DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK : SOCIALIST PHILANTHROPIST MISTRESS OF PRINCE EDWARD ALBERT : SHE FOUGHT FOR WOMEN and THE POOR

1861-1938

A 1905 oil painting by John Singer Sargent of

 FRANCES EVELYN MAYNARD 

who became DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK 

with her son who was fathered by Joseph Laycock, Maynard Greville. 

Daisy had five children, only one who was fathered by her husband.

Image from Wikimedia public domain

I chose this book by author Catherine Arnold to learn about  DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK. It serves as the primary reference for this month's posts. Let's talk about how it is that Daisy got involved with Edward.

The closest friends of Prince Edward Albert, the son of Queen Victoria, were called the Marlborough Set. These were rich people - upper class members of society in Britain - who often married for reasons beyond love, such as the preservation of estates and keeping the bloodlines within a small group of high-born people for the purposes of breeding. Often, once a wife had provided an heir or heirs, she was free to pursue affairs, so long as she was discreet. Everyone who played understood these rules. Generally, once married, any children a woman gave birth to were considered her husband's and he was to financially support those children. Therefore, today's DNA tests might prove that there were many a child not related to both its legal parents.

Queen Victoria was at her wits end with Edward Albert, her eldest son due to become King, and even blamed the stress he caused with his pleasure-seeking lifestyle for the early death of her beloved husband, Albert. 

Prince Edward was 59 before he became King and, though he attended to duty while in wait for the throne, what he really loved was seeking pleasure - wine, women, song, and the horses - the races and betting. Fun for Edward as a youth included mock duels with soda siphons, party games and high-jinks. It has been said, in general, that he may have been taken to Paris and introduced to sexuality at fourteen in a brothel. His parents were aware of his doings - at least enough to be scandalized. His mother thought that getting him married young would resolve the problem of Edward's promiscuity.

Known for arranging good marriages for her many children, Queen Victoria was instrumental in attracting Princess Alexandra of Denmark, known as "Alix," to marry Edward. Alix was 16 when the agreement was reached and they married in 1863 at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor. He was 21 and she was about eighteen. Though the couple had a "honeymoon period," Alix experienced one pregnancy after another. From the time she married until she was 26, when she stopped, the woman had six children. The Princess who would eventually became Queen had certainly done her duty. She was thought of as a 'long suffering" wife who knew her husband could never be faithful to her. 

If the Queen and the Royals knew or not, history has brought us the names of some of the women that the Prince who would become King Edward VII had as lovers and mistresses. Before he married, he had low-born English mistress and early in his marital years he had low-born French mistress. Among the more famous, he saw Cora Pearl, Catherine "Skittles" Walters, Giula "La Barucci" Beneni, Lady Susan Vane Tempest, Jennie Jerome Churchill,  Sarah Bernhardt, and many other married society ladies. Having a mistress or having an affair did not mean that the Prince was momentarily loyal or faithful. He was not a serial monogamist. He could be married, have mistresses, have affairs, and visit prostitutes too. As I see it, he was a Royal sex addict.

Edward was sometimes in danger of being named in rare but extremely scandalous divorce threats and proceedings and was known to try to intervene between wives, husbands, and lawyers. When it comes to Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, this would be the case.

Daisy's story will continue here in the next posts but, for now, let me say that the woman who started out life as Frances Evelyn Maynard in 1861 had many brothers to have adventures with. Her love of the outdoors where she could run wild and own a variety of animals including horses considered, she was thought to be a tomboy. Her mother had married Charles Maynard, the son of Henry Maynard, 3rd Viscount, who was quite athletic and spirited but also twenty years older. 

Still, when I began to read Catharine Arnold's account of how Daisy had sought out a extra-marital romance and fallen in love with a man other than her husband, I thought that her life might have all gone a different way. It seems that Prince Edward took full advantage of the fact that he had interceded with her on an earlier romantic dilemma to establish a relationship with her, expecting her gratitude...

Daisy was born during the winter in which London society was mourning the recently deceased Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and was significantly younger than Price Edward Albert. Her family was considered respectable members of the Peerage and had some famous ancestors such as Nell Gywn, a mistress of King Charles II and the Duke of Albans.

