Free The King in Love: Edward VII's Mistresses by Theo Aronson

interest whenever she attended a ball and in danger of being mobbed whenever she appeared in the street. 'Jersey Lily' was one of the most famous sobriquets in the kingdom. When the ancient Egyptian obelisk – Cleopatra's Needle – was re-erected on the banks of the Thames in 1878, Lillie Langtry's photograph was among the various articles buried, for posterity, in its foundations.
    Yet more than anyone Lillie appreciated the precariousness of her social position. It depended, entirely, on the patronage of her royal lover. Without that neither her beauty, her vivacity, nor her drive could guarantee her a place in society. Lillie was no fool. She knew well enough that those who entertained her most readily were those most eager to gain, or retain, the Prince's friendship. In the main, it was the Prince's
nouveaux riches
friends, people like the Rothschilds and the Sassoons, who opened their doors to her, while the doors of truly aristocratic establishments, such as Hatfield House, home of the Salisburys, remained firmly closed. In short, if she had not been the Prince's mistress, Lillie Langtry's curiosity value would not have lasted for more than a season.
    At the same time, she realised that she could not hope to holdBertie's interest forever. He was too fickle, too restless, too self-indulgent a man to remain faithful to one woman for long. After all, he was not yet forty. Already he had enjoyed the occasional peccadillo and he was often to be seen, these days, with another professional beauty, Mrs Luke Wheeler. In fact, the Prince was so often in the company of Mrs Wheeler – and, for appearance's sake, of her husband Luke – that Luke's father, a naive old clergyman, was once heard to remark, 'It is strange how fond the Prince of Wales has become of my son. He and Luke are inseparable.' 1
    The year before, Lillie had had to compete with the attractions of an altogether more formidable rival – Sarah Bernhardt.
    The already famous actress had arrived in London with the Comédie Française in the summer of 1879. Lillie was among the first people to meet her. She was invited, with other members of 'the fashionable world' 2 , to a welcoming breakfast given by Sir Algernon Borthwick, proprietor of
The Morning Post
.
    The Divine Sarah looked, to say the least, extraordinary. 'Her beauty,' as Lillie somewhat gingerly puts it, 'was not understood by the masses.' 3 Whereas Lillie, with her sloping shoulders, small waist, generous breasts and hips, conformed to the contemporary ideal of womanhood, Sarah was an exponent of the new 'aesthetic' style. Together with other unconventional women such as the actress Ellen Terry, and William Morris's wife, Jane, Sarah Bernhardt spurned the constraints of Victorian couture and dressed in a free, flowing, uncorseted fashion. Instead of disguising her thin, angular figure, Sarah emphasised it by wearing waistless dresses with bold vertical trimmings. Everything was designed to accentuate her sinuous seductiveness. The gauzy bow at the neck, the tight, transparent lace sleeves, the sensuous velvets or slithery silks, the 'tantalising' front fastenings – all these were regarded as highly provocative in less bohemian circles.
    Even more provocative was Madame Sarah's face. The forerunner of the 'vamp' or the 'It' girl of a later period, she painted her face in a manner that shocked those users of a little surreptitious rice powder or a few geranium petals. Her lips were brightly coloured, her eyes – with their famous 'drugged stare' – were outlined in kohl, her tufts of frizzy hair were dyed, even her earlobes were rouged. 'I went,' admitted the actress, 'to extremes in everything.' 4
    This was no less true of her private life. The illegitimate daughter of a Jewish cocotte, with an illegitimate son of her own, Sarah Bernhardt cheerfully flouted every convention. 'London has gone mad over theprincipal actress in the Comédie Française . . .,' wrote an appalled Lady Frederick