Audrey Evelyn James Coats


Audrey Evelyn James was an English socialite included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton. Through her mother she was the illegitimate granddaughter of Edward VII and herself was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon.

Early life

Audrey Evelyn James was born on 21 April 1902, officially the daughter of William Dodge James and Evelyn Elizabeth Forbes. Her siblings are Helen Millicent Howard; Alexandra Maud Venetia Fawcus; Silvia Helena Sophia Wilson; and Edward James.
Edward James, in his memoirs, claims that rather than being the son of Edward VII, he was his grandson, his grandmother having had an affair with the Prince of Wales. William Dodge James was undisturbed by this, as he remained on receiving an anonymous letter telling him that Audrey James was not his daughter. Audrey's biological father was alleged to be Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, a British Liberal statesman and Foreign Minister.

Personal life

On 25 March 1922 Audrey James married Muir Dudley Coats, son of Sir Stuart Auchincloss Coats, 2nd Bt. and Jane Muir Greenlees. Before his death, they were the parents of one son:
On 18 August 1930 she married Marshall Field III and in 1933 she was included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton. In 1930, they went on a private game hunting expedition to Africa and obtained several lion specimens from the expedition. She and her husband were divorced in Reno, Nevada in 1934.
In January 1936, it was reported that she had adopted a one year-old boy as her son.
On 25 November 1938 she married Hon. Peter Pleydell-Bouverie, son of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 6th Earl of Radnor and Julian Eleanor Adelaide Balfour. They divorced in 1946.
She died on 14 February 1968.