Edward the Caresser: The Playboy Prince Who Became Edward VII

If you look in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of King Edward VII illustrating the word "cad." In fact, you will also find him next to rogue, rake and bon vivant. Well, not really--but he would be a perfect match! In Edward the Caresser, Stanley Weintraub explores the life of Albert Edward, The Prince of Wales, who later becomes King Edward VII. "Bertie" is perhaps one of the most colorful royals of the last 200 years. The oldest son of Queen Victoria, Bertie is a disappointment from the time he is small, and it just continues throughout his adult life. Because of her lack of confidence in Bertie, Victoria gives him very few royal responsibilities and he will come to the throne at age 59 with very little training. The Prince of Wales uses all his free time to over-indulge in eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, hunting, traveling and most of all, women. He associates with many upper-crust gentlemen of questionable character. And he tends to go from one controversy to the next. His name is dragged through the courts for a variety of offenses from gambling to divorce proceedings. He is blackmailed on more than one occasion over indiscreet letters he has written to various women. He has a number of illegitimate children and often stands as their godfather when they are christened. He also gets himself into tremendous debt financing this opulent lifestyle. But the people of England love the prince--mainly because he is personable and also, because he shows himself to his mothers' subjects: something the Queen stopped doing after the death of her consort. Bertie is definitely a charmer, and as he opens hospitals and plants trees, the British come to forgive him his indiscretions.One of the things I found most fascinating is comparing the life of this Prince of Wales with that of Charles, the present Prince of Wales. Although a full century separates them, they are made from the same cloth. Both men have spent the majority of their lives in the role of Prince of Wales. Both their mothers are long livers, and they've had to go through life doing inane jobs waiting to become king. They were both married to beautiful women who were adored the world over, and both cheated on their brides. At least Charles hasn't had a stable of mistresses (unlike Bertie), but ironically, the present prince must have assumed he was still living in Victorian society when it was perfectly fine to remain married to your wife and have a mistress, also. There is also irony in that one of Bertie's favorites, Alice Keppel, was the great-grandmother of Charles' current squeeze, Camilla Parker Bowles. Charles has also gotten himself into his fair share of controversy over the years, and we are left to wonder whether he will ever reign as king. (These comparisons are mine only, and are not made by the author in this book).In terms of the book itself, I became a little bored when Weintraub went into great detail about the Prince's Indian expedition and got

An old saying goes something like, 'The child is the father of the man.' Coming off successful biographies of Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort, and other eminent Victorians, Stanley Weintraub has given us a fine biography of the Victorian era's most elderly 'child' of all, Albert Edward (aka 'Bertie'), the Prince of Wales.Heir to the throne must be a difficult position in the best of circumstances and despite his luxuriant lifestyle, Bertie's circumstances were not the best. His mother decided early on that her eldest son was uneducable (Weintraub argues he was dyslexic), unreliable, untrustworthy, and at least partially at fault for the early death of the Prince Consort, the husband she worshipped. As the decades passed, she refused to modify this harsh judgment, viewing him as a wayward and unruly child even after the Prince was himself a grandfather. In fact, if never an intellectual like his father (Weintraub seems to doubt the Prince ever in his life read a book cover to cover), Bertie proved himself clever, sympathetic, popular with the people, and a fairly skilled, if unofficial, diplomat. Nevertheless, the Queen would not allow him access to state papers, or hand off to him any but the most minor of ceremonial duties.Barred by custom from involvement in politics, and by his mother from any meaningful preparation for his inheritance, Bertie devoted himself to the one area he could influence the most, society. Weintraub's biography shines in its illustration of how the Prince's active social life, essentially frivolous in so many ways, nevertheless helped him discover talents and develop skills that served him in good stead as sovereign. And while never prurient, Weintraub is nevertheless comprehensive in his treatment of Bertie's many extramarital affairs, from his brief flings to his longstanding relationships with Lillie Langtry, Alice Keppel, and others (including, lest we forget, his beautiful and long-suffering wife, Princess Alix of Denmark).Weintraub's picture of Albert Edward, in short, is a fully drawn one, and the reader can develop a fairly complete understanding of him as a man and as a Prince. I found him very human, disturbing and yet sympathetic. I would recommend this biography to any student of Britain's Royal Family or historian of the Victorian era.

Edward the Caresser is a fine biography of the Prince of Wales who became King Edward VII. The title is slightly misleading since he was only called "Edward the Caresser" after he became King in 1901, and while he was Prince of Wales he was known to the public as "Prince Albert Edward". But such quibbling should be put aside. This is a wonderfully entertaining story of a boy and man who had many fine qualities which were not appreciated by his parents Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who set impossibly high standards for him and were constantly and openly disappointed when he failed to meet them. Bertie (as he was known in the family) also had to deal with being compared to his older sister and younger brother, who were their parents' favorites. After being made to bear the burden of being (in his mother's eyes) the chief contributor to his father's death, Bertie spent the rest of Victoria's reign looking for something to do. Since the Queen refused to allow him constructive work, having fun in various dissipations was his main occupation. Given such a background, the fact that Bertie turned out to be a kind, good natured man with a wide circle of friends and a loving wife and family is surprising. Stanley Weintraub always produces a fine biography, and I hope he will follow up on "Edward the Caresser" with another volume on Edward VII's reign. It will be interesting to see how the playboy prince from an emotionall disadvantaged background turned into one of the most successful and well beloved British monarchs of the twentieth centuries