The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses (18 page)

'Has it been sufficiently considered how far pain may become a ground for enjoyment?' confided Gladstone to his diary. 'How far satisfaction and even an action of delighting in pain may be a true experimental phenomenon of the human mind?'
³⁴

Such admissions were for his eyes only (each act of flagellation he marked with a little whip in the margins of his diary) and it is unlikely that anyone else would have guessed the lengths to which Gladstone was prepared to go in search of this pleasurable humiliation. But enough was known of his strange habits to cause deep misgivings.

Causing his colleagues even more unease than his prostitute-hunting was his friendship with various well-known courtesans. Talking to anonymous street-walkers was one thing; visiting some of London's more notorious 'scarlet women' in their homes was quite another. One of these women was the famous Laura Thistlethwayte. This theatrical-looking beauty, having spent half her life as a courtesan, suddenly underwent a religious conversion. And although this conversion seems to have interfered very little with her former occupation, Mrs Thistlethwayte became an evangelical preacher. This gave her, for Gladstone, a double appeal: reformed prostitutes with a taste for religion were exactly up his street.

Another of his associates was that ubiquitous contemporary figure, Skittles. Much to the amusement of the Prince of Wales, whom she kept fully informed, Skittles – having heard of Gladstone's interest in 'ladies of light character' – invited him to visit her. 'Saturdays and Sundays were his evenings out,' she explained to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Carrying a bunch of narcissi and having sent her a twelve-pound tin of Russian tea in advance, the Prime Minister duly arrived.
'I have not come to talk politics,' he announced (not even in her most self-important moments, surely, had Skittles imagined that he would) and remarked, more properly, on the smallness of her waist. He then went on to measure it, she says, by putting his hands around it.

What else they discussed or, for that matter, measured, is not known, but when he left, Gladstone asked her to write to him. She 'should mark the envelope private, followed by a little cross, thus "Private X".' Skittles afterwards heard that the Prime Minister had been 'much struck with all my go and charming ways . . .'
³⁵

It was no wonder that Lillie who, for 'go and charming ways' could match Skittles any day, decided to approach Gladstone. Or that it should have been through Abraham Hayward that she did so. Hayward (sometimes referred to as 'the Viper') knew all about Gladstone's sexual activities; in fact, he was not above doing what amounted to a little discreet pimping. Having insisted that he replace the usual reviewer for Lillie's theatrical début, Hayward had quickly appreciated that she would be just the type to interest Gladstone. Between them, then, Lillie and Hayward concocted the letter to the Prime Minister. And Gladstone, reading between the lines, would have known exactly what Hayward's letter implied.

Within days, the Prime Minister had become a frequent caller at her little flat and she was soon making use of the 'double envelope system' whereby her letters to him were kept out of the hands of his secretaries. Abraham Hayward had reassured him that although there was no formal separation between Lillie and her husband, 'they are but little together and he has as good as told her to shift for herself. '
³⁶
In other words, Gladstone was unlikely to run into an irate husband during his calls.

The Prime Minister's colleagues were no less worried about his relationship with Mrs Langtry than they were about his other friendships. 'She is evidently trying to make social capital out of the acquaintance she has scraped with him,' his private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton once complained. 'Most disagreeable things with all kinds of exaggeration are being said. I took the occasion of putting in a word and cautioning him against the wiles of the woman, whose reputation is in such bad odour that, despite all the endeavours of H.R.H., nobody will receive her in their house. '
³⁷

Hamilton could have saved his breath; Gladstone took no notice.

Yet, granted the fact that the Prime Minister's underlying interest in Lillie Langtry was sexual, their relationship – on a superficial level – was probably innocent. As much as by her erotic aura and scandalous
reputation, Gladstone would have been attracted by her independent spirit.

