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
The First Biography of the Life of Bridget Bate Tichenor
TX and PAU Copyrights January 2000 & 2010 Writers Guild of
America Literary #1406542 January 2010
1

Vera Arkwright London approximately 1900

Coco Chanel (L.) and Vera Bate Lombardi (R.)

At the Duke of Westminsters, Scotland 1925

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 with CoCo Chanel Paris 1930s

Vera Bate Lombardi Italy 1930s

Vera Bate Lombardi Rome 1944

Vera Bate Lombardi

Introduction
Vera Bate Lombardis daughter Bridget Bate Tichenor was mentor to author
Zachary Selig. This biography was assembled from both the verbal and
existing documented history of Vera Bate Lombardi that Tichenor gave
directly to Selig that he wrote and published 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 retain 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. Much of those
illegitimate allegations regarding Veras birth and childhood have now
been proved regarding her registered adoption as of 2014 with substantiated
legal documents by Graham Senior-Milne UK, a Hammersly family
member genealogist.
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. Many of the links are now in
place via Graham Senor-Milnes detailed research that poises a sound and
viable argument with evidence to challenge other expert genealogists to
date.

Veras birth records and other public records concerning her childhood and
young adulthood are flawed and not exacting, with conflicted and askew
historical data that opposes her legal adoption. 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
Fitzgeorge with substantial and cohesive facts to prove otherwise what
according to Tichenor and Graham Senior-Milne 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. Most information regarding Lombardi from
this book was sourced through Seligs Intellectual Properties in agreement.
Note page 257.
There have been other Chanel biographers, who pursued Selig and
shamefully did not uphold their agreements to acknowledge his being their
source with his exacting data on Vera Bate Lombardi.
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 publications.

Early Life in London and Paris

Lombardi was born at 17 Ovington Square, Kensington, London, on 11
August 1883,[2] and she was registered as the daughter of Frank Wigsell
Arkwright, later of Sanderstead Court, Surrey, lately a Captain in the
Coldstream Guards and a descendant of Sir Richard Arkwright(1732-1792)
('The Father of the Industrial Revolution'), and his then wife, Rosa Frederica
Baring, a daughter of William Baring (1819-1906) of Norman Court, West
Tytherley, Hampshire, a member of the Baring banking family, and his wife,

Elizabeth Hammersley (1825-1897), a member of another banking family

(the Hammersleys of Cox & Co.).
File:Norman Court West Tytherley.jpg
Norman Court, West Tytherley
After her parents' divorce in 1885, on the grounds of her mother's adultery
with George FitzGeorge (who Rosa Baring married in Paris later that year),
she appears to have lived with her Baring grandparents. She later became
the "surrogate child"[3] of Margaret Cambridge, Marchioness of Cambridge,
a daughter ofHugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster,[4] and was reputed
to have been the illegitimate daughter, by Rosa Baring, of Prince Adolphus,
2nd Duke of Teck and 1st Marquess of Cambridge, younger brother ofQueen
Mary.[5] The family belief that Rosa Baring seduced Prince Adolphus (a
pupil at Wellington College between 1883 and 1885) at Norman Court
appears to have been accepted by Vaughan since he describes Lombardi, in
his biography of Chanel, as a "cousin and childhood friend"[6] of Edward
VIII and a "member of the British royal family"[7]; he also refers to
her "royal blood"[8]. She is described as"adopted" in the 1891 census,[9] when
she was living with her Baring grandparents at Norman Court in Hampshire.
This is the only officially recorded evidence (which would have been
provided by Lombardi's grandfather, William Baring) that has emerged
which indicates that she was not the legitimate issue of her legal parents.
The fact that Lombardi was living with her grandparents at Norman Court in
1891, while her brother, Esm Francis Wigsell Arkwright (born 1882), was
living with his father at Sanderstead Court may indicate that Frank
Arkwright wanted to have nothing to do with his 'daughter'. Axel Madsen, in
his 'Chanel: A Woman of Her Own' (1991), says of Lombardi:
'Though Vera had married an Italian cavalry officer and was living in Rome,
she was British and her connections with the royal family and the nobility
were as firm as her status as illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of
Cambridge.'
Lombardi certainly occupied a place in the highest echelons of British
Society as a close friend of, amongst others, Edward VIII (as Prince of
Wales and later as King), Winston Churchill and Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke
of Westminster. She was, through her mother's second marriage, the stepdaughter of George FitzGeorge (1843-1907), the eldest son of Prince
George, Duke of Cambridge (1819-1904), uncle of Queen Mary. This
10

