The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-18
From the Louisville courier-Journal

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.
 A CORRESPONDENT in London
 "A possibly a misinformed or gos- sipy writer, cables to New York paper the news that Mrs. Keppel, friend of the late King Edward VII. furnished Sir Sidney Lee with most of the material for his brutally candid bio- graphical sketch and analysis of the dead monarch.
 It is very pretty story as it stands, and it would be disappointing to many persons to find that it is not true for your gossip may be hated sas an insti- tuition, but is oourted as aIf informant The tale is that after the death of King Edward, Mrs Keppel went abroad, and drifted to Florence, where sojoTned Henry Labouchere, brilliant radical journalist and brilliant conversation alist. It was in front of "Labby's" Florentine villa. according to the story, that a good deal about King Edward leaked, in conversation, from the lips of Mrs. Keppel. Lees Revelations" ex- plode, or seek to explode, the alleged myth of King Edwards ability, making him a rather mediocre, though well dis posed, monarch, who liked nip of ale and a cigar with his royal cousins, and whose frequent supposed visits of state were merely the meanderings of a con- vivial gentleman. That he opposed cer- tain democratic legislation is stronger charge in the view of the socialists and laborites.
 The correspondent who credited Mrs Keppel with having gossiped in Florence says upon his own account:
 "There is no doubt the biography has done a great deal to enable thinking peo- pie to get proper perspective of Ed ward That he had certain outstanding abilities nobody will deny, but they were never half as great as the myth that had grown up around him. He played his part on the stage very thoushtfully and very quietly, and allowed others to do the boosting for him. He nodded and smiled graciously to the mob, walked about among the crowds on race courses, and generally posed as The Peoples King Tn point of fact, as has been clearly shown, he was an aristocrat to the last drop of blood in his body, drew his per- SDDdl lilFi<iN iiO+fi thAe iii'R' N and generally despised the crowd
 unlike so many royalties, however he was clever enough to recognize that he had to court the wealthy and curry favor with the crowd to maintain the fiction of the democratic sympathies of the ruling caste. He saw, too, the beginnings of the great industrial unrest that is sweeping over England, and he did his best to stem the tide by representing, so far as he could, the monarchy as the real friend of the people.
 ''The ruling classes sn England never had a head who played their game so cleverly as Edward, who was the. strong, unbending aristoerat in private life, but when he went among the crowd had the happy knack of pretending that he was one of them.
 .'The intimate followers of the court can see for themselves how the prestige of the monarchy is rapidly waning, and that is why they are so. furious with Lee for exploding the Ki1hg Edward myth. which they had counted on remaining an asset to them for generation at least. :
 This estimate neither disproves Ed wards title to ability as diplomatist nor convicts him of posing. Assuredly no diplomacy has been more important to the institution of monarchy in Great Britain in these last few years than the kind with which he is credited And a king, or commoner. who looks out for his own interest in all legitimate ways is | hardly to be blamed.
 ! If Edward finished his career, benign to the view of the outside world and i'm mensely popular with the English peo- pie, only to have Mrs. Keppel reach into the grave and knife him he played in as hard luck as any wife could wish for any husband who vas more fond of the company of the platonic friend than, per haps, he should have been. That Ed ward who had allowed himself to be be- lieyed to be pupil of Gladstone and q 1 friend of social eyol,;tion in the direc- .lon of democracy. was in reality an op-