The King understood his role to be a performative one, and it was as a giant stage that Buckingham Palace was now conceived. ‘Like a highly trained actor,’ Cust recalled, he had ‘studied and learnt the importance of mien and deportment, of entrance and exit, of clear and regulated diction and other details, which he absorbed quite modestly and without any ostentation into his own actions’.12 Edward emitted a ‘curious electric element’13, which galvanised all who came into contact with it. The rental value of houses in Pimlico and Belgravia shot up, owing to their proximity to the rejuvenated
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