Aylesford affair

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Lady Aylesford (around 1890)
Prince Edward (1894)

The Aylesford Affair ( English Aylesford Affair ) was a social scandal that rocked upper Victorian society in the United Kingdom in 1875 and 1876 . The occasion was the affair between the Marquess of Blandford , heir to the 7th Duke of Marlborough , and Lady Aylesford . After the affair became known to Lord Aylesford , he requested a double divorce. The younger brother of Lord Blandford, Lord Randolph Churchill , who saw the former lover of Lady Aylesford, Edward, Prince of Wales , behind the proceedings , then tried to blackmail the heir to the throne by means of compromising letters. This then asked Churchill to apologize or to a duel. After engaging Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and receiving the apology requested through his intervention, he ensured that Randolph Churchill was socially ostracized for years to come.

background

The Marquess of Blandford , heir to the Duke of Marlborough, had married Lady Albertha Frances Anne Hamilton, daughter of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn , in November 1869 . The arranged marriage, however, was not a happy one; as Blandford later expressed dissatisfied, when choosing his future wife he had only had the choice between the daughters of the Duke of Abercorn. Quickly bored with his marriage, he soon began to be interested in other women. In the closed upper social circles of the Victorian Age , this was tacitly ignored until he began an affair with Lady Aylesford. Both belonged, like Eduard, Prince of Wales , to the so-called “ Marlborough House Set ”, a closed social circle of the British upper class around Eduard and some of his close friends.

Lady Aylesford had previously had an affair with the Prince of Wales . Her husband, Heneage Finch, 7th Earl of Aylesford , one of the Prince of Wales's regular companions, had dutifully deliberately overlooked this affair, but was unwilling to do the same with other men. When his wife hastily confessed to him by letter about the affair with Lord Blandford and wrote that she intended to run away with Blandford, he was not ready for a tacit compromise. Lord Aylesford, who in the autumn of 1875 accompanied the Prince of Wales on a trip to British India as a personal guest, broke off the trip and returned before the Prince of Wales. He now initiated a divorce and asked Lord Blandford to divorce as well.

Course of the scandal

Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill now jumped in on his brother. Convinced that an offended Prince of Wales was the real driving force behind the whole divorce proceedings, he tried to force a change of opinion. He obtained previous love letters from the Prince of Wales from his brother, addressed to Lady Aylesford and signed with his nickname “Bertie”. Armed with these letters as reassurance, he began to exert pressure; so, in the presence of Edward's wife, Alexandra of Denmark , he dropped the comment that he was in possession of letters which guaranteed that Edward would never sit on the throne.

An angry Edward then urged Lord Hardwicke to bring the whole matter to Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli . At the same time, he asked Randolph Churchill for a formal apology. If Churchill does not comply, he will challenge him to a duel as soon as he himself has returned from his journey. Randolph Churchill, however, refused to apologize. He also refused the duel with the Prince of Wales himself and offered that he would instead fight a substitute at any time, but he could not raise his hand against his future sovereign. In a further instructive letter, he further stated that Eduard must be aware that he could never accept the challenge, as no British citizen could ever raise his hand against the heir to the throne.

At the time of Edward's return the matter was on everyone's lips in the British aristocracy; Lord Hardwicke and his wife, Alexandra, advised Eduard to use Prime Minister Disraeli as a mediator, given the grave situation and the danger to his reputation. Prime Minister Disraeli mediated now. He first summoned his party comrade Randolph Churchill and tried - unsuccessfully - to influence him. Together with Lord Hardwicke, however, he was able to get Lord Aylesford to withdraw the suit for divorce. A more extensive public scandal through divorce proceedings in the public eye had now been prevented for the time being. Eduard, Prince of Wales, however, was not satisfied. The Churchills were now socially ostracized. Eduard announced that from now on he would no longer enter any house that would receive the two Churchill brothers. Lady Aylesford meanwhile became a persona non grata , and her husband withdrew custody of their children. The Churchills, almost ostracized in their social circles, set out on a trip to America, but were overtaken by letters in which Edward asked them to sign a letter of apology drawn up by Lord Chancellor and by both Prime Minister Disraeli and the liberal opposition leader Lord Hartington had been confirmed. Randolph Churchill signed this letter, but deliberately chose the anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga and added in a postscript that he had to accept Lord Chancellor's letter "as a gentleman". Eduard then again refused a compromise between himself and Randolph Churchill.