With characteristic discretion, she refers to the 'uplifting effects' of his visits. How wonderful, she gushes, 'that this great and universally sought-after man should give me and my work even a passing thought.' He gave her advice, he brought her books (including his favourite,
Sister Dora
, a biography of a high-born woman who worked as a nurse among the poor), he read aloud his favourite passages from Shakespeare, he interested himself in her financial affairs (Hayward kept him informed on these) and they discussed, of course, religion. 'One could not be in his company without feeling that goodness emanated from him,'
³⁸
says Lillie piously.

One piece of advice she always remembered. 'In your professional career, you will receive attacks, personal and critical, just and unjust. Bear them, never reply and, above all, never rush into print to explain or defend yourself.'
³⁹

The advice could have applied, equally well, to himself.

'I may have my faults,' the Prince of Wales once said. 'No one is more alive to them than I am; but I have held one great principle in life from which I never waver, and that is loyalty to one's friends . . .'
⁴⁰

This was true. And it was certainly true of the Prince's relationship with Lillie Langtry. Although the white heat of his love for her had cooled, he remained as fond of her and as loyal to her as ever. Throughout her stage career, which was to burgeon as spectacularly as her social career had once done, she could count on the interest and support of the Prince of Wales. He could always be relied upon to exert a little pressure here and to use a little influence there. Bertie loved the theatre; often his presence alone was enough to ensure the success of a play. And there were few of Lillie's London opening nights on which the plump, bearded and immaculately dressed figure of the Prince of Wales was not to be seen in the royal box. Often, to the consternation of the rest of the cast, he would leave his seat after the first act and spend the rest of the evening in Lillie's dressing room, eagerly awaiting her stage exits and chatting, in his affable way, to her dresser as he waited.

On a less professional level, too, the couple kept in touch. They wrote to each other, they exchanged photographs, they paid little visits, they went racing together. And there was still the occasional candle-lit supper at Rules or Kettners at which His Nibs, as she
affectionately called him, would respond anew to the quick mind, spirited manner and enduring beauty of the Jersey Lily.

In fact, far from having ended, their relationship had merely entered a different phase.

Part Two

'MY OWN DARLING DAISY WIFE'

6

The Heiress

I
N NOVEMBER
1881 the Prince of Wales turned forty. This milestone brought with it neither a relaxation in his exclusion from affairs of state nor any prospect of more worthwhile employment. He knew as little as ever, says one observer, 'about the contents of those boxes that were piled upon his Mother's desk. There was the tree of knowledge, there the fountain of wisdom; they were just out of reach; and occasional confidences made his predicament all the more tantalising.'
¹

Earlier that year the Prince, on meeting Sir Charles Dilke – then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs – at a dinner party, had spoken to him about his 'anxiety to be kept informed of foreign affairs'.
²
Dilke promised to do what he could. But a few years later, at another dinner party, the Prince was obliged to raise the matter yet again; this time with Gladstone's private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton. 'He complains of being kept too much in the dark by the Government,' reported Hamilton, 'and I think not without reason. He would like important decisions of the Cabinet communicated to him. '
³
Hamilton promised to speak to Gladstone about it.

Gladstone, very wisely, felt that he could take no such step without having first consulted Queen Victoria. He did not feel very optimistic. Gladstone had not forgotten his previous attempt, made over a decade before, to talk the Queen into giving her eldest son some responsible job.

He was no more successful on this occasion. The Queen would not hear of it. She, and she alone, would decide what papers, if any, should be passed on to the Prince of Wales. 'She is very jealous of anything tending to derogate her Sovereign Powers,'
⁴
noted Hamilton.

That was one reason for her attitude; another was that she considered her son to be notoriously indiscreet. The Prince was never to be
shown anything, she would warn her ministers, of a
confidential
nature; she 'deprecated the discussion of national secrets over country house dinner tables.'
⁵
Writing at this time to one of her many granddaughters, Princess Victoria of Hesse, the Queen ventured to make what she called 'a very
private
little
observation'
: this was that 'Dear Uncle cannot keep anything to himself – but lets everything
out
. '
⁶

Rendering the Prince of Wales's position even more galling was the fact that his youngest brother, the artistic and scholarly Prince Leopold, was being entrusted with precisely the sort of job at which Bertie himself would have excelled. It had been Disraeli, at that stage still Prime Minister, who had suggested the employment for Prince Leopold. As Leopold's haemophilia prevented him from treading the traditional princely path – a career in one of the armed services or a governor-generalship – Disraeli had suggested that he assume the cloak, or one of the cloaks, once worn by the late Prince Consort: that he become Queen Victoria's assistant and adviser in her dealings with foreign affairs. He could read official despatches, correspondence with ambassadors and ministers, and letters to and from the Queen's fellow sovereigns.

