Lucy Moore reviews the life of a man who spent most of his life in the shadow of his mother, Queen Victoria but became Britain's first constitutional monarch.
By Lucy Moore
Last updated 2011-03-03
Lucy Moore reviews the life of a man who spent most of his life in the shadow of his mother, Queen Victoria but became Britain's first constitutional monarch.
British monarchs have seldom had happy childhoods, and Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII but known throughout his life as Bertie, was no exception. Victoria and Albert were young and passionately determined to raise their children well, but this determination was so grim in its earnestness and so unyielding in its idealism that it served rather to thwart than encourage the growth of their nine children.
The regime devised for Bertie as heir to the throne was especially uncompromising. No effort was made to make him feel like a normal child - in fact he was seldom allowed to play with other boys of his own age - and his tastes and interests were ignored. Fears that he might turn out like his 'wicked' Hanoverian uncles, of whom the most notorious was George IV, led to strict discipline. What would be called Attention Deficit Disorder today - uncontrollable behaviour and resistance to academic methods of teaching - was dealt with in ways that would make a modern liberal wince.
Bertie grew up with the belief that he was a disappointment equalled only by his conviction of his uniqueness as heir to the throne.
It was clear to Bertie throughout his childhood that he could never measure up to the ideal set by his stern, pious father. 'None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of such a Father who has not his equal in this world - so great, so good, so faultless,' Victoria wrote to Bertie in a typical letter. He would always fall below that standard of perfection, and it is not hard to imagine that he soon resolved not to bother trying. He was petulant, disobedient and rude, highly excitable and prone to tantrums; in his mother's words, 'so idle and weak'.
The young prince was also gregarious, loyal and observant, with, according to his tutor, a keen sense of right and wrong and a good memory. But these qualities apparently impressed no-one, and Bertie grew up with the belief that he was a disappointment equalled only by his conviction of his uniqueness as heir to the throne. Living up to his father's example was a hard enough start to life, but the fact that Victoria blamed her beloved Albert's death on Bertie - the stress of their son's 'fall', or first encounter with a prostitute, had, she believed, caused the illness from which Albert died - blighted him forever. For the rest of his life Edward struggled with the double burden of knowing she blamed him, and feeling her unjust for doing so.
Albert had believed that Bertie would be steadied by marriage, so Victoria determined to marry him off as quickly as possible. His bride, the beautiful Princess Alix of Denmark, was disappointingly deaf and lacked the vivacity Bertie admired in women. Although they were happy enough together, she held no sway over her husband and her role as wife was limited to child-bearing and attractive appearances on state occasions.
It is hard to tell whether Bertie's famous taste for lowlife was a result of having nothing to do, or whether the Queen was right not to trust him with any official role because of his dissipation; certainly, each trend seems to have fed off the other. Forbidden by his mother to participate in government - she considered him incompetent and indiscreet, and feared him 'competing' with her for the affection of her subjects - the Prince of Wales was forced to find an alternative outlet for his energies as he waited for his throne to be vacated. This alternative was the pursuit of pleasure.
His close friends were as often Catholic or Jewish, nouveau riche or foreign, as old-school British aristocrats.
Edward's hedonism made him the ultimate symbol of the Belle Epoque. While Victoria's bleak piety coloured her age, the Prince of Wales's passions for girls, gambling and gluttony reflected the debauched mood of the society in which he moved. Twice he appeared in court: the first time perjuring himself about having had an affair with a young woman whose husband was trying to divorce her for rampant adultery, the second testifying in a case concerning a friend of his said to have cheated at baccarat, an illegal card game the Prince adored. This second case, known as the Tranby Croft affair, occurred in 1890, when Bertie was fifty - far too old for such youthful scrapes. Indeed, this would be the last such scandal.
From 1875, when the Prince had been allowed to make a state visit to India, he had begun to grow into his role as King-in-Waiting. Although the two main elements of this tour were the magnificent ceremonial he loved ('such a constant repetition of elephants - trappings - jewels - illuminations and fireworks,' wrote Victoria waspishly) and big game hunting (his party shot 28 tigers), Bertie also took his first halting steps in statecraft. He had learned how far his genial charm would carry him; he saw how popular his approachable, easy style could be, and he was thrilled with the response.
But he was displeased by the way many British treated the Indians, outraged, for example, by their casual use of the word nigger. Less than three weeks after his arrival in Bombay, the Prince protested formally to Lord Granville, then Foreign Secretary, that just 'because a man has a black face and a different religion than our own, there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute'.
