Alice Keppel and Agnes Keyser by Raymond Lamont-Brown

Author:Raymond Lamont-Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752473949
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

The King is undergoing a surgical operation. The King is suffering from perityphlitis [appendicitis]. His condition on Saturday was so satisfactory that it was hoped that with care His Majesty would be able to go through the Coronation ceremony. On Monday evening a recrudescence [a flaring up] became manifest, rendering a surgical operation necessary today. Signed: Lister, Thos. Smith, Francis Laking, Thos. Barlow.

Alice kept in touch concerning her royal lover’s recuperation through his secretary Knollys and learned that the king was making steady progress. The monarch was able to walk about his room by 29 June and on 15 July he was well enough to embark on a three-week convalescence cruise aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert. The thought of not seeing her lover for so long since the scare about his health was hard to bear.

Early in the days after his operation, according to the journal of Viscount Esher, the king ‘in a moment of weak emotion’ wrote to Alice saying ‘that if he was dying, he felt sure [the queen] would allow [Alice] to come to him’.8 It was to be a letter that Alice was to keep and use during her embarrassing outburst following the king’s death.

Once his convalescence was complete the king turned his attention to the rescheduling of his coronation. The revised date was 9 August and it was to be a less spectacular event than previously planned. In any case the huge number of European guests who had assembled for the first set date had gone home and were unable to return. But for the nation it was to be a double celebration; his crowning and a thanksgiving for his life.

Alice rose early on Coronation Day, her hairdresser arriving before breakfast. Violet and Sonia were dressed in new frocks and were to be taken by their nanny to see as much as their patience could stand once their mother had left for the abbey. The servants were to have their own party later in the day and the Keppel children were to join the Alingtons.9

Alice’s memories of the coronation were built up on what she herself saw and the intimate gossip the king and she exchanged; he wanted to know what Society was saying when not overawed by his personal presence – a role, incidentally, Alice was ever to play – and she was eager to hear every morsel of tittle-tattle from Buckingham Palace. The king was still furious that Kaiser Wilhelm II was boycotting the ceremony, refusing even to allow Crown Prince Wilhelm to attend. On a previous visit the Crown Prince had availed himself of too many favours of Edward’s court ladies, and the Kaiser thought that Alice was a bad influence. In fact, of course, the foreign princes had returned home following the cancellation of the first coronation, and only the Abyssinian Special Mission of Ras Makumen remained.

On the mantelpiece of her boudoir at 30 Portman Square, Alice displayed her invitation. It was headed:

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