Editing Lillie Langtry (section)

===Life in London===
[[File:Red Gauntlet.jpg|thumb|The yacht ''Red Gauntlet'', owned by Edward Langtry, Lillie's husband.|left]]On 9 March 1874, 20-year-old Lillie married 26-year-old Irish landowner [[Edward Langtry]] (1847–1897), a widower. Langtry was the widower of Jane Frances Price,<ref>{{cite web |title=Marriage Register of St Saviour's Church – entry for Edward Langtry, 26 and Emilie Charlotte de Breton, 20 |url=https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/collection/Details/archive/110356435?page=2 |website=Jersey Heritage |access-date=24 July 2019}}</ref> whose sister, Elizabeth Ann Price, was the wife of Lillie's brother William.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dudley|first=Ernest|title=The Gilded Lily|year=1958|publisher=Odhams Press Limited|location=London|pages=34–35}}</ref> Lillie and Edward held their wedding reception at The Royal Yacht Hotel in [[St Helier]], Jersey. Langtry owned a large sailing yacht called ''Red Gauntlet'', and Lillie insisted that he take her away from the [[Channel Islands]].<ref>{{cite news |date=22 March 1882 |title=The Yacht Red Gauntlet |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63186028/5731537 |access-date=20 March 2018 |publisher=Illustrated Australian News}}</ref> In 1876 they rented an apartment in Eaton Place, [[Belgravia]], London.<ref name=":0 " >{{cite book |last=Aronson |first=Theo |title=The King in Love |publisher=Corgi Books |year=1989 |location=London |page=74}}</ref>

In 1877, Lillie's brother Clement married Alice, an illegitimate daughter of [[Viscount Ranelagh]], their father's friend. After meeting her in London, Ranelagh invited her to a reception attended by several notable artists at the home of Sir John and Lady Sebright on 29 April 1877.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Looking for Lillie Langtry |url=http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2021/05/looking-for-lillie-langtry.html |website=kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com}}</ref> Here she attracted notice for her beauty and wit.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beatty |first1=Laura |title=Lillie Langtry: Manners, Masks and Morals |date=1999 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |isbn=1-8561-9513-9 |chapter=Chapter III:London |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/lillielangtryman0000beat/page/32/mode/2up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref> Langtry was in [[mourning]] for her youngest brother, who had been killed in a riding accident, so in contrast to the elaborate clothes of most women in attendance, she wore a simple black dress (which was to become her trademark) and no jewellery.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Langtry |first1=Lillie |title=The Days I Knew |date=2000 |publisher=Panoply Publications |page=Chapter 2}}</ref> Before the end of the evening, [[Frank Miles]] had completed several sketches of her that became very popular on [[Postcard|postcards]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Frank Miles Drawing |url=http://www.lillielangtry.com/London.htm |access-date=30 May 2008 |publisher=lillielangtry.com}}</ref> Lady Sebrights' salon, where artistic and aristocratic audiences overlapped, was 'the ideal springboard' for Langtry.<ref>Aronson, ''King in Love'', 24.</ref> This company was 'always on the outlook for new diversion, new sensations and new faces'.<ref>Aronson, ''King in Love'', 25</ref> [[File:Lillie Langtry by Millais.jpg|thumb|upright|right|''A Jersey Lily'' by Sir [[John Everett Millais]]. Exhibited at the [[Royal Academy of Arts]] in London to large crowds, this 1878 portrait popularised her nickname, the "Jersey Lily".]]In an 1882-interview, Langty how "[m]y life in Jersey had been spent almost entirely in the open air, and as Mr Langtry was fond of yachting I became an expert yachtswoman and was very fond of all sorts of outdoor exercise, but I longed to see something more of the world."<ref>''Daily Telegraph'', 3 October 1812, Issue 3507, page 4. [https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DTN18821003.2.21#image-tab Copy of the ''New York Herald'' -interview]</ref> She would later remember Miles as one of her "most enthusastic" friends, who first saw her at a theatre then asked around about the unknown "beauty". After learning Lillie's identity, Miles "begged [her] to sit for a portrait." The painting made then was purchased by [[Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany|Prince Leopold]], and Lillie became famous and popular among the nobles of London and the royal family.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Interview with the Jersey Lillie|url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=DTN18821003.2.21|work=Daily Telegraph|issue=3507|date= October 3, 1882|page=4|access-date=November 26, 2013}}</ref>

