AUTHOR SARAH BRADFORD ON ANNABEL'S RELATIONSHIP WITH PRINCESS DIANA : A MOTHER FIGURE TO THE MOTHERLESS DIANA

DIANA, Finally The Complete Story by Sarah Bradford 

Excerpt: "....the two women close to Diana for the remainder of her life were glamourous mother figures, Lady Annabel Goldsmith and Brazilian Ambassadress Lucia Fletcha de Lima. Another older woman, lady Bowker, was the recipient of many confidences about her love life.  Lady Annabel, a daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry, had formerly been married to Mark Birley, founder of the smartest of London nightclubs which he named after her. Glamourous, popular, and social, Lady Annabel had two sons and a daughter by Birley, and subsequently two more sons and a daughter by the fabulously rich Sir James Goldsmith, international financier and celebrated gambler. Annabel Elliot, Camilla Parker Bowles sister, was a particular friend of Annabel's and it was at her birthday party at the Goldsmith house, Ormeley Lodge. on Ham Common, that Diana's face-to-face interview with Camilla had taken place. The Camilla connection was, in a perverse way, an attraction for Diana, as was later the marriage of Annabel's beautiful daughter, Jemima Kahn, when the Pakistani connection became important to her.

Annabel was a contemporary of Diana's mother, Frances, and had known her well. Her own children ranged from Rupert Birley, born in 1955, to the youngest, Zak Goldsmith, born in 1980, and with nephews, nieces, and stepchildren the Goldsmith house supplied a wonderful family atmosphere that attracted Diana. Ben Goldsmith was just over two years older than William, and Diana would bring the children with her to marathon Sunday lunches at Ormeley..."

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ANNABEL : AN UNCONVENTIONAL LIFE : READ HER BOOK ON INTERNET ARCHIVE

INTERNET ARCHIVE : ANNABEL : AN UNCONVENTIONAL LIFE 

You can open an account and read page by page.

After checking three libraries that I hold cards with, as well as Google Books and Project Gutenberg, finally I found a copy of Annabel: An Unconventional Life, which came out about 2004 to share with you! I read cover to cover so long ago!  The photo on this edition shows Annabel as a young, smart women who liked to go clubbing, but other editions have a photo of Annabel, also from youth, in which she appears far more innocent!

You can read about her childhood, her debutante days, and page 173 starts the chapter Meeting Jimmy, as in Sir James Goldsmith, to whom she was first the Mistress of, and then a Wife. With him she had a second family. Jemima was born in 1974 when Annabel was 34 years old, Zac in 1975, when she was 35, and Ben, when she was 40...  This was a second serious relationship for Annabel, who already had three children with her first husband, Mark Birley. James Goldsmith wanted children with her. A friend of his told her the truth, that he was getting bored and wanted them. But she was still married to Mark Birley and was Goldsmith's mistress. Eventually they did marry, but then Goldsmith found another Mistress who lived in New York!

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QUEEN VICTORIA's MYSTERIOUS DAUGHTER (PRINCESS LOUISE) by LUCINDA HAWKSELY : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

 A Biography of Princess Louise by Lucinda Hawksley

This book held some surprises. Not familiar with Queen Victoria, other than to hear she had married her many children into so many noble households that she was called the Grandmother of Royal Europe, I had no idea that she had a daughter who unconventionally married a commoner, Princess Louise. Louise was Queen Victoria's sixth child and fourth daughter. This Princess was an artist and sculptor who created many excellently designed and executed statues to honor her mother which are still on public display. Much of this book is devoted to Louise's artistic achievement. 

There's a possibility, certainly the author suggests this as an explanation, that Louise was so unconventional that she actually had a child without marriage that was put up for adoption. (Who might that have been, we wonder, but there is no hint.) Officially, she had no children.

