In response to Wilhelm’s proclamation, King Edward responded that he believed the Japanese were intelligent, brave, and chivalrous, just as civilized as the European nations, and the only difference was the pigmentation of their skin. It was this ever-present charm for all peoples of the world that made him such a beloved monarch, despite the few things – and the short amount of time on the throne, as we’ll find out about soon – that marked his reign.
The fact that he was friendly to all levels of society and the way he condemned prejudice in almost all its forms helped to cool tensions that had been building during his lifetime. It also worked to assuage republican groups (those that wanted a republic over a monarchy) to reduce tension further.
A Future King’s Cute Nickname
History will remember him as King Edward VII, but when he was born on November 9th, 1841, his parents called him Albert Edward, yet for some reason quickly started calling him “Bertie.” That’s where the first part of his eventual dirty nickname came from – it’s a slight manipulation of Albert. As the first son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he was the heir apparent to the throne of England.
That’s the kind of pressure that can drive anyone crazy, but Edward had to live with it for a long time – it was almost sixty years before he would ascend to the throne following his mother’s death. Though he had royal duties aplenty during the intervening time, he also had plenty of time to make all kinds of royal mischief.
A Tough Time Learning
The strictest parents can create the wildest and most unruly children, and it’s very possible that’s how Edward ended up the way he was. Both Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, were interested in making sure that Prince Edward grew up to be the proper, perfect little royal heir. The boy’s father, in particular, took great interest in his son’s education, but it would be the first of many times that Edward became a disappointment.
While Edward’s older sister Victoria was brilliant – and a good student – Edward didn’t enjoy learning that much. It’s said that he really wanted to impress his parents, but he wasn’t much of a student. Despite this, his teachers reported the young prince had plenty of charm. That’s pretty good for a prince, right? Not if you ask Edward’s parents.
A Crowd Pleaser
You’d think that a royal prince with plenty of charm would be a good thing, but the pressure on Prince Edward to succeed in his studies led to some poor outcomes. Still, before long, he realized how much more comfortable he was as a public figure – at the age of just nineteen, he was on his way to becoming a popular member of the family. He took an official tour of North America as the Prince of Wales.
He laid the cornerstone of Canada’s Parliament Hill, watched a tightrope walker cross Niagara Falls, and stayed with President James Buchanan in the White House. No matter where he went, massive crowds seemed to follow. It was the nineteenth-century version of following a band all over Europe. After years of wilting under his parents’ thumbs, the tour opened Edward’s eyes.
Returning Home a Changed Man
His time as a bad student and a beleaguered son had left Prince Edward as a shy, self-conscious boy with low self-esteem. However, after his trip across the pond, he returned with far more confidence than he had departed with. The stage was set for perhaps the biggest change of Prince Edward’s life, and that was the advent of the joys, the wonders, the beauty... of women.
When it comes to a young future king who was bursting with confidence and knew how to woo a crowd, it only makes sense that he would turn out to be a notorious charmer. His parents tried hard to get ahead of Edward's growing ability by doing something that every parent has tried to do at one point or another – setting him up with a nice young lady.
Perfect Marriage Material
A young prince was the perfect bachelor for many of the young ladies of the European courts, and Prince Edward’s parents pulled their best Jane Austen by playing matchmaker. Such was the way things were done in nineteenth-century England – and much of the rest of the world, too. In 1861, when Edward was twenty, his parents sent him abroad to Germany in order to, as they put it, watch some military maneuvers.
It was an odd reason to send him traveling across Europe, but his parents had another motive in mind – a chance meeting with Princess Alexandra of Denmark, or “Alix,” as her family called her. By all accounts, she was a stunner and a princess to boot. The perfect partner for a prince who was looking to settle down. Only one problem: Prince Edward wasn’t in any way looking to settle down.
So Far, So Good
When he arrived in Germany after going through a couple of other countries, Prince Edward just happened to run into Princess Alexandra. What were the odds? Pretty good, since his and her parents had arranged the meeting without telling Edward. Honestly, not letting him know that they were pushing for the meeting was the right tactic, knowing what we now know about the prince.
If they had plopped a woman in front of him and demanded he marry, it would have gone badly. Well, worse. The two actually hit it off, and before long, the families had a marriage agreement in place. There was a problem, though, and that problem was named Nellie. Dear Alix didn’t know what she was getting into. It wasn’t just the women, though – Edward’s actions had already caused a rift in the family.
Time in the Army
One of the things that Victoria and Albert tried to do in order to mold Prince Edward into a good little boy was to get him into the army. They say you enter the army as a boy and leave a man, but that isn’t exactly how things went for Edward. His time in the army was spent in Ireland with a bunch of other guys in the barracks, but there was plenty of time to discover the beauty of Ireland.
It was there that Edward met Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress, and it was only the first in what would be a long, long line of extramarital affairs. The two had actually met at a party a little while before while Nellie was in England, and when they bumped into each other in Ireland, they took things to the next level.
Away From Prying Eyes
His parents were far away, he was surrounded by army friends who would keep their mouths shut, and none of us could pretend to blame Edward for falling for an Irish girl. Edward certainly did leave the army a man, but not for the reason his parents were hoping. There’s a story that tells us Nellie hid inside the barracks for three days, hidden by Edward and the other cadets, while she and Edward...uh...played pinochle.
This all happened a while before Edward and his eventual wife, Princess Alexandra, would meet, and little Bertie was having a great time with it. Sadly, his actions would cause quite a lot of problems for the family and might have even had larger consequences for his father. The gossip mill started churning.
Spreading the Word
If books like “Pride and Prejudice” are to be believed, then this era of English history was big on spreading gossip. Once people discovered that the future King of England was fooling around, it became big news. It wasn’t long before this affair reached the ears of Edward’s parents, and they were incensed. Albert, in particular, was furious and traveled to his son in Ireland to try and smooth things out.
One imagines this includes putting a stop to the affair at any cost. Sadly, this decision turned out to be a poor one for both Edward and Albert. You see, Edward’s father was already a bit under the weather when he made the trip, and travel back then was a lot harder on a person than in our brave new world.