Disraeli now worked on the father of the Churchills, the 7th Duke of Marlborough . This reluctantly accepted the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and went to Dublin . As recently as 1874, he had turned down the office because of the inconvenience and high costs of the office - to fill the office, financial expenses of £ 40,000 per annum were necessary, but the financial compensation was only half. Reluctantly, he accepted the office to remove his third son, whom he took with him to Ireland as his private secretary, from the line of fire. Randolph Churchill accompanied him with his wife and young son Winston , who later counted his stay in Ireland to his earliest childhood memories.

Later events

Lord Blandford, who was not visibly involved in the actual blackmail attempt, found access to higher society again without any problems and initially reconciled with his wife, but at the same time continued the affair with Lady Aylesford in Paris . The affair had a child, Guy Bertrand Spencer, in 1881. Since the child's illegitimacy was evident - Lord and Lady Aylesford had long been separated - the paternity of the child was challenged by Lord Aylesford and in July 1885 the House of Lords ruled that the child was illegitimate and had no rights have the family title. After being abandoned by Blandford and only given a pension by her husband, Lady Aylesford passed the last years of her life in poverty.

After the general election in 1880 , the victorious Liberals under William Gladstone formed the government again ; they nominated their own Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which allowed the Churchills to return from their Irish exile. Randolph Churchill was now active again as a politician. As the leader of a group of young, progressive conservatives, soon to be referred to as the “fourth party”, a gifted speaker he quickly became one of the leading conservative politicians in the House of Commons. He formulated their program, which became known under the catchphrase "Tory Democracy". He rose to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the cabinet of Lord Salisbury , before abruptly ending his political career with a spectacular resignation. Eduard, who sympathized far more with the Conservatives than with the Liberals, found himself ready for a rapprochement and soon again had private contact with Randolph Churchill and his family.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anne Jordan: Love Well the Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell (1857-1911). Matador, Leicester 2010, p. 43.
  2. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 54.
  3. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 56.
  4. ↑ Sidney Lee: King Edward VII. A Biography. Macmillan, London 1925, p. 378.
  5. ↑ Sidney Lee: King Edward VII. A Biography. Macmillan, London 1925, p. 391.
  6. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 57.
  7. ^ Sebastian Haffner: Winston Churchill. Kindler Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 11.
  8. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 59.
  9. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. pp. 59 f.
  10. ^ Anne Jordan: Love Well the Hour: The Life of Lady Colin Campbell (1857-1911). Matador, Leicester 2010, p. 44.
  11. ^ Robert Blake: Disraeli. Faber and Faber, London 2010, p. 693.
  12. ^ Robert Blake: Disraeli. Faber and Faber, London 2010, p. 692.
  13. ^ Sebastian Haffner: Winston Churchill. Kindler Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 11 f.
    Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 61.
  14. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 75.
  15. ^ Mary S. Lovell: The Churchills: In Love and War. WW Norton & Company, London 2011. p. 75.
  16. ^ Robert Blake: Disraeli. Faber and Faber, London 2010, p. 712.
  17. ^ Robert Blake: The Conservative Party from Peel to Major. Faber and Faber, London 1997, p. 135.
  18. ^ Sebastian Haffner: Winston Churchill. Kindler Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 12 f.
  19. ^ Roy Jenkins : Churchill. Macmillan, London / Basingstoke / Oxford 2001, p. 11 ff.
  20. ^ Philip Magnus: Edward the Seventh. John Murray Publishers, London 1964, p. 147.
  21. ^ Robert Blake: Disraeli. Faber and Faber, London 2010, p. 694.