THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE LIFE OF VERA BATE LOMBARDI

Sarah Gertrude Arkwright Fitzgeorge Bate Lombardi Biography By Zachary Selig

TXU Copyright1-733-011 February 18, 2010 Excerpt from: Bridget Bate Tichenor The Mexican Magic Realist Painter TX and PAU Copyrights January 2000 & 2010 Writers Guild of America Literary #1406542 January 2010

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Coco Chanel (L.) and Vera Bate Lombardi (R.) At the Duke of Westminsters, Scotland 1925

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The American Hospital in Paris is a military hospital, and the largest hospital in Paris, where many prominent Americans are connected with management. The photograph here shows Miss Vera Baring Arkwright, granddaughter of the Duke of Cambridge at left, and Mrs. E. Whitney, of New York. WW I January 12,1915.

Vera Bate Lombardi Introduction

Vera Bate Lombardis daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor was mentor to author Zachary Selig. This biography was assembled from the verbal history of Vera Bate Lombardi that Tichenor gave directly to Selig that he documented in his BRIDGET BATE TICHENOR THE MEXICAN MAGIC REALIST PAINTER copyrighted first in 2000, 2006, & 2008, RELAXATIA 2000, and later in THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE LIFE OF BRIDGET BATE TICHENOR copyright 2010. According to TIchenor, the controversial genealogy of her mothers illegitimate birth arose from her grandmother Rosa Baring Fitzgeorges alleged affair with an underage British royal that was concealed from public record, but was family knowledge in detailed accounts that were passed down to Tichenor from her mother and family members. Tichenors family history was revealed to Selig to expose her knowledge of the truth hidden in clouded gossip and misleading lies that surrounded Bridgets mother, grandmother, and herself, which included Tichenor being Chanels illegitimate child by the Duke of Westminster. The fact is that Tichenors account of her grandmothers affair with the Duke of Teck cannot be proved in historical documentation, as most of her grandmothers private affairs were concealed in an era where it was possible to tamper with birth records, and therefore Tichnenors biography of her mothers genealogy remains open for criticism. Veras birth records and other public records concerning her childhood and young adulthood are flawed and not exacting, with conflicted and askew historical data. To the public, Veras true father remains a mystery. Some authors have laboriously investigated labyrinths of paradoxical and incomplete genealogical archival data in a research attempt to disprove Veras Teck royal lineage through discrediting her daughter Bridget Bate Tichenors personal account that Selig documented. All investigations for research-hire in CHANEL books and otherwise have failed to concretize legitimate biographies on Vera or her mother Rosa Frederica Baring
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Fitzgeorge with substantial and cohesive facts to prove otherwise what according to Tichenor has been well hidden. Please note copyright attachments and agreements at the end of this document. The content herein was authorized for Vera Bate Lombardi reference in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY in a formal written agreement between Selig and Hal Vaughan. Note page 257. Clearly, Vera Bate Lombardi is an enigma to archival research. Note the end of this document for agreements pertaining to the material herein used for copyright released publications.

Early Life in London and Paris

Born Sarah Gertrude Baring Arkwright in London, 1885 and died in Rome, 1948. [1) She served as nurse in WW I circa 1915, where she was first introduced at the American Hospital of Paris to a fellow nurse Coco Chanel [1] through Comte Leon de Laborde. [2] [3] [4] Vera was the head nurse and assistant to Dr. Blake at the hospital. [24] Mrs. Benjamin (Bridget) Guinness and Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt served as nurses alongside her and became lifetime friends. [24] Vera's daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor described her mother's young adulthood: "In her early years she followed Hindu philosophy with Sir John Woodroffe in London and was considered a mystic, advising both luminaries and bohemians. [4] Vera was involved with the philosophical doctrine of Spiritism, and organized sances in which she produced figurative drawings of human and animal spirits [4]. She had the supernatural ability to see and express things in intimate details in many creative formats. As an inspiring young adult, her esoteric insight was sought after by friends such as Isadora Duncan [4] [14], Marchesa Casati [4], Sergei Diaghilev [4], and Jean Cocteau [4]. She had many other friends that were founders, writers, artists of Modernism, Surrealism, and Dadaism. One great friend was the writer and political activist Nancy Cunard. Andre Breton worked at a neurological hospital in Nantes during WWI, when he first consulted Vera for her
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medium ship. She introduced him to the principle mediumistic automatism that he developed into automatic writing. He collaborated with Philippe Soupault in 1920 to author The Magnetic Fields (Les Champs Magntiques). [4]

