Thursday, 22 June 2017
Tuesday, 20 June 2017
The Royal Ascot dress code / VIDEO:Royal Ascot Style Guide 2017
A WORLD LIKE
NOWHERE ELSE
Royal Ascot is synonymous with sartorial elegance.
This is upheld by our dress code, which invites guests to
contribute to
an occasion heralded as a major fashion event in its own
right.
We are delighted to bring you our new looks for 2017, put
together to
guide and inspire you with what to wear at Royal Ascot in
June.
As part of this year's Style Guide, Royal Ascot officially
welcomes the jumpsuit
as an acceptable item of clothing for the Royal Enclosure.
Harking back to the
introduction of the trouser suit in 1971, Ascot continues to
recognise key
trends in occasionwear for its fashionable customers.
Our dress code is traditional, woven into the very fabric of
our
history. It was Beau Brummell, perhaps Britain’s first
fashion icon, who at the
turn of the 19th century dictated the dress for men in the
Royal Enclosure.
His sense of style is still reflected in Royal Ascot
fashions today.
For further
information about Royal Ascot, our dress code and the stories
past and present that make the Royal Meeting a world like
nowhere else
visit ascot.co.uk,
#RoyalAscot
GENTLEMEN
Gentlemen are kindly reminded that it is a
requirement to wear either black or grey
morning dress which must include: • A waistcoat and tie (no
cravats) • A black or grey top hat • Black shoes
A gentleman may remove his top hat within a
restaurant, a private box, a private club or that
facility’s terrace, balcony or garden. Hats may
also be removed within any enclosed external
seating area within the Royal Enclosure Garden.
The customisation of top hats (with, for
example, coloured ribbons or bands) is not
permitted in the Royal Enclosure.
Top hats by Oliver Brown are available at
75 Lower Sloane Street, oliverbrown.org.uk.
LADIES
Ladies are kindly reminded that formal daywear
is a requirement in the Royal Enclosure, defined
as follows: • Dresses and skirts should be of modest
length defined as falling just above the knee
or longer.
• Dresses and tops should have straps of one
inch or greater.
• Jackets and pashminas may be worn but
dresses and tops underneath should still
comply with the Royal Enclosure dress code.
• Trouser suits are welcome.
They should be of full length and of
matching material and colour.
• Jumpsuits are welcome. They should be
of full-length to the ankle, with regulations
matching that for dresses.
• Hats should be worn; however a headpiece
which has a solid base of 4 inches (10cm)
or more in diameter is acceptable as an
alternative to a hat.
Ladies are kindly asked to note the following: • Strapless,
off the shoulder, halter neck and
spaghetti straps are not permitted.
• Midriffs must be covered. • Fascinators are not permitted;
neither are
headpieces which do not have a solid base
covering a sufficient area of the head (4
inches/10cm).
CHILDREN
(Admitted on Friday and Saturday only)
Girls (aged 10-17) should dress in accordance
with the Ladies’ dress code. However, they may
wear a headpiece or fascinator as an alternative
to a hat, without any size restriction.
Boys (aged 10-17) should either dress in
accordance with the gentlemen’s dress code;
or alternatively may wear a dark-coloured
lounge suit with a shirt.
LADIES
Ladies are kindly reminded that formal daywear
is a requirement in the Royal Enclosure, defined
as follows: • Dresses and skirts should be of modest
length defined as falling just above the knee
or longer.
• Dresses and tops should have straps of one
inch or greater.
• Jackets and pashminas may be worn but
dresses and tops underneath should still
comply with the Royal Enclosure dress code.
• Trouser suits are welcome.
They should be of full length and of
matching material and colour.
• Jumpsuits are welcome. They should be
of full-length to the ankle, with regulations
matching that for dresses.
• Hats should be worn; however a headpiece
which has a solid base of 4 inches (10cm)
or more in diameter is acceptable as an
alternative to a hat.
Ladies are kindly asked to note the following: • Strapless,
off the shoulder, halter neck and
spaghetti straps are not permitted.
