He referred to the King as ‘Edward the Caresser’ and described the relationship with Alice as ‘quite particularly vulgar’.Īlice Keppel who wanted to be rich and surrounded by luxuries entertained lovers on her 'pouncing couch'īut some of the most revealing new evidence has come from interviews I conducted in the early Eighties, and am publishing for the first time, with a former housemaid, Agnes Cook. Other hints come from the diaries of contemporaries such as American novelist Henry James - who lived in England for decades. I am about to fire a Whitehall torpedo ahead.’ One diamond-encrusted brooch with a nautical theme came with a saucily suggestive note in the monarch’s own hand: ‘Position quarterly and open. It contained a fortune in jewellery, most of it gifts from the King to Alice. One piece was discovered in a strongbox that had lain forgotten at Drummonds Bank at Trafalgar Square for decades after Alice’s own death.
It was one of the many things the King adored about her.īut fragments of evidence have survived the intervening century to tell a fascinating story. His private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, destroyed mountains of letters and private papers in a bonfire that lasted days.Īlice, too, was famous for her discretion. The Royal Family did all they could, after his death in 1910, to destroy evidence of Edward VII’s long affair with Alice. another mistress to another Prince of Wales. It was Sonia who would become the grandmother of Camilla. Alice had two children, but her husband was father of neither - the first, Violet, was the daughter of an MP and banker named Ernest Beckett, and the second, Sonia, was almost certainly the child of the King himself.Īt Royal Ascot: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall who married in 2005 She would get money by the only means open to her: the sale of her body to wealthy men. Almost from the day she married the Hon George Keppel, third son of the 7th Earl of Albemarle, and discovered he was not the millionaire she had imagined, Alice was determined to be rich. Throughout his reign, which began in 1901, she liked to say she was the real Queen of England, and that his wife Alexandra was not his soulmate - she was.īut Bertie, as he was known to friends, was far from being the first wealthy man Mrs Keppel seduced for his money. Mrs Keppel became the Prince of Wales’s mistress in 1898 and remained his favourite until his death 12 years later. ‘Love is all very well,’ she liked to say, ‘but money is better.’
When she met the future king she was 29, dazzlingly good-looking, famously witty, and already had a reputation as a woman with a voracious sexual appetite who expected lavish rewards for her favours.
FORGOTTEN STRONGBOX CRIMSON COURT FULL
I have interviewed the servant who witnessed her antics - and I can now disclose her astonishing story in full for the first time. though she never had sex with her own husband, according to gossip below stairs. The great-grandmother was the most celebrated courtesan of the age, who became one of the richest women in Europe by sleeping with some of the world’s most influential aristocrats and tycoons.
That great-great-grandfather was Queen Victoria’s oldest son, Bertie, who would become Edward VII. The first time Prince Charles met Camilla Shand (today his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall), legend has it she seduced him with the words: ‘My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather - so how about it?’ Edward VII's favourite: It has been revealed in interview with servant for the first time that Alice Keppel (pictured) had an 12 year affair with Queen Victoria's oldest son
0 kommentar(er)