Family
Vera Bate Lombardi had the highest connections possible, not only to the British Royal Family, but also to royals and aristocrats worldwide [2][4][10] [17][18][19], as she was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Teck. [2][4] Her mother Rosa Frederica Baring Arkwright Fitzgeorge [1] was a descendent of the famous Sir Francis Baring[1][15] of the 18th Century English Baring banking family [16] that had rescued the British Royal Family in hard times. [17] [18] Her maternal uncle was Thomas Weguelin, partner of Thomson, Bonar, and Company of London, Director and Governor of the Bank of England. [4] Veras daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor said, It was understood that Rosa Baring, after having had one child Esme, while unhappily married to Captain Frank Wigsell Arkwright [19] at age 32, had an affair with the 17-year-old Duke of Teck at the Baring home, Norman Court, Hampshire, England. [4] [20] Rosa Baring was a notorious nymphomaniac and seductress by my mothers account, which was apparent in her first marriage, broken by numerous adulteries that finalized her divorce from Arkwright. Pedophilia has no boundaries. Vera said it was no surprise to her circle that she seduced a young boy. Rosa in my opinion was a sociopath with a scandalous sexual reputation. [4] Tichenor commented, Many Coco Chanel biographers gilded Chanels darker periods, marginalizing Vera and making errors such as suggesting Vera was fathered or adopted by Colonel William Adolphus Fitzgeorge, a male-line descendent of George III, W. F. Hanover, King of Great Britain. The morganatic and bastard Fitzgeorge, son of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge [21] and his mistress Sarah Louisa Fairbrother, in fact became Veras unregistered stepfather [2] in a controversial, arranged, and hasty Teck Family cover-up marriage [22] that occurred in Paris prior to her

mothers divorce from Captain Frank Wigsell Arkwright. [23] [24] This event masked the scandal of Veras true father, Prince Adolphus, younger brother of Queen Mary of Teck [38] [39]. According to the biographer Edmonde Charles-Roux, Veras birth certificate stated that her father was a stonemason [2], which was one of many rumors as there were so many illegitimate births involved in her family genealogy. [40] Tichenor detailed, The Arkwright marriage ended in divorce in 1885, with a disguised royal family cover-up that involved a transaction between the Duchess of Teck and the Baring family to insure silencing the under aged Duke of Teck's affair and guaranteeing a royal, although morganatic, marriage for Rosa to George William Adolphus FitzGeorge. Rosa abandoned her illegitimate child Sarah Gertrude (Vera) Arkwright in infancy to be raised by Captain Arkwright's family in a rural setting. She pursued Fitzgeorge while still married to Arkwright to focus on her new socially promising marriage, where she would later have 3 more children. Lombardis daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor stated, Vera was born in the same year of Rosas divorce from Arkwright in 1885. Vera was a child that represented a pawn on a royal chess-set for Rosa. The Tecks were indebted to the Barings, which Rosa used to obtain her end out of a loveless marriage and into a better one that she knew she could manipulate. [4} Both Granny Rosa and Granny Fat Mary, Duchess of Teck, devised a secret plan. There were many royals that were appalled at my grandmothers and Tecks manipulations, including Great Aunt Queen Victoria, who grew tired of the financial-bailouts to both Tecks and Fitzgeorges. Rosas abandonment and complete neglect of my mother compounded her selfish reputation. My mothers godmother Margaret Cambridge took charge of my mothers care when she was being tossed around from the Arkwrights home to the Barings home. It was Margaret Cambridge, Marchioness of Cambridge who loved my mother as her own child and bonded with her, bringing her into her family as a surrogate daughter. There was an element of responsibility that Margaret Cambridge felt from her husband the Duke of Tecks childhood affair with Granny Rosa. She was truly a guiding light with my mother and established her connection as an
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adopted child, thus the relationships that developed with the core British Royal family [4}. According to the Marquise de Fontenoy in her book "Revelations of the High Life Within Royal Palaces" first printed in 1892 and published later in "Royal Musings", "Rosa Federica Baring FitzGeorge's marriage to Colonel FitzGeorge, who died in 1907, "gave great offense" to his father, HRH Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, who was Queen Victoria's first cousin. King Edward VII bestowed knighthoods on the Duke's two younger sons, Adolphus and Augustus, but not on George. This omission was largely due to Colonel FitzGeorge's marriage to Rosa Baring and his constant financial problems. Rosa did not reveal her first marriage to Arkwright at the time of her marriage to Colonel FitzGeorge in France, nor that she had two children, Esme and Vera. Vera Bate Lombardi's daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor stated, "This bigamy issue was later magnified by the revelation of Vera's illegitimate birth and the controversy that surrounded it within the Royal Family." Rosa was not friendly with the families of her two husbands, and made plenty of capital in the royal veins as Queen Victoria's niece and daughter in-law of the Duke of Cambridge [28}, and flourished in New York and Chicago as Lady Fitzgeorge. [4] [29]

