Princess Pepper

Said goodbye today to my sister's best friend, Pepper, who wasn't really a real princess, but who was always treated royally--especially during her final illness.

I just had this portrait of Pepper done by Melinda McPherson Golden as a Christmas present. I highly recommend Melinda. She takes new commissions all the time; I have purchased several works of art from her.

Book Review: The Royal W.E.

Although many American girls have dreamt of marrying a prince, very few have ever achieved it. There was the glamorous movie star Grace Kelly who became a Serene Highness. Today, there is New York socialite Marie-Chantal Miller, whose father-in-law used to be the King of Greece. But the American dame who snagged an actual King and Emperor has a name that is synonymous with infamy.

Not that Bessiewallis Warfield Spencer Simpson doesn’t have her defenders. Chief among them is longtime royal blogger Victoria Martinez , whose 2011 e-book, “The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of The Duke & Duchess of Windsor,” sets out to tell the behind-the-scenes story of Wallis Simpson and her Prince Charming from a more sympathetic point of view. To be fair, Wallis and King Edward suffered from bad press from the very beginning, a situation they only managed to fuel throughout their lives.

Martinez’s book takes us back before the beginning—before the then-Prince of Wales met the woman for whom he would give up the British Empire. Through careful research and a bit of psychological reckoning, Martinez ably demonstrates how the couple’s past lives led them to each other’s arms. The prince hated protocol and ceremony, he felt unloved by his undemonstrative parents, and at every turn he was hemmed in by his high rank. Refusing to make an appropriate marriage, he found his comfort with motherly married women. Wallis was the last in a string of such misalliances. But, Wallis was no less lovelorn; having made an unfortunate and abusive early marriage, she found a second husband who provided security if not passion. When the prince and Wallis met, she was dazzled by the charming, boyish prince and he was ensnared by the forthright, strong woman. It is hard to imagine that either dreamt where their joint path would lead.

“W.E.” is presented as a series of short essays, mostly derived from Martinez’s earlier blog posts. The research is impeccable and many of the stories and insights will be new to any but the most avid royal readers. Her writing is fresh and inviting, and she often approaches her topic like a detective. As Martinez explains in her introduction, she has had a strong desire since childhood to really understand the real tale of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

I am no apologist for the couple, who seem to have made a series of poor choices throughout their lives together, but I am persuaded that neither is quite as selfish or self-deluded as they are often portrayed. However, I don’t subscribe to the Romeo-and-Juliet romanticism doled out by their defenders. Martinez manages to present a more balanced—though still favorable view—that captures them as human beings rather than archetypes.
The format of the book makes it easy to read, although I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the preliminary information, which includes a nine-page foreword by Windsor biographer Greg King, endorsements from two more royal authors, and Martinez’s own acknowledgements and introduction. Had it been a printed book, I would have been tempted to skip straight to the well-crafted essays.

In most of them, Martinez strives to contradict some of the more outlandish accusations that have been leveled at the Windsors, particularly Wallis, including reports that she had secret sexual powers or that she was not actually a woman at all.

Since I have some knowledge of the couple’s history, I was particularly intrigued by some of the lesser-known stories. Two essays in particular stand out. In “A Fool Would Know,” Martinez discusses the mysterious theft of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewelry during a sojourn at an English country house. This is our intrepid author at her Agatha Christie best: no theory is left unexamined although the crime remains unsolved.

Secondly, I was quite intrigued by “A Dreadful Woman,” in which Martinez explores the strained relationships between Wallis and her various royal in-laws. In this examination, the Kent branch of the family emerges as the most humane and forgiving—with royal family black sheep Princess Michael of Kent as the one true friend of the elderly and widowed Duchess of Windsor. The late Queen Mother’s relationship with the Duchess of Windsor is traced from its early misunderstandings to full-scale warfare. And, the Queen Mother’s bitter hatred is represented as the poison that spoils any chance Wallis and her prince might have had for reconciling with the family. The enmity between the two women was unrelenting—while the Duke of Windsor’s mother, the formidable Queen Mary, is granted a moment of human kindness as Martinez recounts her concern for Wallis during an illness. In this section, Martinez may be a bit heavy handed in her favorable bias toward Wallis, but it is nonetheless a fascinating exploration of some truly hyperbolic family dynamics.