Her father had died three years after she was born, leaving their mother single with two daughters to raise. It was a shock to her mother to learn that her husband and willed his entire estate to daughter Daisy!  Daisy was a beautiful rich girl who was sought as a wife and had the expectation to marry up. Queen Victoria summoned her and wished to matchmake her with her youngest son, Leopold, but she got out of it with the help of Leopold. She married Francis Greville, Lord Brooke (later the 5th Earl of Warwick) in 1881 at Westminster Abbey. The Queen and Royals attended the wedding. But it seems Daisy was soon enough disappointed that her husband, and the life he provided her, while substantial, was too predictable and dull. 

Once married, the Countess of Warwick, Daisy Greville, who bore three children with her husband - the paternity is controversial - became a playing member of the Marlborough set. She also threw dazzling parties - for which she spent lavishly on gowns, jewelry, and all the rest.. Yet, she famously changed her point of view about life and began to help the poor, becoming a controversial socialist and personally going broke!

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You may be interested in reading posts about some of the women mentioned in this opening post.  I'll be including a bit about Lillie Langtry in this month's posts.

February 2025

LILLIE LANGTRY : THREE YEARS AS THE MISTRESS OF SEX ADDICT EDWARD ALBERT, PRINCE OF WALES IN THE 1870'S : SHE FOUND HER WAY FORWARD IN MODELING AND ACTING

July  2012     

CORA PEARL

BROUGHT OUT NAKED ON A SILVER DISH, LINED WITH VIOLETS

August 2024

CATHERINE WALTERS : IRISH-ENGLISH HORSEWOMAN WHO EVEN IMPRESSED THE FRENCH and RETIRED WELL

November 2025

SARAH BERNHARDT : DAUGHTER OF COURTESAN YOULE VAN HARD : TRANSFORMED HERSELF INTO A WORLD FAMOUS ACTRESS AND A NATIONAL ICON OF FRANCE KNOWN FOR HER OWN "SCANDALOUS" LIFE

 

BEFORE WE BEGIN : THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY IS ON MY MIND

We will begin the month of April shortly: 

Last February 2025, I featured Lilly Langtry, a mistress of King Edward VII (when he was still Prince Edward) as Mistress of the Month.  My primary source for that month's posts came from Ian Graham's book titled "Scarlet Women" in which she was one of the women Graham wrote about. A couple months ago I went to a library where there were several books on King Edward VII (Great Britain) and his 'love life'. I took them home and read them.

In the last several months, partly because of the Jeffrey Epstein Sex Trafficking Scandal, which has only gotten more scandalous since the release of the Epstein Files, I've been thinking about the former Prince Andrew (stripped of his titles, honorariums, and all opportunities to work for Great Britain as a member of the Royal Family, now simply Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor) and being raised as the second to the throne. I've been thinking of Sarah Ferguson, Andrew's wife and best friend since their divorce years ago. Both have been essentially banished and removed. 

I featured Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and back in September of 2023. I found her memoir unexpectedly well written and interesting.

I've been reading news articles and listening to media coverage about the Royal Family and the issues they must deal with. I sometimes listen to the YouTube station which is owned by and stars Lady Colin Campbell, who I featured here in June of 2024. (Lady Colin Campbell is also a book author, famous for publishing the first book about Princess Diana and Prince Charles and their marriage.)

I don't agree with all her opinions but, as one of her son's said recently, she is a character and perceptive and often right.

Lady Colin Campbell discussed the reality of wives and mistresses in her family and among the British settled in Jamaica in her memoir about growing up in "Daughter of Narcissus".

She doesn't much like Prince Harry or his wife, Princess Meghan, and she once defended Prince Andrew, until she learned he was lying. And, as you most recent readers know, I devoted January of this year to Virginia Guiffre, and her book about being an Epstein sex trafficked survivor. Prince Andrew is in deep trouble as a result of his involvement with the evil Epstein.

I wonder, if it's true that, perhaps, the ex-Prince Andrew and his, as I see it, sex addiction which got him in such terrible trouble, is an inherited trait. Is it genetic? Nature versus nurture? Does it have something to do with being born into high status and riches, with what would seem to be extreme opportunity, but also strong expectations and limitations on what he might do with his blessed life?  Prince Harry was long a second to the throne just as Andrew was, and he has established a life very different than what was expected of him but, though I sense he is happy in his marriage and with his children, he is condemned for abandoning those expectations that he would be a helpmate to his older brother, future King Prince William. But let's face it. Harry certainly did some running around and partying and had other relationships while remaining unmarried until he settled down with his wife, however controversial they are. (Lady Colin Campbell is just one British media person who heavily condemns him and his wife. Frankly, I don't know how it is that the both of them are still standing because it seems there is nothing either of them can do without international criticism.)