Another guest, Sir [[John Everett Millais]], also a Jersey native, eventually painted her portrait, titling it ''A Jersey Lily'' after the Jersey lily flower (''[[Amaryllis]] belladonna''), a symbol of the country. The portrait popularised Jersey Lily as Langtry's nickname,<ref name="crosby " >{{cite news |last1=Crosby |first1=Edward Harold |title=Under the Spotlight |work=Boston Sunday Post |date=23 January 1916 |page=29}}</ref> although Langtry was portrayed holding a [[Nerine sarniensis|Guernsey lily]] (''Nerine sarniensis'') in the painting, as no Jersey lilies were available.<ref name=":2" /> According to tradition, the two Jersey natives spoke [[Jèrriais]] during the sittings. The painting attracted great interest when exhibited at the [[Royal Academy of Arts|Royal Academy]] and had to be roped off to avoid damage by the crowds.<ref name="crosby " />  A friend of Millais, Rupert Potter (father of [[Beatrix Potter]]), was a keen amateur photographer and took pictures of Lillie during her visit to Millais in Scotland in 1879.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |last1=Potter |first1=Rupert |title=A Jersey Pair |url=http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1368019/a-jersey-pair-photograph-potter-rupert/ |website=V&A Search and Collection |date=September 1879 |publisher=V&A |access-date=13 February 2020}}</ref> She also sat for Sir [[Edward Poynter]] and is depicted in works by Sir [[Edward Burne-Jones]]. In early 1878, the Langtrys moved to 17 Norfolk Street (now 19 [[Dunraven Street]]) off [[Park Lane]] to accommodate the growing demands of Lillie's society visitors.<ref name=":0 " />

Lillie Langtry arrived in the late 1870s, the heyday of 'the Professional Beauties'. [[Margot Asquith]] later explained that Langtry's youth was the time 'of the great beauties. London worshipped beauty like the [[Ancient Greece|Greeks]]'.<ref>Margot Asquith, ''The Autobiography of Margot Asquith'' (Thornton Butterworth, London, 1920) 58</ref>  According to Asquith, Langtry became the centre of a social excitement excelling that around the other 'Beauties'. '"The Jersey Lily" – as Mrs. Langtry was called – had Greek features, a transparent skin, arresting eyes, fair hair, and a firm white throat. She held herself erect, refused to tighten her waist, and to see her walk was if you saw a beautiful hound set upon its feet. It was a day of conspicuous feminine looks and the miniature beauties of to-day would have passed with praise, but without emotion.'<ref name=":1 " /> Langtry was beautiful in an 'unusual' way in vogue with [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood|pre-Raphaelite]] ideals: 'the column of a neck, the square jaw, the well-defined lips, the straight nose, the slate-blue eyes, the pale skin (she was nicknamed Lillie, she tells us, because of her lily-white complexion), even the hair loosely knotted in the nape off the neck'.<ref>Aronson, ''King in Love'', 23. </ref>

Her looks offered a good opportunity for painters: '[m]y sketches of Lillie during her first London season', wrote Miles twenty years later, 'earned far more than I've ever made on the largest commissions for my most expensive paintings.' Winning Lillie even wider recognition were her photographic likeness, a relatively new art. The 'Professional Beauties', all members of high society, were photographed in every conceivable attitude. The craze for collecting these pictures – a craze foreshadowing the popularity of first film stars and then pop stars – was not confined to the middle classes. Also many an aristocratic drawing room boasted a leather-bound, brass-locked album featuring the faces of the "Professional Beauty's" of the season.<ref>Aronson, ''King in Love'', 34.</ref>

