Social Victorians/People/Pless

Also Known As

Daisy, Princess of Pless

• Family name: Cornwallis-West
• Daisy, Princess of Pless
• Princess Henry of Please

• Daisy, Princess of Pless: VIAF: 30336696

Prince Henry of Pless

• Family name: Hochberg
• Prince Henry of Pless
• Hans Heinrich XV Prinz von Pless
• Count of Hochberg
• Baron of Fürstenstein
• Heinrich, Prince of Pless: VIAF: 301773884

Overview

Daisy, Princess of Pless was British and married a Silesian (now in Poland) nobleman, Hans Heinrich XV Prinz von Pless. Her mother was Patsy Cornwallis-West, an intimate of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.

Daisy, Princess of Pless had an intense relationship with Luís de Soveral, writing extremely virulent and petulant things to and about him.

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Friends

• Albert Edward, Prince of Wales
• Kaiser William II, Emperor of Germany

Timeline

1891 December 8, Daisy Cornwallis-West and Hans Heinrich, XV Prince of Pless, married in St. Margaret's in Westminster, with Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, as witness.

1897 July 2, Friday, Daisy, Princess of Pless and Prince Henry of Pless attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball at Devonshire House. (Daisy, Princess Henry of Pless is #38 on the list of people who attended; Prince Henry of Pless is #40.)

1903 January 10, Daisy, Princess of Pless is quite nasty about Soveral as early as 1903, possibly because of his political alliances against Germany but also, it sounds like, something personal:

Soveral, the Portuguese Minister, is the oddest character at present in English Society; he imagines himself to be a / great intellectual and political force and the wise adviser of all the heads of the Government and, of course, the greatest danger to women! I amuse myself with him as it makes the other women furious, and he is sometimes very useful. He is so swarthy that he is nicknamed the "blue monkey" and I imagine that even those stupid people who believe that every man who talks to a woman must be her lover, could not take his Don Juanesque pretensions seriously. Yet I am told that all women do not judge him so severely and some even find him très séduisant. How disgusting! Anyway, from now on I will not go alone with him to the theatre or to lunch at a restaurant. He hates the German Emperor and I am sure has a very bad influence on King Edward in this direction. It is simply that his prodigious vanity is wounded because he imagines that the Emperor does not care for him and does not fuss over him when visiting England. Why should the Emperor rush at him? After all, Delagoa Bay[1] is not the one point around which the world revolves.

fn1: Discovered by Portugal in 1502: the subject of repeated disputes between Portugal and Great Britain, the last in 1889.

Perhaps some gossip about them stung her into this diatribe. She sounds racist and fascist in it. She seems to be denying what everybody else thought was true of Soveral, especially his intelligence and his popularity.

They were thrown together socially, and in another description from 1903, she complains that good male conversationalists are difficult to come by, but "Soveral is the most agreeable conversationalist of them all — and he is a foreigner." In an undated letter she refuses to be rejected by him:

You are simply getting bored with me and that's the truth. ... No my dear, I am not going to be taken up one moment & dropped the next. ...

Now that I have said all that I feel better. Let me know tomorrow if you are coming for lunch or not.

Yours,

Daisy ... [sic ellipsis points]

1906 July, Daisy, Princess of Pless writes in her first memoir:

When I was in London in July, Soveral motored me to see Hampton Court and the lovely gardens. We then hired a man to punt us down the river and lunched tied to the banks of a side stream. On the way back we ran into a Regatta at Kingston, but could not watch it as I had to be back in time to dine at White Lodge. This excursion was to be kept a secret, goodness knows why; but Soveral never would let one lady know about another. Above all, the King and Queen were not to be told. One day at Cowes, to Soveral’s horror, the two sons of Princess Beatrice began: “Oh, we saw you at the Regatta the other day ——” Soveral hushed them up, changed the conversation quickly and Queen Alexandra, being deaf, did not hear. For such a careful diplomat he was sometimes guilty of bad breaks. Nothing is more stupid than unnecessary secrets. One day he and I went into Cowes and he bought two brooches with the King’s yachting pennant in enamel; one he gave / to me and the other he later on gave to the Queen. We were racing in the Britannia a day or two afterwards when the Queen showed me hers and then exclaimed: “Oh, you have one too.” To tease her a little I could not resist saying: “Yes, ma’am. Soveral and I bought them together in a shop at Cowes.”

