by Theo Aronson
The royal family’s first choice of a suitable bride was, inevitably, one of his many royal cousins; ‘for of course’, as Queen Victoria put it in a letter to her grandson, ‘any Lady in Society would never do’.6 Even before he had been despatched to India, Prince Eddy had been manoeuvred in the direction of Princess Alix of Hesse, the sixth child of Queen Victoria’s daughter, the late Princess Alice, and of her husband Louis IV, whose cumbersome title was Grand Duke of Hesse and by the Rhine. Dutifully, Prince Eddy proposed marriage. But Princess Alix – or ‘Alicky’ as she was known in the family – who was a serious-minded young woman, was having none of him. Rumours of Prince Eddy’s complicity in the Cleveland Street scandal, which were at their height at the time that Princess Alix was considering his proposal, may well have reached the Grand Ducal Palace in Darmstadt. Courts are notorious whispering galleries. The situation would not have been unfamiliar to Princess Alix: her own brother Ernest, who was generally described as ‘artistic’, was apparently homosexual. ‘No boy was safe,’ the wife of Grand Duke Ernest was to complain in later years. ‘From the stable lads to the kitchen help, he slept quite openly with them all.’7
On his return from India in May 1890, Prince Eddy was greeted by Princess Alix’s refusal of his proposal. ‘I fear all hopes of Alicky’s marrying Eddy are at an end,’ wrote Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick. ‘She has written to tell him how it pains her to pain him, but she cannot marry him, much as she likes him as a Cousin, that she knows she would not be happy with him and that he would not be happy with her and that he must not think of her … she says that if she is forced she will do it, but that she would be unhappy, and he too.
‘This’, continued the Queen, ‘shows great strength of character as all her family and all of us wish it, and she refuses the greatest position there is.’8
But not quite resigned to Princess Alix’s refusal, Queen Victoria made one last effort. ‘Is there no hope about E?’ she asked one of Princess Alix’s sisters. ‘She should be made to reflect seriously on the folly of throwing away the chance of a very good Husband, kind, affectionate and steady …’9 Only a doting grandmother could ever have referred to Prince Eddy as ‘steady’.
Having turned down this opportunity of becoming a future Queen Empress of Great Britain, Princess Alix married Tsar Nicholas II and by becoming Empress of All the Russias was to be murdered, in a blood-stained cellar in Ekaterinburg, in 1918.
To his sentimental mother, Prince Eddy duly professed himself heartbroken at Princess Alix’s ‘cruelty’. But as he could not have known her very well and could not even have set eyes on her during the seven months that he was in India, his desolation should not be taken too seriously.
Queen Victoria’s second choice was another of the Prince’s German cousins: Princess Margaret of Prussia, the youngest daughter of the widowed Empress Frederick. Although ‘Cousin Mossy’ was not ‘regularly pretty’, wrote the Queen to Prince Eddy on 19 May 1890, a fortnight after Princess Alix’s rejection, ‘she has a very pretty figure, is very amiable and half English with great love for England which you will find in very few, if any others’.10
Although Prince Eddy would no doubt have married Cousin Mossy if pushed, the objection to this particular match came from the Princess of Wales. She liked the girl well enough but the fact that she was a Prussian, the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, put her completely out of the running. Princess Alexandra’s hatred of Prussia – dating back to the Prusso-Danish War a quarter of a century before – remained vehement. ‘As you know …’ wrote Sir Francis Knollys to the Queen’s private secretary, ‘I am a strong advocate for Princess Margaret and I wish the Princess [of Wales] would see these things differently …’11
It was at this stage that Prince Eddy alarmed everyone by suddenly becoming involved with the most unsuitable of candidates: Princess Hélène d’Orléans.
Princess Hélène d’Orléans was the nineteen-year-old daughter of the Comte de Paris, Pretender to the French throne. Banished from Republican France in 1886, the Orléans family had settled in England. They were, of course, staunchly Roman Catholic. This made Princess Hélène doubly unsuitable as a consort for a future King of England: on both political and religious grounds, the thing was impossible.
As far as Prince Eddy was concerned, the affair with Princess Hélène was hardly a case of love at first sight. It was left to his two unmarried sisters, Princess Victoria and Princess Maud, to tell him that Princess Hélène was fond of him. ‘I did not realize this at first although the girls constantly told me she liked me,’ he admitted to his brother, Prince George. ‘I saw Hélène several times at Sheen [Sheen Lodge, Richmond, was the home of his married sister Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife] and naturally thought her everything that is nice in a girl, and she had become very pretty which I saw at once and also gradually perceived that she really liked me … I naturally got to like, or rather to love her, by the manner she showed her affection for me.’12
Prince Eddy’s somewhat lukewarm attitude was more than offset by the ardour of Princess Hélène. Right from the start, apparently, she was the driving force in this curious and controversial romance. For one thing, she seems to have been genuinely in love with Prince Eddy. To this nineteen-year-old girl, the elegantly dressed, well-mannered and warm-hearted young man was a figure of considerable allure; he had the sort of sleepy charm that some women find irresistible. To Queen Victoria, the Princess afterwards admitted, ‘I loved him so much and perhaps I was rash, but I couldn’t help myself, I loved him so much. He was so good.’13 To hear Prince Eddy described as ‘good’ might have amused the likes of Sir Francis Knollys and Sir Dighton Probyn but, in the sense that he was kindly and considerate, Prince Eddy was good. ‘No man’, wrote one observer, ‘was ever more beloved by his immediate relations. His servants and dependants adored him and his friends and companions were devoted to him.’14
But Princess Hélène d’Orléans was fuelled by another passion: an ambition to become Queen of England. Already she was showing signs of that force of character that was to distinguish her when, in later years as the wife of the Italian Duke of Aosta, she outstripped even her husband in her active support for Mussolini’s fascist regime. ‘The Duce himself’, wrote one admiring diplomat’s wife at the time, ‘lends a willing and attentive ear to her advice on many subjects of importance.’15That she and her husband would have made a more brilliant reigning couple than her husband’s cousin, little King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena, the Duchess of Aosta never doubted. These burgeoning aspirations made Princess Hélène more than ever determined to marry the Heir Presumptive to the British throne.
