Princess Edith’s love affair: a royal scandal
1921. HRH Princess Edith announced her engagement a few months ago, and since then she's had to face serious rumours about her alleged romantic affair with a royal guard member. This matter has led the monarchy into the greatest scandal since Princess Sybil refused to get married back in the 1890s. But where do all these rumours come from? Is there any truth in them? Let’s rewind on the young princess’s life and try to figure it out.
Princess Edith was born in 1900 at Bayrón and was the 4th child of TM Queen Edith II and King Joseph of Brosnia. She was christened HRH Princess Edith Olivia Alice of Cleavreau. She spent her childhood with her sisters at Cleavreau Palace, and was considered to be a shy and quiet yet kind little girl, always outshined by her older sister Princess Susan, who stood out the most among the four sisters.
She moved to Deveraux with her younger sister, Princess Marge, in 1914 when the war started to live with her brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and the Duchess of Deveraux. It is known that since then she developed a great relationship with the Duchess, who became like a mother and a confident for her. After the war, she suffered the loss of her sister, P. Marge, in 1919. Soon after that, the gossip about her supposed romance started and spread really quickly. Despite all this, she recently announced her engagement with Lord Holden Northup, Viscount of Monteroble and heir to the Earldom of Lucréte.
(above, some highlights of Princess Edith´s life: her First Holy Communion, her work helping the nursing corps during the war and the Victory Parade when it was won.)
So, where do these rumours come from? How did this all start?
According to an unidentified source that is supposedly close to the royal family, Princess Edith was devastated after she lost her sister during the flu pandemic. She knew her mother The Queen was also deeply sad after this event and so was Lady Deveraux, so she felt she needed to carry her grief on her own to avoid bothering them.
In this situation, the source says, of extreme vulnerability, she was seduced by a member of the royal guard serving at Deveraux. She has, since then, been exchanging romantic correspondence with him and sneaking out to meet him. The lovers kept their relationship in secret for as long as they could, but one night they got caught up exchanging notes by an unknown member of the Deveraux household, possibly a housemaid, who professedly started all the rumours when she told other housemaids.
The gossip arrived to the court and the highest members of the brosnian nobility, and kept growing and growing for weeks before her Royal Ball last year, where she was suposed to find a suitable husband. Her lack of interest in her suitors made the situation even worse, and the rumours where spread all around the country.
The Queen, before this circumstances that were damaging all the royal family’s public image, made the decision to accelerate her engagement to Lord Northup despite P. Edith’s initial refusal. She convinced her daughter to accept his marriage proposal and try to stop the accusations she was suffering, and the princess eventually agreed. However, several months have passed and there’s still no official date for the wedding and it has only recently been announced in the brosnian newspapers, so it feels like it’s taking too long to happen.
(above, the engagement portrait that was recently published in the newspaper to announce the future wedding)
Of course these are all rumours, no one really knows if they are true or not, specially because the identity of the alleged lover has never been discovered and there hasn’t been any public statement about it. Either way, this has caused a great damage to Princess Edith’s public image that will only be repaired when she finally marries.