connection is unlikely to have counted in Lombardi's favour because George

FitzGeorge's financial irresponsibility, his abandonment of his military
career and his marriage to a divorced woman (Rosa Baring) were
disapproved of in royal circles; he was also illegitimate.
World War I
During World War I Lombardi worked as a volunteer Auxiliary Nurse with
the Voluntary Aid Detachment, American Ambulance Auxiliary at
theAmerican Hospital of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris. She is mentioned in
Marie van Vorst's 'War Letters of an American Woman' (New York, 1916), as
follows:
Extract from a letter of 15 October 1914 to her mother, Mrs. Van Vorst,
Edgware (London), England.
'Now I want to speak of Vera Arkwright, who replaced me in the gangrene
ward. She is perfectly beautiful, full of sympathy and sweetness, and a warm
friend of Bridget Guinness.[10] I got her into the hospital with a vague feeling
that she was simply going to flirt with the officers and perhaps make me
regret. Well, well! Vera has been in that ward now from eight in the morning
until half-past six every night. I wish you could see her with crimson
cheeks and a floating veil, carrying the vilest of linen and oilcloth, not to
throw away, but to wash it herself with a scrubbing brush. She has a keen
sense of humour, and even amid the horrors it shines forth.
Yesterday she was heartbroken over Hern, and told me that the bullet in one
of his wounds had severed a vein, and when she came in on duty this terrible
haemorrhage had flooded the bed and the floor, and it was she who cleaned
all that up. Yes, and she gathered up his little treasures to save for his people,
and going into the linen room, from under all the filthy bandages extracted
the poor little tin cigarette case which had been thrown out as rubbish.
Last night, at half-past ten, my bell rang, and poor Vera blew in asking for a
morsel of food, as when she came out from duty every restaurant in Paris
was shut. So my maid and I fed her up and sent her home. She certainly is a
brick, and Glory Hancock, if she comes, will be another.' (pp. 6970)
Extract from an undated letter to Miss Ann Lusk, New York.
'I am prepared every day to be thrown out of my smart ward, and if I have to
go back to that charnel house I hope that God will give me grace. Vera said
to-day, "It Is discouraging to work for people whom you know will all be
dead in a week." You remember in the Roman games how the gladiators

11

used to cry, "Ave Caesar, those who are about to die greet you." So those
poor creatures seem to salute the country for which they have fought, and
surely we can help them as they go.
My lieutenant with the amputated leg in the other ward has gone to-day.
That is four out of that infected ward, and three nurses are sick in bed with
violent fever from it. Yet Vera is going on like a house on fire at her job. The
poor lieutenant died as she was feeding him, and that girl did all the solemn
and dreadful offices for him. She is wonderful.' (pp. 7475)
Extract from a letter of 11 November 1914 to Mrs. Victor Morawetz, New
York.
'Last night, at the end of the hospital day, I brought down with me in a tiny
motor belonging to Vera Arkwright, the head nurse of the hospital, Miss
Devereux, who has charge of the American Hospital in times of peace. She
was so exhausted and worn out with the terrible day that she could hardly
speak. The fresh air and the drive down began to rest her, and when she got
here in my little study, before the fire, so quiet and so sweet, with a good
little dinner, and with Bessie's society and mine to cheer her, she bloomed
out like a flower. She is a New York hospital nurse, and gave me another
picture to remember in the little study, under the war map, all in snow white,
with no cap, and just the gold medal of the New York hospital round her
neck. Such a fine spiritual face; such a strong, dignified woman! We didn't
talk much of the hospital, but we talked, all three of us, of spiritual things,
and it was a wonderful thing to find her one of those simple Christians, full
of the very light of God, strong in the best sense of the word, living by faith.
I don't think I have enjoyed any evening half so much for a long time. I am
sure that you will respond to this note and care too. It is fine to feel that the
hospital there is under the spell of this noble woman who believes in fairies,"
as Barrie's play says who believes in miracles. There wasn't a discordant
second in the long evening and she went back with pink cheeks and bright
eyes to those wards where three were to die that night and she had to go on
her noble watch. She spoke in an especially kindly way of the auxiliaries and
of their extraordinary powers of endurance. She said that she would not have
believed that women of the world unused to discipline or to concentrated
effort, could have been what these women have been at the Ambulance. Vera
Arkwright, for instance, has not missed a single day since she went there.
The dressing carts are so picturesque. You see, I naturally see the notes of
colour that things make I can't help it and when I went out from the
hospital, Vera stood there in her blue dress, with her tiny little cap on her
12

head she is faultlessly beautiful, and very celebrated for her looks and
all around her was a pile of the most dreadful bandages you ever saw. (I
won't describe them.) She was gathering them up to destroy them and to
prepare her cart for the next trip. Both she and Madelon are able to do their
dressings themselves.' (pp. 108109)
For her war service Lombardi was awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War
Medal and the Victory Medal.[11]
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
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]
13

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 17year-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
14

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 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

15

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 inlaw 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
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
16

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
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

17

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
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

18

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
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

19

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/
5. Rosa Frederica Baring Fitzgeorge
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10092.htm
6. Captain Frank Wigsell Arkwright
20

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+'Ch
anel'&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
15. Vera Bate Lombardi/ Chanel
http://www.detourmagazine.co.uk/2009/03/01/the-life-of-gabriellebonheur-coco-chanel/

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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/warlettersofamer
00vanvrich_djvu.txt
25. Chanel S.A.
26. Royal Musings: Vera Arkwright to Marry Frederick Bate 1916
27. Revelations of High Life Within Royal Palaces Marquise de
Fontenoy, January 1, 1892
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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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