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The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince, by Jane Ridley
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE BOSTON GLOBE
This richly entertaining biography chronicles the eventful life of Queen Victoria’s firstborn son, the quintessential black sheep of Buckingham Palace, who matured into as wise and effective a monarch as Britain has ever seen. Granted unprecedented access to the royal archives, noted scholar Jane Ridley draws on numerous primary sources to paint a vivid portrait of the man and the age to which he gave his name.
Born Prince Albert Edward, and known to familiars as “Bertie,” the future King Edward VII had a well-earned reputation for debauchery. A notorious gambler, glutton, and womanizer, he preferred the company of wastrels and courtesans to the dreary life of the Victorian court. His own mother considered him a lazy halfwit, temperamentally unfit to succeed her. When he ascended to the throne in 1901, at age fifty-nine, expectations were low. Yet by the time he died nine years later, he had proven himself a deft diplomat, hardworking head of state, and the architect of Britain’s modern constitutional monarchy.
Jane Ridley’s colorful biography rescues the man once derided as “Edward the Caresser” from the clutches of his historical detractors. Excerpts from letters and diaries shed new light on Bertie’s long power struggle with Queen Victoria, illuminating one of the most emotionally fraught mother-son relationships in history. Considerable attention is paid to King Edward’s campaign of personal diplomacy abroad and his valiant efforts to reform the political system at home. Separating truth from legend, Ridley also explores Bertie’s relationships with the women in his life. Their ranks comprised his wife, the stunning Danish princess Alexandra, along with some of the great beauties of the era: the actress Lillie Langtry, longtime “royal mistress” Alice Keppel (the great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles), and Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston.
Edward VII waited nearly six decades for his chance to rule, then did so with considerable panache and aplomb. A magnificent life of an unexpectedly impressive king, The Heir Apparent documents the remarkable transformation of a man—and a monarchy—at the dawn of a new century.
Praise for The Heir Apparent
“If [The Heir Apparent] isn’t the definitive life story of this fascinating figure of British history, then nothing ever will be.”—The Christian Science Monitor
“The Heir Apparent is smart, it’s fascinating, it’s sometimes funny, it’s well-documented and it reads like a novel, with Bertie so vivid he nearly leaps from the page, cigars and all.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“I closed The Heir Apparent with admiration and a kind of wry exhilaration.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Ridley is a serious scholar and historian, who keeps Bertie’s flaws and virtues in a fine balance.”—The Boston Globe
“Brilliantly entertaining . . . a landmark royal biography.”—The Sunday Telegraph
“Superb.”—The New York Times Book Review
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #37173 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-12-03
- Released on: 2013-12-03
- Format: Kindle eBook
Most helpful customer reviews
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful.
Scholarship That's Meant To Be Read
By not a natural
It's difficult to imagine the time and effort that Jane Ridley devoted to her book The Heir Apparent, a long and painstakingly detailed biography of King Edward VII of England. The author has a career-long commitment to studying the history of Great Britain and its monarchs, and delving into archives that had been untouched for a century or more must have been extremely exciting. The author, I'm sure, found her work especially satisfying since discovery of new documentation was due, in good part, to her efforts to make the biography as accurate and complete as possible. When the portrait that emerged from her decade-long study of this massive collection of forgotten or previously ignored sources came to constitute a substantial revision of long-standing assumptions about the role and importance of Edward VII, I'm certain that Ridley was thrilled. She had created something genuinely new: a picture of early 20th Century England that differed significantly from other interpretations.
The eldest son of long-reigning Queen Victoria, the youthful Edward VII, then known as the Prince of Wales and nicknamed Bertie, showed little promise as a prospective British monarch. Insofar as his future required disciplined intelligence and scholarly cultivation, the transition from the high-sounding but devoid-of-duties Prince of Wales to the demanding role of King in a constitutional monarchy seemed a move that Bertie was sure to bungle. Ignorant and ineffectual monarchs are commonplace throughout European history, but the proud Victoria had hoped to produce something much better.
