It was a bed-hopping bonanza that gave a whole new meaning to the phrase brotherly love.
At the center of the action was a tall, slender blonde who was the daughter of an aristocratic horse trainer.
On either side of 25-year-old Beryl Markham (who later became the best-known female pilot of her age) were two real siblings.
David, Prince of Wales, and Henry, Duke of Gloucester, pursued her, but she could not decide between them, so she chose both of them.
It was the 1920s, the era of flappers, cocktails and wild behaviour. The place was Happy Valley, Kenya, the refuge of scores of blue-blooded Brits eager to sample all the freedoms Africa had to offer.
The Prince of Wales (right), who would later reign briefly as King Edward VIII, is pictured above in Africa with his brother Harry, the Duke of Gloucester, in 1928.
Beryl Markham slept with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester when she joined them in Kenya in 1928. Above: The pilot standing on the wing of his plane.
Freed from the shackles of their homeland’s decorum, they could drink until dawn, hunt wild animals, take drugs and swap each other’s wives.
One of the liveliest of them was Beryl, who had been married for barely a year to the baronet’s son, Mansfield Markham.
She was a truly free spirit who would soon become a world-famous name; she was already with her second husband and had rarely given a moment’s thought to conventional morality.
The British colony centred in Nairobi was thrilled to learn in early 1928 that they were to receive a visit from the future king and his younger brother.
The couple were officially going to tour British East Africa, as it was then called, but they had reserved some of their free time to go on safari.
The expatriates made plans for their welcome with feverish enthusiasm and fierce competitiveness.
Who would welcome the princes? Who would dance with them? And who would accompany them as they chased lions, tigers and elephants?
It was the innate spirit of improvement that filled his days.
The Prince of Wales (right) seen with his younger brother, Prince Henry (left), Duke of Gloucester, at Epsom for the Derby, 1927
The Prince of Wales with his brothers, Prince Harry (left) and Prince Albert, who would later reign as King George VI after his brother’s abdication.
The only thing no one mentioned was who was going to sleep with the princes.
But there was plenty of competition there too, and Beryl was just one of many wives conspiring to claim a royal scalp if they could.
Freed from the prying lenses of photographers and news cameramen, the Prince of Wales had brought with him on the trip to Africa one of his bedroom favourites: Audrey Coats, the recently divorced wife of a Guards officer.
But she was no match for the hungry women waiting on the quayside when her ship docked in Mombasa in September 1928.
The first to fall under the Prince’s spell was the “extravagant” Glady, Lady Delamere, a vivacious 27-year-old who had been married to her husband – thirty years her senior – for no more than six months.
“She never recovered from her success with the Prince of Wales,” wrote historian Errol Trzebinski.
But the first to put him to bed was Beryl, who managed to do so less than a week after his arrival.
“Her cool-headedness and conquests made her the object of constant jealousy, but her approach was very different from the usual silly pursuit of favoritism,” Trzebinski wrote, explaining how she came to the fore in the field.
But this first conquest was only the beginning of what the prince would later remember as the greatest sexual safari of all time.
“His relentless pursuit of women meant that he was continually drawn into one passionate and heart-wrenching love affair after another, not to mention a series of streetwise affairs,” according to his disapproving biographer Philip Ziegler.
The Prince was provided with a hidden bungalow to enable these encounters, while his brother Harry, who at 28 was six years his junior, stayed at the Muthaiga Club.
There, the elite drank champagne and pink gin for breakfast, played cards, danced the night away and generally woke up in the morning with someone else’s wife.
Harry went on safari and Beryl came too.
Although the couple largely kept a discreet distance, they still found time to be together, to the point that Harry became so smitten with her that he asked her to return to London with him.
This happened even though she had just gotten married.
“This brave woman was easily able to handle two or more adventures at the same time and that was precisely what was happening,” recalled Happy Valley veteran Bunny Allen.
As soon as she returned from safari with the Duke, Beryl set off with the Prince of Wales for Uganda.
Back in Nairobi, he was the guest of honour at a cocktail party at Government House, where, according to a witness, the Governor’s wife, Joan, Lady Grigg, was also in love with him.
But he escaped the party early, claiming he wanted to go to bed early, only to be arrested an hour later by security guards patrolling the grounds of Government House.
He had been caught climbing down a drain pipe to spend the rest of the night with Beryl.
The journey came to an end, but for Harry Gloucester, Beryl had become a fatal attraction.
Beryl Markham became the most famous female pilot of her time.
Beryl Markham poses for a photographer at Abingdon Aerodrome, Berkshire, before her solo flight across the Atlantic, 1936
Beryl Markham waves as she returns to Southampton after her solo flight across the Atlantic.
A crowd of autograph seekers crowds Beryl Markham after her solo flight over the Atlantic
Beryl Markham is seen with a cut on her head covered with duct tape that she received when her plane made an emergency landing in Nova Scotia after crossing the Atlantic.
Beryl Markham’s plane after a crash landing in Nova Scotia, 1936. Beryl survived the crash and her flight across the Atlantic was a success.
Beryl Markham speaks to the world’s press after completing her flight across the Atlantic
She set sail for England and, true to his promise, he was waiting for her at the dock.
He put her up in a suite at the Grosvenor Hotel, conveniently close to the back doors of Buckingham Palace, where they continued their romance, despite her being six months pregnant.
Surprisingly, she still found time to sneak away for secret rendezvous at the Royal Aero Club with Harry’s older brother.
That was until one day her husband (yes, she still had one) discovered letters that Harry was sending her.
There was a family dispute and Beryl’s brother-in-law, Sir Charles Markham, believing the unborn baby would be Harry’s, demanded that Buckingham Palace pay up if they were to avoid the scandal of a divorce.
Queen Mary herself intervened angrily, trying to dissuade the Markhams, but in the end the royal family paid.
It was Harry who footed the bill, paying an annual sum to Beryl until his death in 1986.
Her baby was not hers, and if she had counted the months since she first arrived in Happy Valley in September 1928, when she met Beryl, she would have realised this.
But the Duke was in love with her and either he was bad at math or he didn’t care.
Beryl became the first woman to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic.
Achieving the feat in 1936 brought him wealth and fame.
The royal siblings continued: the prince became King Edward VIII in January 1936 before abdicating 11 months later so he could marry his most famous mistress, American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
The Duke remained a second-ranking royal until his death in 1974.
Did they later exchange impressions about that wild safari they undertook in their youth? The one in which they both fell in love with the same girl? Unfortunately, we will never know.