1910 May 23, Daisy, Princess of Pless got the word that King Edward VII had died and "wrote to the present King, and to the darling Queen Alexandra, and Princess Victoria, Soveral and Alice Keppel ... [sic] poor dear, she was his friend and confidant since so many years."

1922 December 12, Daisy Cornwallis-West, Princess of Pless and Hans Heinrich, XV Prince of Pless divorced.

Costume at the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 Fancy-dress Ball

Daisy, Princess Henry of Pless

Daisy, Princess of Pless ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

A photograph of Daisy, Princess of Pless, perhaps from the same session, holding a different fan

At the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball, Daisy, Princess Henry of Pless sat at Table 5 in the first seating for supper.

Lafayette's portrait (right) of "Mary Theresa Olivia ('Daisy') (née Cornwallis-West), Princess of Pless as Cleopatra" in costume is photogravure #85 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "H. H. Princess Henry of Pless as Cleopatra," with a Long S in Princess and Pless.

According to her portrait in the Album, she was dressed as Cleopatra, but many of the newspaper accounts report that she was dressed as the Queen of Sheba and walked in the "Oriental" procession, at the beginning, right after Lady Cynthia Graham. Her sister Shelagh Cornwallis-West was dressed as a courtier in the train of the Queen of Sheba, as was her brother George Cornwallis-West.

The Lafayette Archive has 3 portraits besides the one used for the Album, probably from the same session, of the Princess in Costume:

Attendants of Daisy, Princess Henry of Pless

According to some newspaper accounts, Daisy, Princess of Pless had attendants, perhaps 5 or 6 white "maidens" and 4 or 5 Black men. They are variously called attendants, pages, maidens (for the white ones), and trainbearers. Perhaps the nonwhite attendants carried her train. Two white women of her class are reported as being among the attendants:

1. Her sister Miss Cornwallis West, Shelagh Cornwallis-West, who does not appear to be in Blackface, was her "Ethiopian attendant."
2. Miss Mary Goelet, whose dress was "another marvellous triumph," is not described as an attendant in any of the other reports about her dress or presence in the "Oriental procession."

George Cornwallis-West says he was "one of the entourage of her Court, whose dresses had been designed by a famous theatrical designer of the day." According to this description, Comelli may have been the designer of the costumes of the Princess of Pless's entourage.

Newspaper Accounts of Her Costume

While the commemorative album says she was dressed as Cleopatra and while the album may be more likely to be right than a newspaper, occasional errors did creep in. Also, because of scissors-and-paste editing, the fact that multiple newspapers say the same thing does not guarantee that it is right.

She had attendants, among them her sister, her brother and Miss Mary Goelet as well as people of color.

Some newspapers used extremely offensive language — including the n-word — to describe her attendants; while they were probably Black, those same words were used to describe South Asians in particular but could have been used for any race or ethnicity the newspaper considered non-white.

