God save the king, and preserve Mrs Keppel from his rage!
—ALICE KEPPEL
Despite her beauty, charm, and diplomacy, Alice Keppel was not popular with everyone. The Duke of Norfolk, head of the country’s leading Roman Catholic family, would not invite Alice to Arundel Castle, his stately home in Sussex, and she was banned from Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, home of the Duke of Portland.
The French took a different view. When Alice traveled to France with Bertie, she was treated like a queen. At Biarritz, on the Atlantic coast, Bertie holidayed at leisure with Alice as though they were an old married couple. Bertie and Alice repaired to Biarritz every Easter, while Alix traveled and the Hon. George went off to that job at Lipton’s tea company so helpfully provided by Bertie.1 The French, it is always said, “understand these things,” and it was in Biarritz that the couple could truly be themselves, away from other royalty and politicians.
Alice and Bertie always made the journey to France separately. Alice traveled with her daughters, Violet and Sonia, their governess, Miss Draper, their nanny, and a succession of “studded wardrobe-trunks, standing up on end and high enough to stand in; hat-boxes, shoe boxes; rugs; travelling cushions and [Alice’s] travelling jewel-case.”2
It was here that Sonia witnessed an extraordinary transformation. From a small case, Alice unpacked a small pillow, a shapeless nightgown, and a mobcap. The nightgown went over Alice’s beautiful body, and her luxuriant red hair was piled underneath the mobcap, before she covered her face in a thick layer of grease. After Sonia had been put to bed in the upper berth, Alice put on a black eye mask, took a sleeping pill, and “lay for dead till morning.” Unable to sleep, Sonia would look down from her bunk at this strange apparition, “at Mama and in the weird blue ceiling light her white face its black-bandaged eyes looked ghastly.”3 The following morning, the attendant from the restaurant car would appear with steaming hot coffee and suppress a gasp of astonishment as the eye mask was removed and he would gaze into those sleepy turquoise eyes at close range.4
Bertie traveled to Biarritz under his nom de guerre as the “Earl of Chester,” although his entourage, consisting of thirty servants and his white fox terrier Caesar were as clearly identifiable as his portly figure and imperial beard. Bertie requisitioned three private railway carriages, and three cars and chauffeurs were sent on ahead.5 At Biarritz, Bertie checked into the Hôtel du Palais, while Alice and her daughters stayed at Sir Ernest Cassel’s magnificent residence, the Villa Eugénie, built by Napoleon III.
The Biarritz vacation was a family holiday, but not one that made any concessions to Alice’s family. Violet and Sonia found the trips stultifyingly dull, as did Sir Ernest Cassel’s daughter, Maudie: “We are his servants quite as much as the housemaid or the butler.”6 The girls’ nanny didn’t care much for Biarritz, either. “Our clothes were hard put to it to compete with those of Sir Ernest’s grandchildren, Edwina and Mary. And I suspect that Nannie put in several clandestine hours overtime washing and ironing, sensitively conscious of the inferior quality of the lace on our knickers.”7 The condition of her underwear had always been something of an issue for young Violet, who envied her young neighbors, the Alingtons, who always had “real” lace on their underclothes.8
After Bertie had spent a morning with his diplomatic bags, a necessity for the head of state even when he was en vacances, Alice would meet him at 1:15 every afternoon and they would walk along the promenade arm in arm before luncheon at the Hôtel du Palais. Luncheon was, like all Bertie’s meals, an elaborate affair, and Alice, once curvaceous, slowly gained weight as she settled into their relationship. Indeed, so comical did the pair look together that Princess Alexandra once summoned one of her ladies-in-waiting over to the window and pointed, laughing helplessly, at Bertie and Alice sitting fatly side by side as they drove around the grounds of Sandringham in a little carriage.9
Afternoons were reserved for sightseeing, walking among the sand dunes, or going to the races at La Barre in the three claret-colored cars. They dined at 8:15 and visited the casino and spent the evening playing interminable games of bridge, which Bertie must never be allowed to lose,10 until midnight. Bertie was not a good bridge player and Alice was often required to placate him.
