trifling: he required not just a dresssuit, a morning and an evening suit, but appropriate clothing for bicycling, riding, hunting, golf, and motor sport: white kid gloves were needed for evening wear and after one wear would have to be replaced. More, several copies of each garment would have to be made, since in the end brushing failed to remove dust, dirt and grease, and fashionable fabrics did not stand up to much washing, no matter how careful the laundress. Wardrobe life was short and garments went out of fashion. His Lordship had declined to provide Arthur with a personal valet, and Arthur got by, but it was a false economy.
The Viscount, as Grace had observed, kept his dressing room manageable by the simple device of handing over any garment which displeased him to Reginald and telling him to find a home for it. Over at the Austrian Embassy, she had noticed, staff often appeared on their days off in Master Arthur’s cast-offs.
So what really was another three pounds a month for poor Flora, whose hopes Arthur had so cruelly and thoughtlessly dashed? The qualities one looked for in a wife were very different from those of the girls one had fun with: nevertheless all deserved to be treated kindly and generously. God would provide if his father wouldn’t.
Arthur assumed, as did his mother, that his father did not keep a mistress. Like her he took it for granted that though his father so often accompanied the Prince to the smart gambling houses of London, he did not go on to the brothels the latter liked to frequent as night turned to dawn. The Prince, a disappointment to his mother the Queen, was a man of prodigious fleshly appetites. The Queen had arranged her son’s early marriage to Princess Alexandra both in the interest of affairs of State, and in the hope of quenching these appetites and so avoiding scandal. The plan had worked for a time. Theunwritten understanding was that the prime duty of a royal couple was to provide heirs for the succession. After two males had been born to the virgin bride – one spare, in case of illness or accident – what royalty did with their lives thereafter was at their discretion. Alexandra had six children in quick succession, but apparently stayed in love with her husband: at least no scandal had been attached to her. The Prince, however, very soon took advantage of the fact that fidelity was not required of him. He and Alexandra simply did not ‘get on’, as everyone knew, whereas the Dilberne marriage was surely a love match. Different and more exacting behaviour was expected from the Earl and his wife, especially by their children. Good husbands were not expected to keep their wives company of an evening, but must treat them with respect and not expose them to humiliation or shame. Gambling dens were one thing, brothels quite another. That was left to Royalty, who actually had little need for them, other than to indulge in the more extraordinary of tastes.
‘If you make it five pounds a month more,’ said Flora now to Arthur, ‘I can think of even more interesting things we could do which you might quite appreciate, which a lot of other girls don’t like but I do.’
‘Oh please,’ he said. ‘Please. Tell me. Show me.’
The Earl of Dilberne Lunches
with the Powerful
1.00 p.m. Friday, 27th October 1899
On the Friday, Robert found himself, to his surprise, lunching at the House of Lords with not only the Prime Minister himself but the Unionist Leader of the House, Arthur Balfour, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Lansdowne, the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, and the President of the Board Of Trade, Charles Ritchie. Balfour had actually beckoned the Earl over as he entered the Peer’s Dining Room, and had a chair fetched for him. Everyone moved up in a most welcoming way.
Robert wondered why. His interest in politics was fitful; he had no great influence in the land, other than that perhaps his friendship with the Prince of Wales, the Queen’s
The Viscount, as Grace had observed, kept his dressing room manageable by the simple device of handing over any garment which displeased him to Reginald and telling him to find a home for it. Over at the Austrian Embassy, she had noticed, staff often appeared on their days off in Master Arthur’s cast-offs.
So what really was another three pounds a month for poor Flora, whose hopes Arthur had so cruelly and thoughtlessly dashed? The qualities one looked for in a wife were very different from those of the girls one had fun with: nevertheless all deserved to be treated kindly and generously. God would provide if his father wouldn’t.
Arthur assumed, as did his mother, that his father did not keep a mistress. Like her he took it for granted that though his father so often accompanied the Prince to the smart gambling houses of London, he did not go on to the brothels the latter liked to frequent as night turned to dawn. The Prince, a disappointment to his mother the Queen, was a man of prodigious fleshly appetites. The Queen had arranged her son’s early marriage to Princess Alexandra both in the interest of affairs of State, and in the hope of quenching these appetites and so avoiding scandal. The plan had worked for a time. Theunwritten understanding was that the prime duty of a royal couple was to provide heirs for the succession. After two males had been born to the virgin bride – one spare, in case of illness or accident – what royalty did with their lives thereafter was at their discretion. Alexandra had six children in quick succession, but apparently stayed in love with her husband: at least no scandal had been attached to her. The Prince, however, very soon took advantage of the fact that fidelity was not required of him. He and Alexandra simply did not ‘get on’, as everyone knew, whereas the Dilberne marriage was surely a love match. Different and more exacting behaviour was expected from the Earl and his wife, especially by their children. Good husbands were not expected to keep their wives company of an evening, but must treat them with respect and not expose them to humiliation or shame. Gambling dens were one thing, brothels quite another. That was left to Royalty, who actually had little need for them, other than to indulge in the more extraordinary of tastes.
‘If you make it five pounds a month more,’ said Flora now to Arthur, ‘I can think of even more interesting things we could do which you might quite appreciate, which a lot of other girls don’t like but I do.’
‘Oh please,’ he said. ‘Please. Tell me. Show me.’
The Earl of Dilberne Lunches
with the Powerful
1.00 p.m. Friday, 27th October 1899
On the Friday, Robert found himself, to his surprise, lunching at the House of Lords with not only the Prime Minister himself but the Unionist Leader of the House, Arthur Balfour, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Lansdowne, the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, and the President of the Board Of Trade, Charles Ritchie. Balfour had actually beckoned the Earl over as he entered the Peer’s Dining Room, and had a chair fetched for him. Everyone moved up in a most welcoming way.
Robert wondered why. His interest in politics was fitful; he had no great influence in the land, other than that perhaps his friendship with the Prince of Wales, the Queen’s
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