• She was dressed "as Queen of Sheba, [and] wore diaphonous draperies of purple and gold gauze, with barbaric splendour of heavy jewellery."
• She was dressed in "gold and purple gauze, the short-waisted bodice encrusted with immense turquoises set round with diamonds and other precious stones; the skirt and draperies of gold gauze embroidered to correspond, and the long gold girdle encrusted and fringed with jewels. Bird of paradise and crown. Four niggers [sic] held her train."
• She was dressed "as Queen of Sheba with her train."
• She was dressed in "gold and purple gauze, the short-waisted bodice encrusted with immense turquoises set round with diamonds and other precious stones; the skirt and draperies of gold gauze embroidered to correspond, and the long gold girdle was encrusted and fringed with jewels; bird of paradise and crown. Four negroes held her train."
• "Princess Henry of Pless — Queen of Sheba. A costume of gold and purple gauze, the short-waisted bodice encrusted with immense turquoises set round with diamonds and other precious stones; the skirt and draperies were of gold gauze embroidered to correspond, and the long gold girdle was encrusted and fringed with jewels; bird of paradise and crown. Four niggers [sic] held her train."
• "the Queen of Sheba was delightfully impersonated by Princess Henry of Pless, in robes of gold tissue shot with purple, and bordered with a wonderful jewelled embroidery, in which turquoises, amethysts, rubies, and diamonds were effectively intermingled."
• "Princess Henry of Pless as the Queen of Sheba was also [like Louisa Duchess of Devonshire?] attended by black pages, trainbearers, &c., and her procession was the most dazzling of all."
• "The Princess Henry of Pless was a dream in purple and gold and diamonds."
• "Princess Henry of Pless was splendidly dressed as the Queen of Sheba in gold gauze shot with maize [sic, s/b mauve?], and with a soft white sash tied across the waist. The whole robe was encrusted with lovely jewels, and the head-dress was composed of a diamond peahen, white paradise plumes, and chains of diamonds falling at each side." (This description of Daisy, Princess Henry of Pless's costume in the Belfast News-Letter is almost identical to the one in the Carlisle Patriot through the description of the robe but not the headdress.)
• "There were two queens of Sheba, one of whom, the Princess of Pless, was most lovely. Her dress was one of the most superb things ever seen. It must have cost several hundred pounds. She was followed by five black attendants and six maidens, one of whom was Miss Goelet, whose dress was another marvellous triumph."
• "As the Queen of Sheba, Princess Henry of Pless was attended by five black pages and five white, in gorgeous dresses, who carried her train. Her dress was of purple and gold shot gauze."
• "Princess Henry of Pless was another [Queen of Sheba], and her dress was absolutely magnificent. The conception of it was both poetic and artistic, and is due, I believe, to the genius of Mrs. Harrison. I wish I could describe at all adequately the barbaric splendour of it, with turquoise, emerald, amethyst, and ruby caught in a web of finest gold and spread thickly upon the dress and train of diaphanous gauze in purple and gold, its shifting light seeming to mingle with that of the jewels. Black attendants bore her train along, and among her girl attendants was her pretty sister, Miss Cornwallis West, in an Ethiopian dress of snowy crêpe, gilded with jewels under a flowing robe of gold tissue. ..." The Truth says Mrs. Harrison made this costume, but it is more likely to have been Mrs. Mason, as reported (below) by the Queen.
• "Among the most magnificent of the Oriental personages was Princess Henry Pless, who, as the Queen of Sheba, was gorgeous to behold. Her dress was of purple and gold-shot gauze, bodice and skirt embroidered nearly to the knees, the train being one mass of jewels encrusted in gold. An Assyrian headdress, with clusters of diamonds over each ear, jewelled feathers, and chains of diamonds and turquoises, which were attached to armlets from shoulder to wrist, completed a costume of dazzling splendour." [The chains attached to her armbands appear in the drawing of the Princess of Pless in the Queen, but not in any of the photographs.]
• The Queen published a line drawing of the Princess of Pless's costume: numbered 2 on the page below the drawing, top left, the Princess of Pless is facing slightly to her right; her dress is somewhat similar to costume; the drawing is signed “C Rook.” Here is the Queen's description:

  "Made by Mrs Mason, 4, New Burlington Street, 2. … PRINCESS PLESS, Queen of Sheba. — Gown and train of gold and purple shot cloth of gold, most elaborately embroidered with precious stones and turquoise. Assyrian headdress worked with jewels, a diamond bird, and bird of Paradise aigrette."

• The Queen of Sheba wore "gold and purple gauze, the short-waisted bodice encrusted with immense turquoises set round with diamonds and other precious stones; the skirt and draperies of gold gauze embroidered to correspond, and the long gold girdle encrusted and fringed with jewels. Bird of paradise and crown."

Commentary on Daisy's Costume

The Princess of Pless's costume was made up of a dress, a train and accessories. The photographer's scenery includes a drop showing a blooming tree, a wall, perhaps a bay and, on the bench a lion and a tiger pelt. This costume is probably completely imaginary, with no source in art or history.