A Dangerous Walk in the Rain
Prince Albert was already ill when he traveled to Ireland in order to set his son straight, and one of the things they did together was take a long walk in the rain to hash things out. The trip ended up being a total failure not only because Edward’s womanizing ways refused to be snuffed out but the pouring rain ended up being a bad decision for Albert’s health.
Only two short weeks after this fateful walk, Albert passed away from what was said at the time to have been typhoid fever. More modern investigations have said that Albert’s ongoing stomach pains might have been an indication of Crohn’s disease, kidney failure, or even abdominal cancer. Regardless, Edward lost his father at the age of twenty. Despite Albert’s issues as a father, he might have been able to help Edward later on.
A Mother Turned Against Him
A great deal of ink has been spilled when it comes to Queen Victoria, and some of it is a simple rumor, but here are a few things that no one ever doubted: She loved her husband, and she hated her son. Taking those facts into account, how do you think she reacted when she found out the trip her husband had taken to visit their son resulted in Albert’s death?
She didn’t take it well. The proper phrase is “beside herself.” She wore mourning clothes for the REST OF HER LIFE. She still had forty years to go! Dislike of her troublesome son and the pain of losing the love of her life turned to anger, and she readily admitted she blamed Edward for her husband’s death.
Blaming the Boy
For whatever reason, Queen Victoria was never overly fond of Bertie, but this event changed the dynamic of their relationship for the worse forever. She directly blamed Edward, and when she once found him simply embarrassing, she came to despise him. She had a reason, yes, but it’s clear from modern records that Albert was likely not going to last too much longer even if he didn’t travel to Ireland.
Victoria even wrote to her eldest daughter after the fact: “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder.” “Him” being Edward. She easily and readily blamed Edward, and it even seemed like she was ready to continue despising him for as long as she could. It was a sad turn of events that might have driven Edward toward affection in other places.
Doing the Old Man Proud (Psych)
The event of his father’s death still affected Edward greatly. Perhaps it was because he felt responsible that he agreed to marry Princess Alexandra on March 10th, 1863, at Windsor Castle. He was twenty-one, and she was eighteen. It was what his father was hoping for – perhaps to get Edward to settle down, perhaps because he wanted his son to have a lifelong love like he did.
Edward married Alix, but he was the kind of man who regarded wedding vows more like guidelines than a solemn promise to be upheld at all costs. Not even the final wishes of his father, asking Edward to break things off with Nellie Clifden, was going to keep that wedding ring on Edward’s finger.
The Honeymoon Phase Was Quick
Pretty much right after Prince Edward was married, he reached out to Nellie and told her to come over for a little while. The two started up their affair almost as soon as he got back to London. One must feel bad for poor Princess Alexandra, who was almost certainly aware of her new husband’s actions despite the two of them just beginning their married life together. However, this affair with Clifden wouldn’t last too long.
That might seem like a good thing, but it was only because even Edward knew that one mistress wasn’t going to be enough for him. Despite being married AND having a mistress, Edward wasn’t going to stop canoodling. It was at this point that the man truly started to play the field.
Managing to Find Happiness
We’ll get to the infamous scandals in a bit, but let’s take a brief detour to talk about this royal marriage. You might be thinking that the life these two shared was a sad one, but it turned out not to have been the case. Somehow, they were happy together, but historians believe it was for one critical reason: Princess Alexandra put up with Edward’s philandering habit. Maybe she knew that it wouldn’t end up well for her if she didn’t allow it.
Maybe she just thought that was how married men – or perhaps just married royals – did things. Who’s to say? Anyway, she put up with his habit, and the two remained married up until Edward’s death ten years into the twentieth century. It's a little bit of a win for love, perhaps.
How Many Other Women Were There?
Even before Prince Edward met his eventual bride, he was doing plenty of sleeping around. After the two got married, things didn’t change much, unless you call him increasing his number of mistresses a whole lot a “change.” No one is truly sure of the exact number, but historians have been able to link at least fifty-five women to Edward.
Who knows how many one-night stands Edward had with the help or with women he met while traveling? Now, it should be said that nobody is certain all of these relationships “went the distance,” but many of them were private meetings with the women that remain a mystery. Even if there was no physical infidelity, there was almost certain emotional infidelity going on. And no doubt, some of the relationships got down and dirty, too.
The Public Gave Him a Nickname
Prince Edward, for all the running around he was doing, tried to keep his dalliances private. Unfortunately, he was still the crown prince of England, and even back then, there were a whole lot of rumor mills that were churning out story after story about what he was getting up to. Because of this, Prince Edward was given the nickname that many came to know him by: Dirty Bertie.
It was not a very princely moniker, but Edward only had himself to blame. Edward still tried to keep his nights out a secret, but with so many women sharing his bed, word was bound to get out. That’s not even counting the Parisian working girls that he was so fond of. With all those affairs, however, some of them were going to become more obvious as time went on.
The Lovechild
After wooing so many women, and before the more modern advent of reliable birth control, there was little chance that Edward wasn’t going to end up with a little problem on his hands. Either that or he was infertile, but it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t. In fact, there’s a certain amount of evidence to suggest that he quickly produced a lovechild with one Lady Susan Vane-Tempest since she had lost her husband right before meeting Prince Edward in 1864.
You know. MEETING. Now, Edward was quite the charmer, even toward a woman mourning her husband, which means that after a couple of years, the affair produced a child. A letter from one of Susan’s confidantes to Edward in 1871 stated that “the crisis was due within two or three months,” a clear allusion to Susan’s pregnancy.
Nothing Much Else Is Known About the Child
Lady Susan Vane-Tempest gave birth to Edward’s child in 1871 (you know, allegedly), but nothing much else is known about either her or the child. Susan didn’t mention the child to Edward again, but it’s unknown if this was due to coercion from the crown to avoid an even bigger scandal or if Susan wanted to keep to herself.
The secret went with her to her grave when she died only a few years later, in 1875, at the age of thirty-six. Edward never acknowledged his lovechild, and except for documents that became known after their lives, the child might not have ever been known to have been (almost certainly) his. It’s a sad story, yet in the love life of Prince Edward, it’s just a tiny piece of the whole tale.
