting, gambling or eating, the Prince of Wales enjoyed making love.

  Even before the days of the long-lensed camera and the twenty-four-hour press vigil, a prince's intimate moments were the subject of close scrutiny and intense interest. There was always a companion to pass on a bit of gossip, an equerry to make a report or a diarist to jot down an entry. So even if the general public was unaware of the full extent of the Prince of Wales's amorous escapades, they did not go unnoticed in his own circles.

  Bertie was not quite fourteen when his dawning interest in the opposite sex first became apparent. In 1855 Queen Victoria – accompanied by Prince Albert and their two eldest children, the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales – paid a state visit to Paris. At the brilliant court of the Second Empire, presided over by the worldly Napoleon III and the beautiful Empress Eugenie, the young Prince first experienced a way of life which he would one day make his own. In the person of the Emperor of the French, Bertie discovered an adult who accepted him for what he was. Here was someone who seemed to take an unashamed delight in the things in which he delighted; who loved show and colour and movement; who lived, quite naturally and openly, for pleasure. To the youngster, whose life had always been narrow, repressed and dedicated to self-improvement, Napoleon Ill's tolerance and sense of enjoyment were a revelation. This, surely, was how life was meant to be lived.

  It was during this state visit that Bertie's great love of France was born. The splendour of the French capital, the liveliness of the French people, the bonhomie of the French Emperor, the elegance of the French Empress, all made an indelible impression on his pleasure-hungry nature. From now on it would be towards France, rather than towards Germany (so admired by the rest of his family) that his personality was to be orientated. From the time of his first visit to Paris until the establishment, almost fifty
years later, of the entente cordiale, he never ceased to work for an understanding between Great Britain and France.

  But more, perhaps, than anything, it was the presence of the ladies of the court that set the boy's blood pounding so disturbingly. The young Empress, so beautiful herself, liked to be surrounded by equally beautiful women. In their swaying crinolines and with artificial flowers tucked into their coiffures, these chattering, free-and-easy demoiselles d'honneur were quite different from his mother's staid ladies-in-waiting. 'In the Tuileries,' notes one Frenchman, 'he breathed for the first time that odore di femmina whose trail he was to follow for the rest of his life. The scented, seductive women not only kissed him (was he not a child?) but also curtsied to him, and as they bent forward, their décolletage revealed delights that were veiled at Windsor.'20

  Within two years, the fifteen-year-old boy was giving more tangible evidence of his appreciation of female attractions. In the course of what was meant to be an educational tour of his father's beloved Rhineland, Bertie, flushed with too much wine, kissed a pretty girl in public. Fortunately, news of the incident (which Gladstone described as a 'squalid little debauch'21) did not reach the ears of the Prince Consort. That highly moral parent would almost certainly have ordered his son home before any more Rhine maidens led him into heaven knows what depths of depravity.

  Not that the Prince would have had the opportunity for the plumbing of any such depths. He was too closely supervised for that. Nor, frankly, would he have known how to take advantage of any such opportunity. For in spite of his interest in pretty women, Bertie was still sexually immature.

  His parents, in their misguided efforts to shield him from temptation, had never left him alone with his contemporaries. Victoria was haunted by 'a great fear of young and carefully brought up boys mixing with older boys and indeed with any boys in general, for the mischief done by bad boys and the things they may hear and learn from them cannot be overrated.'22 Albert was even more apprehensive. In his conviction that boys, left to themselves, would 'talk lewdly'23 he was determined that Bertie should associate only with 'those who are good and pure.'24

  So the Prince was almost seventeen before he asked his tutors about the meaning of certain words; quite clearly, he was entirely ignorant about the facts of life. His answer was a lecture on 'the purpose' and, even more important, 'the abuse' of 'the union of the sexes'.25

  To prevent the young man from being tempted into any such abuse, he was kept well away from those aristocratic young bloods who would, in the ordinary way, have been his natural companions. Both at Oxford and Cambridge, where he spent short and generally unproductive spells, he was obliged to live out of College so that he could be protected from the more rakish elements of undergraduate life. On his various cultural tours of the Continent, and even during his more exciting tour of Canada and the United States in 1860, Bertie was closely watched. His plea that he be allowed to join the army was firmly turned down by his governor, the dour General Bruce. The 'temptation and unprofitable companionship of military life',26 warned Bruce, were to be avoided at all costs.

  But the Prince of Wales could not be kept out of the army forever. In 1861, when he was nineteen, it was agreed that he should spend ten weeks attached to the Grenadier Guards at the Curragh military camp near Dublin. And it was here that General Bruce's apprehensions were confirmed. The Prince not only embraced the 'unprofitable companionship' of military life but, one night after a drunken party in the mess, found himself embracing an actress whom his companions had secretly slipped into his bed.

  Her name was Nellie Clifden and she was one of those easy-going, warm-hearted girls whose cheerful promiscuity relieves the sexual act of any semblance of sin. The Prince could hardly have hoped for a better introduction into what was to be a lifetime of love-making. Very taken with Nellie, he continued to see her on his return to England. She, understandably chuffed by her relationship with the heir to the throne (they were calling her 'the Princess of Wales'), boasted about it. In time, the news reached the ears of the Prince Consort.

