The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses (42 page)

She was of immense value to the cause. 'We are having fine meetings with the Countess of Warwick as a speaker or in the chair,' reported one leading socialist to a friend. 'There is of course a lot of snobbery in this, but what matter? People would come to see and hear her who would never come to see or hear you or me. Last Friday at the Memorial Hall on
a frightful
night the place was packed with over 2000 people, many, perhaps the majority, of the well-to-do class.'
¹⁴

Indeed, in common with Edward VII's other old flame, Lillie Langtry, Daisy Warwick had the ability to draw an audience. Like Lillie, too, she was making her own mark in the world, quite independent of her status as a royal mistress.

Leading such an active political life, Daisy was understandably surprised to discover, in the year 1904, that she was to give birth to another child. 'Oh, Mercy!' the forty-two-year-old Lady Warwick exclaimed on realising that she was once again pregnant; and Mercy was the name that she gave to her daughter. But to Mercy, Daisy was able to give even less attention than she had to her other children. The girl was left in the care of nurses while the mother went off to campaign on behalf of those other mothers with a dozen children and no food, let alone nurses.

One of the ways in which Daisy Warwick differed from Lillie Langtry was that she had no head for figures. By 1907, at the age of forty-five, she was experiencing considerable financial difficulties. Short of money and harried by creditors, she was obliged to sell off properties and close down some of her charitable institutions. There was, of course, one way by which she could have recouped her losses: by writing her memoirs. It was at this time, she says, that she was 'approached with offers of very large sums of money'
¹⁵
for her reminiscences. This is hardly surprising. As the one-time mistress of the reigning sovereign, the intimate friend of many prominent men, the lover of many others, a celebrated society hostess, a fashionably dressed beauty, a repository of a great deal of gossip and a peeress who had become a socialist, Daisy Warwick had more than enough material to write a bestseller.

But she resisted the temptation. With almost all her circle, including Edward VII, still alive, the undertaking would be fraught with
difficulties; and no publisher was going to advance her those 'very large sums of money' for a compilation of tame social chit-chat and tedious socialistic moralising. The idea was shelved. Times would have to become more difficult still before Lady Warwick would be ready to convert her secrets into hard cash.

Another setting against which Edward VII's love affair with Mrs Keppel was played out was Paris. The Biarritz holiday over, the King and the Keppels would move on to the French capital. Here, with Edward VII in his usual suite at the Hotel Bristol, Alice and her family would stay in Sir Ernest Cassel's spacious apartment in the Rue du Cirque. In Paris Alice Keppel, like Lillie Langtry and Daisy Warwick before her, was able to shop at Worth.

'I have vivid memories of the first time I accompanied my mother to the dressmaker, where she was received like a goddess,' writes Violet Keppel, 'Monsieur Jean (Worth) supervising her fitting in person, the
vendeuses
quite shamelessly forsaking their other clients to vie with each other in flattering epithets.
Il y avait de quoi
. My mother had everything that could most appeal to them, lovely, vivacious, fêted, fashionable, with a kind word for each of the anonymous old crones who had been for years in the establishment . . .'
¹⁶

And although Violet does not say so, her mother's chief attraction for these fluttering
vendeuses
was her status as
la maîtresse du Roi
.

Again, like her predecessors, Alice would be taken to Edward VII's favourite Parisian restaurants. But whereas in his days as Prince of Wales, he could occasionally give his French detectives the slip, now he was kept under close and constant surveillance. Yet knowing how much the King hated to be watched, this surveillance was kept as discreet as possible. On one occasion the King, Mrs Keppel and a party of friends were lunching in a garden restaurant at St Cloud. As they sat there in the leaf-dappled sunlight, Alice, always concerned about her lover's well-being, became more and more nervous about the apparent lack of police protection. Eventually she confided her fears to one of the King's secretaries, Frederick Ponsonby. Anyone, she whispered, could come in through the open garden gate; the diners on either side of the royal table looked very suspicious; one of them had a particularly 'villainous' face. She felt sure that the police had been given the wrong name of the restaurant at which the King would be lunching and that he was now at the mercy of any assassin.

