This Monarch Was a Total Freak
Queen Victoria tried hard and did her best to keep Prince Albert from the throne, but after a 64-year-reign, she finally died in 1901. After a long wait that he thought would never end, Bertie became King Edward VII at age 60. In his decades-long wait to succeed his mother as monarch, Bertie became notorious for his relentless quest to gratify his sexual appetites. Whether cheap hookers or top notch French aristocratic ladies and courtesans, and from discrete liaisons to well publicized affairs with famous actresses to wife-swapping orgies, Bertie was insatiable.
He was a big fan of Paris’ elite brothels, especially its most exclusive whorehouse, La Chabanais. There, he had his own room, decorated with his coat of arms and furnished to his specific tastes. Those tastes included a specially designed love chair, named siege d’amour, which he installed in his whorehouse room. By the 1890s, Bertie was an obese, middle-aged, and out of shape man. He had the heavy duty love chair custom made to enable him to have sex without crushing his partners, and also to position them just right for royal access, with minimal exertion and contortions on his part.