Ironically, the length of Victoria's reign and her lack of confidence in Bertie both contributed to turning him into a womanizer, hard-luck gambler, world-class glutton, and general purpose do-nothing. After all, there were no obligations, whether legally prescribed or traditionally observed, to impose purposeful activity on the Prince of Wales. In the absence of special talents to develop, interests to pursue, or the Queen's request for his assistance, becoming a royal playboy seemed a predictable way to go. The fact that Victoria inexplicably blamed her beloved husband's death on his knowledge of Bertie's first sexual misadventure only made matters worse. Victoria went into permanent mourning, withdrawing from public life, but refused to step aside for Bertie's ascendance to the throne. Without purpose, Bertie drifted into a pattern of dissipation that endured even after he married Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
Bertie's redemption, as Ridley sees it, came after Victoria's death, during his relatively brief time as King. Though he persisted in his sexual adventurism and otherwise gave pride of place to pleasure, his social and political skill in working with others in comparably high positions finally came to the fore. While the King had little power in a constitutional monarchy, especially after Victoria's long and reclusive reign, the author lauds him for the personal persuasive force that he exerted at the highest levels both at home and abroad. Ridley credits Edward VII with with providing the decisive influence that led to the joining of Great Britain, France, and Russia in the entente cordiale, a united front that soon faced the evermore bellicose Germany in World War I. As Ridley sees it, had it not been for the social aptitude, natural charm, and instinctive political acumen of Edward VII, Europe might have become a very different and hostile place, with implications for today that might have been profound.
It is with regard to these latter developments that Ridley parts company with other scholars in that she gives what she judges to be long overdue credit to Edward VII for his behind-the-scenes diplomatic accomplishments. Other observers have noted little difference between the sybaritic Prince of Wales and King Edward VII. Whether or not Ridley is right, she makes a strong case that the playboy Prince became a dutiful and hardworking King, in spite of his continued self-indulgence.
Inevitably, a biography of Edward VII will be loaded with titillating gossip. Sometimes, I think, Ridley includes too much of this, and the reader's attention begins to wane. Nevertheless, her descriptions of how the Prince and then King spent his spare time are historically illuminating. The accounts of shooting vacations bespeak an unacknowledged cruelty and perversion of sportsmanship beyond anything I've previously imagined. Now I know why members of the aristocracy often owned enormous tracts of wooded land and employed game keepers. On a typical shooting day, it was not at all uncommon for ten or twenty blue-bloods armed with shotguns to kill more than a thousand pheasants or grouse, driven towards them as they waited in their stands to shoot indiscriminately at a veritable cloud of birds. The disposition of the products of such a slaughter is not told.
Whether or not one construes such a grotesque activity as sport, it speaks volumes as to the resources available to the high born and wealthy. Edward VII's one reported glimpse of the condition of the poor in England left him shaken and horrified. Clearly, he had never imagined such misery and degradation, and to his credit, as King he devoted a good deal of effort to charitable ventures. Nevertheless, the gluttony, bed-hopping, and high-priced cruises and vacations taken for granted by Edward VII and his kind stood in the sharpest possible contrast to the lives of most of the population of Great Britain. This is well known, but Ridley displays it so graphically that it takes on new meaning.
Edward VII was a man of his time. I think the author may have unwittingly exaggerated his accomplishments as King, but she does show us forcefully that he was a wounded soul who had been treated with inexcusable, neurotic cruelty by his mother, and that was something that stayed with him.
There is so much information in this well written book that a review can give it only a cursory gloss. Whether intended or not, the author's treatment of Edward VII's life leaves the reader with a renewed and sobering appreciation of the finite nature of our time on earth, and the eventful and changing character of a fairly long life course. The Heir Apparent is long and extremely detailed, but I found reading it well worth the time and effort.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Enjoyable
By Osaggie
I was very interested in finding out about Edward VII, and glad this book clears up a good deal of the misinformation that has always been floated about him. Found this an enjoyable history.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Four Stars
By Amazon Customer
I have seen the author on PBS and liked her work.
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