She was encouraged to marry but was hesitant to marry at all, as one man after another was dismissed as a possible husband. What Royal Princess could remain unmarried? She accepted the future 9th Duke of Argyll, Lorne, in 1870. Her siblings and her father, Bertie, were against the match but Queen Victoria prevailed. The marriage was no love match. On her honeymoon Princess Louise took along her dogs. It's possible that while the Duke accepted that she was barren, what might have happened is a sterilization by the doctor who delivered her illegitimate child or simply the birth of that child was too traumatic. It may be that the couple lived separate lives from the start. So why?

While I read the book, I considered another possibility, which the author did not, and that was that perhaps Louise, illegitimate child or not, simply wasn't heterosexual. She would not have been the only person who found themselves uninterested in marriage, or men, or who was married to another person who was not heterosexual, in order to be socially acceptable. 

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BARBARA VILLIERS - PALMER : 1ST COUNTESS OF CASTLEMAINE and DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND : THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ENGLISH KING CHARLES II : 1660-1670 : FIVE CHILDREN WITH THE KING

BARBARA VILLIERS - COUNTESS OF CASTLEMAINE and DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND 

1640 - 1709

This month I've elected Barbara Villiers to our list of Royal Mistresses. Barbara, who lived in 17th century England, had many admirers in her lifetime and she was apparently aware of her beauty as a young enchantress and suffered the reputation of being a 'whore.' She became, significantly, the favorite of King Charles II for a decade or more, and for a time had such influence over him that she was called 'The Uncrowned Queen" or, said, with some sarcasm, "The Lady." Not married at the time that he began his relationship with Barbara, the King did marry Catherine of Braganza, of Portugal. The pretty but dull new Queen, who brought significant wealth and political alliances with her, tried to turn her arranged marriage into a true love match but failed.. He married her about the same time that Barbara was in advanced pregnancy with her second child, with unchallenged paternity by the King. But then, Barbara likely had an involvement before her marriage. In fact, she might have become the mistress of the King before she was married.

Born in 1640, about the time that the English Civil War, Barbara Villiers' noble family, who made their fortune in sheep, became impoverished because of it. Her family had been ennobled and associated with King Charles I before she was born. They were Royalists and it would take some time for the King Charles II to regain power. By the time she was of marriageable age, Barbara had few good marriage prospects and was just one more young Royalist woman, pretty but penniless, who liked to party and had a light hearted attitude towards life. Her first love, a young widower, an Earl, dumped her to marry a rich woman and so it went. But then she did marry, at the age of 19, to Roger Palmer, a Catholic who her family didn't approve of. What could her husband do about her involvement with the King? Not much. So began her career as an important mistress of the King and mother.

The King was savvy. He made Barbara Villiers - Palmer's husband Baron Limerick the Earl of Castlemaine in 1661, thus giving Barbara Palmer the title of 1st Countess of Castlemaine. After she gave birth to a son by the King, Barbara and Roger officially separated but stayed married. All five of the children she had by the King in their decade of relationship would be assumed - by some - to be her husband's offspring. (To this day there is some dispute over it.) The titles would have to be passed down only to Roger's heirs ; Barbara's  relationship with the King and these children were not so secret, for the three middle children were also given the name FitzRoy, meaning Illegitimate Royal offspring. In this way, however, Roger Palmer could save face if he needed to and the children would have the financial support needed to raise them. The titles were for Ireland and it was there that Palmer would need to go. Roger Palmer was never known to have a child and, frankly, I do wonder if he knew he was being married to Barbara for practical reasons all along.

She gave birth to Anne in 1661, Charles in 1662, Henry in 1663, George in 1665, and Barbara in 1672. Barbara is the child who there is the strongest suggestion of having yet another birth father. But Barbara, in a volatile argument with the King, demanded that he recognize and support this child too.

What was true?  First that more than one man claimed children with her, suggesting that Barbara had many paramours over the years, men in love enough with her to state that a child she gave birth to was theirs, meaning they would want to support that child and see him or her as an heir.

All these hundreds of years later, her descendants include some prominent British people you have heard of ***; Princess Diana and her children, Prince William and Prince Harry through her son, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton and Sarah Ferguson, until recently the Duchess of York, through Barbara's daughter, Lady Anne Palmer, later FitzRoy.  (Lady Anne became the Duchess of Sussex!)

