PRINCE EDWARD ALBERT WAS FIFTY-NINE YEARS OLD WHEN HE FINALLY BECAME KING

image from Wikimedia Commons identified as 

Edward Albert, Prince of Wales wearing the uniform of the Admiral, 

dated 6 August 1891

He was 59 years old when he became King in 1901 at his mother, Queen Victoria's death and ruled until May of 1910. He was in waiting for the throne for most of his life and had plenty of time for pleasure which he indulged in without much concern that he would ever be confronted with scandal over it. His wife, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, had no choice but to tolerate his womanizing. 

He was short, said to be about five foot eight, maybe with lifts in his shoes, and he was portly, but his clothing was tailored to him and there have always been those who like a man in a uniform...

FRANCES EVELYN MAYNARD WAS NICKNAMED DAISY AS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL : AS A MARRIED WOMAN SHE ENTERED THE DANCE OF ROMANTIC AFFAIRS : SHE FELL IN LOVE WITH LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

In the passages below, please note that the future King Edward VII, is known as Prince Edward Albert - the Prince of Wales. Daisy's husband, Francis Greville, Lord Brooke (later the 5th Earl of Warwick) is known as Brookie. Bertie is the nickname that Queen Victoria called her husband, Prince Albert.

Daisy errored when she went and fell in love with Lord Charles Beresford.

She was a tomboy, but she grew into her femininity and was a sought after bride. She had personal riches, beauty, spirit, and loved to hunt but thought of fishing and shooting as dull. Soon, she and her husband would be socializing with the Royals, the Peerage, and soon she would find her husband, Francis Greville, Lord Brooke (later the 5th Earl of Warwick) dull too.

From the Chapter of Catherine Arnold's book called The Heart Has Its Reasons: Page 146-147

"From the start of her married life, Daisy regularly witnessed the courtly dance of romantic affairs played out against the backdrops of grand country houses, and longed to be part of it, regardless of Brookie's feelings.  It seems to have been a certain acceptance on Brookie's part that Daisy was a force of nature who made her own rules....."

....."It was in this milieu, as a married woman, that Daisy saw exactly how her contemporaries conducted their affairs.  Indeed, it appeared to Daisy that an affair was almost de rigueur, as long as both parties remained discreet.  Unfortunately, discretion was one quality of which Daisy was almost entirely devoid.

Determined to have a little fun of her own, and realizing that country house weekends were the ideal opportunity to bag a lover, Daisy began to cast around for a suitable man for the role. But finding the right individual proved to be more difficult than Daisy expected....

Daisy witnessed one man she was interested in going off with Lillie Langtry... And she did meat Prince Edward Albert, the Prince of Wales, at various society events such as balls and had danced with him and talked with him, but he was involved with Mrs. Cornwallis-West at the time.

"Having provided Brookie with three children, Daisy succeeded in sticking to her marriage vows, despite her headstrong and impulsive character, until the fateful day when she met Lord Charles Beresford. A close friend of the Prince of Wales, Charlie Beresford was the practical joker who had turned off the oxygen in Louis Battenberg's cabin while he was belowdecks "inspecting the facilities" with Lillie Langtry."

Excerpt page 148 : "Lord Charles Beresford (1848-1919) was Berties' former navel aide-de-camp, a decorated war hero, and fourth lord of the admiralty...  By the age of thirty-seven, Charlie Beresford was as outrageous as ever, much to the discomfort of his wife, Mina. Older than Charlie, and physically unprepossessing, Mina had resorted to cosmetics to improve her appearance.  This included false eyelashes, one of which was ripped off by a child who mistook it for a butterfly.  Exposing a nasty streak, Daisy took great pleasure in humiliating Mina....."

Mina would soon enough fight to keep her marriage and prove to be an excellent enemy to Daisy. To do so, to create peace and help Mina preserve her marriage, Prince Edward Albert himself would get involved. However, there would be a price to be paid by Daisy, her husband, and Charlie and his wife, Mina, too.

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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

LILLIE LANGTRY's PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP WITH EDWARD ALBERT, PRINCE OF WALES AS HIS OFFICIAL MISTRESS SPARKED HER INTEREST IN HORSES

Excerpt Page 244

Very soon, the prince (Edward Albert, Prince of Wales) acknowledged Lillie as his official mistress and appeared in public with her.  They were seen riding together in Hyde Park and attending horse races, which sparked Lillie's lifelong interest in horses.  They enjoyed yachting regattas and weekends in the country. She was finally able to wear the finest dresses, given free of charge by designers who wanted the famous Lillie Langtry to be seen wearing their creations.  Aristocrats and foreign royalty wanted to meet her too.  And everyone wanted to know about the events she attended, what she wore, how her hair was styled, what she said and what she did.  She was famous as a film star today.  In 1878, she was even presented to Queen Victoria...