The Secret Love of Diana's Grandfather

[Florrie]

Their affair was brief and passionate - but the love between Anglo-Irish peer Lord Fermoy and American divorcee Edith Travis lasted a lifetime.

At the height of the First World War, Maurice Roche, heir to the Anglo-Irish Fermoy title, met Edith Travis, a young american divorcee, on a train en route from New York to San Francisco. The attraction was instantaneous, they fell deeply in love and a passionate affair ensued.

Maurice, however was under family pressure to marry well, and Edith, fruistrated by his failure to make a commitment, eventually married an old family friend, Dr Henery Howitt, to secure a future for her two young sons. But Edith and Maurice never lost their feelings for one another, and they met up in New York before Maurice left America for England having inherited the Fermoy title. It was after this meeting that Edith discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter known as Lambie, who was brought up by Henery, although it was never made clear that he was the child's father.

Maurice was elected to parliament as MP for King's Lynn and mixed in society at the highest level, becoming close friends with Bertie, Duke of York, the youngest son of King George V, and his wife Elizabeth (formally Bowes-Lyon).

Aware of the importance of making a socially acceptable marriage, when Maurice came across the 22 year-old concert pianist Ruth Gill, he swiftly married her. Theirs was never a great love match, but they had three children and lived contentedly on the Sandringham estate. Throughout their marriage, however, Lord Fermoy and Edith never lost touch with one another and continued to corrispond in secret...............................