The King took other mistresses through the years and is said to have had twelve children, maybe fourteen, with all of them. His wife, the Queen, had three miscarriages and never did give him an heir.

*** This genealogy information culled from Wikipedia.

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A MERRY OLDE ENGLAND CHRISTMAS

It happens.... 

Hello My Dear Readers...

In the Mediterranean climate of Southern California this season, palm trees swaying in the breeze and beach days still possible, I imagine instead the snowy Continental Climate of Europe or the Temperate Maritime Climate of the British Isles. I listen to classical music and I make pots of tea and bake some scones - or at least purchase some from Trader Joes market. Though I no longer put up a Christmas tree, I do like to have a few branches of fresh pine in the house to scent the air. I arrange ornaments in bowls as centerpieces for the table. I pull out old photographs and a few toys that were mine as a child and leave them out to look at. Sometimes I just want to be alone with a good book. Sometimes I indulge myself socially. I don't have a fireplace but if you're from the snow belt, well, you might be amazed at how many people here do. There's a smell of wood fire in the air on the colder nights. (Few of us actually run our heaters unless we have a cold streak. Instead we actually get under quilts.) If ever there's a time to wear flannel here, this is the time.  

In order to celebrate Merry Olde England, I've mined past posts to bring you a variety of Great British mistresses. You can use the side bar where past posts are archived to bring up the entire year and month and read through... Some interesting reading awaits you as you nosh on crackers and cheese and a glass of wine.

So cozy up and enjoy the season with me!

Missy

PS:  I do have the names of some British Isle's Mistresses I haven't covered yet. If you have suggestions please leave me a comment. If you want your comment to remain unpublished, just start out your message with the words Do Not Publish!

THE PRINCESS SPY BY LARRY LOFTIS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

This book was just so exciting!  The author Larry Loftis did a find job of presenting the authenticity of Aline Griffith (also known as Aline Griffith Dexter) who spied for the OSS, a predecessor to the CIA, during World War II.  A college graduate from a small town in New York who was patriotic and wanted to contribute to the war effort, she became a spy in a coding office in Spain. She managed to do this while also able to hold down a full time job and do a lot of socializing, weaving her life with the upper class and high society of Spain at the time.  

Aline, mixed with the politicians, the bull fighters, the women who ordered luxury clothing from Balenciaga. In the process, she met the man who she eventually married, who came from one of the most prestigious and wealthy families of all in Spain. Though he was simply named Luis Figueroa, as time went on, and his grandfather and father died, he rose to the title of Romanones, as she did. Both Catholic, they married for better or worse and it seems it was mostly for the better. 

On the International Best Dressed list for years, a fashion icon, Aline Griffith, the girl who had graduated from college and become a Hattie Carnegie model in New York, also bore three sons, and did a lot to help the United States and its Allies to win the war in Europe. 

The trouble is that Aline wrote five books in her life, two non- fiction, two memoir, one a novel.  The memoirs and novel were about her days as a spy but she may have changed some things in them to, as they say, protect the innocent, enough so that there was a question about how much truth the books contained.

I confess that I read the all years ago and I loved them. The language was direct and beautifully unique to her and I got a fine feel for her personality and her daring

The author of The Princess Spy knew Aline Griffith had  been accused of making it all up and also questioned if she had ever spied. Before marriage she had told Luis the truth and he laughed it off, so perhaps her femininity and other aspects of her character and behavior threw people off. Perhaps that people could not possibly think she was capable of spying was an excellent cover!

Larry Loftis, the author, used NARA (National Archives) and other sources to verify that yes, Aline really was a spy. Loftis was able to discover the names of the various operatives (spies), and what their code names were, and what code names Aline had given them. He was also able to confirm some of her reportage. Overall, I was a bit disappointed to learn that he did think she had changed so much in her works that they were all fictive. I reason that some of this might have been because her need to protect others but also because what records were kept of the spies by the government was limited. I also know that no memoir or even autobiography is going to cover every moment of a person's life. It's always possible that there was much to be found that was not, maybe because it was destroyed.  And mostly, would any person who spied be willing to tell the whole truth and nothing but?

