Edward VII, the Unloved Eldest Son of Queen Victoria

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Ferdinand Mount, Tum Tum and Mum; It was as though Falstaff rather than Prince Hal had become king. He turned out to be rather good at job. Wall Street Journal, Dec 14, 2013
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304337404579211981068917914
(book review on Jane Ridley, The Heir Apparent; The life of Edward VII, the playboy prince. Random House, 2013)
  
Note:
(a) Edward VII
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VII
(1841-1910; reign 1901-1910; the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband (and first cousin) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; christened Albert Edward; He was known as Bertie [shortened from Albert] to the family throughout his life; section 2 Early adulthood)

Quote:

section 2: "From this time [when in 1861 at age 19 he met his future wife, Princess Alexandra of Denmark], Edward gained a reputation as a playboy. Determined to get some army experience, Edward attended manoeuvres in Ireland, during which he spent three nights with an actress, Nellie Clifden, who was hidden in the camp by his fellow officers. Prince Albert, though ill, was appalled and visited Edward at Cambridge to issue a reprimand. Albert died in December 1861 just two weeks after the visit. Queen Victoria was inconsolable, wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life and blamed Edward for his father's death. At first, she regarded her son with distaste as frivolous, indiscreet and irresponsible. She wrote to her eldest daughter, 'I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder.'

Prince Albert Edward acceded upon his mother Queen Victoria's death in 1901.  "He chose to reign under the name Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use, declaring that he did not wish to 'undervalue the name of Albert' [which was his father's name] and diminish the status of his father with whom the 'name should stand alone.'

(b) Nellie Clifden
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Clifden
(i) A BBC report referred to Ms Clifden as a "prostitute."  Despite my research, I can not find anything about her, such as years of birth or death, occupation, appearance, or marriage if any.
(ii) Nellie/Nelly is the diminutive for Nell. The latter is derived from Helen, Ellen, Eleanor/Elinor, Petronella, Chanelle and Cornelia.
(iii) Rob Kyff, Unpleasant, by Any Derivation. Hartford Courant, Jan 18, 2005 (in the column Word Watch)
articles.courant.com/2005-01-18/features/0501180659_1_fire-polly-mine
(explaining how "n" was added as a prefix)
(iv) Petronella
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronella
(v) The book review describes the three nights at barracks this way: "the 19-year-old Bertie had been frolicking with a goodtime girl in an Irish barracks"

good-time girl (or good-time gal): "NOUN  INFORMAL OLD-FASHION  a young woman whose main interest is to enjoy life and have fun, especially in a way that is not considered moral"
www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/good-time-girl


(c) "No mother was ever less proud of her eldest son. Queen Victoria thought Albert Edward—always known as 'Bertie'—ugly as a baby, and her opinion didn't improve as he grew older. 'Oh! Bertie alas! That is too sad a subject to enter on,' she wrote to her eldest daughter, Vicky, but enter she did: 'Handsome I cannot think him, with that painfully small and narrow head, those immense features and total want of chin.' His intellect was weak, he was lazy and dreamy. He never read a book, he was appallingly frivolous. * * * He described the Kaiser (son of his sister Vicky) as both mad and wicked, and though he did his best to get on with him, he never trusted him for a moment. He also sensed what was in the wind. A few months before his death in 1910, he prophesied: 'I have not long to live and then my nephew will make war.'"
(i) The photo caption the the WSJ book review also points Vicky out.
(ii) The "Vicky" is Bertie's elder sister Victoria (birth name; 1840-1901). She married the future German Emperor--German title was "Kaiser"--Frederick III. One of her issue was the future Wilhelm II.
(iii) (His intellect was weak, he was lazy and dreamy. He never read a book, he was appallingly frivolous.)

This is not Queen Victoria's own words, thus not bookended by quotation marks. Instead this is (book) writer's or reviewer's words in the sgoes of Queen Victoria.

(d) "On first meeting her future husband, the 16-year-old Victoria wrote in her journal: 'It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert who is beautiful.' After their wedding night, she wrote: 'Really I do not think it possible for anyone in the world to be happier or AS happy as I am. He is an Angel.' They were to have four sons and five daughters, but there was never any doubt who came first. Though husband and wife had stonking rows, it was always 'dear Papa,' she wrote, 'whose life is all and all to me, without whom I should be utterly powerless, consequently whose life is of national and European importance.'"
(i) Queen Victoria (1819-1901; reign 1837-1901) first met, in 1836, her first cousin (and future husband) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Prince Albert (1819-1861) and got married in 1840, age 20. "She inherited the throne at the age of 18 [in 1837]."  She was 42 when Prince Albert died.

Queen Victoria celebrated her golden jubilee in 1887 and diamond jubilee in 1897.
(ii) stonk "military slang
[n] a concentrated artillery bombardment
[vt] bombard with concentrated artillery fire"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/stonk
(iii) row (n; origin unknown): "a noisy disturbance or quarrel"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row

Pay attention to its pronunciation in this definition.