• The Dress
  • The fabric of the costume was probably a complex shot silk. Because the weave is so light, the gauzy fabric appears to be translucent; because it was made with a satin weave, the fabric is reflective.
  • The trim appears to be 3-dimensional, embroidered probably with some kind of gold cord and heavily decorated with jewels, which the gossipy account in Truth describes as "turquoise, emerald, amethyst, and ruby caught in a web of finest gold and spread thickly upon the dress and train of diaphanous gauze."
  • The lightness of the fabric and the weight of the trim at the hem make the dress fall straight down.
  • Her low-cut "bodice" is completely covered and stiffened by the jeweled embroidery. The newspapers call this dress short-waisted, so the breastplate is actually the bodice.
  • She is wearing a traditional Victorian long corset, which is especially evident where the line of the dress is distorted by the stitching on the sides that pulls the waist in. This dress was designed to fall straight down to the floor from the high waist at the bust, as the front of the dress does now. The stitching on the sides, which slants downward from her waist towards the point of the corset, controls the fullness of the fabric and seems alien to the design of the rest of this costume, which would have obscured her famously small waist.
  • This dress has 2 highly sexualizing elements: two large jewels right about where her nipples would be, and the tied knot in the girdle (discussed below, in "Accessories and Jewelry").
• The Train
  • The weight — caused by the jewels, extensive embroidery and beading — and the length of her train would have compromised the delicate gauze fabric, requiring that it be carried (by perhaps 5 Black men).
  • The top of the asymmetrical train appears to come to the front over her right shoulder with a slit for her arm. How the train is attached to the left side is not clear.
• Accessories and Jewelry
  • Jewelry: The Princess of Pless is wearing more jewels than many others at the ball, displaying opulence and suggesting vast personal wealth.
    • One jeweled necklace circles her neck, overlain by loops of pearls which are probably falling from the headdress.
    • Below the bodice and attached to it under her arms is a chain loop whose segments appear to have jewels in them.
    • The strikingly large and apparently heavy piece of jewelry hanging from the shoulders of her dress down to her knees looks to be 3 strands of pearls connected with diamond-shaped ornaments made with diamonds, between which are smaller 3-diamond bars. Hanging from the bottom square-shaped ornament are 6 short strands of jewels, possibly diamonds. This addition to the costume, like the stitching on the sides of the dress, is not consistent with the design and is not present in the line drawing of the costume published in the Queen.
    • This long, heavy necklace is controlled by a loop of large jewels placed over it at the top of the bodice.
  • Arm bands: Two newspaper accounts show her armbands or armlets connected with strings of jewels — one, the line drawing from the Queen and the other, from the Gentlewoman, a description based perhaps on that line drawing rather than one of the photographic portraits. The drawings published in the Queen do not always show costumes identical to the ones worn in the photographs. Perhaps the illustrator saw the designer's rendering or perhaps the costumes before they were worn at the ball.

Page from Webster's Dictionary: "Rare Birds of Brilliant Plumage"

• • Girdle: The heavily embroidered, jewelled and beaded girdle, which wraps around her hips, provides the focal point of the dress, drawing the eye to where the corset ends near her crotch. The heavy decoration on the girdle stiffens it and preventing it from curling much as it falls to the ground.
  • Headdress: The headdress is a confusing profusion of fabric or ribbon, feathers and jeweled ornaments, some of which are jewels wired into the shape of lappets that hang down as far as the bottom of the bodice. The feathers appear to be white; plumes curl on either side of her head and an aigrette rises from the center. The newspapers say the Princess of Pless is wearing for her headdress a bird of paradise (or, in one case, a pea hen). The image (right) is a page from Webster's Home, School and Office Dictionary Illustrated Based Upon the Principles Set Forth by Noah Webster, LL.D., Containing a Reference Library of OftenSought-For Facts, Colored Plates and Monotones (1916). The bird of paradise is on the left in the middle.
  • She is wearing a ring on the ring finger of her left and and carrying a feather fan in her right.
• The lion and tiger skins that the Princess of Pless is lying on — with her right foot on the head of the tiger — would have looked like hunting trophies to the princess and her audience.
• The Lafayette portraits show 2 enormous fans, one, peacock feathers; and the other, which is in the album portrait, a gigantic circular one, painted and pleated like a folding fan.

Sir Edward Poynter, The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon

The Queen of Sheba

Stories about the Queen of Sheba appear in Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. A contemporary of King Solomon, she visited him with gifts and tested his wisdom.

Sir Edward John Poynter's 1890 The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (right) is in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which accessioned it in 1892, so it would have been available for viewing until then. The Queen of Sheba's clothing, such as there is of it, is unlikely to have been an original for the costumes worn by Lady Cynthia Graham or Daisy, Princess Pless, but her headdress has some similarities to the one worn by May Goelet dressed as Scheherazade.

