The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses (15 page)

Each issue fed the hungry public another titbit. 'When we have a lady's name paraded before the public in a thousand different ways,' railed Rosenberg against Lillie, 'when we see her photographs displayed in almost every stationer's window: when we see that photograph side by side with bishops and lawyers, and in conjunction with facial representations of well-known harlots, the question arises, "Who is Mrs Langtry?" '

He lost no time in supplying the answer. In a sentence heavy with
double entendre
, he claimed that 'there was something not very pleasing to the loyal mind to see, in a dozen shop windows, Mrs Langtry side by side or else beneath the Prince of Wales . . .'

In one issue his readers were told that the Home Secretary had forbidden the cracking of any Langtry jokes in music halls. In another they were enlightened as to the names of the two men who would be appearing, along with the Prince of Wales, as co-respondents: they were Lord Lonsdale and Lord Londesborough. In a third they were informed that the divorce case was to be held
in camera
.

Adopting that stock-in-trade of the popular press – a tone of mock outrage at the spreading of tittle-tattle –
Town Talk
applauded the fact that the case was to be heard
in camera
, so depriving 'scandalmongers of a fine opportunity'. 'Mrs Langtry has, I understand, filed an answer, denying the adultery [with the Prince of Wales and lords Lonsdale and Londesborough] and, as far as I can learn, the petitioner [Mr Edward Langtry] will find it exceedingly difficult to make good his case.' Of course, continued Rosenberg in the same sanctimonious vein, 'there will be a great outcry against the case being tried privately, but I don't see why anyone need be dissatisfied, especially as the details are not likely to be at all creditable to us as a nation.'

In case his readers had not understood the significance of this last phrase, Rosenberg went on to say that he would not like to be 'more explicit' on this point.

Why did the Langtrys not deny Rosenberg's assertions? Were they true? Or had the Prince, in his anxiety to prevent the affair developing into a full-scale scandal, advised Lillie against taking any action against Rosenberg? Or was royal pressure being brought to bear on
Town Talk?

For some reason or other Rosenberg, in the issue of 4 October, suddenly changed direction. 'I am now informed on authority which I have no reason to doubt,' he announced, 'that Mr Langtry has withdrawn the petition which he had filed in the Divorce Court. The case of Langtry vs Langtry and others is therefore finally disposed of and we have probably heard the last of it. . . I am told also that it is not unlikely that Mr Langtry will shortly be appointed to some diplomatic post abroad. It is not stated whether his beautiful consort will accompany him.'
³⁵

But Rosenberg had not heard the last of it. In the same issue of
Town Talk
, he foolishly moved his sights from Mrs Langtry to that rival beauty, Mrs Cornwallis West. This celebrated 'professional beauty', known always as 'Patsy', had been another of the Prince of Wales's
paramours. There is a story that when the little daughter of one of the Duke of Westminster's estate workers told her father that she had seen the Prince of Wales 'lying on top of' Mrs Cornwallis West in the woods, the girl's father struck her 'a violent blow and told her she'd be killed if she repeated the story'.
³⁶
Indeed, it was rumoured that the Prince was not only the godfather of Patsy Cornwallis West's son George, but his actual father.

Yet it was on quite another score that Rosenberg now attacked her. He accused Patsy Cornwallis West of co-operating with the photographers of 'professional beauties' to such an extent that she had rigged up no less than four photographic studios and fifteen darkrooms in her Eaton Place home; that she had all but exhausted herself in her eagerness to give sittings; and that she was making thousands of pounds a year in commission on the sale of her photographs.

Mrs Cornwallis West's husband proved to be not nearly as long-suffering as Mrs Langtry's husband appeared to be. Within a week Cornwallis West had sued Rosenberg for defamatory libel. Rosenberg was arrested, and at the preliminary hearing he was astonished to learn that he was to be tried not only for his defamation of Mrs Cornwallis West, but also for his libelling of Mr and Mrs Langtry.

The trial, which opened in the Central Criminal Court on 25 October 1879, turned out to be a
cause célèbre
. But the crowds that flocked to it in the hope of seeing the notorious Mrs Langtry were disappointed. They had to be content with the distinctly less beguiling figure of her husband, Edward Langtry. The court was assured, by the Langtrys' orotund counsel, that the couple lived in the best and highest society and that they had been honoured with the acquaintance, nay, friendship, of Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales, who had frequently visited them. That His Royal Highness had visited her a sight more often than Her Royal Highness (who had, in fact, visited her only once, when she was ill) was a point not stressed by counsel.

