ROYAL AFFAIR SHOCK
Historians forced to rethink after North Shields woman’s announcement
ACADEMICS are being forced to reexamine historical documents after a North Shields woman cast doubt on conventional thinking about a 19th Century royal marriage.
Historians have long believed that King William IV’s wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, remained faithful to her husband despite rumours that she conducted an affair with her Lord Chamberlain in the 1830s. Documents show that the consort queen was extremely close to Richard Curzon-Howe, but the rumours of a fling, which led to his dismissal from the post, have long been understood to have been politically motivated.
However, after reading an historical fiction novel, 45-year-old Janice Bunions has cast doubt on the theory. “I think she had an affair with him,” she told The Journal of Contemporary History. “I’ve just finished reading Victoria in the Wings by Jean Plaidy, and I reckon she might well have done the dirty on her husband.”
howe
According to Janice, the novel paints a picture of Lord Howe as a tall, handsome, dashing gentleman with chiselled features and a pencil moustache, and the Queen as a fragile, sensitive woman trapped in a loveless marriage of state. And whilst the novel shows the King and Queen were fond of each other, it describes an irresistible chemistry between the Queen and Howe. “After all, she was only flesh and blood,” said Bunions.
She told us: “In chapter seven, there’s a bit where the King takes Adelaide on a ride in his carriage in Regents Park and they’re both all lovey-dovey. But then she sees Lord Howe riding past on a big white horse and she goes all quiet and starts to cry.”
“There was definitely something going off,” she added.
“We certainly need to look again at the facts,” said Clive Eversley, professor of contemporary history at the University of Cambridge. “We have long believed that Adelaide supported the Tory government, and the public believed she was trying to influence the King to halt the passage of the Reform act of 1832.
As a result, the press began to circulate rumours about an affair in order to destabilise their relationship and weaken her influence. But the entire court knew she was extremely pious and faithful to her husband. The Whig Prime Minister Earl Grey had Howe removed from the queen’s household simply to quell the rumours,” he said.
father
“That’s the current thinking, but it looks like we might have to think again,” the professor added.
Bunions, who has read almost every historical novel Jean Plaidy has written, says that her other books back up her theory. “In The Goddess of the Green Room, William conducts an affair with an actress, Dorothy Jordan, and has ten kids by her,” she explained. “And when he marries Adelaide, he’s still got the picture of Dorothy up in the house. Well, if that’s not enough to make her want an affair, nothing is.”
But not everyone agrees with Janice’s theory. Sharon Balm-cake, her friend who borrowed the book after she had read it, said she held with conventional academic thinking. “I don’t think she had an affair. I mean, yes, she might of, but I don’t think she did,” she told Comparative Studies in Society and History.