To set her mind at rest, Ponsonby went to seek out the manager of
the place. On his way he spotted M. Lépine – head of the French police and responsible for the monarch's safety – calmly eating his own
déjeuner
. To Lépine Ponsonby repeated Mrs Keppel's fears about the unguarded gate and the diners close to His Majesty's table. Lépine was able to reassure him. The gardener working beside the open gate was a policeman. The diners on either side of the royal table were policemen with their wives. The diner with the particularly villainous face was 'one of the best and most trusted detectives in the force'.
¹⁷

Returning to the table, Ponsonby whispered to Alice that all was well and, after luncheon, was able to tell her what Lépine had said. She was both highly amused and deeply impressed.

Alice Keppel's position as royal favourite brought her into contact with many notable people who might not, in other circumstances, have befriended her. One of these was the ex-Empress Eugenie. By now in her eighties, the Empress remained an alert and forceful personality. Once, while Alice was staying at a hotel in Fontainebleau, her maid burst into her room.

'Madam! Madam!' cried the girl. 'The wife of Napoleon the First is waiting to see you downstairs; she says she has only just discovered you were staying here.'

The reason why the wife of the late Napoleon the
Third
had called on Mrs Keppel was to suggest that they join the guided tour of the nearby palace. Alice was intrigued. Was it insensitivity, or curiosity to hear the republican version of Napoleonic history, that was prompting the Empress to revisit the palace where she had once held court?

Unrecognised, the black-clad Empress, with Alice Keppel in tow, joined the group as they followed the guide through the sumptuous rooms. In the salon in which Napoleon I had signed his Act of Abdication, the guide held up a pen and declared, 'And this is the pen he used.'

'Pardon, Monsieur
, you make a mistake,' interrupted the Empress. Stepping forward, she crossed to the desk, pressed an invisible spring and from a secret drawer which leapt out, produced a pen.

'This, I happen to know, is the pen His Imperial Majesty used,'
¹⁸
she announced to the astonished tourists.

If one reason for Eugenie's friendship with Alice Keppel was that the old Empress delighted in the company of lively and good-looking young women, another was that she was devoted to Edward VII. His championship of the French imperial family, through good times and bad, had never wavered; for this the Empress was deeply grateful. Eugenie was always made welcome at Edward VII's court and if the
two of them happened to be in Paris at the same time, the King never failed to call on the Empress.

There were times, though, when their shared passion for travelling incognito had its drawbacks. One day, on calling at the Empress's hotel, the King asked the clerk at the desk if the Comtesse de Pierrefonds would receive the Duke of Lancaster.

'Wait a moment,' answered the unsuspecting clerk, 'I am sorting the mail.'

After a minute or two, the King could contain himself no longer. With a voice like thunder he demanded,
'Sa Majesté l'Impératrice Eugenie peut-elle recevoir le Roi d'Angleterre?
'
¹⁹

He was shown up immediately.

After a week together in Paris, the King and Mrs Keppel would separate: she to return to her husband in London, he to join Queen Alexandra on a spring cruise in the Mediterranean. In the course of these annual cruises, Edward VII would meet his fellow sovereigns: sometimes Alfonso XIII of Spain, sometimes Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, invariably Queen Alexandra's brother, George I of the Hellenes.

It was because of these long periods abroad (he never spent less than a quarter of each year on the Continent or cruising its waters) that Edward VII came to be so closely identified with Europe. With his life-long interest in the politics, diplomacy and richly varied way of life of the Continent, the King had been able to establish a great many social and political contacts and to accumulate a considerable knowledge of European affairs. This he could now put to good use.