A Much Bigger Scandal
Prince Edward got through his affair with Lady Vane-Tempest without much damage, but his next scandal was going to do quite a bit more for his public image. “Dirty Bertie” was going to get a whole heck of a lot dirtier very quickly. It came in 1869 after he started his affair with Vane-Tempest but before his child, and it was when Sir Charles Mordaunt, a Member of Parliament, planned to divorce his wife.
He threatened to name Prince Edward as the co-respondent in the suit – planning to basically declare that the Prince was committing adultery with Mordaunt’s wife. It was all because of some quite steamy letters that Edward was sending to Mordaunt’s wife. Edward was good at hiding his actions, but writing letters was another thing entirely.
Another Discovery
Saucy love letters were one thing, but they didn’t prove any infidelity on anyone’s part. But Sir Charles dug deeper, looking for more evidence that would prove that there was something going on. One day, Sir Charles decided to go home a little sooner than expected, and he found his wife and Prince Edward alone in the house together.
Now, they weren’t in bed, but this was during a time when meeting a married woman privately was almost as scandalous as actually doing the deed. Sir Charles was furious – enraged enough to kick the prince out of the house and then kill the two white ponies that they had been lounging near. Sir Charles even forced his wife to watch. Such a tale gives us a bit of a hint as to why his wife was spending time with another man.
Unable to Avoid the Press
Up to this point, Prince Edward had done a good job keeping most of his affairs out of the papers, but this kind of story was just too juicy to ignore. It was a big deal for quite a while, but eventually, the whole sordid affair came to a close with Sir Charles Mordaunt not naming Edward as a co-respondent in the divorce suit.
But he didn’t have to – everything that had already been said had dealt plenty of damage to Edward’s reputation. Sir Charles did prove in open court that Edward had visited while Charles was away, but the court couldn’t find Edward legally responsible for anything. However, even though Edward’s reputation suffered, it was nothing compared to what Lady Mordaunt went through.
Hysteria Was the Cause
While Edward got to keep sleeping around, Lady Mordaunt suffered quite a bit more from the whole experience. At the time, when a woman was put on trial, the defense would usually try to say that the woman had just lost her mind. In a word: hysteria. Lady Mordaunt’s lawyers claimed insanity as a defense for her adultery, and it actually worked.
However, she was quickly hidden away in private cottages and eventually a lunatic asylum before passing away in complete obscurity. Do we need to worry about how women that Edward fools around with keep passing away without any fanfare? We guess that’s how most people go, actually. Still, it’s a bit worrying for these ladies. But what about Edward himself?
Struck With Disease
The scandals were piling up around Edward, but even as he started getting more and more bad press, more and more people loved him. He was wildly charismatic and popular with the regular people of the United Kingdom and around the world, and something happened in 1871 that only improved his appeal. While staying at a hunting lodge with a number of other men, Prince Edward came down with typhoid fever, the same disease that allegedly took his father’s life.
The disease ravaged the lodge, and one of the other men who was staying with him lost his life to the infection. Edward clung to life, and the whole country waited, breath held, to see if he would survive. Thankfully, he pulled through, and the entire country celebrated. There was literal rejoicing. But why?
He Really Was a Man of the People
Sure, people might have been cheering because they didn’t want to see a man die from a disease, but Prince Edward was actually quite beloved among the people of the United Kingdom. He had his faults, but he was actually a rather kind person. Despite being a prince, he treated everyone he met with dignity and respect – it didn’t matter their class, race, or any other details about their lives.
He was sickened by the prejudice he found in his country, saying a different skin color or religion was no reason to treat a person differently. Back in the middle of the nineteenth century, that was quite a forward-thinking stance to take. Prince Edward was certainly a man who had some issues, but he had his good points as well.
Everyone Is Accepted
Oddly, one of the biggest scandals of the first half of Prince Edward’s life wasn’t what we would call scandalous nowadays – in fact, we’d probably call it the right thing to do. He loved women, and he also loved to gamble, and that was all well and good, but there was one thing that people of the day couldn’t abide – mingling with the Jewish!
Prejudice abounded among the elite upper crust of society in the day, but Edward didn’t give a whit about their rules. He was going to play by his own rules! He spent plenty of time with the rich Jewish Rothschild family. No doubt the lovely ladies of the family appreciated Edward a great deal, but there were many who found such friendships unbecoming.
Dressing the Part
Prince Edward was a lothario, a scandal magnet, and someone who could and would get along with almost anyone, but he also loved to get dressed up. He was a true style icon, and the clothes he chose to wear became popular all over Europe. The men of the world soon came to love his tweed suits, Homburg hats, and Norfolk jackets.
His hand still has a part in the world of fashion today – it was his doing that created the original black tie events, which are still held as the highest level of dress for men. Before he made his mark, men wore white ties and coats with tails to their fanciest events, but Edward liked the black tie – perhaps to reference his position as the black sheep of the family – and it’s become one of the most important pieces of men’s fashion to this day.
Buttons Can Be Complicated
Prince Edward did more than just popularize the black tie. A standard piece of men’s fashion advice comes from him as well. When wearing a suit coat or vest, you aren’t supposed to button the bottom button. But why not? It’s all thanks to Edward.
It turns out that the prince also liked to eat, and he gained weight so quickly that his tailors had to add a ton of buttons to contain his princely gut. When he finally slowed down, there were extras, so the bottom button remained unbuttoned. Either that, or he was too fat to get the last one closed. Either way, it’s now the norm to leave the bottom button unbuttoned on a vest or coat. Tailors shape the clothes that way on purpose now.
One of the Biggest Affairs
While surviving diseases and making his mark on fashion, Prince Edward was still chasing the ladies. Particularly married women, for some reason, but we suppose most women were married at the time. He kept his affairs out of the papers for a few years after the Mordaunt scandal but then came one of the biggest dalliances.
In 1877, he visited the theater for a bit of relaxation and got to meet actress Lillie Langtry, a star of the stage and a married woman. Maybe you can guess where this is going. Things got quite intense, as affairs tend to be, and the fact that Langtry was already married didn’t seem to matter – at least not to Edward. How did he do it? He was getting good at this sort of thing.