• Midriffs must be covered. • Fascinators are not permitted;
neither are
headpieces which do not have a solid base
covering a sufficient area of the head (4
inches/10cm).
OVERSEAS VISITORS
Overseas visitors are welcome to wear the
formal National Dress of their country or
Service Dress.
SERVING MILITARY PERSONNEL
Serving military personnel are welcome to
wear Service Dress or equivalent.
Saturday, 17 June 2017
The latest book by Bernhard Roetzel: A Gentleman's Look Book
The latest book by Bernhard Roetzel: A Gentleman's Look Book
published by H.F.
Ullman on 31 July 2017.
You ve often heard the proverb You don t get a second chance
to make a first impression And why? Because it s true. Appearance counts! And
the appearance of a gentleman is his stage. In A Gentleman s Look Book,
menswear and style expert Bernhard Roetzel presents stylish combinations fit
for every occasion from elegant to casual chic. For this book, the author has
summoned the best dressed men from the fashion scene to share their favorite
looks. What does a man wear to a business-lunch, over the weekend, or on
special occasions? From the tie to the shoe, from the shirt to the tuxedo
everything a man needs for a stylish appearance is shown in exquisite color
photos and diverse, elegant outfits. In the business look, the gentleman
appears in a classic and formal outfit, which has many advantages. Bernhard
Roetzel: The classic look is timeless, independent of fashions and trends so to
say. It is however timeless in the sense that you can wear classic clothing at
any age. The look of the casual gentleman is well suited for day-to-day life.
On the one hand, the wearer demonstrates timeless taste; on the other, he shows
himself to be finely dressed, despite a certain casualness. The wardrobe for
festive occasions shows the gentleman in striking, yet discreet elegance.
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
The Suit Form, Function and Style by Christopher Breward
The Suit
Form, Function and Style
Christopher Breward
For over 400 years the tailored suit has dominated wardrobes
the world over. Its simple forms, inspired by royal, military, religious and
professional clothing, have provided a functional and often elegant uniform for
modern life. But whether bespoke or tailor-made, on the street or in the
office, during times of celebration or of crisis, we typically take the suit
for granted, ignoring its complex construction and many symbolic meanings.
The Suit unpicks the story of this most familiar garment,
from its emergence in western Europe at the end of the seventeenth century to
today. Suit-wearing figures such as the Savile Row gentleman and the Wall
Street businessman have long embodied ideas of tradition, masculinity, power
and respectability, but the suit has also been used to disrupt concepts of
gender and conformity. Adopted and subverted by women, artists, musicians and
social revolutionaries through the decades – from dandies and Sapeurs to the
Zoot Suit and Le Smoking – the suit is also a device for challenging the status
quo.
For all those interested in the history of menswear, this
beautifully illustrated book offers new perspectives on this most mundane, and
poetic, product of modern culture.
Be as in love with your jeans, sweatpants, or flannels as
you want, it’s hard to refute the sumptuous feel of a finely tailored suit—as
well as the statement of power that comes with it. For over a century the suit
has dominated wardrobes, its simple form making it the go-to attire for
boardrooms, churches, or cocktail bars—anywhere one wants to make an
impression. But this ubiquity has allowed us to take the suit’s history for
granted, and its complex construction, symbolic power, and many shifting
meanings have been lost to all but the most devout sartorialists.
In The Suit, Christopher Breward unstitches the story of our
most familiar garment. He shows how its emergence at the end of the seventeenth
century reflects important political rivalries and the rise of modern
democratic society. He follows the development of technologies in the textile
industry and shows how they converge on the suit as an ideal template of modern
fashion, which he follows across the globe—to South and East Asia
especially—where the suit became an icon of Western civilization. The quintessential
emblem of conformity and the status quo, the suit ironically became, as Breward
unveils, the perfect vehicle for artists, musicians, and social revolutionaries
to symbolically undermine hegemonic culture, twisting and tearing the suit into
political statements. Looking at the suit’s adoption by women, Breward goes on
to discuss the ways it signals and engages gender. He closes by looking at the
suit’s apparent decline—woe the tyranny of business casual!—and questioning its
survival in the twenty-first century.
