page_title: Alice Keppel
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Alice Keppel / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Duntreath Castle, Strath Blane.
context_page_description: Alice Frederica Keppel was a British society hostess and a long-time mistress and confidante of King Edward VII.
  Keppel grew up at Duntreath Castle, the family seat of the Edmonstone baronets in Scotland. She was the youngest child of Mary Elizabeth, née Parsons and Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet. In 1891, she married The Honourable George Keppel and they had two daughters. She became one of the best society hostesses of the Edwardian era. Her beauty, charm and discretion impressed London society and brought her to the attention of the future King Edward VII in 1898, whose mistress she remained till his death, lightening the dark moods of his later years, and allegedly held considerable influence.
  Through her younger daughter, Sonia Cubitt, Keppel is the great-grandmother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, second wife of Edward's great-great-grandson Charles, Prince of Wales.
context_section_description: Alice Frederica Edmonstone (known as "Freddie" to her family) was born on 29 April 1868 in Woolwich Dockyard, Kent to Mary Elizabeth, née Parsons (1823–1902) and Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet (1810–1888), who was serving as Superintendent at the Dockyard at the time. Besides his position as a baronet, her father was a retired admiral in the Royal Navy, and her maternal grandfather had been a governor of the Ionian Islands. She was the youngest of one brother and seven sisters, and while growing up, she was closer to her brother Sir Archibald Edmonstone (Archie) than her sisters.
  She grew up at Duntreath Castle, the home of the Edmonstone family since the 14th century. The castle had been a wedding gift from King Robert III of Scotland to his daughter Mary Stewart, Princess of Scotland, when she married her fourth husband, Sir William Edmonstone of Culloden, in 1425. Mary and Robert had a son, Sir William Edmonstone of Duntreath.
caption: Duntreath Castle
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