I want to respect this author, who also wrote another book about a woman who spied, respect for all this effort, but I have to tell you that I still think Aline, Countess of Romanones' books are worth the read. I think she did a fine job of writing them and I would not be surprised if because of those books more women applied to work for the secret services.

Below are just two of her books!

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LONELINESS WAS AN OLD FRIEND : SARAH RESIGNS FROM THE FIRM AND HER MARRIAGE and IS ENTRAPPED IN SCANDAL

Page 177 : For years I hauled the emotion around as my own furtive burden - the hard gauge of loneliness, after all, is the lack of someone in whom you can confide.  But I was losing control over what feelings I showed and where I showed them.  My private anguish began seeping into my public persona, that flossy shell that was supposed to be all-right-Jack at all times.

Pages 178 -179 : On November 2, 1989, four months pregnant, I arrived in Houston to pay tribute to that city's Grand Opera. I stayed at the home of Lynn Wyatt.  For five days I attended to duty... I also met Steve Wyatt, Lynn's son, and a friend of his named Pricilla Phillips.  We fell to talking -- about the mountains, I think, which they loved as much as I did - and within minutes we seemed like old cronies.  

Steve and Pricilla were less inhibited than the people I knew in London, more open to matters of the spirit; they both meditated which I found intriguing.  When they were around, the darkness lost its power.

Page 197 : For the Merry Wives of Windsor, as the press called Diana and me, 1991 would be a year of unrest.  The two of us were groping in the dark - we were the blind leading the blind out of our Brother's Grimm nightmare.  We had no idea where we were headed, but we knew that we could not sit pat.

Page 202 -203 : The events of annus horriblis were a long time germinating. In May of 1990, I had taken a brief holiday on the Moroccan coast with Pricilla....  I had no way of knowing that an anonymous tipster had called the London tabloid Today and reported that Steve Wyatt was with me in Morocco - an absolute falsehood.... The whole invention was flimsy and ridiculous, a web of fabricated facts" and harmless pictures. ... New Scotland Yard was called into investigate and came up with nothing.  But one police source told the press the obvious - that the photographs might have been planted to embarrass me, "as part of a conspiracy to tarnish her image and destroy her marriage."

Page 205 : At the Palace, I now realized, I had sold myself into a package deal. To be married to Andrew was to be we to The Film, and I had to get out.  No longer could I feign to respect, honor, and obey that institution.  It was one thing to live in a gilded cage; people trade freedom for security all the time.  it was another when they electrified the bars of that cage and aimed their heartless sights your way, as though it were Saturday at Sandringham and you were the prize pheasant.....  On January 21... I told Andrew at dinner that I thought we should separate.  We were both very sad; it was the last thing we had wanted.  But he saw my resignation and did not try to argue: If this will make you happy, then I still stand by you."

Page 207: Nothing had changed.  But everything had changed.  Within days of our trip to Sandringham, I was cut out of the Court Circular.  Engagements were canceled without notice or explanation.  ....  (When Diana was separated from Charles later that year, her calendar was unaffected.)

Page 208: Apparently non gratis throughout the Western World, I  was an absolute nonperson in Buckingham Palace.

***

Sarah had been warned by Andrew that it would be difficult, but as they were separated but not divorced, he still considered her his wife. She had her titles. With two children now, Beatrice and Eugenie, she did move out of  Sunninghill to a rental house called Romeda Lodge knowing her housing allowance would not cover the rent. She had ambitions to turn her Budgie books into more - perhaps film or television.  And when she re-met John Bryan in 1992, who she and Andrew first met in 1990 at a dinner party, she asked him to be her agent. The man was full of fresh ideas. Trusting him, she even gave him power of attorney. It never occurred to her that he might be using her as a passport to a higher social circle where he could sell high-technology investments. It was while on a vacation to St. Tropez, booked under assumed names, that the infamous toe-sucking pictures were taken and they were just joking around at the time. Her daughters were there. It wasn't sexual, she says. Once again there was a possibility that she was set up. She says she believes a photographer and his assistance photographed them for three days, basically spying and waiting for a scandalous photo  She believes The Firm colluded with the press by leaking details of her whereabouts.