Beautifully illustrated and written with the authority a
Zegna or Armani itself commands, The Suit offers new perspectives on this
familiar—yet special—garment.
‘The Suit:
Form, Function and Style’, by Christopher Breward
APRIL 21, 2016 by: Review by Shahidha Bari
In the 1984 film of the Talking Heads concert “Stop Making
Sense”, singer David Byrne cheerfully bops along to the band in an oversized
grey two-piece suit that ripples like water with every flex of his gawky frame.
As dress historian Christopher Breward observes, the absurdly proportioned
blazer lampoons both the ostentations of yuppies and the monstrous egotism of
artists; there are allusions, too, to Japanese Noh theatre and the laconic
installations of Joseph Beuys.
The Beuys is a nice touch, since Breward’s book The Suit has
its own spare, modernist elegance. It presents a decisively uncluttered history
of menswear, cutting a clean line through 18th-century French military uniforms
to dandies, Pasolini films and 20th-century Italian tailoring, all the while
insisting on the suit’s “all-pervasive influence in modern and contemporary
cultures”.
Breward’s conception of what constitutes a suit —
long-sleeved buttoned jacket, long trousers, sometimes a sleeveless waistcoat —
allows for an expansive approach. He politely amends the conventional dress
history that cites the origin of the suit in Charles II’s championing of the
“cassock” (avidly recorded by an agog Samuel Pepys in 1666), noting prior debts
to Arabian vests and military-wear. The suit variously symbolises
post-Reformation sobriety, aristocratic models of governance and the moderation
of mercantile classes, but it also owes a debt, he asserts, to the invention of
the tape measure and tailoring techniques developed in the 1820s that allowed
the idea of the civilised body to be mass-produced.
Along the way, Breward nods to all the usual smartly dressed
suspects: Beau Brummell, Thomas Carlyle and Oscar Wilde make appearances, and
diligent discussions of mods, Mao jackets and zoot suits follow. When the late
cultural theorist Stuart Hall crops up, querying the decency of the suited and
booted “free born Englishman”, the objection reads like a dyspeptic peeve next
to Breward’s encomium to fine threads, and although the author concedes Hall’s
point, he also demurs, mildly defensive, suggesting how readily the fabrics and
fashions of empire have permeated English style.
There is, perhaps, a kind of gallantry too in Breward’s
efforts to extend to a more global perspective: he attends to the Chinese
Zhongshan zhuang, or Mao suit, with its high-buttoned collars and patch
pockets; the closed-neck coat, or Nehru jacket, modelled on the Indian
sherwani; and, most fascinatingly, the austere chic of Japanese iki style, whose
clean lines have had an astonishing afterlife in the work of designers Kenzo
Takada, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto.
Breward takes unmistakable pleasure in his subject.
Specialist textiles are lovingly itemised: “smooth worsteds, soft Saxonies and
rough Cheviots”, rich with heritage and mystery. What’s missing, perhaps, is a
sense of something darker and unhappier that also lingers in the suit. The late
historian Anne Hollander is quoted observing that there is a kind of
“irritating perfection” here, a completeness at odds with the jagged edges of
modern life. Breward acknowledges this but prefers to dwell on the suit’s
ability to establish “a code of human and social relations”. He notes the
shamefaced bankers shuffling out of Lehman Brothers in expensive sportswear
after the bank’s collapse in 2008: “Nothing could have symbolised better a
collapse in public trust,” he writes.
More alluring for Breward is the natural sympathy he spots
between suits and architecture, the connections to the clean and rational
aesthetics of Loos and Le Corbusier. And there is something profound and
arresting in the unspoken suggestion that we might think of the suit too as a
kind of habitable structure in which life takes place. Breward’s is a book with
all the buttons neatly done up, persuasive in its assertion that the suit and
the “human civilisation” it signifies will endure. And yet, oddly, it is in
moments of disarray or deviation that the suit seems most provocative. How
telling that in a handsomely illustrated book, the most striking image of all
is of a woman, photographed by Helmut Newton, cropped hair slicked back and
cigarette in hand: silent and unassailable in her Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo.