Alice and Bertie were avid bridge players. The game was de rigueur at all events Bertie attended and he liked to play for high stakes. Several stories did the rounds about Mrs. Keppel’s technique. On one occasion, when, as king, Bertie admonished Alice for fluffing her cards, Alice excused herself by replying that she could never tell a king from a knave. On another, when Alice was given a difficult hand to play, she commented, “God save the king, and preserve Mrs Keppel from his rage!”11
Easter Day brought a concession to the children in the form of elaborate eggs. Sonia recalled “lovely little jewelled Easter eggs given by Kingy and Sir Ernest, particularly an exquisitely midget one in royal blue enamel, embossed with a diamond ‘E’ and topped by a tiny crown in gold and rubies.”12
Then came the picnic. Bertie had an inexplicable preference for picnicking at the side of the road, despite the fact that he had one of the most recognizable faces in Europe. The roads in and out of Biarritz were always busy, and nothing could have seemed more incongruous than the sight of the Prince of Wales tucking in, complete with tables, chairs, silver, and service by footmen, as the cars slowed down to watch.
This was an elaborate Edwardian picnic, with a table covered by a linen cloth, laid with the finest silver cutlery and porcelain plates, and every variety of food.13 Caesar the fox terrier sat on Violet’s knees, despite the fact that the little girl loathed the dog and complained that he smelled. “Always he was accompanied by his dog Caesar, who had a fine disregard for the villa’s curtains and chair-legs, but a close regard for me.”14 After Biarritz, the couple traveled up to Paris. Bertie would stay in his usual suite at the Hotel Bristol, and Alice and her family at Sir Ernest Cassel’s apartment in the Rue de Cirque. In Paris, Alice shopped at Worth.
Wrote Violet:
I have vivid memories of the first time I accompanied my mother to the dressmaker, where she was received like a goddess. 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, feted, fashionable, with a kind word for each of the anonymous old crones who had been for years in the establishment.…15
Alice also accompanied Bertie to his favorite restaurants, under constant surveillance from his detectives. This was before the days of the Royal Protection Squad, a crack group of police officers specifically detailed to take care of the royals. Instead, Bertie was always accompanied by his royal equerry and a detective, to keep him under surveillance at all times. Alice was always concerned about Bertie’s security. It made her nervous that, as they strolled arm in arm along the boulevards of Paris, Bertie would not hesitate to stop and take the time of day with anyone who approached him. Nervously, Alice hovered close by, and could not wait to get him back to the safety of his suite at the Hotel Bristol. Alice’s fears were not without foundation. On April 4, 1900, Bertie and Princess Alix arrived in Brussels en route to Copenhagen. Their train was just beginning to pull out of the Gard du Nord station when a man fired a pistol at Bertie through their open carriage window. Bertie remained unruffled, commenting merely that his would-be assassin was a poor fool. The gunman, a Belgian youth named Jean-Baptiste Sipido, was protesting against the Boer War.16 Bertie telegrammed Alice to say, “I don’t think there was a bullet in it. He was at once seized.”17
Bertie’s security remained Alice’s primary concern. On one occasion, they were lunching in a restaurant at Saint-Cloud. Tables had been spread outside in the garden, under the trees. Bertie, Alice, a secretary from the British Embassy, and a handful of French aristocrats were seated at a table in a prominent position. As the lunch progressed, Alice became increasingly worried about a man at a table nearby who had, she claimed, a “criminal face.”18 As she glanced around, Alice noted that the garden was a real security risk: there were gaps in the wall through which an assailant, or even a group of assailants, might launch themselves. Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Bertie’s private secretary, reassured Alice, telling her that Bertie had plenty of police protection nearby. But Alice continued to worry, and insisted on speaking to the chief of police, Monsieur Lepine, asking him to check the police presence. With a broad smile, Monsieur Lepine confirmed that all the diners at the nearby tables were in fact police officers and their wives—including the individual with the “criminal face!”19
Alice’s role of chief mistress also included a diplomatic function, with Alice acting as informal liaison officer. Rather than have elaborate meetings to discuss policy and diplomatic issues where he received his ministers in a royal audience, Bertie preferred to turn these encounters into social occasions. Here he could rely on his close friends and advisers such as Admiral Lord Fisher, Sir Charles Harding, Sir Ernest Cassel, Sir Francis Knollys, and Ponsonby—alongside Alice Keppel. “Alice evolved as the perfect amateur diplomat for the king; her circumspection and discretion came naturally to her and she was completely loyal to the king … she was a consummate liaison officer.”20