Prince Henry of Pless

The ribbon, badge, and star of the Order of St. Catherine

Prince Henry of Pless was dressed as Count Orloff. He is not listed among those in the first seating for supper, although the Princess of Pless was. He walked in the Court in the procession of Empress Catherine II of Russia as Count Orloff.

Some accounts describe him as wearing the insignia of the Russian Order of St. Catherine (right), which included a scarlet moiré sash, a Badge of the Order, and a Star of the Order. His portrait was not included in the album, so it is not clear at this time exactly what insignia he wore, or how he wore it. Only one male was ever awarded the order, in the early 18th century, the closest friend (at the time 13 years old) of Peter I.

• H.S.H. Prince Henry of Pless "personated Prince Orloff, of the Court of Catherine of Russia. His scarlet coat and white vest were embroidered in gold, and he wore diamond jewels and orders."
• "Prince Orloff (Court of Catherine of Russia). Scarlet cloth coat embroidered in gold, with vest worked to correspond; white breeches and jewelled decorations."
• "Prince Henry of Pless — Prince Orloff at the Court of Catherine of Russia — was dressed in a scarlet cloth coat embroidered in gold, with vest worked to correspond, white breeches, and jewelled decorations."
• "Prince Henry of Pless, as Count Orloff, the favourite of Catherine of Russia, was imposing in scarlet and gold."
• "Beside [Lady Raincliffe, as the Empress Catherine] was Prince Orloff, represented by Prince Henry Pless, in a costume of red cloth with heavy gold embroideries; he also wore the Order of St. Catherine."

Prince Henry of Pless's original costume appeared in the Drury Lane production of The White Heather.

Grigory Orlov, 1770s

Count Orloff

Although the newspaper accounts say Prince Orloff, Prince Henry was most likely dressed as Prince Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (17 October 1734 – 24 April 1783). Grigory Orlov's relationship with Catherine II of Russia lasted 1761–1772. No image of Prince Henry of Pless in costume exists. The portrait of Grigory Orlov (right) is probably not the original for his costume, if one exists, but shows him in the early 1770s.

Demographics

• Nationality: Daisy, British, born in Wales; Henreich, Silesian, from what is now Poland

Family

• Daisy (Mary Theresa) Cornwallis-West, then Daisy, Princess of Pless or Princess Henry of Pless (28 June 1873 — 29 June 1943)
• Hans Heinrich XV Prinz von Pless (23 April 1861 — 3 February 1938)

1. Daughter (25 February 1893 – 11 March 1893)
2. Hans Heinrich XVII Wilhelm Albert Eduard 4th Fürst von Pless (2 February 1900 – 26 January 1984)
3. Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Konrad Ernst Maximilian 5th Fürst von Pless (1 February 1905 – 22 November 1984)
4. Bolko Conrad Friedrich von Pless Graf von Hochberg (23 September 1910 – 22 June 1936)

Relations

• Patsy Cornwallis-West was the mother of Daisy, George and Shelagh Cornwallis-West.
• Daisy Cornwallis-West, George Cornwallis-West, and Shelagh Cornwallis-West were siblings.

Memoirs, Autobiography and Biographies

Not alphabetical but by date of publication:

1. Pless, Daisy, Princess of (Mary Theresa Olivia née Cornwallis-West). Princess Daisy of Pless by Herself. Ed. and Intro., Major Desmond Chapman-Huston. New York, Dutton, 1929. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.87394/.
2. Pless, Daisy, Princess of (Mary Theresa Olivia née Cornwallis-West). Better Left Unsaid. Ed. and Intro., Desmond Chapman-Huston. E. P. Dutton, 1931. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/betterleftunsaid0000ples/.
3. Pless, Daisy, Princess. The Private Diaries of Daisy, Princess of Pless, 1873–1914. London: John Murray, 1950. [A "selection" from two of her earlier books.] Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/privatediariesof0000ples/.

Questions and Notes

1. Notice her attendants and the variation in how they are described; the Times uses the n-word.
2. Daisy Cornwallis-West, Princess Henry of Pless, is described as being dressed as Cleopatra in the Album of portraits and as the Queen of Sheba in other reports.
3. Daisy Cornwallis-West's mother, Patsy Cornwallis-West, was one of Bertie's mistresses ( Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, King Edward VII).