'The lady of whom this libel has been published is of great personal attractions and beauty. Hence it has been that the defendant [Rosenberg] and those who are associated with him, have thought fit for the purpose of profit, and for the sake of their vile publication, to make her the subject of obloquy and defamation.'

Edward Langtry assured the court that there was no truth whatsoever in Rosenberg's assertions; that he had never contemplated divorce; and that he and his wife lived on the most affectionate terms.

Was there any truth, asked counsel, in Rosenberg's claim that Mr
Langtry had been offered a diplomatic appointment?

'Not a word,' replied Langtry.

'I am very glad to hear it,' said counsel, a shade ambiguously.

Rosenberg, pleading guilty to having published the libels, denied that he had known that they were false. The judge was not impressed. He sentenced him to eighteen months in prison.

The Prince of Wales had been saved from another major scandal. Yet it must have been with more than a flicker of amusement that the crowded court heard Rosenberg's counsel declare that it was far from him 'to suppose that the Prince of Wales could for one moment depart from that morality which it is his duty to exhibit . . .'
³⁷

Quite obviously, said the wags, there was nothing between the Prince of Wales and Lillie Langtry; not even a sheet.

5

The End and the Beginning

B
Y THE SPRING
of 1880, three years after she had first met the Prince of Wales, Lillie Langtry was riding the crest of her self-created wave. By a deliberate exploitation of her physical attractions, she had managed to achieve all her girlhood ambitions. At twenty-six, she was one of the most celebrated women in society. She had been presented to Queen Victoria, she could claim the friendship of kings and princes, she was the guest in some of the grandest houses in the land, she had been painted by the world's most famous artists, her photographic likenesses were familiar throughout the country, her movements were reported in the press, she was the centre of interest whenever she attended a ball and in danger of being mobbed whenever she appeared in the street. 'Jersey Lily' was one of the most famous sobriquets in the kingdom. When the ancient Egyptian obelisk – Cleopatra's Needle – was re-erected on the banks of the Thames in 1878, Lillie Langtry's photograph was among the various articles buried, for posterity, in its foundations.

Yet more than anyone Lillie appreciated the precariousness of her social position. It depended, entirely, on the patronage of her royal lover. Without that neither her beauty, her vivacity, nor her drive could guarantee her a place in society. Lillie was no fool. She knew well enough that those who entertained her most readily were those most eager to gain, or retain, the Prince's friendship. In the main, it was the Prince's
nouveaux riches
friends, people like the Rothschilds and the Sassoons, who opened their doors to her, while the doors of truly aristocratic establishments, such as Hatfield House, home of the Salisburys, remained firmly closed. In short, if she had not been the Prince's mistress, Lillie Langtry's curiosity value would not have lasted for more than a season.

At the same time, she realised that she could not hope to hold
Bertie's interest forever. He was too fickle, too restless, too self-indulgent a man to remain faithful to one woman for long. After all, he was not yet forty. Already he had enjoyed the occasional peccadillo and he was often to be seen, these days, with another professional beauty, Mrs Luke Wheeler. In fact, the Prince was so often in the company of Mrs Wheeler – and, for appearance's sake, of her husband Luke – that Luke's father, a naive old clergyman, was once heard to remark, 'It is strange how fond the Prince of Wales has become of my son. He and Luke are inseparable.'
¹

The year before, Lillie had had to compete with the attractions of an altogether more formidable rival – Sarah Bernhardt.

The already famous actress had arrived in London with the Comédie Française in the summer of 1879. Lillie was among the first people to meet her. She was invited, with other members of 'the fashionable world'
²
, to a welcoming breakfast given by Sir Algernon Borthwick, proprietor of
The Morning Post
.