Fancy Meeting You Here
By this time, Prince Edward was a deft hand at meeting the women he had his eye on, and Lilly Langtry would soon find herself at a dinner party seated right next to the charming crown prince. We’re told that it was custom for the host to sit her husband at the complete opposite end of the table (though this might have just been a married couple thing).
There’s no doubt that Langtry, a charming person in her own right, and Prince Edward hit it off. It wasn’t long before the relationship moved to the next step. And there was no way to keep this one out of the papers – Langtry was a big name, and Prince Edward was one of the biggest names. However, by Edward’s standards, the affair didn’t last too long.
Daddy’s a Maybe
Things were going swimmingly for these two (except for the whole marital infidelity thing, of course) for three years, but then Langtry let Edward know that she was expecting. At that point, the relationship came to a screeching halt...sort of. It’s not that Edward found out about the child and ran away. Edward might have been a player, but he wasn’t a brute. It’s a little more complicated than it seems.
First, most people who have studied this don’t believe Edward was the father. It seems that Langtry was also a bit of a player herself. And while the physical relationship ended between the two, they continued being good friends for the rest of their lives. Edward even helped to support Langtry and the child for some time. Yes, Edward was truly a gent in most ways, and almost everybody knew it.
Nothing to Do
A question arises while reading about all the shenanigans that Edward got up to: didn’t he have royal duties to attend to? He might not have been ruling the country, but he was on councils and in meetings and kissing babies and that sort of thing, right? That turns out not to be the case. We’ve already detailed how Queen Victoria could barely stand the sight of her son, and she was also of the opinion that he was a complete and utter failure, refusing to let him take part in matters of state.
The most that she allowed him to do was the occasional public appearance that was nothing more than saying hello to a crowd – even Victoria couldn’t deny he had a stage presence – but that was about it. No wonder he found other ways to spend his time.
Traveling Abroad
During the 1880s and ‘90s, Prince Edward didn’t really spend all that much time in England. His mother – who was the nation’s ruler, remember – couldn’t stand to look at him. Can’t really blame the guy for wanting to get away from it all. Paris was the place to be for a man like him, and if you think his affairs are legendary now, just wait until you hear what he got up to in the city of lights.
Do you know what other name Paris is known by? The city of love. You can bet that Edward did all he could to make the name a reality. In fact, we’re told that he became something of a legend when it came to the city's seedy underbelly. That’s right. He became a legendary lover.
Not Spending Much Time at Home
While Edward was in Paris, he did have an official residence, but he didn’t really stay there a whole lot. We bet you can figure out where he was spending most of his time, though. The Parisian cat houses got a big supporter as soon as the prince moved into the city, and his favorite was one known as Le Chabanais, or “The dispute.” He was there so much that he had his own room.
The suite included his coat of arms over the bed as well as a huge bathtub made of copper with an immense figurehead that was half-woman and half-swan. The tub was legendary in its own right – Salvador Dali would eventually purchase it for a whopping 112 thousand francs. We’ve done our darndest to find out how much this would be worth now, and it looks like it is nearly two million dollars.
Getting Quite Comfortable
Edward didn’t just have a nice room and a big bathtub while he was staying in Le Chabanais – he was also the owner and utilizer of one of the most famous pieces of furniture ever. Its name was the Siège D'Amour, which translates more or less to “love chair.” It doesn’t look comfortable to sit in at all, but that’s because you aren’t really meant to sit in it.
You can probably see where we’re going with this one. It was designed to give the users a bunch of different options when it came to positioning and formats, and it was because of a particular reason. As should be obvious, Prince Edward had his vices, but it wasn’t just the allure of the fairer sex that made him weak in the knees.
Lovemaking Was a Safety Hazard
While Edward was gaga over the gals of the world, he also loved to belly up to the dining table – something that became harder to do as his gut expanded and he gained weight. Something that was also harder to do as he put on weight was a canoodle. His belly was getting so large that...sometimes things just wouldn’t fit, you know? It could get hard to maneuver.
In order to get past this impossible problem (it’s not like the man could lose weight or anything), Prince Edward employed a famous cabinetmaker named Louis Soubrier to design a love chair that would allow him to entertain working girls (sometimes more than one at once) without crushing them under his massive girth. Turns out the Victorian era wasn’t all prim and proper.
Bringing Joy Back to the World
Thanks to the death of Prince Edward’s father and the endless mourning period that his mother had begun, the United Kingdom, and England, in particular, was a bit of a dour place during the era. However, across the channel in France, it was a great deal different. Maybe Edward went there because of that, or maybe he was the cause, but it was a fun place to be if you liked to party.
Edward loved to spend time with the ladies of the night, but he also made plenty of public social appearances at places like the legendary nightclub Moulin Rouge, often with a different socialite, actress, or other famous lady on his arm with every appearance. Nothing was going to stop Edward from having a good life.
Well, There Was ONE Thing
It seems like Prince Edward’s life was all fun and games until you remember that he was the crown prince and did actually have a family. Not only was he, amazingly, still married to Princess Alexandra, but he also had a bunch of legitimate children at home. In fact, he and dear Alix had six children – the eldest of whom was Prince Albert Victor.
Surprisingly, despite the incredible escapades that were filling the papers and the bounds of this article, Edward proved to be a rather good father and enjoyed a good home life. For one thing, Princess Alexandra not only allowed Edward to gallivant with other women, but she also publicly recognized them and welcomed some of them into her home. Again, she could have been burying her resentment in order to avoid the trouble. Still, there’s a chance that she really didn’t mind it.
Not Everything Was Perfect
Edward seems like a hard guy to keep up with. It’s possible that Alex was just doing everything she could to go with the flow, knowing that he at least still treated her and the children well. Even though Edward spent a lot of time in Paris, the two were close and quite happy together. However, it wasn’t the perfect relationship by any means – of course, are they ever?
The couple had a total of six children, but one of them, Prince Alexander John, died just a day after he was born due to unknown causes. He was born prematurely and was quickly christened, but it was clear the child was not long for the world. It is reported that Edward wept as he personally laid the child in the tiny casket.
Maturing Bad Habits
Edward was getting up there in years, and even he was having a hard time keeping up with himself. In 1890, he even told his son George that he was getting too old for such amusements. Of course, he didn’t go cold turkey – Prince Edward would hold a mistress until the day he died. He just decided to slow down a little bit.
