Edwardian Society Pt 2: The Marlborough House Set
Given the lease of Marlborough House upon his marriage to Princess of Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, the house quickly became the social center of society. Just as the society formed around Prinny (George IV) was dubbed the “Carlton House Set”, the Prince of Wales’ bevy of friends and acquaintances garnered their moniker from Edward’s London residence.
From the start, Edward’s set of friends were going to be different. As the future King of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and Emperor of India, etc, Edward saw himself a head above everyone by birth and as such, welcomed all manners of people into his inner circle. Most shocking was his embrace of the wealthy 
Anglo-Jewish families who had never before been welcomed into “Gentile” homes. Alongside the Jewish element were the scores of spendthrift Americans eager for titles and social cache–and they got it, for Edward loathed boredom, and the coup of having him show up at a shooting party or a daughter’s come-out ball far outweighed the costs of entertaining him.
Queen Victoria abhorred the people the Prince of Wales chose to surround himself with and regularly sent letters to his residences to express her disapproval. Nonetheless, when his choice of friends found Bertie in a number of sticky situations, the Queen supported her son, though he refused to give up his frenetic round of entertainments–and entertainers.
Forming the King’s inner circle were Lord Esher, Sir Ernest Cassell, the 8th Duke of Devonshire, Lord Charles Beresford, Portuguese Ambassador Marquis de Soveral and Baron de Hirsch. Among the ladies, Louisa, Duchess of Manchester (later Devonshire); Lady Randolph Churchill; Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry; Daisy, Countess of Warwick; and Gladys, Marchioness of Ripon(right) reigned supreme. Others who regularly took part in Edward’s fun were both Consuelos (dss Marlborough and Manchester), the Sassoons, the Rothschilds, and the “Yellow
Earl” Hugh Lonsdale, as well as a considerable number of Continental aristocrats, such as the Bohemian Count Charles Kinsky and the Italian Duchess of Sermoneta. We’ve already established that Edward was not an intellectual, but with his innate charm and skill as a conversationalist, he formed close relationships with Arthur Balfour and Lord Curzon.
One of the first scandals that rocked the Marlborough House Set was the Mordaunt divorce case. Having given birth to a blind daughter, Lady Mordaunt was convinced the girl’s affliction was retribution for her sin of adultery and in contrition she confessed to her husband. Sir Charles Mordaunt was much less forgiving and soon filed for divorce. The Prince of Wales foolishly wrote a number of fairly innocent letters to the lady and she in turn called him up as witness to her defense.
The scandal of a member of the Royal family in court rocked the nation and questions arose concerning the propriety of the heir to the throne sending letters to a married woman and paying calls on her when her husband was absent. Thankfully, he acquitted himself correctly and unable to find fault with his defense, the Court breathed a sigh of relief over the Prince’s first brush with infamy. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t to be his last: he was entangled in another divorce case that temporarily cost him the friendship of Lord Randolph Churchill and his vivacious American wife Jennie, got pulled into the mess of Lady Charles Beresford’s attempt to blackmail her husband’s mistress Daisy Warwick, and was involved in a cheating scandal at Tranby Croft in 1891.
It was Edward who set the precedence within the Set for aristocratic marriages. He fell in love many times over the course of his 50+ years of marriage, most notably with Lillie Langtry, Daisy Warwick, and Alice Keppel. The Golden Rule for his circle? “Thou Shall Not Be Found Out“. Woe betide anyone who broke the cardinal rule by causing a scene if they discovered their spouse had entered into an affair. Unmarried women were strictly forbidden and if married, a lady was morally obligated to her spouse to birth at least a few of her husband’s children (most importantly the “heir and spare”, as coined by Consuelo Marlborough) before 
dotting the nursery with her lover’s offspring. One young lady, upon coming out was given an extremely important bit of advice by her mother: “one must never comment upon a likeness“. This code of conduct lead to a number of heartaches, such as the case of when a young lady found her husband in bed with a footman and had the nerve to speak about it! She was promptly packed off to Scotland by her family and never heard from again.
The Marquess of Londonderry followed this code to a tee. Theresa Londonderry had the misfortune of having her letters to her lover Harry Cust discovered by her rival for his affections, Gladys Ripon. After chaffing Theresa by reading the letters aloud to her friends, Gladys decided to wrap the letters in a bow and send them to the Marquess. What followed was the coldest conversation ever known to man. Londonderry read them and set them on Theresa’s boudoir table with a note inscribed “henceforth, we do not speak“.
And they didn’t.
When the Marquess lay on his deathbed years later he refused his wife’s note begging to see him. When Lady Ripon lay on her deathbed, she sent Theresa a note asking for forgiveness. Taking a page from her husband’s book, Lady Londonderry sent a response: “No!”.
Where Bertie led others were sure to follow and when he set the fashion for trips to the Continent in the
summer and winter, his set–and aspirants to it–followed. Because of the sheer amount of rich, gravy-laden foods and heavy wines consumed by the Edwardians during the season, a trip to such Bohemian spas as Marienbad and Carlsbad was de riguer to fix the errors of the digestion caused by the impressive appetites of the Set. A popular pastime of the King was picnicking. To the consternation of his companions, when visiting Biarritz, Edward loved setting up the picnic alongside the busiest stretches of the roads, certain of his anonymity as he exchanged greetings with the occupants of passing motorcars and carriages.
With all of the scandals and social round Bertie involved himself in, it was most likely a relief to take a jaunt to his country residence in Norfolk with his wife. Supportive through his scandals and infidelities, despite having grown quite deaf as a result of an illness during her last pregnancies, she continued to have a sense of fun well into her eighties, ready to clear space to do a cartwheel or crawl on the floor with her baby grandchildren.
