As the old saw goes, Prince Charles made ‘an honest woman’ of Camilla Parker Bowles, which is more than can be said for his ancestor Prince Edward. Prince Edward, one of the more controversial Governors in the history of Gibraltar, carried on a very public affair with his mistress Julie Therese Bernardine de Montgenet, for twenty-seven and then dumped her in order to provide an heir to the throne. Julie St. Laurent, as she was better known to the masses, first met His Royal Highness, Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and future father of Queen Victoria, at Gibraltar in 1791. The Prince had been shipped there at his own request to serve with his personal regiment the Royal (7th) Fusiliers. The 23-year-old Edward found life on the Rock rather difficult. The allowance his father King George III had provided was totally inadequate and he was eager for female companionship. In June that year he wrote to his brother the Prince of Wales that he was satisfied ‘on the whole’ but that he was lonely. To remedy the situation Edward dispatched his valet on a mission to find him a mistress. The first woman procured proved unsatisfactory but then in January of 1791 Mademoiselle Mongenet arrived on the scene. He wrote his brother the Duke of Clarence: “I feel this want of resources perhaps less than any man, for I manage with the assistance of a little music, a few books, and a little small talk with four or five officers, who constantly live in my family to fill up as cheerfully as I can those moments when professional business does not occupy me. Besides I have at present a young woman living with me, who has every qualification which an excellent share of good temper, no small degree of cleverness, and above all, a pretty face and a handsome person can give to make my hours pass away pleasantly in her company.” An aide of the Duke had found her in Marseille and arranged for her passage to Gibraltar and accommodation for her and her maid in an apartment in the town. Edward, not the least concerned about sharing his bedroom with a mistress, would have none of it. The Duke chastised his assistant in a letter: “The talent for music which I wanted her to have (she had ostensibly been hired to sing for the Duke) was not at all the chief object which I had asked you to watch for… but I was even more upset when I read on the small note that you enclosed in your letter that you wanted Mlle de St. Laurent, with her maid to be lodged in an apartment in the town and not with me. I confess to you quite plainly that I do not know to what to attribute this way of acting upon your part, when you have heard from my own lips more than twenty times before you left for Marseilles that under no consideration would I ever consent to lodge under another roof than mine the person who would become my companion and friend.” Some officers close to the Royal Family tried to get Laurent to leave the Rock by offering her money but she couldn’t be bought off. Obviously she liked what she saw in the Duke and when the regiment sailed for Quebec in May of that year she was at her man’s side. From all surviving correspondence it seems that Edward and Julie enjoyed a happy domestic life and she participated in all official functions and dinner parties the same as if she had been his wife. Edward was promoted to the rank of major general in October 1793 and lieutenant general in January 1796. In May 1799, he was created Duke of Kent was promoted to the rank of general and appointed the commander-inchief of the forces in British North America. In May of 1802 Edward returned to Gibraltar to take over as Govern o r . H i s term in charge would be cont roversial but he had been sent with express orders to restore discipline among the troops: “…on your assuming the command of the garrison at Gibraltar, to make your Royal Highness aware that much exertion will be necessary to establish a due degree of discipline among the troops; and which I trust, you will be able gradually to accomplish by a moderate exercise of the power vest in you.” It was almost eleven years to the day since their embarkation that Edward and Julie aboard Isis sailed into Gibraltar Bay. He was greeted with the usual royal salutes but there were mutterings among the troops, recently arrived from successful camp aigns against Napoleon’s armies, who had heard of the Duke’s severity and strictness. Soldiers, officers and men alike, stationed at Gibraltar probably faced more hardship and boredom than at any other station. Space was restricted, rations where short, little entertainment could befound. The Garrison Library offered some occupation to officers, but not the men. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, the only fun to be had was to get drunk. The rape of two Spanish women visitors was the catalyst for a crackdown.The Duke closed fifty of the wine houses and all but three taverns were declared out of bounds. Restrictions were placed on when and what liquor soldiers could buy and all purchases had to be in cash. The majority of the citizenry were pleased but the wine house and tavern owners, and most importantly the troops were angry. On the night of 24th December the 1st Regiment of Foot mutinied. They assembled before the Duke’s house and with rifles loaded and bayonets fixed demanding he leave on the next boat. The Royal Fusiliers supported his Royal Highness and fought off the mutineers but three soldiers were killed and six wounded. In her book The Prince and His Lady Mollie Gillen wrote: “The mutiny, which called him from his dinner table on Christmas Eve and stirred up the Rock like an ants-hill, shook the Duke to the roots of his self-esteem. At no time did he question the rightness of his policy.” He turned to his beloved Julie. “He had need of Madame’s loving sympathy at this time. What endless hours of self-examination, selfrecrimination she must have soothed, over ‘those events that have almost broken my heart… the most cruel I ever yet experienced… the dreary gloomy scene which this place must now ever be to me.” As a result of the mutiny the Duke of Kent was replaced by Lieutenant- Governor Sir Thomas Trigge. He retained the title of Governor of Gibraltar until his death but it was in name only and he woul d never see the Rock again. It was once again May w h e n Edward and Julie sailed aboard the Amazon and returned to England via Falmouth. The couple lived happily together for another 15 years but then the death of the heir presumptive to the throne, Princess Charlotte Augusta, created a crisis in the Royal Family. The Prince Regent (later George IV) and his younger brother, the Duke of York, had no surviving legitimate children. The other unmarried sons of King George III, the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Cambridge, all rushed to contract lawful marriages and provide an heir to the throne. In those days Royals only married Royals and so there was no possibility that Edward could remain with Julie. On 29th May 1818 Edward Duke of Kent married Princess Viktoria Saxe-Coburg of Germany. “It had been a hard decision. The public applauded but the Duke was never quite free of guilt.” The future Queen Victoria was born in May 1819 but Edward would not live to see her reach even a year old as he died on 23rd January 1820 at Woodbrook Cottage, Sidmouth, Devon, after a brief illness. He was buried at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, but his remains were later moved to the Kent Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor. He predeceased his father, George III, by six days. The Duke of Kent also predeceased his three elder brothers, but, since none of them had any surviving legitimate children, his daughter was next in line for the throne on the death of King William IV in 1837. Edward had arranged for an annuity to be paid to Julie but it stopped upon his death. She lived out her remaining years in France passing away on 8th August 1830, three weeks short of her 70th birthday. by Reg Reynolds

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