Overall, “The Royal W.E.” offers cleverly composed, thoroughly researched glimpses of the American divorcee and the King who gave up his throne for her. I encourage you to keep an open mind as you read it; you just might realize that sometimes a fairytale doesn’t have any actual villains, just a lot of people in genuine emotional distress trying their best to make a life for themselves in very unusual circumstances. Click the Amazon linkbelow to buy it for just $2.99.



Read The Arbitrary History Blog by Victoria Martinez.

The Not-So-Wicked Stepmother

Today, stepmothers have become an ordinary part of many children’s lives. Heck, some people even end up with more than one. This was also the case for many royal children throughout history—particularly royal daughters. You see, when royal sons predeceased dear old dad, it was up to the aging king to find a young wife.

So, here you are a princess and in comes the new queen, who is probably about your age. This isn’t always the best formula for a harmonious family life. You don’t have to be a great historian or a psychiatrist to deduce that Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary, probably had little reason to love Anne Boleyn. After all, seeing your own mother cast aside and being declared illegitimate yourself so papa can try again with one of your mother’s maids has a way of cramping your style. The latent causes of “Bloody Mary’s” bloodiness may have started with this catastrophic second marriage.

Nevertheless, one royal stepmother did fare very well with her tempestuous stepdaughter. King Henry I was a melancholy old man of 52 when his friends persuaded him to marry again. His first wife had died a few years earlier and, Henry probably could have cared less. She had given him a couple of robust sons, William and Richard, to be the heir and a spare. However, in November 1120, Henry and the family (including several illegitimate children) set out for a little jaunt to Normandy. But Prince William, who could give the current Prince Harry a run for his money, decided to party longer on the English coast with his brother and one of his sisters and their friends. Henry’s boat rowed away as the youngsters enjoyed a few too many. By the time they finally set out, the helmsman and all the oarsmen were completely wasted. The boat struck a huge rock often covered by tidal floods and all but a lowly butcher was killed.

King Henry was distraught. His only surviving legitimate child, Matilda, not only was a girl, but was far away in Germany, the wife of the German emperor. So, the saddened old man chose to try for another heir, and promptly married the teenaged daughter of the Count of Louvain. Adela (sometimes called Adelicia or Adeliza) was considered gentle and loving and very beautiful. One of her illegitimate stepsons wrote “no maid as fair as she was seen on middle earth,” but that’s a Freudian issue we won’t get into here.

Despite being young and hot, Adela gave the king no children of any kind, male or female. He had several more illegitimate children and she had seven kids by her second husband after his death, but the stork never arrived at Adela and Henry’s castle. A few years later, Henry had a bit of luck; the German emperor had died without fathering any kids with his hot, young bride either. Henry’s daughter, 23-year-old Empress Matilda came home to England and found Queen Adela well established in her mother’s place. Evidently though, Adela’s winning ways impressed the usually proud Matilda and the two became friends. In fact, after Henry named Matilda his heir and insisted that she marry the too-short, very uncouth 14-year-old Geoffrey of Anjou, it was to Adela’s house that she fled.

Adela let Matilda stay secluded with them for many weeks while she protested the marriage. Why should she, an empress, marry a distasteful little count? King Henry won out in the end, however, and the marriage took place.

Years later, Adela was a little better at protecting her stepdaughter from a disagreeable king. After Henry died, his nephew Stephen usurped Matilda’s place as heir. Within a couple of years, Matilda and her illegitimate brother (the same one who thought Adela was a cutie) decided to raise an army and take the throne away from their cousin. The two of them arrived from the Continent and hurried to their stepmother’s house, Arundel Castle—where strangely enough she had already produced two sons for her second husband. Stephen got wind of their location and marched on the castle with a large force. Matilda and Robert had not thought to bring many men with them and the castle had a rather small entourage of its own. Adela, who until now had not taken a side against the new king, decided to take a stand. While Robert fled out a back door, Adela told Stephen she had no intention of handing over her stepdaughter.

Stephen, was persuaded by the pretty, thirty-something former queen and agreed to do the chivalric thing. He granted safe passage for Matilda, gave a jaunty wave to his lovely little aunt and rode away. After all, he thought he had more to fear from Robert than from a woman. Matilda, however, had other ideas. (Read my post about Matilda, Royal Escape Artist.) This was the start of civil war that lasted 14 years, ending only when Stephen agreed to make Matilda’s son, Henry, his heir. If Adela had not stood up to Stephen, the war might have been nipped in the bud and Stephen’s son, Eustace, might have become king rather than the energetic Henry II.

So, now we see what a good stepmother can do for a kingdom.