Entertain just a few ladies instead of what we assume to be the dozens he was splitting his time among. After doing so, however, he realized that he had more free time for some other pursuits. No, he didn’t take up writing haikus – he decided that he would get into gambling. And, since this was Prince Edward, he really, really got into gambling. In fact, it would turn into one of his biggest scandals.
Rolling the Dice
Despite spending the majority of his time using his love chair in Paris, Edward had avoided additional major scandals. He was due for another one. It happened in 1890 when he met up with a bunch of other members of the elite for a friendly game of high-stakes baccarat (despite it being against the law to do so at the time).
The gathering was at the home of a man named Arthur Wilson, who just so happened to catch a friend of Prince Edward, named Sir William Gordon-Cumming, cheating. Sure, it was bad...but would you be surprised if you found out that it turned into perhaps the biggest scandal to ever hit this particular royal family? Yes, this little game turned out worse than multiple possible love children!
Called to Testify
The way things went at the time was if you were accused of cheating, to go on the offensive and demand a retraction from the accusers. This is the tactic that Gordon-Cumming went with, and it turned into quite a big deal. Arthur Wilson refused to retract his accusation, and the next step was taking it to court.
Such a thing was bad enough for Edward since everybody knew that he was present at the illegal game, but it was about to get even worse. Since everybody knew that Edward was there, the court called him to testify, making it the first time that an heir to the throne had been called before an English court in over four hundred years. Amazingly, this would be the biggest blow to Edward’s reputation ever.
The Results of the Trial
We’re almost a little surprised to report that the courts did, indeed, find Gordon-Cumming guilty of cheating. It was more than a hundred years ago; things were a little bit different then. The Victorian era took this sort of thing seriously. One might say way too seriously, and they would probably be right.
Gordon-Cumming was kicked out of the army and practically ostracized from polite company, and Prince Edward, since he was Gordon-Cumming’s friend, took quite a hit to his reputation. The public turned against him in a way that he had never experienced before. Still, this was Dirty Bertie we’re talking about! If there’s one thing that he’s always been able to do, it’s get the public on his side. Don’t worry; they will come to love Prince Edward again. It would just take a little time.
Like Father, Like Son
Prince Edward wasn’t going to change his rule-breaking, womanizing, crowd-winning ways very soon, and it seems that his eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, took many cues from dear old Dad. Next in line for the throne after his father, Prince Albert Victor grew into a young man who had almost as many rumors swirling around him as there were about his father. Apparently, being the problem child can be genetic.
A great deal of talk surrounded the young prince. There were wild affairs and male workers of the illicit variety like his father, but there were a few differences. Rumors of that joined the conversation, and then talk that was even stranger than that – there were some people who seemed to think that this young man was the infamous Jack the Ripper, who went about ending the lives of nightwalkers in London.
Taken Before His Time
Prince Albert Victor, like his father, was a charmer, a tall, handsome young man who was engaged to be married to his cousin Princess Victoria Mary of Teck and was due to be appointed the Viceroy of Ireland, but then tragedy struck. The years 1889 to 1892 were an influenza pandemic in England, and the disease cared not who it struck down.
This included Prince Albert Victor, who passed away in 1892, less than a week after his twenty-eighth birthday. This was the second child that Prince Edward would lose, and it was clear from later letters that the loss had devastated him. Amazingly, this brought Prince Edward and his Queen mother together for a little while. Their relationship was still strained, but tragedy has a way of smoothing over such things.
Finding Solace Where He Could
“To lose our eldest son is one of those calamities one can never really get over… [I would] have given my life for him, as I put no value on mine.” Such a letter, written to his mother, tells us much about Prince Edward. After losing his son, Edward was lost, but he quickly found himself in the arms of yet another mistress after letting the habit slide for some time.
But this one was a little different. Edward was a changed man. At the age of fifty-six, Edward met Alice Keppel, who was only thirty years old, and Edward quickly got back to his old ways. It was the perfect arrangement for Edward, who had learned what kind of women make the best choice of mistress over the years.
The Advantages of Being the Other Woman
Keppel had a lot of advantages going for her when it came to her relationship with Prince Edward. First off, she was married because, for some reason, that’s the kind of woman that Edward liked. The prince would make frequent visits to Alice’s home, and it was always when the woman’s husband was conveniently out of town.
This could have been the prince doing his best to keep things on the down low, but there’s also the possibility that the husband was fully aware of what was going on in his own bed and choosing to look the other way when it happened. One could argue that last point heavily since both Alice and her husband made out pretty well from the relationship.
He Knows What the Ladies Like
Edward was known for treating his favorite ladies well, and that included after the affairs had ended. While he didn’t just hand over wads of cash, he did give Alice Keppel a gift that was still quite valuable: shares from a rubber company that were worth fifty thousand pounds at the time – which comes out to about seven and a half million dollars today. Quite the payday just to spend time with a charming member of royalty.
The husband got a little something out of it, too – Prince Edward recommended him for a new job that had a much higher salary. We have no idea if the husband was happy with the arrangement between his wife and the prince, but at least Edward knew the best way to keep things amicable in the family.
Big Meals for a Big Man
Prince Edward was a famously large man, and there’s only one way that happens – big meals. Yes, Edward was also famous for the incredible dinners that he threw, and they sometimes have to be seen to be believed. It was said that he ate five full meals a day, and many of them were immense ten-course extravaganzas with plenty of meat, bread, desserts, and alcohol to wash it all down.
Measurements tell us that by the time he was finally crowned king, his waist had reached a massive forty-eight inches. That sort of thing is a little more common nowadays (though still unhealthy), but back then, it was almost unheard of. He liked his big meals so much that he had a scale to weigh guests before and after meals, with the expectation that each guest would gain at least three pounds.
Unhealthy to the Extreme
Five meals a day! Ten courses per meal! It’s making us sick just thinking about it! But that’s not the only reason Prince Edward’s health was poor for most of his adult life: there was also the smoking habit he picked up early on. He was once estimated to go through twenty cigarettes AND twelve cigars daily.