Skilled at keeping the conversation flowing while Bertie took in information by listening rather than reading reports, Alice kept the talk flowing so that Bertie could pick up the intelligence he needed. Royal biographer Raymond Lamont-Brown gives us one particular example. In 1907, Kaiser William II visited Highcliffe Castle, home of Major-General Edward Stuart-Wortley. Bertie did not attend this dinner, but Alice came over for dinner from Crichel Down with a party after the kaiser had enjoyed a day’s shooting. Alice was placed next to the kaiser at dinner, despite the fact that he had publicly denounced Bertie’s relationship with Alice, or “Favorita” as he referred to her. Alice was, of course, more than capable of rising to the challenge and attempted to defuse the situation rather than creating the tense atmosphere that might have been expected. The Austro-Hungarian diplomat Count Albert von Mensdorff Pouilly-Dietrichstein later wrote in his journal: “It was amusing to see how, at table, in disregard of all rules of precedence, the Favorita was seated next to the Kaiser, so she might have the opportunity of talking to him. I would like to know what sort of report she sent back to Sandringham.”21
Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, had a high opinion of Alice’s tact, loyalty, and discretion:22
I would like here to pay a tribute to her wonderful discretion, and to the excellent influence which she always exercised upon the King. She never utilised her knowledge to her own advantage, or that of her friends; and I never heard her repeat an unkind word of anybody. There were one or two occasions when the King was in disagreement with the Foreign Office and I was able, through her, to advise the King with a view to the policy of the Government being accepted. She was very loyal to the King and patriotic at the same time. It would have been difficult to find any other lady who would have filled the part of friend to King Edward with the same loyalty and discretion.23
If Bertie had adopted a “sofa-style” form of government, Alice’s advice and support were indispensable for its smooth running. The supreme example of Alice’s ability to drop a word or two in Bertie’s ear when it mattered was the potential crisis of 1908 when Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned as prime minister on health grounds and Herbert Asquith was elected as his replacement. Bertie and Alice were on their annual jaunt in Biarritz when the news was announced. Constitutionally, Bertie was required in London to swear in the new premier and attend a Privy Council meeting. But Bertie, who had no intention of breaking off his vacation with Alice, point-blank refused to return. This resulted in a predictable outcry in the press before Alice defused the situation with the skill of a born spin doctor by suggesting that Asquith travel out to Biarritz instead. Asquith arrived in Biarritz on May 7, 1908, and went straight to the Hôtel du Palais, where Alice was waiting for him. She must have briefed Asquith well, for his appointment was confirmed with the minimum of fuss: “I presented [the King] with a written resignation of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer; and then he said, ‘I appoint you Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury,’ whereupon I knelt down and kissed his hand. Voila tout!”24 Then Bertie invited Asquith to breakfast and they spent the next hour running through the details of the new cabinet.
The following day, Asquith thanked Alice for her support. “I must send you a line of most sincere thanks for your kind words and wise counsels, which I shall treasure and (I hope) profit by.”25
As well as being constantly anxious over Bertie’s security, and keeping a weather eye out for assassins, Alice worried about Bertie’s health. This was not without foundation. By the age of sixty, Bertie was morbidly obese. At five feet six inches in height, he was not tall, but weighed over 225 pounds with a waist measurement of forty-six inches. Always a keen trencherman, Bertie had become a compulsive eater, and Princess Alix was horrified by his voracious appetite. Even Alice Keppel was powerless when it came to suggesting that Bertie limit his food intake. And, although never a drunk, Bertie had started to drink heavily during the day, tippling champagne, Chablis, claret, and brandy alongside a succession of heavy meals.26
A heavy smoker, Bertie suffered from bronchitis and emphysema, the result of a lifetime’s chain-smoking Royal Derbies, Laurens, and Dembergi’s Egyptian cigarettes and Henry Clay Tsars and Corona y Coronas cigars.27 Recurrent coughing fits were treated with a throat spray to soothe symptoms that Bertie, and his family, secretly suspected were those of cancer. In keeping with the fashion of the time, Bertie traveled to Marienbad every year for the “cure.” This was the nineteenth-century equivalent of a spa break, an austere regime of diet, exercise, and drinking and bathing in the waters that were believed to have curative powers. For the more stubborn cases, there were enemas and a mild form of electric shock treatment, which was recommended for impotence. Alice never accompanied Bertie to Marienbad. While Biarritz was “safe,” a town where the couple were unlikely to run into major royalty, Marienbad was popular with the key players of the European royal families and Alice’s presence would be an embarrassment.
