Customs: The Wedding in New Canaan

Once upon a time in modern Elizabethan England, there lived a hereditary lord named Harewood. He was dashing and ruggedly handsome, and he was seventh in a line of Yorkshire earls whose title went back to 1812. His mother was the Princess Royal, and he had two uncles who were former kings; the present Queen was his first cousin, and he himself was 18th in the line of succession to the throne.

By royal standards, the lord was somewhat unorthodox. As a young man, he met and married a part-Jewish, Austrian-born pianist. Nor was the lord content to live off his rents, for he loved music, and he journeyed about the realm, setting up festivals in Yorkshire, managing the Royal Opera, and organizing the Edinburgh music festival. When he returned home, wife Marion would soothe her lord with her piano music. And so they lived—everyone thought happily—with their three sons in their palatial country house near Leeds.

But weighty matters often called the lord from his hearth. Thus it happened one day, while he was flying in a plane over distant lands, that he chanced to gaze on a well-turned knee, and confessed himself enchanted. The lord looked further, and saw a dark-haired damsel with a violin in her lap. Much smitten by the woman, who was proficient enough to play in the Sydney Symphony and pretty enough to model, the lord determined to bide his time but to renew the acquaintance once they were back in Merrie England.

Chapter II. So it came to pass that the damsel with the violin was engaged by the lord to help manage his affairs. As a reward, he often took "Bambi," as he fondly called her, to concerts, sitting with her in the stalls while Marion pined in the box. In private, the lord's nights with Bambi grew bolder, and the day eventually came when she told him that she was bearing his child.

The news smote him mightily, but discretion seemed the better part of valor. Not until his mother died did he for sake Marion and move into the fine house that he had bought in St. John's Wood for Bambi and their son Mark.

The lord's remove did not go unobserved, and soon the tongues of other lords and ladies began to wag. By and by, melancholy Marion sued for divorce on grounds of adultery. The lord offered no resistance, though the suit cost him custody of his three sons, for he had already resolved to marry the mother of his fourth son as soon as possible.

Chapter III. There was an old law in the realm; not since 1772 had a descendant of George II been allowed to marry without his sovereign's consent. So the lord sought out his cousin for her queenly permission. But since the lord was the first member of the royal family ever to be charged in court with adultery, the Queen in turn sought out her most trusted advisors. "What should we do?" she asked her Privy Councilors. After due deliberation, they advised the Queen: "Grant the lord permission to remarry."

Thereupon the Queen called the lord. "Remarry you may," she told him, "but alas, sweet coz, not in our kingdom."