Asquith heard from her sister, Chartie Ribblesdale, about a ball at which "several fashionable ladies had stood upon their chairs to see Mrs. Langtry come into the room. In a shining top-hat, and skin-tight habit, she rode a chestnut thoroughbred of conspicuous action very evening in [[Rotten Row]]. Among her adorers were the [[Edward VII|Prince of Wales]], (King Edward) and [[Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale|the present Earl of Lonsdale]]." Ribblesdale also remembered a story about Langry and Lonsdale "paus[ing] at the railings in Rotten Row to talk to a man of her acquaintance. I do not know what she could have said to him, but after a brief exchange of words, Lord Lonsdale jumped off his horse, sprang over the railings, and with clenched fists hit Mrs. Langtry's admirer in the face. Upon this, a free fight ensued, and to the delight of the surprised spectators, Lord Lonsdale knocked his adversary down.'<ref name=":1 " >Margot Asquith, Countess of Oxford, ''More Memories''(Cassell, London 1933) 31-32</ref>

{{Quote box
| title = Recollections of Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick
| quote = "In the studio I found the loveliest woman I have ever seen. And how can any words of mine convey that beauty? I may say that she had dewy, violet eyes, a complexion like a peach, and a mass of lovely hair drawn back in a soft knot at the nape of her classic head. But how can words convey the vitality, the glow, the amazing charm, that made this fascinating woman the centre of any group the entered? She was in the freshness of her young beauty that day in the studio. She was poor, and wore a dowdy black dress, but my stepfather lost his heart to her [...] The friends we had invited to meet the lovely Lily Langtry were as willingly magnetised by her unique personality as we were. To show how little dress has to do with the effect she produced, I may say that for that evening she wore the same dowdy black dress as on the previous day, merely turned back at the throat and trimmed with a Toby frill of white lisse, as some concession to the custom of evening dress. Soon we had the most beautiful woman of the day down at Easton, and my sisters and myself were her admiring slaves. [...] [M]y own infatuation, for its was little less, for lovely Lily Langtry continued for many a day... [...] The average of good looks to-day is much higher, but there is none to equal Lily Langtry."<ref>Frances, Countess of Warwick, ''Life's Ebb & Flow'' (Hutchinson & Co, London, 1929) 46-47. Lady Warwick was also a very good friend of King Edward VII and supposed to be more than that.</ref>
}}

The royal biographer [[Theo Aronson]] has highlighted the importance of social changes that formed the backdrop of Langry's success. In the late 1870s, high society became less exclusive following the example of the [[Edward VII|Prince of Wales]], who preferred the company of 'very rich men', regardless of whether they had an [[Aristocracy|aristocratic]] lineage. By the time Langtry was introduced, '[b]usiness acumen, beauty and, to a lesser extent, brains were becoming enough to get one accepted'. This 'opening-up' partially explains the success of Langtry. While she was not an aristocrat and would not have been welcomed during previous decades, her husband was a wealthy landowner and her father, as a clergyman, counted on the same level as [[landed gentry]]. Her behaviour was in line with aristocratic expectations: 'her air, despite her vivacity and sensuality, was well-bred: she knew how to conduct herself in public'.<ref>Aronson, ''King in Love'', 32.</ref> 

In 1878, Langtry attracted a lot of attention during the [[Ascot Racecourse|Ascot races]], being 'at the height of her beauty and fame'. Crowds followed her everywhere she went, and she became 'the most advertised beauty in Europe'. According to Lady Augusta Fane's recollections, Langtry was made so popular by her 'naturalness' and charm; 'she had no affections and no "make-up," either of face or mind; she was just herself, so no one could help loving her, with her gay, light-hearted nature'.<ref>Lady Augusta Fane, ''Chit-Chat'' (Thornton Butterworth, London, 1926) 70-71.</ref> However, there was another reason why Langtry attracted so much attention in 1878: the Prince of Wales was often seen in public with her.