The Suit: Form, Function and Style, by Christopher Breward,
Reaktion, RRP £18/$27, 240 pages
Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary
University of London
The
evolution of men’s suits
Despite its classic appeal, the suit
is constantly evolving. Christopher Breward measures up its sartorial impact
and wonders how it will next reinvent itself
Christopher Breward
Sunday 27 March 2016 06.00 BST
Formal suits are one of those overlooked but enduring
elements of modern life. For almost 400 years their presence in public life has
been constant. Despite predictions of a demise in their popularity, their
unobtrusive contours still clothe the bodies of men and women in all walks of
life and all regions of the world. And beneath the monotony of appearances
there is a poetry to their simple forms. The very fabrics and weaves of the
suit’s construction read like an ode to the traditional landscape: Saxonies and
Cheviots in plain or Panama, hopsack or Celtic, Mayo, Campbell or Russian
twill, Bannockburn, Eton stripe or Glenurquhart check.
Aside from its status as an icon of unchanging heritage, the
suit has also adapted itself subtly and cleverly to change. Indeed, there are
many fashion journalists who now look to this staple of menswear for signs of
creativity and innovation that have been lacking in womenswear for years. The
financial crisis, environmental concerns and a generation of consumers attuned
to questions of ethics and quality have created a space in which a vibrant, if
niche version of contemporary sartorialism can thrive. In this context, the
longstanding values of perfect form and fitness for function attached to the
cult of the suit have endured, prospered and look set to continue.
An evolving form of technology in its own right, the suit
offers a canvas for those in the clothing industry who have become neophiles,
championing future possibilities. In the present and coming marketplace, suits
made to measure through the precision of body scanning and produced by digital
printers, engineered to resist staining and creasing or to preclude the need
for wasteful and damaging dry cleaning are either familiar items on the shop
rail or at prototype stage.
In the realms of science fiction and experimentation the
suit has lent itself to investigations of everyday clothing as armour against
violent attack and surveillance, as a communications device for the
transmission of big data, and as a membrane for medical and psychological
intervention, feeding drugs to the body or enhancing mood. Its adaptability has
ensured its survival as an icon and vehicle of modernity.
In just the past century then, the suit has been used for
the purposes of trade, politics and nationalism. It has been adapted by
mainstream designers and subverted by subcultures. Its currency has held value
for the established professions – the lawyers, bankers and undertakers – while
inspiring artists, writers, musicians and film-makers.
And in the more mundane circumstances of everyday life,
though I find myself reaching for the tweeds and denim of sad middle-aged habit
too often, the charcoal suit does still emerge from my wardrobe on occasions
that demand more careful observation. In that sense my wardrobe habits have not
evolved too far from those that dictated appearances for my father and
grandfather’s generations. In all of this I find some reason to hold out hope
that the suit will endure for another 400 years, provided those values of
reason, democracy, beauty and progress that characterise civilisation endure
with it.
The Suit: Form, Function and Style by Christopher Breward is
published on 18 April (£18, Reaktion Books )
The new sapeurs
Look alive: sapeurs
in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Look alive: sapeurs in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of
Congo. Photograph: Per-Anders Pettersson/Corbis
Inspired by the revolutionary ideas of André Matsoua in the
1930s and fuelled by the cosmopolitanism of pan African music and dance that
thrived in the 1950s and 60s, returning emigres from Paris fuelled a revival of
political dandyism in the 1980s and 90s. Now the young men of Brazzaville and
Kinshasa assert their aspirational styles as a form of ownership of the means
to freedom. Suits were never made simply to conform. The Société des
Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes and its followers, the Sapeurs, have
promoted a vibrant revival of the suit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Burton classic
Three men training as
tailors looking at the inside of a suit jacket
Tinker tailor: a team of tailor trainees at the Burton firm
in Guisborough, Cleveland, in 1960. Photograph: Walter Nurnberg/Getty Images
Montague Burton founded his suit business in Chesterfield in
1903 and it grew to become one of Britain’s largest chains of clothes shops.