***

Sarah, the Duchess of York's book has had an effect on me that I didn't expect.  It strengthens the complaints of Princess Diana about the Firm and frankly the suspicions that Dodi Fayed's father and others have had that the accident that killed Diana was a set up- not that Sarah discusses that but because she reports having a truly horrible time with The Firm. It also strengthens the complaints of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Now, the the other book I've looked at, which I'll review soon, suggests that Fergie had an affair with Steve Wynn and then exchanged him for John Bryan, and that John Bryan was an opportunist. It suggests that Sarah was clever and had these affairs to get back at her husband, who is depicted as a bit hapless in the situation. 

Stay tuned!

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THE WEDDING, THE HONEYMOON, THE REALIZATION THAT THE MARRIAGE ISN'T WORKING

Wedding gifts had come in from around the world and were stored in the Buckingham Palace ballroom.  When Sarah and Andrew married there were 1,800 guess in Westminster Abbey. Her parents had united to throw a dinner dance for the couple.  Sarah Ferguson, called Fergie in the media, wore a coronet of gardenias - his favorite flower - in her hair and a ivory dress that she'd lost twenty-six pounds to fit into by eating mostly meat and oranges. It had a seventeen foot rain. Horses pulled The Glass Coach, she and her father inside, waving to the crows.  A million people lined the one mile route. Sarah Ferguson's new title was Princess Andrew and Duchess of York, as well as Countess of Inverness and Baroness of Killyleagh.  She now outranked Princess Margaret, The Queens's sister, and Princess Anne, The Queen's daughter. Once the marriage books were signed, her flowery coronet was replaced with a diamond tiara .

On the HMS Britannia, the Royal Yacht, with a crew of 276 yet, there was just the two of them aboard. But on the way back from Portugal other members of the Royal Family were let on.  From this point on privacy and time together would be at a minimum.

Within days upon the return home Andrew received an assignment a hundred fifty miles from London.  As a navel wife she could not expect him to be home much.  He would be home on the average forty-two days a years.

Sarah was left to just get on with it.  She felt isolated and full of self doubt.  And she was expected to do royal engagements to represent her new, Royal, family.

Page 115 : "I now shared Andrew's  private secretary, who coordinated our public lives, and his equerry, the number two man, an officer of secondment from the military.  But I worked most directly with my lady-in-waiting, my personal secretary, my dresser, and a lady clerk or two.  Also at my service were two protection officers, the household valet, my chauffeur, and various Palace Butlers and footmen...

Page 116: "I would ultimately collect 15 fluffy formal ball gowns, for state affairs and top-tier dinners; another 25 long dressed for slightly less formal occasions; 40 cocktail dresses; 150 day suits; 60 hats and 200 pairs of shoes.  .... 

Sarah had to change clothes three or four times a day and get quick about it.  Everything, from wardrobe, to food from the kitchen for dinner the next day had to be determined at least the day before.  The was no kitchen in the apartment, no food if she got a midnight urge to eat.

Socially she went everywhere. Sarah soon got her confidence about meeting people and speaking in public, but she felt lonely and alienated. 

Celebrated in the press, Sarah also felt the challenge personally. She attempted to participate in every sport, even if she performed badly.  She wanted to be a 'sport." In her effort to please she decided she would learn to fly a helicopter, just as her husband, Prince Andrew, did. First she learned to fly small fixed winged planes.  Then in 1987 she got her helicopter license.  Would it never be enough? When Sarah went on a rugged expedition in Canada's Northwest Territory that included a two week canoe trip, she wondered what would be. She wanted to spend more time with her husband.

***

Through all this she also experienced pregnancy twice.  By the time she had their first child, Beatrice, Sarah sensed the marriage was in trouble and that the connection she had with Andrew was weakening. She was not given the permission to be a typical navy wife and live near whatever station he was assigned to.  She followed him on a trip to Australia, leaving the baby at home to be cared for by others, and was accused of being a bad mother. People were also tired of Fergie and her hijinks.  Princess Diana's popularity went up while hers went down. That should have been a bit of relief.