The Divine Sarah looked, to say the least, extraordinary. 'Her beauty,' as Lillie somewhat gingerly puts it, 'was not understood by the masses.'
³
Whereas Lillie, with her sloping shoulders, small waist, generous breasts and hips, conformed to the contemporary ideal of womanhood, Sarah was an exponent of the new 'aesthetic' style. Together with other unconventional women such as the actress Ellen Terry, and William Morris's wife, Jane, Sarah Bernhardt spurned the constraints of Victorian couture and dressed in a free, flowing, uncorseted fashion. Instead of disguising her thin, angular figure, Sarah emphasised it by wearing waistless dresses with bold vertical trimmings. Everything was designed to accentuate her sinuous seductiveness. The gauzy bow at the neck, the tight, transparent lace sleeves, the sensuous velvets or slithery silks, the 'tantalising' front fastenings – all these were regarded as highly provocative in less bohemian circles.

Even more provocative was Madame Sarah's face. The forerunner of the 'vamp' or the 'It' girl of a later period, she painted her face in a manner that shocked those users of a little surreptitious rice powder or a few geranium petals. Her lips were brightly coloured, her eyes – with their famous 'drugged stare' – were outlined in kohl, her tufts of frizzy hair were dyed, even her earlobes were rouged. 'I went,' admitted the actress, 'to extremes in everything.'
⁴

This was no less true of her private life. The illegitimate daughter of a Jewish cocotte, with an illegitimate son of her own, Sarah Bernhardt cheerfully flouted every convention. 'London has gone mad over the
principal actress in the Comédie Française . . .,' wrote an appalled Lady Frederick Cavendish, 'Sarah Bernhardt, a woman of notorious character. Not content with being run after on the stage, this woman is asked to respectable people's houses to act, and even to luncheon and dinner, and all the world goes. It is an outrageous scandal.'
⁵

But it was, of course, as an actress that Sarah Bernhardt should have been judged and here Lillie Langtry, so soon to become an actress herself, showed admirable discernment. 'This great and overwhelming artist was almost too individual, too exotic, to be completely understood or properly estimated
all at once
. Her superb diction, her lovely silken voice, her natural acting, her passionate temperament, her fire – in a word, transcendent genius – caused amazement . . .' Bernhardt's personality was 'so striking, so singular that, to everyday people, she seemed eccentric; she filled the imagination as a great poet might do.'
⁶

Sarah's opinion of Lillie was more succinct. 'With that chin,' she snapped after first meeting her, 'she will go far.'
⁷

Lillie was being remarkably generous in her assessment of Sarah, for not least among the actress's admirers was the Prince of Wales. In a way, this is surprising. Bertie's taste in women, as in so much else, was conventional. He liked dressy, well-groomed, curvaceous women. So punctilious himself, he disapproved of any sloppiness in dress; with the freedom affected by the so-called 'new women', he had very little sympathy. When Lady Florence Dixie appeared at Ascot in one of her 'rational' garments – a shapeless white boating dress – he icily asked her whether she had, by mistake, come in her nightgown. On the other hand, Bertie admired spirit, and Sarah Bernhardt was certainly spirited. Nor would he have been shocked by her unashamed hedonism.

The two had met, some years before, in Paris, and on his frequent visits to the French capital, the Prince always made a point of seeing the actress, both on and off stage. He even, on one occasion, appeared on stage with her. During a performance of Sardou's
Fédora
, the irrepressible Bertie doubled as the corpse in the scene in which the distraught heroine weeps over the body of her murdered lover. One can only hope that Queen Victoria did not hear about this unseemly behaviour on the part of the forty-year-old Heir Apparent.

During this 1879 London season, Bertie seems to have paid the visiting actress a great deal of attention. He not only reserved a box for each of her opening nights in her different roles but let it be known that she was to be received in society. He even entertained her at
Marlborough House. After one such visit, Sarah scrawled a note of apology to the doyen of the Comédie Française. 'I've just come back from the P. of W. It is twenty past one. I can't rehearse any more at this hour. The P. has kept me since eleven . . .'
⁸

Quite clearly, Bertie was fascinated by the piquant-faced Frenchwoman. Whether or not they became lovers is uncertain. Given their shared sexual appetites and moral attitudes, it is not unlikely. Sarah had a seductive, smouldering quality that the Prince would have found hard to resist, and few women, least of all Sarah Bernhardt, would have turned down the opportunity of sleeping with a future king who also happened to be a man of great charm and considerable amorous expertise.