These days the privacy granted pre-Internet of persons of high birth and high achievement by the media is gone. Back in the day, the British tabloids might have called Andrew "Randy Andy" but the details were generally kept from us. What emerged were well researched books about these interesting persons who, it could be said, had the world in their hands.

Of all the British princes and kings who have had mistresses, perhaps it is true that Edward Albert, Prince of Wales who became King Edward VII, was among King's who had mistresses, the British Royal most known to be a sex addict. Lillie Langtry was not his first lover, but his first well known and accepted (i.e. official) mistress after his marriage. Said to have been introduced to sex very young - perhaps fourteen - in Paris, the young prince, well before his marriage at twenty-one, was reportedly avid for sex and also went to prostitutes. Though he had some work before he became King and more after, he went about his official duties distracted by and intent on pleasure.

I will be focused on this monarch, who was Queen Elizabeth II's great grandfather, and his mistresses over the next months. I hope you will join in our discovery!

Missy

POLLINATOR

 

LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH PASSED AT AGE 91 : A VERY FULL LIFE

Here are some obituaries about Lady Annabel Goldsmith that are quite interesting including photographs. 

BBC NEWS : LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH DIES AT 91

Excerpt: Her youngest child Ben said she was "quite simply irreplaceable".

He added: "We are bereft, not for her – because her life has been extraordinary and complete - but for us, because of the immense hole in our lives she leaves behind."

Mr. Goldsmith said: "I spoke to her every day for 45 years, she truly had my back and we loved each other very much. I will miss her terribly."

THE GUARDIAN : LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH OBITUARY

Excerpt: Goldsmith, who has died aged 91, was herself a celebrity, accessible to journalists and happy to explain about the men in her life at a time when talking openly about being a mistress was still vaguely scandalous. Having married Birley as a teenager in 1954, she began a relationship with the financier Sir James Goldsmith 10 years later, having discovered that her first husband was a serial adulterer – as, it turned out, was her second.

By the time they married in 1978, she had two children with him and would go on to have a third, to add to three with Birley. He then embarked on further affairs, and remarked: “If you marry your mistress, you create a vacancy.”

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WHAT MISTRESS OF THE MONTH ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS BLOG?

I know that the more hits a subject or post gets, the higher up in the ranking, and sometimes that just isn't fair because I spend a lot of time researching for newer subjects and posts too.

I wonder.  WHICH MISTRESS ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS BLOG?

Missy

CLOVER

 

ANNABELS PRIVATE MEMBERS CLUB : PRIVACY AND DISCRETION

The club currently features elaborate and beautiful holiday decorations for Halloween, Christmas, and such.

To quote the poster of this YouTube video, "It was, also, a place of romance where invitations meant that courtships had moved to a more serious level and numerous marriage proposals resulted. It summed up, quite simply, the most elegant nightclub and private dining anywhere in the world."

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OTHER BOOKS AUTHORED BY LADY ANNABEL GOLDSMITH (SHE LOVED DOGS!)

 

In this book Lady Annabel Goldsmith wrote about her childhood and growing up in a rich family, and her parents ; her father a liberal Member of Parliament who raised her after her mother died young of cancer. She married Mark Birley at the age of twenty, and had three children by him. She writes about her children, her affair with Sir James Goldsmith, but most of all some of the fascinating people who were part of her social life. You can see by the title that these people were welcomed into her home and friendship. Pelham cottage was the place she lived until she and Sir James Goldsmith finally got married and she moved.

I remember reading Annabel's memoir and she clearly loved dogs. She wrote this book about one of them.

This book is a lot of fun, as Annabel recounts Copper's adventures on the aristocratic social scene as well as the London buses, and well, you know that, like most dog owners, there had to be some premonitions about what this particular dog was up to ...

She contributed to this book, all about the life and death of best friends. Dogs were important to Annabel and her family and her garden at Ormeley Lodge has memorials to some of them. 

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