Our understanding of the suit as a badge of healthy, respectable British
manliness owes much to Burton’s ethos. Between the 1920s and 1970s most British
men would have passed through Burton’s doors to purchase their first suit,
imbibing as they did its military precision, moral rectitude and quiet taste
that informed a reassuring sense of what was normal. Loud colours, extreme cut
and any tendency towards unsporty softness were viewed with extreme suspicion.
The 1940s Edwardian
Man holding gloves
and an umbrella, wearing a bowler hat and a tight-waisted suit
Fancy dress: the New Edwardian style. Photograph: Woolmark
Archive
There is something so satisfyingly elegant about the New
Edwardian suit, that aristocratic fad that hit the streets of Mayfair and
Chelsea in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A revivalist fad among ex-guardsmen,
aristocratic loafers and interior designers, its wasp-waisted outline set
itself against the baggy hang of the demob suits that served for the majority
of the male UK population. The style’s accessories – bowler hat, polished shoes
and umbrella – provided regimental glamour, while velvet collars, embroidered
waistcoats, ticket pockets and covered buttons recalled the bonhomie of
racetrack and music hall: suit as fancy dress.
The Armani gigolo
Richard Gere in
American Gigolo wearing a suit, shirt and tie, hands at his waist
‘Armani suits signalled a sense of femininity’: Richard Gere
wearing Armani in the 1980 film American Gigolo. Photograph: CinemaPhoto/Corbis
Giorgio Armani deconstructed the suit in the 1980s, sloping
the shoulders, lowering the buttons and adopting lighter fabrics. His suits
signalled a sense of femininity, an abandonment to the caressing feel of fabric
on the hard surfaces of the male body. This was a frisson celebrated in his
designs for the lead character Julian, played by Richard Gere, in American
Gigolo. Julian’s narcissism became the signature theme for a decade’s
flirtation with style.
The Japanese minimalist
Man with an Afro, hand
casually in pocket, in open-necked shirt, long-sleeved jacket and loose silky
trousers
Sleek chic: a model wears Yohji Yamamoto AW15 for Men’s
Paris Fashion Week. Photograph: Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock
‘Iki’ is the ancient Japanese understanding of understated
elegance, a concept that has proved useful in the translation of the rules of
the European and North American suit to other contexts. In the 1970s Japanese
designers brought a hybrid interpretation of East and West to the Paris
catwalks. Kenzo Takada, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto developed an austere,
decentred suit. Beloved of architects, avant-garde film directors and
advertising moguls, it proclaimed all the sophistication that Savile Row
sometimes lacks.
Monday, 12 June 2017
Thursday, 8 June 2017
The Tranby Croft affair / VIDEO:Edward the Seventh - Scandal (09/13)
"In consideration of the promise made by the gentlemen whose names are subscribed to preserve my silence with reference to an accusation which has been made in regard to my conduct at baccarat on the nights of Monday and Tuesday the 8th and 9th at Tranby Croft, I will on my part solemnly undertake never to play cards again as long as I live."
— (Signed) W. Gordon-Cumming
The royal baccarat scandal, also known as the Tranby Croft
affair, was a British gambling scandal of the late 19th century involving the
Prince of Wales—the future King Edward VII. The scandal started during a house
party in September 1890, when Sir William Gordon-Cumming, a decorated
lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, was accused of cheating at baccarat.
In the years running up to 1890 the Prince of Wales had
taken to visiting Doncaster Racecourse for the Doncaster Cup. In previous years
he had stayed at Brantingham Thorpe with his friend Christopher Sykes, the
Conservative Member of Parliament for Beverley. Sykes had run into financial
difficulties and could not afford to host Edward, and Tranby Croft, home to
Arthur Wilson and family, became the venue. After consulting with the prince,
the Wilsons also invited some of Edward's inner circle, including Sykes,
Gordon-Cumming and the prince's courtiers: the equerry Tyrwhitt Wilson, Lord
Coventry, Lord Edward Somerset, Captain Arthur Somerset—his cousin—and
Lieutenant-General Owen Williams, along with their wives. Also accompanying the
party was Lieutenant Berkeley Levett, a brother officer to Gordon-Cumming in
the Scots Guards and a friend of the Wilson family.
