Editing Lillie Langtry (section)

===Daughter===
Lillie Langtry had a short affair with [[Prince Louis of Battenberg]]. However, the discovery of letters of Lillie Langtry to Arthur Clarence Jones (1854–1930), gives the impression she also had an affair or at least an intimate friendship with this childhood friend of her brothers who continued to live on Jersey. Arthur Jones was the brother of her sister-in-law; both were illegitimate children of Lord Ranelagh.<ref name="RoyalMistresses " >[[Anthony J. Camp|Camp, Anthony]]. ''Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction: 1714–1936'' (2007), pp. 364–67</ref> 

In June 1880, Lillie became pregnant. Her husband was not the father. Edward Langtry had walked out after a libel case. The obvious candidate was Prince Louis of Battenburg. Jane Ridley compared the dates with the diary of the Prince of Wales: Prince Louis was staying at Marlborough House on June 27, the likely conception date. Anyway, Lillie led Prince Louis to believe that he was the father of her child. Lillie was lent 2000 pounds by the Prince of Wales to pay her debts. At the same time, Edward Langtry, who often visited her unannounced, was prevented from seeing her. Edward Langtry was constantly occupied with invitations to shoot or fish. Keeping him in ignorance of the pregnancy was vital: he was angry and resentful. The worry was that if Edward Langtry discovered that his wife was pregnant by another man, he might sue for divorce, dragging the Prince of Wales into the law courts. Lillie spent the summer holiday in Jersey. One Friday in October, by now four months pregnant, she visited London briefly and saw the Prince of Wales. On 17 October, the Prince of Wales held a meeting with his doctor, Oscar Clayton, and saw Louis Battenberg. The same day, Louis departed on a two-year voyage round the world on the aptly named warship {{HMS|Inconstant|1868|6}}. Lillie herself was spirited away to France. On 18 March 1881 she gave birth to a baby – a girl named Jeanne Marie.<ref>Ridley, ''Bertie'', 224</ref> 

The discovery in 1978 of Langtry's letters to Arthur Jones and publication of quotations from them by [[Laura Beatty]] in 1999 support the idea that Jones was the father of Langtry's daughter. Possibly she told him ''he'' was the father of the child. Anyway, in a letter she pressed Jones to go a chemist to buy potions to make her miscarry. During her pregnancy she wrote him passionately written letters and assured him how much she needed him. Jones probably stayed with her in Paris after she wrote him a letter with the dates she would give birth – according to her doctor.<ref>Beatty, ''Lillie Langtry'', 177, 186-215. The letters were already mentioned by Theo Aronson in ''The King of Love'', 74: 'A cache of sixty-five love letters, written by Lillie to Arthur Henry Jones, was discovered in a battered green box in an attic in a Jersey farmhouse. The box had apparently been brought there by Arthur Jones’s niece, many years ago. The tone of these letters is passionate; the relationship between Lillie Langtry and Arthur Jones was undoubtedly sexual. Always addressing him as "My Darling", she often tells him when it will be safe for him to visit her. "Please, please, hurry back," she writes on one occasion. "I want you so much."' Aronson himself referred to an article in ''The Times'', but used the wrong date. The quotations are from this article, published on 30 November 1978. The letters were sold through Christie's to an anynomous buyer. Lord Mountbatten of Birma and the granddaughter of Lillie Langtry, in the 1950s a well-known BBC-announcer, denied both to be the buyer of the letters. ''The Times'' stated in this article, which included also published the key-quotation of the chemist, that Arthur Jones was the secret lover of Lillie Langtry. The (65) letters were sold in the period that the television series ''Lillie'' was broadcast. Laura Beatty was the first to use the letters. She doesn't recall the name of owner of the letters. Her only reference: 'I am also indebted to Richard Macnutt who was instrumental in finding the Jones correspondence and negotiating it access. With the help of these two, this book would simply never have been written. 'The first person is Mary McFadyen, Lillie's granddaughter. She was helpful in general in her support of the project. Beatty, ''Lillie Langtry'', 317.</ref>

Prince Louis' son, [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Earl Mountbatten of Burma]], however, had always maintained that his father was the father of Jeanne Marie.<ref>''Daily Telegraph'', 27 September 1978; ''Evening News'', 23 October 1978.</ref><ref>''Daily Telegraph'', 27 September 1978, p. 19: "Mountbatten 'knew of affair'.'Earl Mountbatten of Burma knew that the affair between his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Lillie Langtry produced an illegitimate child, it was disclosed yesterday. The child, a girl, was the mother of Mary Malcolm, the former BBC television announcer. The heartbreak of the subsequent hush-up is recalled by Mary Malcolm in an interview with Woman’s Own. Lord Mountbatten was not available for comment yesterday but his spokesman said of the illegitimacy: "Certainly he is aware of it. Whether it was ever discussed with his father I have no idea. I would imagine not— that is going back a long time."'Digital available in ''The Telegraph Historical Archive/Gale Primary Sources''. Access through library-subscription is necessary.</ref>

Jeanne Marie was only told who her father was, by [[Margot Asquith]], when she was twenty years old.<ref>''Chips, The Diaries of Henry Channon'' (London 1967) 241.</ref> A story around this discovery tells Jeanne Marie complained bitterly of her illegitimacy. She was asked sharply by her mother, 'Who would you prefer to have as a father, a penniless drunken Irishman or a Royal Prince and the most handsome of all naval officers?'<ref>Quoted by Hough, ''Louis and Victoria'', 98. Hough doesn't give a reference to this quotation so it possible it is apocryphal. However, the letters of Lillie Langtry to Arthur Jones – as published partly by Laura Beatten – Lillie's husband "Ned" was not only a suspicious nuisance and a problem during the pregnancy, but also a drunkard: 'Darling, I am utterly miserable and your letter makes me still more so. Ned is drinking and behaving so badly. I don't think he will stay with me. We quarrelled just now about the amount of drink he consumes and he had rushed off to....get money to pay the bill. I don't know ''even'' if he will come to Berkeley Street where we go today.' Other letters to Jones make clear Arthur Jones also drank too much; this worried Lillie Langtry. Beatty, ''Lillie Langtry'', 199-200.''</ref>