He was there for a good time and not a long time, and he tried as hard as he could to have a good time during his time on Earth. Somehow, despite being an obese chain smoker, he never had any trouble with the ladies. This includes, to our surprise, the mother of another very famous Brit, Lady Randolph Churchill. Time to dish out the dirt.
A Woman After His Own Heart
Prince Edward knew his way around the ladies, but it turns out that Lady Randolph Churchill was also somewhat of a scandalous lady in the same way. There was no way that these two weren’t going to cross paths at some point. There’s no question about Winston Churchill’s parentage – he was nearing his twenties when all this began.
Lady Churchill was known as Jennie to her friends and had long been a married woman, but we all know that wasn’t going to stop anybody. Almost as soon as the two met, they started their affair, and it got pretty steamy by the standards of the day. Obviously, they were getting down and dirty, but the letters that they were sending each other were frankly scandalous. But you might not know if you didn’t read between the lines.
So That’s What the Kids Are Calling It Now
While Prince Edward and Lady Randolph were doing the nasty, their letters were still relatively chaste. This was the Victorian era, of course, so it’s not like they could put it all down on paper. Still, if you read it with the mind of someone from the time, the letters are downright juicy. Edward referred to Jennie as “ma chere,” and in turn, she would refer to him as “Tum tum.”
We...don’t know if that means more to someone of the time or if it’s just a funny nickname, but having a pet name means things must have been pretty serious. But those aren’t even the really good bits – there are a couple of things that might even get us modern folks a little hot under the collar.
Not Your Traditional Tea Ceremony
Reading between the lines becomes critical when it comes to the Victorian era. Their manner of speaking and the way they would offer information is far different from ours. For instance, if you read about Prince Edward looking forward to Japanese tea with Lady Randolph (and you weren’t reading an article about his scandalous life), you probably wouldn’t think anything of it.
However, this was a lot saucier than you might have thought. Lady Randolph Churchill would serve normal tea in a Japanese kimono – a loose-fitting garment that showed off some of her best qualities. The same letters would also mention something that was simply called “entertainment.” Now that we know what he meant by Japanese tea, it’s all too simple to figure out what entertainment meant.
The Love Triangle That Earned Him an Enemy
Up until this point, pretty much everyone except for his own mother loved Prince Edward, but that was about to change. It was because of yet another affair – this time, it was between Edward and a mistress named Daisy Greville. As so many relationships do, and even those of this variety, the two eventually decided to part ways, and Daisy instead moved on to the married Lord Charles Beresford, a friend of Edward’s.
Things went poorly between them. Prince Edward stepped in to try and smooth things over but ended up mostly siding with Daisy. This turned Beresford against the prince, destroying their friendship and earning him a rare enemy. We’re not sure if congratulations are in order, but it was the kind of thing that Edward hadn’t done much during his years.
Not a Very Good Marksman
While Edwards's life up to this point was mostly affairs and scandals and having a good time, he was still a member of the ruling class, and that meant that some people hated him simply for existing. An attempt on his life was made on the fourth of April, 1900, when a fifteen-year-old anarchist took shots at him at a train station. Incredibly, despite making multiple attempts to hit the prince, the boy missed every shot and apparently didn’t even do any damage.
While these days he probably would have gotten much more punishment, incredibly, the courts acquitted the child since he was underage. Let’s go over that again – the boy took multiple shots at the queen’s son, the future king, managed to not hurt anybody, and then the courts told him he was free to go.
His Time at Last
Prince Edward had been Dirty Bertie for a long time, but he was about to get another title: King. Despite Queen Victoria lasting a respectable eighty-one years, even she couldn’t hold the throne forever. Prince Edward was sixty years old, and it was finally time for him to become King Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India.
Victoria had never truly come to trust her eldest son, though they had managed to partially repair their relationship. One must admit, after a lifetime of being a scoundrel and a womanizer, there were probably plenty of people who wondered if the new king would be able to keep the nation afloat. However, being a charming man and a friend of the people isn’t the worst way to rule.
Even the Coronation Was Scandalous
It was a new era in England, and instead of the constant mourning and dour feelings of his mother’s reign, King Edward VII was going to make sure people had a little more joy in their lives. It all started with his coronation, which featured several of his mistresses. He even made sure that the organizers had set aside a special pew for them, and they were called “The king’s special ladies.”
It turns out that a crown on your head doesn’t magically change you into a different person – but it might just come with a better nickname. Instead of Dirty Bertie, Edward became “King Edward the Caresser,” which is a play on King Edward the Confessor, who was king from 1042 until his death in 1066. It was business as usual for the newer Edward.
Turns Out Mom Was Wrong
Despite being queen and empress, the most important thing in Queen Victoria’s life was the passing of her husband, Albert. Since it was more-or-less Edward’s fault it happened how it did, everything he did was tainted in her eyes. All of the scandals, big and small that popped up while she was alive just seemed to prove her right. But she simply couldn’t see – or didn’t believe – that Edward was actually one of the most popular men in England.
When he became king, the nation was filled with rejoicing. The writer J.B. Priestley even called him “the most popular king England has known since the earlier 1660s.” Looking at the timeline suggests Priestly was referring to Charles II, who was known as the Merry Monarch. He would end up being a better king than anyone would expect.
Finally, a Nickname That Doesn’t Sound Gross
Under Queen Victoria, England had been stern and stuffy, mirroring the queen herself and her decades-long mourning period. Edward VII was a breath of fresh air, and his relation to many of the other European courts earned him yet another moniker: the Uncle of Europe. Royal genealogists could connect him with almost every monarch on the entire continent.
After so long of the queen looking down on anybody that wanted to have fun, King Edward was going to change everything...but it turns out five ten-course meals, cigarettes, cigars, drinking, and sleeping around is going to make it hard for an old man (Edward was sixty when he took the throne) to rule for very long. It doesn’t matter how you treat your body – there are going to be some problems.
Political Opinions
As Prince of Wales, Edward was going around breaking a lot of normal precedents, and not just in bedrooms. He wanted to openly vote for W. E. Gladstone’s Representation of the People Bill, which extended the voting rights of the citizenry of the United Kingdom. While he wasn’t in favor of allowing women to vote, he did suggest that reformer Octavia Hill serve on the Commission for Working Class Housing.