But even trips to Marienbad were not sufficient to tackle Bertie’s dreadful combination of obesity, chronic ill health, and lack of exercise, exacerbated by a knee injury sustained when Bertie fell downstairs at Baron Rothschild’s house, Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. According to Brookie, Daisy Warwick’s husband, it appeared that Bertie had slipped on the spiral staircase. Brookie hurried inside, and “found the Prince where the butler had left him, sitting on a step of the main circular staircase. He smiled reassuringly at me, although I could see at a glance that he must be in great pain, and said: ‘I fear I have broken something in my leg; my foot slipped, and as I fell I heard a bone crack.’ Two servants came up at that moment bearing a long invalid chair, and fearing from what the Prince had said that he had split or broken his knee-cap, I tied his leg straight out onto one of the parallel carrying poles. Then the local doctor arrived, and the Prince was allowed to sit on a sofa with his leg down, to have his breakfast before leaving. I have always thought that but for the severe strain involved by his straightened leg the subsequent illness would not have been so long or so difficult—but I will not blame the doctor. The Prince was ever the kindliest of men, and his great anxiety was to reassure Baron Ferdinand, who was too grieved to think he should have met with a serious accident under his roof.”28
To make matters worse, the chair broke as Bertie was being carried to his train, and he was unceremoniously dropped on the passenger bridge. Bertie’s knee never recovered from this incident. Alice Keppel was particularly concerned about the knee, and wrote to Bertie’s close friend, Portuguese diplomat the Marques de Soveral, urging him to get medical attention. Bertie “writes that it is very painful and stiff and that massage does it no good or rather harm as there is a slight ‘effusion’ on it. This I know ought to be seen at once, for if he gets water on the knee this might mean a stiff knee for life … do try what you can with your famous tact and, of course, don’t tell anyone I wrote to you.…”29
In 1901, as Queen Victoria lay on her deathbed, Bertie was preparing to leave for Osborne to be with the dying queen. Alix was away in Sandringham, and Alice at home with the Hon. George. On Queen Victoria’s last night on earth, it seems that the only person Bertie wanted to see was Agnes Keyser. Bertie dined alone with Agnes at 17 Grosvenor Crescent, and sat by the fire telling her that he felt unworthy to succeed the queen; then he left at dawn, taking a special train to the Isle of Wight.30
Queen Victoria finally passed away at 6:30 P.M. on January 22, 1901, “surrounded by her children and grandchildren,”31 and Bertie, at long last, became king. Court rumors circulated that, as soon as the queen was dead, Alix knelt and kissed her husband’s hand and addressed him as “Sire!”32 But Bertie, overwhelmed with loss, could only say: “It has come too late.”33 Alice Keppel was at home with her husband when she heard the news. They were not invited to the funeral.
Following Bertie’s accession to the throne, there was consternation among his lady friends that they might be dropped, just as Prince Hal had dropped Falstaff when he became Henry V. “When he succeeded to the throne he wrote to diverse of these ladies to say that though called to the other serious duties he hoped still to see them from time to time.”34 One apparent victim of Bertie’s accession was the actress Réjane, who had been Bertie’s mistress briefly in the early ’90s. In Denmark, some weeks after his succession, Bertie had walked right past her without acknowledging her. But the following day, Réjane received a diamond clip with a note that read: “With apologies from the King of England who is no longer the Prince of Wales.”35
Alice Keppel, as Bertie’s mistress in chief, had most to fear at this time, and became the object of snide comments from the young Winston Churchill. Writing to his mother, Jennie, and speculating as to her role in the new administration, Churchill made some disparaging comments about Bertie’s future court and sneeringly inquired whether “the Keppel” would be appointed 1st Lady of the Bedchamber.36 The Keppel retained her position and would be one of the most conspicuous guests at the coronation.