Marriages
Vera Bate Lombardi gave birth to her only daughter, Bridget Bate Tichenor, [1] [4] in Paris in 1917 through the American Army Mechanical Officer Frederick Blantford Bate, who she met during WWI in Paris and married in 1916. [1] [5] Bate had been married once before to a Chicago candy heiress, who divorced him on the grounds of desertion. Bate was instrumental in establishing The Field Service of American Ambulance, in Paris in 1916 that became the AFS Intercultural Programs where he and Vera first met. [6] [7] [8] He was the Secretary General of the Paris Peace Conference. Vera divorced Bate in 1927. [1] In 1929, Vera married Italian Fascist Colonel Alberto Lombardi, one of the finest horsemen of his day. [1] [2] As a result of Bates marriage to Vera, he established a close friendship with
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her cousin King Edward VIII, The Duke of Windsor. [9] Bate became the first NBC news correspondent to receive the story of the Kings abdication and marriage to Wallis Simpson. [9] Bate contacted his associate Alistair Cooke in the UK to broadcast it. [9]

A Single Parent
Veras abandonment issues were repeated in her relationship with her daughter Bridget, who was moved from one aristocratic household to another as a child with her German nanny Fraulin Kraus in England and France, particularly in the homes of Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster. [4] Vera later sent Bridget as a young teenager abroad to Italy to spend time in the care of the Agnelli and Savoia families in Italy, where she was mentored in drawing and painting by Di Chirico in Rome. Bridget came to live with Vera and work as model for CoCo Chanel when she was 16 in Paris. In 1939, when WWII began, Vera insisted Bridget be removed from Europe and arranged her marriage to the homosexual American poet Hugh Jeremy Chisholm through an introduction that occurred through Cole Porter and Linda Lee. Bridget Tichenor said, My mother devised my first marriage to Hugh to secure my financial future in the US far away from War-torn Europe. I was oblivious to the fact that she staged my marriage and exodus from her parenting. In Veras own way, she felt that she was doing the best she could to assure that I would be safe and well taken care of. My mothers forced marriage to Hugh was a disaster that brought me a lifetime of pain. She was truely a monster as a parent.[4]

Career
Vera Bate Lombardi became Coco Chanel's muse and Public Relations liaison from 1925-1939 to the British Royal Family, and many Royal families throughout the world. [2] Her demeanor and style created the 'English Look', the very foundation for the House of Chanel. [2] Bridget Bate Tichenor said, Vera's surrogate mother was Margaret Cambridge, Marchioness of Cambridge, wife of Veras illegitimate father Prince Adolphus, Duke of Teck and sister of Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of
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Westminster [24]. BendOr adored Vera. It was Vera, through that close relationship, that invited Chanel onto the Dukes yacht in Monte Carlo in the early 1920s that established Chanels and the Dukes long romantic relationship. Later, Vera invited Coco Chanel on trips to the Duke's estates in Scotland and France [2], where they dressed-up in the Duke's tweeds juxtaposed Vera's aunt Queen Mary of Tecks borrowed jewels. [4] Veras daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor said, The dress-ups Vera and Chanel orchestrated on those holidays developed into a Chanel trademark fashion statement of man-tailored suits accessorized with bold paste jewelry, which was inspired by the Dukes Riding and Fishing costumes appointed with Queen Mary of Teck's borrowed jewelry. Vera essentially guided Chanel to solidify a modern fashion statement in apparel and accessories, designed from these early trips inside the lives of British royals [2] [4]. Tichenor commented, At the time, Vera began working for Coco Chanel, she was estranged from her mother and in a vulnerable position financially, which afforded Coco Chanel an opportunity to use her as a powerful social instrument into an upper-class world she could never have entered from her humble origins. [4] [10] Vera was an indomitable combination of beauty and boldness with close ties to Royal families throughout the world. [2] [4] [10] [11] Coco Chanel craved Veras immense popularity and privileged patrician milieu. [12] Chanel came from an indigent background where she was uneducated. [2] [10] She looked to Vera as a social advisor, who was responsible for her societal launch and business triumph. [2] [13] Tichenor said, Chanel absorbed Veras exotic mannerisms from gestures to stance with Cambridge and Oxford intonations in a masked identity reinvention of her destitute background. Vera educated Chanel in British etiquette to not only become the Dukes courtesan, but to be presentable to any royal. [2] [4] Lombardi was a flawless British Royal Family Fashion icon to Coco Chanel, which she used to establish her core fashion-identity-template that became the legendary Chanel brand. In the end, Vera retaliated against Chanel's ruthless jealousies and manipulations and exposed her as a Nazi spy with the "Muddlehut" scheme [2] to her cousin Sir Winston Churchill [2] in Spain
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circa 1944, which shattered Coco Chanel's reputation for many years. [14] Tichenor said, Coco Chanel hid the truth of her tragic and painful family history, and superimposed a bitter, icy and snobbish version of Veras glamorous persona throughout her life. Chanel's authentic core self-value was never founded, as her personal identity had been tragically dehumanized and shamed as an orphan. Chanel copied my mother in every aspect and exploited her. Vera was known for discreetness, honesty, and generous demeanor; and, was the antithesis of Chanel from aesthetic appearance to humane character. Marie Van Vorst stated in her war letters of 1916, "Vera was full of sympathy and kindness."[23]

