11 JULY 2003
Like Prince Charles' companion, Camilla Parker Bowles' great-great-grandmother Alice Keppel famously experienced a romance with a Prince of Wales. However, though Camilla is said to be proud of her famous ancestor, a new BBC2 documentary, to be screened on Friday night, portrays a rather unflattering view of King Edward VII's mistress, known as "La Favorita".

In Royal Mistresses: Camilla And Alice, the 19th-century society girl, who grew up in a Scottish castle and at 22 wed the son of the Earl of Albemarle, George Keppel, is painted as an ambitious conqueror of older, well-to-do men.

In her time, Alice rocked Edwardian society with three pregnancies by three different men. She had two daughters – Violet, the daughter of Lord Grimthorpe, who designed Big Ben and Sonia, who was widely assumed to be the offspring of the Prince of Wales.

News of her third pregnancy caused a sensation when it came to light. "Mrs Favourite Keppel is bringing forth another questionable offspring," said the Marchioness of Curzon at the time. "Either Lord Stavordales's or H Sturt's!" However, Alice lost the baby.

Though she was showered with gifts by her lover the King, her time in British society came to an end with Edward VII's death in 1910. Cast out of her former circles, her last home was the Ritz Hotel where she lived until her death of cirrhosis of the liver on September 11, 1947 – just seven weeks after her great-great-granddaughter Camilla came into the world.