  He was appalled. Whereas any other royal father – before or since – would simply have shrugged the matter off, regarding it, quite properly, as part of the process of growing up, Prince Albert saw it in the blackest possible light. Assuring his son that he had inflicted on him 'the greatest pain I have yet felt in this life'27 the Prince Consort treated him to one of his most sanctimonious, if anguished, literary outpourings. Bertie was to hide himself, not only from the sight of God, but from the sight of his own father: the Prince Consort was too heart-broken, he wrote, even to see his son.

  To understand Prince Albert's reaction to his son's 'evil deed', it is necessary to go back to the early years of his marriage to Queen Victoria. In order to counteract the legacy of the Queen's 'wicked uncles' – that tribe of licentious Hanoverian princes who had brought the British throne into such disrepute – and to control the rising tide of nineteenth-century democracy, the earnest Prince Albert had come up with what could best be described as the 'Coburg' solution. The monarchy must become the most highly respected institution in the land. The royal family must set itself up as an example. Not only must the sovereign be a wise, influential and impartial personality, raised high above the hurly-burly of political life, but, by their unimpeachable morals and high sense of duty, the entire royal family must win the love and admiration of the people.

  What Prince Albert had in mind, in fact, was the sort of monarchy which Britain enjoys today. Not all the members of the present royal family might be notable for the unimpeachability of their morals but, by and large, the British monarchy is now a highly respected and very popular institution.

  The most important of this race of paragons which the idealistic Prince Albert was hoping to raise was, of course, his eldest son, the future king. Thus far, the young man had shown precious little sign of developing into the sort of enlightened sage of his father's fond aspirations. In fact, in that tug-of-war between Coburg and Hanover for control of the boy's character, his Hanoverian ancestry was winning hands down. Every year these regrettable characteristics were becoming more pronounced.

  And now here, in this incident with Nellie Clifden at the Curragh, was proof positive of what Bertie's parents considered to be his bad blood. The Prince Consort's great dream of fashioning the perfect, unsullied heir had been shattered. Not only was the Prince of Wales proving himself sadly lacking intellectually, but he was about to go the way of Queen Victoria's unspeakable uncles.

  There was only one possible remedy. An early marriage, decided the Prince Consort, was essential to halt his son's drift into debauchery. Without that, he would be lost. He 'must not, dare not be lost,' wailed Albert. 'The consequences for this country and for the world would be too dreadful!'28

  Not until Bertie had expressed due contrition did his father consent to see him again. The Prince Consort travelled to Cambridge (where the young man had resumed his education) to pay him a visit. He returned to Windsor exhausted. A week later he collapsed with typhoid fever and a fortnight after this – on 14 December 1861 – he died.

  That her adored husband's death had been caused by 'that dreadful business at the Curragh' the Queen had no doubt. Unbeknown to her son, the Prince Consort had told her 'all the disgusting details.' 'I never can or shall look at him without a shudder,'29 admitted the grief-demented mother in a letter to her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess of Prussia. Indeed, she could hardly bear to look at him at all. But determined that her late husband's every wish should be carried out and believing that marriage would indeed be the only saving of her son, Victoria pushed ahead with the marriage plans.

  The Crown Princess was all agreement. 'Marry early Bertie must,' wrote that serious-minded young woman. 'I am more convinced of that every day; he has not resisted small temptations, only launch him alone in London society and you will see what becomes of him. . . the chances are, if he married a nice wife that he likes, she will keep him straight; and, as he is too
weak to keep from sin for virtue's sake, he will only keep out of it from other motives, and surely a wife will be the strongest?'30

  The dispenser of this self-righteous advice was just twenty-one.

  The future bride had already been chosen. It had not been an easy choice, for the field, in those days, was considerably narrower than it is today. Whereas nowadays the heir apparent could marry the most humbly-born girl in the world provided she were neither a Roman Catholic nor a divorcée (and that may well change in the not too distant future) Bertie had to marry a princess. It was unthinkable that he should marry anyone not of the Blood Royal. A tireless sifting through the Protestant princesses of Europe had left one candidate: Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, daughter of the heir to the Danish throne.

  Although not meeting all the criteria, Princess Alexandra did meet the most important one: she was good-looking. The Queen, and the Crown Princess of Prussia – who was playing an active part in this choosing of a bride – knew the Prince of Wales well enough to appreciate that he would never settle for a plain wife, no matter how suitable she might be in other ways. In the end, Princess Alexandra was chosen because she had a beautiful face, an excellent figure and a natural elegance.

  Even the Queen, although for other reasons, approved of her. 'She is so good, so simple, unaffected, frank, bright and cheerful, yet so quiet and gentle,'31 she assured the Crown Princess.

  Victoria's astute Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, had a rather more penetrating remark to make on the future bride. 'There is something frank and cheerful in Alex's character, which will greatly assist her to take things without being too much overpowered or alarmed by them,'32 he wrote prophetically.