The Rake

When I read the Editor-in-Chief’s letter, which he wrote during a trip to Havana — you can read it overleaf — the joie de vivre that flowed from each sentence gave me the inspiration I was looking for. I decided to write this Founder’s note (the 87th such missive, if anyone is counting) from the soft sands of the Maldives, where the man across the beach from me had just explained an important life lesson with the perfect economy of words. He said, “In life you can be a missionary or you can be a mercenary. Interestingly, a lot of the guys who are purely financially driven when creating their businesses never really make that much money” — he meant in terms of Silicon Valley venture-capital God-tier money — “but…

I am writing this letter from a balcony at the rather lovely Grand Packard Hotel in Havana, overlooking the lighthouse and the endless sea that doubles as the watery hedge around this mystical island, keeping it hidden from most people’s view. I’ve been here before, exactly 10 years ago, and the experience then made me feel like the protagonist of a Rider Haggard novel. I was young and excitable, you see, and had only recently discovered a taste for cigars. Throw in the music, the dancing, the weather, the architecture and the entrancing chaos within, and you can imagine the trip was a great success. It was cigars that took me to Cuba last time, and it is cigars that have brought me back — invited by the wonderful Jemma Freeman,…

ed cumming Ed Cumming is a senior feature writer for The Telegraph and a former T.V. and restaurant critic for The Independent. He has also written for The New York Times, The Observer, The Guardian, Vogue and Tatler — but above all, of course, for The Rake. For our latest issue, Ed looked at the eclectic history of royals behaving badly, and found that by the standards of their forebears, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s recent machinations hardly register. Not only are they tame by ancient standards, they can’t even compete with the British royal scandals of the 20th century. Find Ed’s story on page 104. simon de burton Simon is a freelance journalist and author who writes about cars, motorcycles, boats and watches. He has been a contributing editor to the…

The opening scene of the opening episode of the first season of The Crown makes it clear that Netflix’s juggernaut is unafraid to go straight for the Windsor jugular: here is a man, prostrate and ashen, coughing up blood into a toilet. The man is King George VI (played by Jared Harris). It would be wrong, however, to see this abject scene as some kind of supine metaphor for a reluctant and redundant reign. Despite George’s unlooked-for elevation from spare to heir, on the abdication of his brother Edward in December 1936, and the myriad ways he seemed unsuited to the role of sovereign — the retiring temperament, the crippling speech impediment, the fact that he’d never clapped eyes on a state paper — Britain’s previous king is now regarded…

It is not easy to remain incognito in this world. We have so many curtains opened to our lives; there are so many opportunities for people to take a peek and draw their conclusions about us. It’s even harder for those who have something to show for their lives and achievements. Some are smarter than others at keeping a low profile, and Guy Belot is one of those happy few who have managed to stay under the radar (except ours). Everywhere we have gone recently, Guy’s name seems to have cropped up — from a drink named in his honour at 5 Hertford Street to boxes of cigars put away for him by various London merchants. For a 27-year-old, this is unusual, and it piqued our curiosity towards this Gatsbyish Mayfairite. Belot’s…

If the function of a royal consort is to keep their head down and wave, then Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was a disaster. Debonair to the point of flamboyance, the life companion of Queen Juliana made Britain’s Prince Philip look shy and retiring, overshadowing his wife throughout her reign in almost every way imaginable. Over the course of his 93 years, Bernhard was both hero and villain. To some, he helped save his nation; to others, he was an egotistical, immoral, even evil figure. Twenty years on from his death, the country remains undecided on how it feels about him: shame, mockery, admiration, or a combination of the three. Like all royals, he is an enigma, obscured by official secrecy and backstairs gossip, but a life lived to the full…