8–11 September
Among those originally invited were Lord Brooke and his wife
Daisy; her step-father died two days before the party was due to leave London,
and she and her husband withdrew from the trip. Daisy, the prince's mistress at
the time, was known to some journalists as "babbling" Brooke because of
her propensity to gossip. On 6 September Edward returned early from travelling
in Europe; he visited Harriet Street where he found Daisy Brooke "in
Gordon-Cumming's arms", which soured the relationship between the two men.
After dinner on 8 September, the guests at Tranby Croft
listened to music from Ethel Lycett Green until about 11 pm, when the prince
suggested a game of baccarat. Although the Wilsons did not have a
suitably-sized table, Stanley Wilson improvised, putting two card tables
alongside the smoking room table—all of which were of differing sizes—and
covered them with a tapestry cloth. Among the evening's players were the
prince, who acted as dealer; Sassoon, who took the part of banker; and
Gordon-Cumming. Sitting next to the last-named was Stanley Wilson, who was on
Levett's left.
As the game began Gordon-Cumming discussed the tapestry with
Wilson, commenting that the different colours of the cloth made it difficult to
see the counters; Gordon-Cumming put a piece of white paper in front of him on
which to place his now highly-visible stake. Although many of the inexperienced
party were playing for small stakes, Gordon-Cumming was betting between £5 and
£25 for a coup; he played the coup de trois system of betting,[e] in which if
he won a hand with a £5 stake, he would add his winnings to the stake, together
with another £5, as the stake for the next hand. Soon after play began Stanley
Wilson thought he saw Gordon-Cumming add two red £5 counters onto his stake
after the hand had finished, but before the stake had been paid—a method of
cheating known in casinos as la poussette; after he thought that this had
happened a second time, Wilson turned to Levett and, according to the later
court transcripts, whispered "My God, Berkeley, this is too hot!"
further explaining that "the man next to me is cheating!" After
Levett also watched for a few minutes, he agreed, saying to Wilson "this
is too hot". After half an hour the game was completed and the prince
congratulated Gordon-Cumming on his play; the future king also asked Mrs Wilson
for a more suitable table for the following day. Stanley Wilson instructed the
butler to move a longer, three-foot wide table in and cover it with green
baize. Wilson then discussed the cheating with Levett. The two men were
uncertain what steps to take, and agreed that Stanley would ask his
brother-in-law, Lycett Green, for his advice. Although Lycett Green thought it
impossible that Gordon-Cumming would have cheated, Stanley told him that he was
certain, as was Levett.
The following day, 9 September, the party visited the races,
where the prince's horse won the Clumber Stakes. After dinner the prince once
again wanted to play baccarat and asked for a chalk line to be drawn on the
baize, six inches from the edge, behind which players were to keep their
counters when not placing their stake. Edward was banker and Williams acted as
the croupier. When Gordon-Cumming arrived at the table, there were only two
vacant seats. At either of them, Gordon-Cumming would be surrounded by members
of the Wilson family, all of whom had been informed of Stanley and Levett's
suspicions.
After half an hour's play Lycett Green once again became
convinced that Gordon-Cumming was cheating. He left the table and sent a note
to his mother-in-law—still at the table—recounting his suspicions: she took no
action. By the time the game was finished Mary Wilson, the two Lycett Greens
and Stanley Wilson—all of whom had been watching Gordon-Cumming closely—were
convinced that he had been cheating, although they differed in their versions
of what they saw. Others saw nothing, including people sitting closer to him,
such as the prince, Lady Coventry (sitting next to Gordon-Cumming) and Levett
(sitting opposite him). Over the two nights' play Gordon-Cumming won a total of
£225.