***

Page 166 : ... "Less than three years into my marriage, as the monarchy teetered in a new and uncertain time, The Firm would have its scapegoat, its maiden for the pyre.  Always considerate, she had brought her own matches and kindling.... She would be cooked to order."

Page 169 : "The reality was something else.  For I had married the second son, and that made all the difference.  While Andrew received a moderate sum from the Civil List, it went for the cost of official engagements and for staff and office expenses.  As for my husband's personal income, the Royal Navy might provide free room and board and a chance to see the world, but it was no place to make one's fortune. In all our years together, Andrew's income never exceeded $50.000.

***

Sarah went on to detail how she - and Andrew - came to be terribly in debt, partly it was generosity to staff, but also a shopping habit, with much concern about the right clothes, after being considered overly bowed and dumpy in the late 1980's.

Not given enough to pay the bills and told that as a royal she could not work, Sarah rebelled and made a first attempt to earn money. She turned her helicopter piloting experience into to children's books. Budgie the Little Helicopter and Budgie at Bendicks Point came out in 1989. Over time Sarah, Duchess of York earned about half a million dollars from these books.

But as for the marriage, it was not working.

Sarah told Queen Elisabeth and Prince Phillip that she could not cope with the separations from Andrew. Prince Phillip was especially unkind.

Page 175: "And so Andrew and I carried on in our two distant worlds. By 1989 we were sharing less and less, till we lost the stitch of fabric we'd been weaving together..."

Excerpts chosen by me - Missy

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PURPLE ROYAL

 

MARGUERITE ALIBERT - SEX WORKER, COURTESAN, MISTRESS, WIFE - HER MEN and the PRINCE OF WALES : HIS LOVE LETTERS MAY HAVE SHIELDED HER FROM THE LAW

MARGUERITE ALIBERT

1890 - 1971

Two decades before he met Wallis Simpson, the Prince of Wales had a mistress he met in Paris, a famous courtesan who had started out as a 16 year old sex worker, Marguerite Alibert.  Years later when she was tried for the murder of her third husband, it was the letters she had from the Prince that provided her protection from the law. Or so it is thought.  Andrew Rose's book details the events in Paris, in England, in Egypt, and in the seasons in which the high living set traveled and enjoyed their many pleasures.

The future King Edward VIII, who would give up his throne for the woman he would marry, Wallis Simpson, was just 17 in 1912 and considered to be immature, effeminate, even suffering from arrested development, when he first went to France where he was supposed to learn to speak the language. On this trip he would also learn to drive and smoke. But it was during the war a few years later when he was introduced to Marguerite, who was then working at one of the most expensive brothels in Paris.

Marguerite was never in her early years one to trust her fate  to be with just one man. She may have, at times in her life, been a sex worker, courtesan, mistress, and wife, all at the same time. We will never know all her machinations but there is reason to believe that she managed to marry and make her husbands wild with jealousy because they suspected or knew that they would never be her one and only.

In 1915, when Europe was at War (World War I), the Prince was still considered an innocent abroad. But there were those in his entourage who wanted him to experience sex with high class prostitutes since the women he was most likely to marry of his class were chaperoned and thought of as wives or breeding stock. The Prince wanted to see action in the battlefields but was kept to visiting the front or administrative duties. He made good use of his days on leave. By May of 1916, the near 22 year old Prince had matured by changes in the world and in his personal life and had visited a brothel in Calais, assuring those who thought otherwise that he was heterosexual. But perhaps he started to develop a need for women with powerful personalities, unusual voices, and perhaps a tendency towards wanting to be dominated in the bedroom too.

Marguerite Alibert, who was born Marie Marguerite Alibert, called herself Maggie Meller after she became the seen-around-town mistress of a rich Jewish man, Andre Meller.  He was married and forty, a player who owned racing stables. She was 16. She would become known for having a hot temper and demanding and mercurial ways. With Meller and all her serious relationships there was a pattern of frequent and arguments that included public displays.