(e) "His gluttony swelled him to such a size that he was nicknamed Tum Tum, but his sexual appetite never slowed up, though in later years he resorted to electrical treatment to restore his performance. He was neither choosy nor discreet, diving into brothels in Paris, Vienna and Budapest to emerge in broad daylight. In the afternoons he prowled the drawing rooms of Mayfair for a little cinq à sept. On weekends, he crept along the corridors of every great country house in England (except Hatfield, from which the high-minded Lord Salisbury had banned him). He treated his wife, Alix, abominably, though she never ceased to love him and felt bereft during his frequent absences. He always came back to her, for he liked to say, in his brutish way: "She is my brood mare, the others are my hacks."
(i) tum (n; origin: mid 19th century: abbreviation of TUMMY): "informal  a person’s stomach or abdomen"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/tum
(A) tummy (n; baby-talk alteration of stomach; First Known Use 1867)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tummy
(B) Incidentally, the "mum" in the review title is chiefly British variant of "mom."
(ii) Mayfair
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfair
(Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today; The renown and prestige of Mayfair could have grown in the popular mind because it is the most expensive property on the British Monopoly set)
(iii) cinq à sept
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinq_%C3%A0_sept
(French for "five to seven;" In France, cinq à sept was originally used as a synecdoche for a visit to one's mistress, derived from the time of day Frenchmen would make such a visit
(iv) For Lord Salisbury, see Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil,_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury
(1830-1903; a British Conservative statesman and thrice Prime Minister [1885-1886; 1886-1892; 1895-1902], serving for a total of over 13 years; photo caption: "Statue of [Lord] Salisbury in front of the park gates of Hatfield House")
(v) Hatfield House
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_House
(a country house in the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England [where Lord Salisbury was born and died])
(vi) Bertie's wife was

Alexandra of Denmark
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_of_Denmark
(full name: Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia, or "Alix", as her immediate family knew her)
(vii) hack (n; short for jackney):
"2a(1): a horse let out for common hire
(2) :  a horse used in all kinds of work"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hack

(f) "when in 1901 he at last succeeded to the throne, as a paunchy, goggle-eyed roué of 60, he became one of the best constitutional monarchs in British history. It is as though Falstaff rather than Prince Hal became king and turned out to be rather good at the job. Edward the Caresser, as Henry James dubbed him in a letter, was a fashion innovator, inventing the dinner jacket and trouser turn-ups and undoing the bottom button of the waistcoat (to allow more room for Tum)."
(i) roué (n; French, literally, broken on the wheel, from past participle of rouer to break on the wheel, from Medieval Latin rotare, from Latin, to rotate; from the feeling that such a person deserves this punishment):
"a man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure : RAKE"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/roué
(ii) Falstaff
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falstaff
(iii) Henry James
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_james
(1843-1916; an American-born British writer: born in Manhattan, died in London)
(iv) For dinner jacket, see tuxedo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuxedo
("tuxedo (American English, also colloquially known as “tux”) or dinner suit or dinner jacket (British English);"  section 2.1 English origins)
(v) wastecoat
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waistcoat
(commonly called a vest in American English)

(g) he badgered his mother to come out of her gloomy seclusion at Windsor, which she eventually did, to dazzling effect, at her Diamond Jubilee. * * *  In 1909, during the crisis over Lloyd George's 'People's Budget,' which proposed modest taxes on the rich, he constantly besought the backwoods peers not to stand in the way of the elected House. * * *  When the German courtiers complained about the king of Hawaii going into dinner with Alix on his arm while their crown prince was left ignominiously trailing behind, Bertie told them rudely to lump it."
(i) jubilee
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee
(silver, golden and diamond jubilee)

See also (d)(i) for Queen Victoria's jubilees.
(ii) David Lloyd George
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George
(1863-1945; Liberal Party; prime minister 1916-1922; Chancellor of the Exchequer (similar to US treasury secretar) 1908-1915; section 3.1 People's Budget, 1909)
(iii) beseech (v; past tense and past principal: beseeched or besought)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beseech
(iv) lump (vt; origin unknown): "to put up with <like it or lump it>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lump

(h) "The Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone and, oddly, the socialist Beatrice Webb saw what an excellent king Bertie would make, but most other politicians wrote him off as a playboy. When he pioneered the Entente Cordiale—the new understanding with France that ended decades of Franco-British rivalry and helped build the alliance that triumphed in the Great War—his ministers tried to rob him of the credit. But only Bertie was in a position to say that he felt in Paris comme si j'étais chez moi, because he had indeed been at home in every whorehouse in Montmartre.
(i) William Ewart Gladstone
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone
(1809-1898)
(ii) entente cordiale
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entente_cordiale
(later became part of the Triple Entente among Britain, France, and Russia; section 1 History)

English definition:
entente (n; Borrowing from French entente, meaning “understanding”): "an informal alliance or friendly understanding between two states"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/entente
(French definition: (noun feminine) "accord; agreement")
(iii) comme si j'étais chez moi
: "as if I were at my home"
(A) comme si (conjunction): "as if"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/comme_si
(B) The "j'étais" is French for "I were."
(C) je (French pronoun): "I"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/je
(D) The "être" is French verb, equivalent to "be."
(E) French conjugation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_conjugation
(section 2.2 Être: étais)
(F) chez (French preposition; from Latin casa): "at the house of <chez moi: 'at my house'>"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chez
(G) moi (French pronoun; Middle French, from Latin me, which is "me" in English): "me"en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moi