The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses (2 page)

The subject upon which Gladstone was expounding one March morning in the year 1872 was his master plan for the Queen's heir, the thirty-year-old Prince of Wales. This, in turn, was an aspect of a still more extensive subject which the Prime Minister had entitled 'The Royalty Question'.

For some time now Gladstone had been worried about the public image of the British monarchy. A dedicated monarchist, he was afraid that the institution was in danger of losing its appeal. 'To speak in rude and general terms,' he confided, with rare succinctness, to a colleague, 'the Queen is invisible, and the Prince of Wales is not respected. '
²

About the Queen's 'invisibility' there was nothing that the Prime Minister could do. Ever since the death of her adored husband, the
Prince Consort, over a decade before, Queen Victoria had withdrawn from public life almost completely. All Gladstone's efforts to force her out of her seclusion had proved fruitless. The more robustly he insisted that the Queen show herself, the more resolutely she refused to do any such thing. Her Prime Minister's 'interference with the Queen's personal acts and movements was really abominable,' she exclaimed. Was she to be 'driven and abused till her nerves and health give way with this worry and agitation and interference in her private life?'
³

Against this blend of obstinacy and indignation even Gladstone was powerless. In the Widow of Windsor, the Grand Old Man had met his match. 'The repellent power which she so well knows how to use has been put in action towards me,'
⁴
he grumbled. But, never one to abandon a cause, the Prime Minister now turned his attention to that other aspect of 'The Royalty Question': the public life of the Prince of Wales. If the Queen was not prepared to play her royal role, then the heir-apparent must be allowed to play his.

Yet the exact nature of that role was difficult to define. What was an heir-apparent supposed to do? In the past, the Prince of Wales's predecessors – those wayward Hanoverian princes – had invariably set themselves up in political opposition to the monarch. But this prince, for all his feelings of frustration, would never have done that. So the problem remained unresolved. This dilemma, sighed the Prince's private secretary, was inherent in the very nature of sovereignty. 'It has been the same thing with heirs apparent from time immemorial and I fear will continue to be so as long as there are monarchies.'
⁵
He was right. To this day, the question has not been satisfactorily answered. 'There is no set-out role for me,' the Prince's great-great-grandson, Prince Charles, was to complain over a century later. 'It depends entirely on what I make of it. '
⁶

But Queen Victoria's heir was not
allowed
to make anything of it. The perennial difficulty was intensified by her own unyielding attitude. The Prince was left with no worthwhile occupation because this was precisely how his mother wanted it.

This had not always been her attitude. During their eldest son's boyhood, Victoria and Albert, all aglow with good Coburg intentions, had decreed that Bertie – as he was known in the family – 'ought to be accustomed early to work with [them], to have great confidence shown him, that he should be early instructed into the affairs of state. '
⁷
Their admirable resolve had been short-lived. In spite of – or rather, because of – a system of educational force-feeding, Bertie had never
matched up to their exacting standards. He had emerged from these years of intensive study as an amiable but far from intellectual young man. Of Prince Albert's earnestness, industriousness and high-mindedness, he showed no trace. He lived, the disapproving Queen would point out, purely for pleasure.

Not even when his father had died did his mother revise her poor opinion of Bertie's abilities. In any case, the broken-hearted widow was determined that no one, and certainly not her backward heir, should play the political role that her 'adored, Angelic Husband' had once done. Not only did she consider her son to be lacking in intellect but she found him irresponsible, immature and indiscreet. The Queen would neither confide in him nor consult him. The Prince must see nothing, she warned her ministers, of a confidential nature. When one Prime Minister asked if the heir might be allowed to know 'anything of importance' that took place in the cabinet, her answer was a firm 'No'. That would be quite 'improper'. The Prince had no right, she would announce blandly, to meddle.

Nor would she dream of allowing him to represent her in public. 'Properly speaking, no one can represent the Sovereign but Her . . .' she once informed a Home Secretary. 'Her Majesty thinks it would be most undesirable to constitute the Heir to the Crown a general representative of Herself, and particularly to bring Him forward too frequently before the people. This would necessarily place the Prince of Wales in a position of competing, as it were, for popularity with the Queen.
Nothing
should be more carefully avoided.'
⁸

In short, it was a hopeless situation. Denied the opportunity either of working with his mother in private or representing her in public, the Prince was obliged to lead an aimless existence. Yet the Queen would cite that very aimlessness as justification for not giving him anything worthwhile to do.

But despite his shortcomings – and there was some substance in the Queen's complaints – the Prince of Wales was not nearly as worthless as his mother imagined. He had considerable diplomatic gifts, great panache and exceptional vitality. These qualities could have been of real service to his mother. Given some active employment and some real responsibility, there was no reason why the Prince of Wales could not have been a credit to the monarchy.

This was certainly Gladstone's view. While appreciating that the Prince was no paragon, the Prime Minister was alive to his good points. The Prince's social ease and sense of showmanship were exactly the qualities which Gladstone found so disturbingly lacking in
the Queen. 'He would make an excellent sovereign,' he once said. 'He is far more fitted for that high place than her present Majesty now is. '
⁹

It was by making use of the Prince's social talents that Gladstone hoped to compensate for the Queen's regrettable absence from the public stage. Facing her, on that early spring day in 1872, the Prime Minister unveiled his plan for a 'remodelling' of the heir-apparent's life. The Prince of Wales must become the Queen's permanent representative in Ireland; in other words, her viceroy. In this way he would be given 'a worthy and manly mode of life'
¹⁰
and at least one leading member of the royal family would be seen to be pulling his weight. And just think of the good it would do for permanently troubled Ireland.

The Queen would not hear of it. Within a day or two of the audience she had returned the ponderously-worded memorandum with which Gladstone had backed up his arguments. The scheme was acceptable to neither Her Majesty nor His Royal Highness. The Queen had always considered it 'a stupid waste of time to try and connect the Royal Family with Ireland'
¹¹
and the Prince of Wales would prefer some employment nearer home. The truth was that Bertie had no intention of exchanging the sophistication of London for the provincialism of Dublin.

But Queen Victoria's blunt rejection did nothing to deter the tenacious Gladstone. Warming to his task, he worked out a still more elaborate plan. This he presented, in the form of a long letter, in July 1872. Now, not only should the Prince represent the Queen in Dublin but he should deputise for her during the London season and spend one month, each autumn, with the army. To this even longer, more presumptuous and more insulting memorandum, the Queen gave an even more crushing reply. She ended by declaring that this was a question 'which more properly concerns herself to settle with the members of her family as occasion may arise.'
¹²
In other words, it was none of Mr Gladstone's business.

By now anyone else in the kingdom would have let the matter drop. But not Gladstone. Announcing that he had not yet 'discharged his full responsibility in the matter',
¹³
he ploughed remorselessly on. This time he sent the Queen two communications: a letter in which, under two headings, he again discussed his plans for a reshaping of the Prince's life, and an even longer memorandum in which, under six headings, he set out to prove that the Queen's objections to his scheme were unfounded.

Victoria was astonished. Once again she gave him short shrift. 'The
Queen therefore trusts,' she wrote firmly, 'that this plan may now be considered as
definitely
abandoned.'
¹⁴

Incredibly, it was not. Gladstone wrote a fourth time, mercifully reducing to five the number of headings by which he refuted the Queen's arguments. A brief note from Her Majesty informed him that it was 'useless to prolong the discussion.' Finally beaten, the unconvinced Gladstone contented himself with bemoaning the fact that his views had been 'so unequivocally disapproved by Your Majesty in a matter of so much importance to the interests of the Monarchy.'
¹⁵

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.