It was, in short, the sort of job that would have suited the Prince of Wales to perfection. Bertie's frequent visits to the Continent, and particularly to France, had greatly strengthened his interest in, and knowledge of, foreign affairs. Not quite all his time in Paris was spent at the
Jardin de Paris
or the
Chat Noir
. In the salons of women like the Princesse de Sagan or the Comtesse de Pourtalès, he absorbed a great deal of political information; and he had several meetings with that fiery and significant figure in French political life, Leon Gambetta. Indeed, of all aspects of government business, foreign affairs were guaranteed to hold the Prince of Wales's otherwise flickering attention.

How harmoniously Bertie would have worked beside his exacting mother is another matter. In any case, he was never given the opportunity. Queen Victoria, who always looked kindly on dear Mr Disraeli's suggestions, agreed that the job should be entrusted to Prince Leopold. And so, for half a dozen years, from 1877 to 1882, Prince Leopold acted as part personal assistant, part confidential secretary and part go-between to Queen Victoria.

Just how valuable Leopold proved himself to be is difficult to assess. Ministers were careful to consult him, to include him and to make use of his services. And the Queen seemed well enough pleased. So, of
course, did Prince Leopold. Proudly, he once showed a key to Sir Charles Dilke's secretary, James Bodley. 'It is the Queen's Cabinet key which opens all the secret despatch boxes,' he explained. 'Dizzy gave it to me, but my brother the Prince of Wales is not allowed to have one.'
⁷

In the face of this humiliating situation (Leopold was twelve years younger than Bertie) the Prince of Wales showed remarkable forebearance. Never a vindictive man, he did not allow it to sour his relations with his brother. 'Uncle Bertie,' wrote Prince Leopold's daughter, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, in later life, 'was, of course, aware of the assistance which my father was giving to the Queen and knew that his younger brother had access to State papers which he, though Prince of Wales, was not allowed to see. He was understandably indignant at such treatment, and I cannot help being filled with admiration for his magnanimity, for he bore no grudge against my father and was always kindness itself to my mother and me . . . I consider he showed real greatness of spirit in his attitude. '
⁸

Disraeli, having applied his astute mind to one aspect of Prince Leopold's life, now applied it to another: the Prince's marriage. Queen Victoria's confidant in so many matters, Disraeli appreciated that the Queen was no longer thinking in terms of great royal matrimonial alliances for her children. These had brought nothing but trouble. Wars on the Continent had invariably split her family into violently opposed camps, while the marriage of yet another minor and usually impoverished German prince or princess into the British royal family always led to public grumbling. Some well-born, well-heeled British spouse was a much better bet. Already, in 1871, the Queen had allowed her daughter Louise to marry the wealthy Marquess of Lorne. So why not, thought Disraeli, a similar arrangement for Prince Leopold?

He had a candidate to hand. This was a young woman blessed, apparently, with every advantage: birth, beauty, brains and great wealth. Disraeli had once taken her to the theatre and had been charmed. She would, he imagined, make the perfect wife for Prince Leopold. And so, just before the young lady's eighteenth birthday in December 1879, the Queen commanded her parents, Lord and Lady Rosslyn, to bring her to Windsor for inspection.

Lord Rosslyn was, in fact, the girl's step-father, her mother's second husband. Her own surname was Maynard and her first name Frances. But just as Emilie Le Breton had always been known as Lillie, so Frances Maynard was always known as Daisy.