She would also later go by Mme Laurent, Mme Fahmy, and even Princess Fahmy bey - though the husband she shot and killed the bey.  Ali Kamel Famy bey was not actually an Egyptian Prince.  

Our Mistress of the Month was born in 1890 as the daughter of a cab driver and a charwoman.  Like CoCo Chanel, who would design evening dress for her, she was put into a nunnery to be raised. She went into servitude. As was also not unusual, she became pregnant. Marguerite was only 16 when she was delivered of her only child, daughter Raymonde, who she did not see for the first seven years of the girl's life. Put out of the home she'd lived and worked in, what could she do to support herself? Who got her pregnant, be it a member of the family she served, or someone else, is not known, but she alluded to a problem with not having a dowry as the reason for being husbandless and having an illegitimate daughter. She was probably saving face.

She may have started her career as a sex worker by becoming what was called a "polite" prostitute, singing in eateries and bars, and extending her entertaining to after hours. CoCo Chanel had also had to sing for her supper.

Mme Denart, who ran a high class brothel called a maison de rendezvous took her on as a protege, sending her for elocution lessons and teaching her upper class manners.
(page 36)  By 1907 she was "une dame a cinq heaves" (a five o'clock lady) or a "une cinq a sept"  (a five to seven); these terms indicative of the busy time at the brothel. Such brothels were was as far up as a sex worker could go being paid for sex - and sometimes included specialties such as lesbian acts or S and M.  

Since she became involved with Meller in 1907, not long after she'd had a child and become a sex worker, clearly Marguerite was able to move up from sex work into being a Courtesan and a "keep." (I can't help but think of an early film of actress Julia Roberts called "Pretty Woman" in which a young beginning prostitute finds true love with a rich man instead. The story commonly thought of as a fantasy.) Seven years after they met, she and Meller, who were seen around town together, split.  He had become pathologically jealous of her.  Still, besides living the rich life with him, he gave her a settlement of 200,000 franks.  (And so began the notion of PALIMONY!)  She then moved into a grander apartment, employed servants, kept her own horses, and went back to competing with other courtesans for men.

Because Marguerite Alibert's story is lengthy and complicated, this post will only be a start of her story here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT. So continue to read, please, as we learn more about her and the Prince of Wales, and then the husband she shot three times and killed, which she immediately admitted to!

Missy
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Also mentioned in this book are Cora Pearl, La Belle Otero, Liane de Pougy, Lina Cavalieri, and the Folies Bergere - the place for a courtesan to be seen!  Cora Pearl was our Mistress of the Month for July 2012 and the Duchess of Windsor - Wallis Simpson was January 2010.  Search the archives to read!

WHAT'S SO GOOD FOR CHARLES ABOUT CAMILLA? (ESPECIALLY COMPARED TO DIANA)

NOTES and EXCERPTS from Catherine Meyers' book BORN TO BE KING

In this book we learn it was mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz who, in 1971, introduced Charles and Camilla with the jest "Now you two watch your genes because of Alice Keppel."  The genes comment is because its possible they are distant cousins. 

page 97

"Only Camilla has ever been able to be herself fully around the Prince because she has nothing to hide from him. Robust and cheerful, she entered the relationship free from neurosis and, ironically, from any expectation of being Queen"

page 98

"With Camilla, the Prince would eventually develop his first - and arguably, only truly adult relationship, combining love and passion, respect and equality, plus a sense of humor that often leaves both of them guffawing and weeping.  Camilla is "Rude and raunchy" says actress Emma Thompson, approvingly.

Actress Emma Thompson provided information to the author of this book and is considered a personal friend of Prince Charles.

APRIL 9th 2005 THE WEDDING of CAMILLA SHAND and PRINCE CHARLES - THEY WAITED 33 YEARS FOR THIS!

A second marriage for the both of them.  Prince Charles married Princess Diana in 1981.  She died in 1997.  No doubt the opinions of a great many important and influential people, and that of the general public, were taken into account when it came to exactly when the two lovers would be allowed to marry.