The coronation of King Edward VII had been scheduled for June 26, 1902. Bertie, although happy, was unwell. He had attended the spring race meetings, particularly enjoying the Coronation Derby at Epsom, but the weather was cold and wet, and Bertie caught a chill. Despite this, Bertie refused any requests to rest and attended a huge luncheon party for the diplomats visiting London for the coronation, and then went on to the coronation rehearsal at Westminster Abbey. At this point, Bertie was suddenly struck down with intense abdominal pain and an alarmingly distended belly. Bertie’s physicians, suspecting appendicitis, knew that Bertie required an operation immediately. Sir Frederick Treves, his surgeon, examined the king and found a hard swelling in his abdomen. Treves informed the royal physicians, Francis Laking and Sir Thomas Barlow, that the king was in grave danger. When Bertie asked what would happen if he refused the operation, he was told in no uncertain terms that he would die. Bertie refused to cancel the coronation, saying: “I will go to the Abbey, even if it kills me.”37 Laking sternly replied that if the king insisted on going to the Abbey, it would kill him. Eventually, he was persuaded that to refuse the operation really would be letting his subjects down. The coronation was canceled and the gala dinner for five hundred, prepared by the celebrity chef César Ritz, had to be distributed among the London poor, who feasted on jellied strawberries and snipe stuffed with pâté de foie gras. Monsieur Ritz, when he learned of this, collapsed with a seizure.38
As wild rumors and speculation circulated that the king was dying of cancer and would not live to see his own coronation, a bulletin, signed by Bertie’s doctors, was duly posted on the railings of Buckingham Palace: “The King is undergoing a surgical operation. The King is suffering from perityphilitis. His condition on Saturday was so satisfactory that it was hoped that with care His Majesty would be able to go through the Coronation ceremony. On Monday evening a recrudescence became manifest, rendering a surgical operation today.”39
Rather to the dismay of Treves, Alix insisted on remaining at her husband’s side for the operation. Given her interest in nursing, this was perhaps understandable, but as a laywoman she was clearly unprepared for the grisly reality of surgery. “Indeed, she helped to hold [Bertie] struggling during the administration of chloroform.”40 Treves later wrote: “I was anxious to prepare for the operation but did not like to take off my coat, tuck up my sleeves, and put on an apron whilst the Queen was present.”41 When Treves asked Alix to leave, she released her hold on the unconscious Bertie and quietly walked out.
Treves operated on the king and found a large abscess on his appendix, which when drained, contained over a pint of pus. Bertie would have died of blood poisoning had it not been removed. It was not necessary to remove his appendix. Before the operation, Bertie wrote a letter to Alice Keppel in which he said that “if he were dying, he felt sure that those about him would allow her to come to him.”42
Bertie’s first words on coming around from the operation were: “Where’s George?” This is commonly supposed to be a reference to his son, but the inquiry could just as easily have been Bertie calling for his faithful companion, his “dear Mrs George.”
The coronation finally took place six weeks later on August 9, 1902. Daisy, Countess of Warwick, attended the coronation in her own right, as a peeress, rolling up to Westminster Abbey in the old family coach.43 According to Lord Rosebery, Daisy was second only to Queen Alexandra for “stately grace and absolute beauty.”44 In a break from tradition, Bertie invited many of his former mistresses to the coronation.
Alix, now queen at last, outshone them all in a “dress of golden Indian gauze, glittering in state jewels, with a sceptre in either hand, walking slowly up Westminster Abbey, her fantastically long violet-velvet train behind her, a canopy held over her head by four tall duchesses.”45
Alix accepted the coronation ceremonies reverently and prayed throughout the ceremony; and she “prayed devoutly as the oil was placed on her brow.”46 Four tall peeresses, Daisy’s sister Millie Sutherland among them, placed the crown on Alix’s head. As soon as Alix had been crowned, there was a remarkable scene: all the peeresses, in one graceful movement, placed their coronets on their own heads. “Their white arms arching over their heads,” Bertie later declared, had resembled “a scene from a beautiful ballet.”47 As she took her place alongside the newly crowned King Edward VII, did Alix cast a swift glance at her rivals in the king’s loose box? There was no need to: Alix must have known that she had won all around.