Book review: The Heir Apparent, by Jane Ridley

by Jane Ridley
Random House
4 stars
Janet Maslin

In her welcome new biography of Edward VII, who succeeded Queen Victoria on the British throne, Jane Ridley explains how this firstborn son managed to spend time in court - and not the kind of court royalty is supposed to frequent.

Bertie, as this Prince of Wales was familiarly known for the first 59 years of his life, was a renowned crinoline chaser, and many efforts were made to keep his name out of matrimonial cases. Nevertheless, he ended up on the witness stand when one disgruntled husband petitioned for divorce.

"He continued to visit ladies, he still wrote letters, and he still saw his 'fast' friends," writes Ridley, a history professor who clears up the myths and mysteries surrounding the Victorian and Edwardian royals, including any possible connection to Jack the Ripper.

Bertie spent most of his life in waiting and had no great gift for amusing anyone other than himself. He infuriated his mother, who decreed, when Albert Edward (Bertie's birth name) was only 18 months old: "I do not think him worthy of being called Albert yet." Victoria's adoration of her husband, Prince Albert, and his ambitious agenda for reconfiguring the role of British royalty left these parents without much time or attention for their children.

Ridley credits the prince for giving a public relations spin to the idea of a royal family, well-posed and frequently photographed as a model for bourgeois families everywhere. He was close to some of his siblings - notably his older sister, Vicky. He once argued with her about which of them owned the Scilly Islands, without realising they would soon be removed from him. Part of his parents' grand plan was to marry their children into Europe's other royal families, and long before Bertie became king of England, Vicky was empress of Germany.