Though his reign is firmly of the mid-twentieth century, George VI was an Edwardian. The second son of the Duke and Duchess of York (later George V and Queen Mary), he had the misfortune of being born in 1895 on the very day the Prince Consort died thirty-four years beforehand. His great-grandmother, Queen Victoria was incredibly distressed by the news, and the family huddled together before finding the proper solution: name the new royal baby “Albert” (he was formally baptized Albert Frederick Arthur George). For some reason, this mollified the Queen, though the name was not very special by that time, what with many members of the royal family–both male and female–having some variant of her beloved’s name in their own, and with the number of aristocratic babies named after their godfather (the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII–another Bertie), England was practically awash in Alberts!

But this was yet another “poor Bertie,” since he suffered from ill health, a stammer, and knock knees, was easily frightened, and apt to cry on the spot. This was understandable, since his father was rather cold and brusque with his children, and his mother could only do so much to give them the necessary attention without raising his ire. At fourteen, Bertie followed in his father’s footsteps, now the Prince of Wales (George V), with enrollment in the Royal Naval College, Osborne, as a cadet. He didn’t shine there either, but was nonetheless propelled to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. By the outbreak of WWI, he was 19 and commissioned as a midshipman, but he did his duty and made his country proud during the Battle of Jutland (1916), where he was mentioned in dispatches for his action as a turret officer aboard HMS Collingwood. His ill health got the best of him again, and he didn’t see action again. Fortunately, he was given important duties with the newly-formed Royal Air Force (RAF), and he was appointed Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys’ Wing at Cranwell.

After the end of the war, Bertie, made His Royal Highness The Duke of York in 1920, took on royal duties, representing his father on tours of the country. His particular focus on coal mining, railways, and earned him the nickname “Industrial Prince”, but despite the shyness born from his stammer, he possessed a genuine interest in working conditions and the poor, and he became President of the Industrial Welfare Society and founded a series of annual summer camps between 1921 and 1939, which brought together boys from different social backgrounds. Around this time he met Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon who, despite being a descendant from Robert the Bruce and Henry VII, was considered a commoner! Fearing the burdens of royalty, Lady Elizabeth rejected his proposal twice, but after a long courtship, she finally consented to become his wife. Their wedding in 1923 was the event of the year, and the new Duchess of York inadvertently began a tradition when, she spontaneously laid her bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on her way into Westminster Abbey.

The rest of the story is, as they say, history–or better yet, gloriously captured in the Academy Award winning drama, The King’s Speech.

The sexual appetites of King Edward VII are well known: from the scandal of Nellie Cliffden, which Victoria blamed for her beloved Albert’s death, to the perfumed bosoms of aristocratic French ladies and courtesans, to Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry, to his long-time mistresses, Daisy Warwick and Alice Keppel, Bertie was very much a ladies’ man. His reputation and exploits not only opened the doors for the sophisticated spouse-swapping of the Marlborough House Set, but were so notorious, women openly propositioned him when he traveled to Europe to visit heads-of-state and to take the waters at Homburg or Marienbad. However renowned was his appetite or his mistresses, His Royal Highness preferred to take his pleasures in the exclusive Parisian brothels, particularly La Chabanais, the most exclusive of them all.

La Chabanais was founded in 1878 by the Irish Madame Kelly, and operated near the Louvre at 12 rue Chabanais. Madame Kelly was shrewd, aligning her brothel with the Jockey-Club de Paris and selling shares of the incredibly profitable business to wealthy, but anonymous investors. The interior was lavish, each bedroom styled in its own theme–Hindu, Pompeii, Japanese, Moorish, Louis XVI–at a cost rumored to be 1.7 million francs. Bertie was a frequent visitor during the 1880s and 1890s and was allotted his own chamber, decorated with his coat of arms. The most interesting features of the bed room were the copper tub decorated with a half-swan-half-woman, in which Bertie liked to bathe with a prostitute or two in champagne, and a chair, a siège d’amour (love seat) actually, in which the overweight Prince of Wales could do…well…whatever he wished with the cocotte of his choice.

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This film has been on my radar for quite some time, and believe me, if The Young Victoria failed to receive a U.S. release date, movie studios would have been on the receiving end of many tersely-worded emails! Thankfully, for my health’s sake and the sake of Homeland Security, The Young Victoria arrives in U.S. theaters this Friday.

The gorgeous Emily Blunt portrays Victoria with a potent mix of grace and majesty, and her chemistry with Rupert Friend (best known as Mr Wickham from P&P ’05) as Prince Albert is astounding. Rounding up the supporting cast are Paul Bettany as William Melbourne, Miranda Richardson as Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, Jim Broadbent as Victoria’s uncle, King William IV, Thomas Kretschmann as Victoria’s cousin-in-law/uncle King Leopold of Belgium, and Mark Strong as the Duchess of Kent’s rumored lover, Sir James Conroy.

The Young Victoria is written by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, Vanity Fair) and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.). Producers on the film are Graham King, Martin Scorsese, Tim Headington and Sarah Ferguson.

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