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PETER STANSKY
marked the debut of Chamberlain's third wife as a hostess. Sir Philip
as courtier is at his most full-blown describing the feelings of the Hon.
Oliver Montagu, an equerry, towards Alexandra: "He loved the Princess
with that exalted, chivalrous and selfless passion which inspired knights
in medieval romances to dedicate their lives to the service of beautiful
princesses and queens. Oliver Montagu would have perished gladly to
spare the Princess of Wales the least shadow of reproach or annoyance."
Again, Sir Philip is disappointingly inexplicit, decorous, almost offhand,
in his accounts of the major liaisons with Mrs. Langtry, Lady Brooke
and Mrs. Keppel. The emphasis is upon Edward as a public figure;
the private sector of the life is touched upon so discreetly that even his
spirit and independence in later life seem as two-dimensional as the
royal engagement book.
Royalty-and this has been the great modern triumph of the English
version-is more often than not merely the ordinary man magnified; in
this respect Edward fulfilled his role to perfection. The piling-up of
details asks us in effect to share with the English populace their tre–
mendous relief when Edward recovers from serious illnesses and their
secondhand excitement when he wins the Derby, events that seem more
"real" than the mishandled serious international and domestic problems
which marked Edward's age. Sir Philip's book is essentially a royal prog–
ress, written with the same zest and panache that the author claims for
his subject. As in the royal life itself, there is little discrimination between
the question of what gift to give a racehorse owner, the choice of what
to wear, or the problem .of what to do about the House of Lords. For
Edward's was fundamentally a superficial life. His mother did not trust
his judgment-she realized how "impressionable" he was-and in any
case did not wish to share her power, so that he was forced to be con–
tent until her death with some of the outward trappings of royalty. Then,
when at last he came into his inheritance at the age of fifty-nine, he
discovered that there was hardly anything but ceremonial left.
Granted that this sort of biography doesn't lend itself to the por–
traitist approach of Lytton Strachey. Granted that even Strachey him–
self was somewhat done in by royalty-his portrait of Victoria is sur–
prisingly and endearingly sentimental. Still, he did attempt to explain,
not merely to present, his subject. Sir Philip belongs with the presenters
rather than the interpreters, content to offer a faithful record of a man
whom he believes was faithful to himself. But the defect of the method
is that we don't really know what that self was.
It
was submerged in the
size-so fantastically nourished
by
those Edwardian meals-in the uni–
forms of the central figure, in the pageants in which he participated.
The period 1900-1914 was the climax of the pageant for its own