This progressive tolerance increasingly marked Bertie's attitudes, albeit always within the conventions of his class and times. His close friends were as often Catholic or Jewish, nouveau riche or foreign, as old-school British aristocrats; the common thread between them was that they were fun-loving and rich, not respectable and grand. He was concerned for the poor - his attitude that of a paternalistic landlord rather than a reformer - and always interested in new things, from electricity to motorcars.
While his time in India had marked his first steps on the world stage, it also underlined just how removed Edward was from any real domestic power. During his last days away, he read in the Times of India that in future his mother would be styled Empress. 'As the Queen's eldest son, I think I have some right to feel annoyed that the announcement of the addition to the Queen's title should have been read by me in the newspapers instead of [my] having received some intimation of the subject from the Prime Minister,' he informed Disraeli stiffly, well knowing that it would be pointless to take it up with his mother.
Although relations with Victoria remained strained, other women proved more accommodating. Bertie's list of conquests seemed never-ending, as ambitious Lillie Langtry was replaced by the socialite socialist Daisy Brooke, legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt, and the marvellously-named courtesans Cora Pearl and Giulia Bernini. Eventually Alice Keppel, whose tact and charm kept her at his side for the last twelve years of his life, brought his womanising to an end.
Relations with Victoria remained strained.
By the time he met glamorous, witty Mrs. Keppel, the prince was an old man, weighed down as much by his prodigious appetites for food, drink and cigars as with the strain of waiting to become king. He simply hadn't the energy to chase slippery young girls any more. In her thirties, ambitious enough to always put him first, but not so grasping that she offended, Alice Keppel was the perfect mistress for the last stage of his life. She understood him, pampered him, amused him - and played a mean hand of bridge.
Victoria died in January 1901. As he escorted her body back to the mainland from Cowes (she died at Osborne House), the new king noticed that the royal yacht's standard was flying at half-mast. When asked why, the captain replied, 'The Queen is dead, Sir.' 'But the King lives,' came the royal response. Fifty-nine year old Edward was not prepared to allow his mother's memory to overshadow his reign. He had waited too long.
It is almost too apt that Edward VII should finally have become king in the first month of the twentieth century. Indeed, his nine-year reign is often seen as the beginning of the monarchy's modern incarnation: he is hailed as the first true constitutional monarch. While on one hand his style was very modern - the constant public appointments, the good works, the showmanlike displays of majesty - on the other he longed to be a king, ruling in the old-fashioned sense.
Domestically Edward acted, according to his recent biographer Simon Heffer, as 'a bulwark against the total democratisation of the British government'. He refused to countenance reforms of the House of Lords - reforms that were quickly instituted after his death - and insisted on maintaining a close involvement in foreign affairs, his principal area of interest.
Edward, Uncle of Europe, ended Britain's isolation.
In 1903, without seeking either the approval or advice of his Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary, Edward arrived in Paris, charmed the initially hostile crowds (their cries of 'Vive Jeanne d'Arc' were replaced by 'Vive notre Roi'), and began negotiations for what became the Entente Cordiale. With hindsight, it is easy to see how Germany felt isolated and threatened by this alliance between Britain, France and Russia; arguably, Kaiser Wilhelm (Edward's hated nephew) was already set on the course that would lead to the Great War. At the time, though, Edward, Uncle of Europe, had ended Britain's isolation and he was hailed as a peace-maker and a regal statesman.
Although he lacked the intellectual piety his mother had hoped he would acquire, as king, Edward was someone of whom the British could be proud. Events have shown that his judgement was not always deft - governed perhaps more by his personal insecurities and needs than an understanding of what was best for Britain - but during his reign he was rightly celebrated for using his common touch, dignity and enormous charm to bring the monarchy into the twentieth century.
Books
Edward the Caresser : The Playboy Prince Who Became Edward VII by Stanley Weintraub (Free Press, 2001)
Edward VII's Last Loves: Alice Keppel and Agnes Keyser by Raymond Lamont-Brown (Sutton Publishing, 2001)
Lucy Moore is the author of The Thieves Opera, published by Harcourt Brace in 1998, Conmen and Cutpurses, published by Penguin Press in 2000, and Amphibious Thing, the Life of Lord Hervey, published by Viking in 2000. She was educated in Britain and the United States before reading history at Edinburgh University. She lives in London.
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