Exposure of Chanel as WW II Nazi Spy

After 4 years of professional separation, in 1943 Chanel sought collaboration with Lombardi in Rome to access Lombardi's relative Sir Winston Churchill in the Walter Schellenberg Nazi plot "Operation Modellhut", under the guise of requesting Lombardi return to work for the House of Chanel in Paris. [2] When Vera refused to comply with Chanel's request to come to Paris; she was arrested as an English spy and thrown into a Roman prison of the worst kind with prostitutes by the Gestapo. [2] Finally, she agreed to fly to Austria, only if escorted by two aristocrat friends of the palazzo set and her pet Calabrian Mastiff dog. The long-legged dog, the size of a bull calf was too big for the small plane that could only hold the SS pilot, her friends Prince Bismarck and Lady Windischgraetz, and herself. Taege had to remain behind in Rome. [2] At the end of their relationship, Vera exposed Chanels Muddlehut war crime collaboration with her German Nazi officer lover Hans Gunther von Dincklage and declared her a Nazi spy to her relative Sir Winston Churchill in Spain in 1944. [2] Inclusive of her communications with Sir Winston Churchill, Vera divulged a complete expose of Coco Chanel and Hans Gunther von Dincklage's manipulations of the House of Chanel perfume business with its Jewish owner Pierre Wertheimer. [4] Coco Chanel was arrested by the Americans through the Committee For Public Morals placed in jail in Paris, but later dismissed of espionage charges through the British
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Royal Family. [2] Had Chanel been brought to trial for her war crimes, it would have exposed some of the British Royal Family Nazi alliances. [2] [4] She also avoided the head shaving of other Nazi prostitutes and mistresses or collabotrices horizontales in prison. [4] Coco Chanel sold the complete rights to her name to the Wertheimer family for Perfumes Chanel, in exchange for a monthly stipend. The stipend supported her and her friend, von Dincklage. [25] Bridget Bate Tichenor commented, My mother was gifted with drawing and painting talents, and had to rely on her artistic skills during and after the War by painting paneled-screens for her friends in Rome to survive until her death in 1948. [2] [4] [10]

Legacy
Until recently, Vera Bate Lombardi has been relatively obscured in fairy tale Chanel literary and film biographies. [4] Coco Chanel cunningly perpetuated her adapted character identity, and concealed the truths of her business cornerstone. [4] Bridget Bate Tichenor said, What had begun as flattery for Vera from Chanel, terminated in disgust. [4] Vera Bate Lombardis letters to Sir Winston Churchill are in the Churchill College, Cambridge, Cambridge, England [4}

