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Queen Victoria's relationship with Prince Albert was passionate, admiring and intense; her children came a poor second. This was never more true than with Victoria's eldest son, Albert Edward, named after his father and known as 'Bertie'. Victoria's distance from Edward was not assuaged by his relationship with his stern and exacting father. Both parents instilled in Edward a conviction that he was irredeemably frivolous and unworthy to be king. He devoted most of his life to living up to the first judgement, and the last nine years of it to disproving the second. From discipline to dissipation Edward never showed any intellectual flair: the only book he read from start to finish is the melodramatic novel East Lynne. Nevertheless, from an early age he was subjected to a strict teaching regime, seemingly intended as much to discipline as to educate him. After a regimented childhood at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, he was sent to Cambridge; he was lodged four miles outside the town, in a bid to minimise the dissolute influence of his fellow students. The plan failed dismally; Edward rapidly developed Rabelaisian appetites for food, cigars and gambling. In 1861, midway through his time at Cambridge, Edward was sent to Ireland and enlisted in the army; he was expected to start as a junior officer and rise through the ranks. Unsurprisingly, Edward failed to live up to expectations. He disappointed his parents more severely by allowing Nellie Clifton, a local 'actress', to spend the night in his quarters. Albert was outraged when he heard of Edward's 'debauchery' and went to Cambridge to lecture Edward in person. Weeks later, Albert died. He appears to have been ill for some time, but the Queen blamed his death on a cold he caught while walking around Cambridge with Edward. 'That boy – I never can or shall look at him without a shudder,' wrote Victoria. Edward and Alix Edward was clearly in need of a wife. Research soon established that the eligible candidates – young, pedigreed and Protestant – numbered seven. Eventually the Palace selected Alexandra (Alix), daughter of the King of Denmark. Alix's loathing for Prussia – which invaded the Danish province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864 – was ill-matched with Victoria's Germanophilia; however, Alix and Edward were personally well-suited. They met twice in 1862, when he was 20 years old and she 17; on the second occasion he proposed marriage. They married six months later. Edward's marriage had little effect on the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. When Alix fell ill during her third pregnancy, Edward moved his desk into her bedroom so that they could be together during the day; however, he continued to devote his evenings to the high life. The long list of royal mistresses included Sarah Bernhardt and society beauty Lillie Langtry. In 1869, a friend's wife, Lady Harriet Mordaunt, even claimed that he was the father of her child; Edward denied any impropriety, and shortly afterwards Lady Harriet was declared insane. From scandal to sobriety With this record, it is unsurprising that Victoria regarded Edward as unfit to rule. However, the responsibility was not all his. Having shared much of her workload with Albert, Victoria reacted to the shock of being bereaved at the age of 42 by abandoning some of her duties – particularly those involving public appearances – and keeping a tight grip on the remainder. Edward's repeated requests for a role were rebuffed. His playboy lifestyle was fuelled by boredom as well as hedonism. Matters came to a head in 1891, when Edward appeared as a witness in a court case brought by William Gordon-Cumming, a friend who had been found cheating at baccarat. This was Edward's favourite game of chance, requiring no skill whatever – it was also illegal. Gordon-Cumming admitted to cheating on condition that the incident was kept quiet. When word got out, apparently thanks to Edward's mistress Daisy Brook ('the Babbling Brook'), Gordon-Cumming sued for slander. The case was scandalous, and – following such unwelcome publicity – the 50-year-old Prince's life took a more sober turn. A new mistress, Alice Keppel, was a steadying influence; Edward also began to take an interest in diplomacy. Denied a formal political role by his mother, he exerted informal influence through his extensive social circle, earning the title 'the Uncle of Europe'. King at last In 1901, Victoria died. Acceding at the age of 59, Edward rapidly put his mark on the royal establishment, reviving the State Opening of Parliament – a ceremony which Victoria had allowed to lapse – and donating Osborne House to the nation. In 1903, he made an unannounced tour of France, trading on his personal popularity to improve relations between the two countries. This daring – if constitutionally dubious – initiative helped to end Britain's policy of 'splendid isolation' in favour of the Entente Cordiale with France. This laid the foundations of the Triple Entente by which Britain would enter the First World War allied with France and Russia. His health destroyed by years of over-indulgence in food and tobacco, Edward died of bronchial asthma in 1910, aged 68. Relations with his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, were already strained. Four years later came the First World War, which ended Victoria's dream of Anglo-German friendship and destroyed the network of dynastic alliances that ruled Europe. Edward's brief reign, with its combination of showmanship, luxury and hard-edged politics, was an uneasy blend of 19th and 20th-century conceptions of the monarchy. No monarch after Edward would be permitted his lifestyle or his involvement in politics, as his grandson Edward VIII discovered. Equally, no monarch before Edward had his flair for publicity – or needed it. When Edward's reign ended, the modern monarchy began. |
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