Always interested in foreign affairs – which, at the time, meant European affairs – Edward VII was passionately concerned with the momentous shift that was taking place in British foreign policy: the abandonment of its position of 'splendid isolation' and its commitment to Europe. He not only presided over, but actively encouraged, his country's new series of alliances: the
entente cordiale
with France, the agreement with Spain, the convention with Russia. Indeed, the Triple Entente, by which Britain became allied to France and Russia, was generally regarded as 'the triumph of King Edward's policy'.
²⁰

Although the King was in no position to initiate any of these policies, his ministers found him invaluable when it came to making the first advance or creating a sympathetic atmosphere. By a series of magnificent state visits – and no monarch enjoyed a full-blown state visit more than Edward VII – he was able to prepare public opinion for some proposed agreement or set the seal on some convention already signed.

Who, as they watched the lavishly uniformed, self-confident King of England passing in spectacular cavalcade through the streets of Paris or Berlin or Rome, could doubt that he was a figure of considerable international importance? And who, as they saw him in earnest conversation with some foreign statesman or diplomat beneath the pleached linden trees of some spa, could deny that he was discussing a point of great political significance?

And despite the fact that King Edward VII was never as powerful, influential or even astute a figure as was popularly imagined, he came to be regarded as a supreme royal diplomat – 'The Peacemaker of Europe' or, even more fulsomely, as 'The Arbiter of Europe's Destiny'.

To what extent was Alice Keppel fulfilling the political role to which Daisy Warwick had once aspired? Alice's social and sexual contributions to Edward VII's well-being were only too apparent; it was her political usefulness that was more difficult to assess. Indeed, with the political position of a British constitutional monarch being a somewhat nebulous one, any political influence on such a monarch must of necessity be more nebulous still.

That great analyst of the British constitution, Walter Bagehot, once defined the monarch's three rights as the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn. The extent to which these rights are exercised depends very much on the individual monarch. Some monarchs are more assertive than others, some more politically aware, some more experienced. A sovereign such as Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned for over thirty-five years, not unnaturally develops into a person of undeniable influence and authority.

At his first Privy Council, Edward VII had announced that he was 'fully determined to be a constitutional sovereign in the strict sense of the word'.
²¹
He was equally determined, though, not to be anything less. The King was very conscious of his rights: any minister who ignored these soon earned the rough edge of the monarch's tongue. He insisted on being kept fully informed on every matter, great or small. He was not going to be 'a mere signing machine'.
²²

Although the King applied himself, with all the conscientiousness of his nature, to his daily work on the 'boxes', it was in the course of his regular meetings, usually with prime ministers but sometimes with other political figures, that he was able to bring his influence to bear. He in turn was influenced and advised by a number of people,
principally by his private secretary, Francis Knollys, but also by a coterie of close associates which included, of course, Alice Keppel.

In politics Alice Keppel, in common with a surprising number of others close to the King, was a Liberal. 'To be a Liberal in high society is rare,' declared Margot Asquith, whose husband became Liberal prime minister in 1908, 'indeed I often wonder in what society they are to be found; I do not meet them among golfers, soldiers, sailors or servants; nor have I seen much Liberalism in the Church, the Court or the City; but Alice Keppel was born in Scotland and has remained a true Liberal.'
²³

Alice's Liberalism was not merely tribal. It could manifest itself in very practical ways. On one occasion, for instance, she taught her Portman Square neighbour, the wealthy Lord Alington, a salutory political lesson. Lord Alington, who greatly admired her and delighted in being seen in her company, used often to take Alice driving – to Hampton Court or Richmond Park in the summer and to picture galleries or exhibitions in the winter. One day, on asking her where she would like to go, she suggested Hoxton. Hoxton, in East London, was then a notorious slum: a slum in which Lord Alington, who had never seen it, owned a great deal of property.

The drive was anything but entertaining. As Lord Alington's smart carriage passed along the dingy streets, it was jeered, or stared sullenly at, by wretchedly-dressed children and dull-eyed men and women. Through the occasionally open doorways were glimpses of depressing squalor. 'Many of the window-frames had lost their glass, and the holes had been stuffed up with old rags or newspaper or just left empty,' reported Alice. 'The afternoon was cold and rather foggy, and few of the chimneys boasted smoke.'