Lentune Probus Ladies Club met at South Lawn Hotel and enjoyed a fascinating talk by Steve Herra. We learnt firstly about the numerous liaisons of the Prince of Wales, who would eventually become Edward VIII. One of these was Marguerite. She herself had many lovers. 

In 1914 the Prince joined the Army aged 20 and made frequent use of brothels. After this he preferred the older woman and met Marie Marguerite in 1917. She continued to have other lovers and was taken to the best hotels and restaurants before an affair ended leaving her with 250,000 francs, an apartment and a stable of horses. 

Marguerite and the Prince exchanged many intimate letters, sent via the King’s Messenger in the Diplomatic bag. In 1918 at a party, the Prince met Freda Dudley Ward and the affair with Marguerite stopped for 18 months until she sent a threatening letter about these letters which she had carefully kept. 

By now Charles Laurent had proposed to Marguerite and they married and quickly divorced, leaving her again with limousines and more horses. And so on to Ali Fahmy, a wealthy Egyptian who proposed and they married at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. It was well known that they had many furious arguments and that she kept a pistol under her pillow. They finally went by ship to Southampton and on to London and the Savoy Hotel arriving on 1 July 1923. 

On 9 July another loud argument was heard at 1.00 a.m. The night porter heard pistol shots in their room. Ali was taken to Charing Cross Hospital where he died. Marguerite said to three different people at the time “I have shot him”. Imprisoned in Holloway Jail there were settlements with the Prince of Wales about the letters. On 10 September 1923 she was tried at the Old Bailey where she pleaded Not Guilty. Although the post mortem showed that Ali had been shot several times in the back, she maintained she had shot him in self-defence when he approached her in the hotel corridor. 

It was at this point that Steve Herra paused in his talk and allowed the Probus Ladies to discuss with each other whether they thought Marguerite was guilty of murder and what we thought the jury had decided!

On the whole our audience felt she was guilty but the jury had other ideas and the tall, well-dressed jury foreman announced a unanimous Not Guilty verdict. She had got away with murder. 

Would the verdict have been the same if the Prince of Wales and the intimate letters had not existed? The letters, or most of them, had been sent to the Prince and had been destroyed. Marguerite died on 2 January 1971 aged 80. She had been married 5 times and the last letters were finally destroyed. The Prince died in 1972 aged 77 leaving his widow Wallis Simpson. 

Quite a tale …….and over a good lunch the audience continued to talk about the murder and the dissolute life that was led by some in those days.