References
1. Sarah (Vera) Gertrude Bate Lombardi http://www.thepeerage.com/p15929.htm 2. Vera Bate Lombardi/Chanel Chanel by Edmonde Charles Roux, Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Copyright 1975, ISBN 0-394-47613-1. Text: P. 249, 250, 256, 323 331-43, 355, 359 3. Frederick Blantford Bate http://www.vlib.us/medical/FriendsFrance/ff07.htm 4. Bridget Bate Tichenor http://bridgetbatetichenor.com/
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5. Rosa Frederica Baring Fitzgeorge http://www.thepeerage.com/p10092.htm 6. Captain Frank Wigsell Arkwright http://www.thepeerage.com/p10854.htm#i108534 7. Frederick Blantford Bate http://www.thepeerage.com/p15929.htm#i159284 8. Baring Banking Family ^ Drummond, Helga. The Dynamics of Organizational Collapse; The Case of Barings Bank, New York: Routledge, 2008 ISBN 978-0-415-39961-6. 9. Sir. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill http://thepeerage.com/p10620.htm#i106196 10. Vera Bate Lombardi/Co Co Chanel ^ Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own. Macmillan, 1991. ISBN 0805016392. p. 4. http://books.google.com/books? id=jgJ7jYuXeYsC&pg=PA357&lpg=PA357&dq=Vera+Bate+Lombardi+'C hanel'&source=bl&ots=AaHRA2399r&sig=dJtmns0B1tg-JLb5bnf8gqbp5U&hl=en&ei=VM9bS971B4z0sQPQ4WgAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBkQ6AEwB zgK#v=onepage&q=Vera Bate Lombardi 'Chanel'&f=false 11. Vera Bate Lombardi/Co Co Chanel ^ Chanel and the Nazis: what Coco Avant Chanel and other films don't tell you The Times. 4 April 2009 12. Vera Bate Lombardi/Chanel ^ http://www.internetstones.com/chanel-cuff-bracelet-gabrielle-cocol-finejewelry-artistic-collection-hautecouture-accessories.html 13. Vera Bate Lombardi/Chanel http://www.forward.com/articles/115561/ 14. Isadora Duncan Isadora Duncan, My Life Boni & Liveright 1927, Reissued Liveright Publishing Corporation 1995. ISBN 0 87140 158 4 http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Isadora-Duncan/dp/0871401584
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15. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel http://www.detourmagazine.co.uk/2009/03/01/the-life-of-gabriellebonheur-coco-chanel/ 16. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index? qid=20090224181650AAvdGiP 17. Vera Bate Lombardi/Chanel http://halloftheblackdragon.com/reel/795/hotties-of-history-cocochanel.html 18. Vera Bate Lombardi/Chanel http://www.themakeupgallery.info/lookalike/icons/chanel.htm 19. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel http://shoesareourreligion.blogspot.com/2009/06/coco-chanel-fashionlegend.html 20. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel http://www.celebritiesgalore.com/celebrities/bridget-bate-tichenor/home/ 21. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/5293 22. Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge Duke of Teck, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge: Facts, Discussion ... Vera Bate Lombardi, Coco Chanel Muse and PR representative was rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge and ... www.absoluteastronomy.com/.../Adolphus_Cambridge,_1st_Marquess_of_ Cambridge - Cached - Similar 23. Queen Mary of Teck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_Teck 24. Vera Arkwright - Head Nurse American Hospital Paris WW I "War Letters of an American Woman" by Marie Van vorst, American Ambulance, Neuilly, France, copyright John Lane Company, NY 1916 http://www.archive.org/stream/warlettersofamer00vanvrich/warlettersofame r00vanvrich_djvu.txt 25. Chanel S.A.

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26. Royal Musings: Vera Arkwright to Marry Frederick Bate 1916 27. Revelations of High Life Within Royal Palaces Marquise de Fontenoy, January 1, 1892 28. Rosa Federicka Fitzgeorge NY Times 1909 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf? _r=1&res=9A0CE1DE1630E733A25756C2A9669D946897D6CF 29. Vera Marriage announcement to Frederick Bate http://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2010/04/carl-friedrichsfuneral.html

External links
http://www.thepeerage.com/p15929.htm http://bridgetbatetichenor.com/

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From:Hal Vaughan Subject:My apologies Date: August 27, 2011 4:33:53 AM PDT To: Zachary Selig Cc: Vicky Wilson Randomhouse

Dear Zach Just managed an hour at the computer to determine: --I failed to (or rather dropped out a graph) in the acknowledgments. You will have a full and formal apology in the coming days as soon as I can get back out of bed; --Alfred A. Knopf, Random House and Senior Editor, Victoria Wilson had nothing to do with my error. Indeed, the agreement letter is between you and Hal Vaughan personally; and was drawn long before I had any arrangement with the publisher; --I will shortly ask the publisher to add the following acknowledgment: "Many thanks to Zachary Selig for his material on Vera Bate Lombardi." Again, please accept my regrets that your help to me as author was not acknowledged. All good wishes, Hal Vaughan Author, Sleeping With The Enemy.

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