The Civil Ceremony - where Charles and Camilla exchanged rings in private.

The announcer says "They waited 33 years for this."  Followed by a Blessing Ceremony at
Saint George's castle.

Charles' mother Queen Elizabeth II, and his father, Prince Phillip did attend, as did his son's Princes William and Henry (Harry).  Camilla's family also attended.

One wonders how it was all planned to be both meaningful and wonderful for the couple, and sensitive to others.

MARY BOLEYN : ALISON WEIR BOOK EXCERPT : ABOUT MARY'S DAUGHTER KATHERINE CAREY

page 162 of Alison Weir's book Mary Boleyn regarding the daughter who King Henry VII likely fathered.

What is persuasive about the portrait called "Katherine Carey" is that the sitter bears a striking facial resemblance to both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I... This is subjective evidence, but there is a strong similarity in the setting of the eyes; the Tudors had distinctively heavy lower lids, and this, and the familial winded eyebrows, can be seen in portraits of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Arthur Tudor, and Henry Fitzroy, and came from the Plantagenets, as portraits of Henry VIII's grandfather, Edward IV, show. Katherine Carey has these same features. She also has a prominent chin and rounded jowls, like those that are apparent in portraits of Henry VIII and his mother, Elizabeth of York. She had red hair, as did nearly all the Tudors, whereas William Carey's was brown; the color of Mary Boleyn's hair is not known, nor is it known if red hair featured in the Bolyns and Carey families..."

Missy: Today we'd go with the DNA testing!

Note the spelling of the surname on the cover of the book.

TOMORROW IS THE BIG DAY : APRIL 29 is WILLIAM and KATE'S ROYAL WEDDING

Is this maybe the largest and most final of big royal weddings of the European kind?

They have had a very long courtship, one significant break-up in all those years, and it seems that William is dedicated to Kate but will this royal marriage be the love connection that it seems to be forever.

HOW CAN PRINCESS KATHERINE OF WALES MISTRESS-PROOF HER ROYAL MARRIAGE?

ROYAL BABYLON by KARL SHAW : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

First published here at Mistress Manifesto on January 17, 2010

If you want to read about Royal Personages who had Mistresses, usually several, at once or over time, ROYAL BABYLON is a book to read. (You'll be glad we no longer live without contraception! But some mistresses today still see pregnancy as a way to be supported for life or force the issue of marriage!) And when I say that there was lots and lots of craziness, I mean lots! This book is an argument against intermarriage!

on page 68 we read...

"The British royal family, through Queen Victoria and her nine children, was related to the German Emperor, the Czar of Russian, and the kings of Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Romania; and via Edward VII's wife, Alexandra, they were linked to the royal families of Greece, Denmark, and Norway... the biggest danger comes from marrying cousins, because their children can inherit a double dose of recessive genes... The blue bloods may have lived hundreds, even thousands, of miles apart, but they were still in effect marrying the girl next door...


DID INTERBREEDING MAKE PEOPLE CRAZY OR MAYBE HYPERSEXUAL?

on page 89 we read...

"When King Augustus II of Poland lay on his deathbed in 1733, his last words were "My whole life has been an unceasing sin --- God have mercy on me!" ... (He was known for) his exceptional physical size and strength, his gluttony, his drinking prowess and his lechery, but most of all for his astonishing virility. Over a period of half a century he fathered 365 bastards, give or take a dozen. It is probably only fair to record that there was also one legitimate heir.... Augustus presided over an enormous warren of concubines. Some enjoyed official status; other he preferred to keep quiet about --- his own daughter, the Countess Orzelska, for example. One of his favor ties was the Swedish Countess Aurora of Konigsmark; another was Fatima, a captured Turkish slave girl. Some of his more ambitious mistresses negotiated legal contracts and annual salaries for themselves; one earned herself a large palace in Dresden...

on page 90 we read...

"August the Strong's progeny went on to populate most of Europe and some of them because famous in their own right, including Maurice de Saxe and his daughter George Sand.