In addition, he opposed Irish Home Rule, which would have seen Ireland rule itself as part of the United Kingdom, and he instead preferred something similar to a dual monarchy, which would have had him act as king of Ireland as well as Britain. Can’t really fault him too much for wanting to keep the power in his hand, can we?
Not a Fan of Every Change
While there were a lot of things moving around under King Edward VII, some things he didn’t appreciate so much. Despite his friendship with W. E. Gladstone, he didn’t much seem to like the man’s son, Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone. The younger Gladstone angered the king when he planned to permit Roman Catholic priests in vestments to carry the Host (the bread and cup of communion) through the streets of London.
He also appointed a pair of ladies, Lady Frances Balfour and Lady May Tennant, to serve on the royal commission on reforming divorce law. King Edward thought it was impossible to discuss divorce with either delicacy or decency with ladies present. It seems the youngest Gladstone was a bit of a target for Edward until Gladstone was sent to South Africa to act as Governor-General.
A Big Hand in the Army
One of the big things that King Edward VII did during his reign was the army, specifically that of army reform. After the failings of the Second Boer War (fought from 1899 to 1902) it was clear that some things had to change for England to remain a military might in the twentieth century. Some of the things that changed were a redesign of the army command, the creation of the Territorial Force, and the decision to create the Expeditionary Force to support France in the event of a war with Germany (good thing, that).
This reform also stretched to the royal navy, which underwent an extensive overhaul after the emergency of the Imperial German Navy as a high-level threat. While unknown at the time, these decisions would have lasting consequences when it came to battles fought.
Siding With Fisher
One of the bigger disputes that the king had to deal with when it came to the reorganization of the navy was between Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, who pushed for increased spending and broad deployment, and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Fisher, who wanted to focus on efficiency, getting rid of obsolete ships, and a strategic realignment.
The king would eventually side with Fisher (it’s said that he didn’t like Beresford). This split in the navy resulted in the forces themselves becoming split, forcing King Edward to choose a successor who had been retired for several years: Sir Arthur Wilson, who became First Sea Lord in 1910. He was the only man known to have been qualified for both camps of the division.
Notably, Progressive for the Time
Edward was rarely interested in politics (we know what he was really interested in, don’t we?), but he pushed a number of societal issues forward. For instance, he never used the “n-word,” despite it being in common parlance, saying that it was disgraceful. During an Anglo-German summit in Kiel between Wilhelm II of Germany and King Edward, Wilhelm began to speak about the “Yellow Peril” (referencing Asian countries such as China and Japan), believing it was a great peril to European nations and civilization.
Wilhelm believed that if left unchecked, the “yellow race” would be invading Europe. Wilhelm also attacked his British guests for supporting Japan over Russia, even going so far as to suggest they were committing “race treason” by doing so. King Edward wasn’t about to take that sitting down.
The Only Difference Was Their Skin
In response to Wilhelm’s proclamation, King Edward responded that he believed the Japanese were intelligent, brave, and chivalrous, just as civilized as the European nations, and the only difference was the pigmentation of their skin. It was this ever-present charm for all peoples of the world that made him such a beloved monarch, despite the few things – and the short amount of time on the throne, as we’ll find out about soon – that marked his reign.
The fact that he was friendly to all levels of society and the way he condemned prejudice in almost all its forms helped to cool tensions that had been building during his lifetime. It also worked to assuage republican groups (those that wanted a republic over a monarchy) to reduce tension further.
Not Lasting Very Long
Queen Victoria had been sitting on the throne for a whopping sixty-three years when she died. At the time, she had been the longest-reigning monarch ever, even after her grandfather, King George III, and she would only be knocked off the top spot by Queen Elizabeth II, who made it almost seven years longer. Yet Victoria’s son (and Elizabeth’s great-grandfather) didn’t even make it a full decade before there began to be big problems with his health.
During a state visit to Berlin in 1909, he fainted. While he recovered, it was clear his health was in a rapid decline. Only a year later he would collapse again during a visit to France, and this time it was clear that it was more serious. Unfortunately, this came at a bad time for the country.
A Government in Crisis
When Edward collapsed during his trip to France, the English government was going through a minor issue known as a constitutional crisis. The government was on one side of the fence, and the House of Lords was on the other side, and the two groups butted heads, making it difficult for them to pass a budget that would keep England running smoothly.
It’s the kind of thing that a king would normally have a big hand in helping to resolve, but Edward was too sick to travel – too sick to do almost anything when it came right down to it. What’s worse, the people who traveled with him kept his illness a secret, which made it seem like he was just doing what he had always been doing, running around Europe and having a good time.
A Complicated Matter of State
To call all the details of this crisis complicated is to undersell it. There were votes, vetoes, threats of forcing abdication, and, looming over all of it, the fact that the budget wasn’t being passed, which would have shut down the government. A January 1910 election resulted in a hung parliament. The king suggested a compromise that would let only fifty peers from either side of the parliament (the House of Lords and the more liberal government) vote, but this still wasn’t.
The Irish Parliamentary Party got involved, hoping to get rid of the ability of the Lords to block the introduction of home rule, threatening to vote against the budget in any form unless they got what they wanted. There was even a hullabaloo about the creation of peers. It was frightfully complicated.
Trying to Smooth Things Out
Thanks to a line that read “in the opinion of my advisors,” the king’s statement gave him an air of distance to the planned legislation that would end up restricting the Lords’ power to veto, changing it to the power to merely delay. We weren’t kidding when we said this was complicated. We bet it was complicated even if you were following it at the time.
After enough time, and enough proposals from both sides, King Edward began to find the whole thing (or maybe just single parts of it) simply disgusting. One man, Lord Esher, even argued that Edward would be entitled to dismiss the entire gosh-darned government “in extremis” rather than take the advice they had been giving him. This view has been called, among other things, obsolete and unhelpful.
Dedicated to the Cause
A lifestyle will eventually catch up to you, and Edward’s lifestyle had been anything but healthy for a long time. Indeed, the fact that he made it all the way to almost seventy years is something of a minor miracle. His health continued to worsen, yet he still took his role as king seriously. He continued working, pushing himself in yet another unhealthy manner, and on May 6th of 1910, he had what is described as “several heart attacks.”