Mary Wilson's brother died unexpectedly that night in Hull;
although she and her husband did not attend for a second day's racing, they
asked all the other guests not to interrupt the plans, and the remainder of the
party attended, watching the St. Leger Stakes. During the journey to the
racecourse, Lycett Green asked Edward Somerset his advice, telling the peer
that several members of the party were convinced of Gordon-Cumming's guilt.
Edward Somerset decided to consult his cousin, Arthur Somerset, and the two men
suggested that Lycett Green inform the prince's senior courtier, Lord Coventry.
When the party returned to Tranby Croft that evening Lycett
Green, Stanley Wilson and both Somersets met Coventry; Levett refused to
attend. After Lycett Green had told Coventry what he had seen, the latter
summoned Williams, who was a mutual friend of both the prince and
Gordon-Cumming. Lycett Green repeated the allegation once again. Williams later
recounted that he was "shocked and overwhelmed with a sense of
calamity", and said that Edward must be informed immediately. There was
some disagreement between the courtiers on whether to tell the prince; Coventry
and Wilson both thought it the right move, but Arthur Somerset felt that the
matter could and should be dealt with by those present. Later he was persuaded
that informing the prince was the right course of action. Lycett Green grew
more pugnacious throughout the discussions, and threatened to accuse
Gordon-Cumming in public at the races the following day; he also stated that
"I will not be a party to letting Gordon-Cumming prey on society in future".
The men decided that Gordon-Cumming should sign a document admitting his guilt
in exchange for their silence, and Williams and Coventry went to Edward to
inform him of what had been happening. The two men told the prince that
"the evidence they had heard was absolutely conclusive and they did not
believe Sir William Gordon-Cumming had a leg to stand on".
The prince believed what he had been told by his courtiers,
and also assumed that cheating had taken place; he later said that with accusations
from five witnesses he believed the worst of his friend straight away. At no
point had any of those concerned investigated the situation more closely, by
asking others present or seeking out Gordon-Cumming's side of events, but they
had believed the events as told to them by Lycett Green and Stanley Wilson.
After informing the prince, the two courtiers sought out the accused man and
informed him of what had been said. Coventry broke the news to him, saying that
"There is a very disagreeable thing that has occurred in this house. Some
of the people staying here object ... to the way you play baccarat", and
that the accusation was that he had "resorted to foul play" at the
game. Gordon-Cumming denied the accusation, asking "Do you believe the
statements of a parcel of inexperienced boys?", and demanded to see the
prince.
After dinner the guests signed the visitors book, after
which the prince—accompanied by Coventry, Williams and the two
Somersets—received Lycett Green and the other accusers. After hearing what they
had to say, the prince dismissed all except Coventry and Williams, and called
for Gordon-Cumming, who told Edward that the accusation was "foul and
abominable"; the prince pointed out that "there are five accusers
against you". Gordon-Cumming then withdrew while the royal party discussed
what the next steps would be. He returned after half an hour to find just the
two courtiers, who urged him to sign a document that they had drafted. Under
pressure, and still denying the accusations, Gordon-Cumming signed the document
without knowing who else would sign it afterwards.
"In consideration of the promise made by the gentlemen
whose names are subscribed to preserve my silence with reference to an
accusation which has been made in regard to my conduct at baccarat on the
nights of Monday and Tuesday the 8th and 9th at Tranby Croft, I will on my part
solemnly undertake never to play cards again as long as I live."
— (Signed) W. Gordon-Cumming
The courtiers took the document to Edward, who summoned the
other members of the house; he read the note to them and signed it, pointing
out to everyone that the promise of secrecy was incumbent on all of them. He
also added that Gordon-Cumming was still protesting his innocence, despite
signing a paper that "practically admitted his guilt". The paper was
then signed by the men present: the prince, Coventry, Williams, Wilson and his
son, both Somersets, Lycett Green, Levett and Sassoon. Although the prince
hoped that this would bring an end to the affair, Arthur Somerset pointed out
that it would not remain secret. Edward asked him "not even when gentlemen
have given their word not to divulge it?"; Somerset replied that "It
is impossible, sir. Nothing in the world known to ten people was ever kept
secret".