Even after something that would waylay almost anybody, King Edward continued in his royal duties, saying that he would work to the end. Anybody who was close enough to know the facts probably knew that the end wasn’t far off. It’s very possible that Edward knew as well, but maybe he was ignoring the facts.
His Final Words
It wasn’t long before Edward was too weak to stand. Stuck in bed, it was now clear to everybody – including His Majesty himself – that the reign of King Edward VII was soon going to come to a close. He had a visit from his son George, who would shortly become King George V, who tried to cheer him up a little bit.
George said that his (Edward’s) horse had won at Kempton Park earlier that afternoon in a race, and Edward’s reply was a faint, “Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad.” They would prove to be his final spoken words. That same night, King Edward VII passed away at 11:30 P.M. on May sixth, the same day he had his heart attack. He was sixty-eight years old.
Alexandra Takes Control
After King Edward passed, Queen Alexandra refused to let anyone move his body for days afterward, though she did allow small groups to enter the room to pay their respects. It wasn’t until May 11th, five days later, that she had attendants dress Edward in his uniform and place him in a coffin, which was custom-made to fit his huge frame.
After yet another three days, the body was relocated to the throne room, where it lay in state for official visits. Despite the body being dead for eight days, Queen Alexandra noted that the body was still “wonderfully preserved.” Eight days is a pretty long time for a body to be wonderfully preserved, so this could have been Alexandra’s love of her husband coloring her mind a little bit.
England Turns Out in Force
King Edward lay in state for several days, and then attendants placed him on a carriage for a walk to Westminster Hall with the rest of his family. This included Edward’s favorite dog, a Wire Fox Terrier named Caesar, who walked with them. There was a short service, and then the family left as quickly as possible since King Edward’s adoring public was about to show up in force.
After the funeral, attendants opened the hall to the public, and it became clear that Edward was one of the most popular kings in English history. Weeping crowds filled the space for days – two days passed before the body was taken for burial, and it’s estimated that something like four hundred thousand people came to see it.
Visiting the Uncle of Europe
After King Edward’s death, almost every single monarch found in Europe traveled to England in order to pay respects. A historian commenting on the event called it “the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last.” Only four years later, World War I would mark an unmissable end to the era, greater and smaller, with monarchies falling in place of democracies, wars resetting entire countries, and alliances breaking and reforming in different ways countless times.
Some have even said that Edward VII’s funeral itself marked not only the passing of a beloved monarch but the end of a European age. The old Europe disappeared, and a new one – which would not become truly stable for many decades – was about to take its place.
A Mistress Who Missed Her Mister
Of course, we have to leave you with one final scandal. No doubt, many of the women that Edward had wooed down through the years were sad to hear of his health and imminent passing, but one of them in particular just had to say goodbye in person. Alice Keppel, one of the king’s later mistresses, dropped everything and ran to Buckingham Palace.
We don’t know if she actually ran, but we like to imagine that she did. When she arrived at the palace, she demanded to be let into the bedroom and was only let past the guards when she showed them a letter that was allegedly from the king himself. This would prove to be a poor decision on the guards’ part.
Making a Scene
Queen Alexandra, all her life, was the picture of grace and patience. She sat alongside her husband as he philandered his way up and down England, raising their children and producing a future king in the meantime. No doubt she was distraught at the loss of her husband, but when Alice Keppel arrived and threw herself onto the king’s body, even a queen who had been nothing but patient all her life had just about enough.
She finally took a stand...by asking the guards to remove Alice Keppel from the room. She’s quoted as saying, “Get that woman away.” It might not be the kind of thing that lands on the front of a tabloid mag these days, but we get the feeling it was quite the outburst from Alexandra.
No Longer Part of the Court
It should come as a surprise that the next king, King George V, didn’t want his father’s mistress hanging around the palace, which meant it was the end of Alice Keppel’s time at the court and in the upper echelons of society. This was still the woman who earned tens of thousands of pounds thanks to her “association” with King Edward VII, and even her husband had profited from it.
It’s no wonder that Alice was distraught – she might have thought that she just lost her meal ticket, but she was going to be fine one way or another. Or maybe King Edward just has that kind of effect on the women that he met. After all those years, he was a master at getting women to come over to his side.
Her Family Would Return
As it turns out, the English royal family hadn’t seen the last of Alice Keppel. Well, not the last of her family, at least. It turns out that Queen Elizabeth II’s first son, Prince Charles (now King Charles III), took after his ancestor just a tiny bit. Years after the shocking death of his first wife, Princess Diana, Prince Charles would remarry a woman named Camilla Parker Bowles.
She was referred to as his mistress, but we think this was an older form of the word that simply meant lady friend who hadn’t yet moved on to marriage in the eyes of the royal family. Or something like that, we’re not experts. It turns out that Camilla Parker Bowles is the great-granddaughter of Alice Keppel! Maybe old Alice wanted to make sure her family got in again, legitimately this time.
Setting His Son Up for Success
One can only wonder how well King Edward would have done as a monarch if he’d had the proper instruction and a mother who considered him worthy of love. Edward wasn’t about to repeat those mistakes. He was already past the average life expectancy when he took the throne and went about setting things up so his son Prince George would succeed.
George would go on to keep his country strong through a troubling time, spending twenty-six years on the throne. When Edward died, George is quoted as saying that he lost his best friend and the best of fathers. They were rarely at odds, and George was overwhelmed with grief. Losing a father is never easy, but some, like the future King George V, enjoyed their father’s company a great deal.
A Legendary Liege
A mother who hated him. Dozens upon dozens of mistresses (and possibly a lot more) that he spread his affection around with. A wife that stayed by his side despite all of it, and plenty of scandals all formed the odd, interesting life of King Edward VII. He was a hedonist, a philanderer, and a man who was loved from one side of Europe and the United Kingdom to the other – except for a few small hiccups here and there.
He even managed to pull off some well-remembered time as head of an Empire, including a few things that changed the world at least a little bit. We’re as surprised as everyone else that he managed to be as successful a king as he was, but maybe he was spending some of his rare free time studying how to rule.