It did not take long for rumours of this marital manoeuvering to reach the ears of Queen Victoria. Fondly imagining that her grandson had been heartbroken by his rejection at the hands of Princess Alix of Hesse, the Queen was astonished to hear that – within a week of this rejection – Prince Eddy was becoming romantically involved with Princess Hélène.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she wrote to the Prince, ‘for you know that I told you (as I did your Parents who agreed with me) that such a marriage is utterly impossible. None of our family can marry a Catholic without losing all their rights and I am sure that she will never change her religion, and to change her religion merely to marry is a thing much to be deprecated and which would have the worst effect possible and be most unpopular, besides which you could not marry the daughter of the Pretender to the French Throne. Politically in this way it would also be impossible.
‘That being the case you should avoid meeting her as much as possible as it would only lead to make you unhappy if you formed an attachment for her.’16
But ranged against the Queen was Prince Eddy’s immediate family. The Prince of Wales was only too thankful to see his wayward son showing an interest in marriage at all, while Princess Alexandra and her three daughters were actively encouraging the match. These four sentimental, childlike women thrilled to the romance of the situation: they coul
d perfectly understand why Princess Hélène should have fallen in love with the ‘adorable’ Eddy. In Princess Alexandra’s eyes, the Princess had the added attraction of not being German. Beside this advantage all the disadvantages simply melted away. Egged on by this doting cabal, the impressionable Prince Eddy was only too ready to oblige them by paying court to Princess Hélène. He could not, however, have paid her very serious attention for throughout the summer during which the romance was supposed to be blossoming, the Prince was with his regiment in York. And even their occasional meetings would have been chaperoned.
Chief provider of the settings for these fleeting encounters was Prince Eddy’s eldest sister, the shy and awkward Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife. In August 1890 the scene moved from Sheen Lodge which lay so conveniently close to the home of the Comte de Paris at Twickenham, to the Fifes’ Scottish seat, Mar Lodge, near Balmoral. The Comte and Comtesse de Paris, with their daughter, were invited to stay at Mar Lodge. Also invited were the Princess of Wales and Prince Eddy, who was by then on one of his extended autumn leaves of absence from military duties. The Prince of Wales was not present; nothing would induce him to forgo his customary cure at Homburg. While the Comtesse de Paris, who habitually wore tweeds and smoked a pipe and cigars, was quite happy to join the men on their shooting and stalking expeditions, the Princess of Wales concentrated on Princess Hélène. She persuaded her to promise to change her religion and to marry Prince Eddy. Unbeknown to her parents, the Princess agreed.
The first of the many hurdles over, the second, and far more formidable one, had to be tackled: Queen Victoria’s approval must somehow be obtained. Princess Alexandra, appreciating that the old Queen was far more sentimental than was generally appreciated, decided that the young couple must appeal to her directly. Arranging for a picnic lunch to sustain them on their journey, she sent them off by carriage to Balmoral. Her plan succeeded brilliantly. ‘You can imagine what a thing to go through and I did not at all relish the idea …’ admitted Prince Eddy in a letter to his brother Prince George, ‘I naturally expected Grandmama would be furious at the idea, and say it was quite impossible etc. But instead of that she was very nice about it and promised to help us as much as possible, which she is now doing … I believe what pleased her most was my taking Hélène into her, and saying we had arranged it entirely without consulting our parents first. This as you know is not quite true but she believed it all …’17
There was now let loose a flood of letters, reports, memoranda and aides-mémoire involving the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister, their private secretaries and assorted members of the government. How practical, or advisable, would it be for a future monarch to marry the daughter of the Pretender to the French throne who had renounced her true religion and turned Protestant? It was Arthur Balfour, minister in attendance at Balmoral that season, who first reported to the Prime Minister, his uncle Lord Salisbury – who had only just emerged from the morass of the Cleveland Street scandal – on this new royal dilemma.
‘The Queen’, explained Balfour in his characteristically sardonic fashion, ‘is much touched by the personal appeal to herself. With admirable dexterity (this surely cannot be the young man’s idea) they came hand in hand straight to her, and implored her to smooth out not merely the political difficulties, but the family difficulties also. In making her their confidante, they have made her their ally. She would have been in a much less melting mood if the approaches had been conducted in due form through the parents. But the Sovereign has been touched through the Grandmother.’ The Queen, who was no fool, quickly appreciated that Princess Hélène was ‘a clever woman … who will be the making of her husband’.18
He foresaw, continued Balfour, ‘a great deal of trouble over it all, but it is impossible not to see the humorous side of the business. Will it be believed that neither the Queen, nor the young Prince, nor Princess Hélène, see anything which is not romantic, interesting, touching and praiseworthy in the young lady giving up a religion, to which she still professes devoted attachment, in order to marry the man on whom she says she has set her heart! They are moved even to tears by the magnitude of the sacrifice, without it, apparently, occurring to them that at best it is the sacrifice of religion for love, while at the worst it is the sacrifice of religion for a throne – a singular inversion of the ordinary views on martyrdom …’
The Queen felt sure that ‘the combination of romance and conversion – the brand plucked from the burning’, would make the match acceptable to everyone other than the Roman Catholics; ‘and the wrath of the R.C.s’, continued Balfour, ‘she contemplates with something like satisfaction’.19
Lord Salisbury treated the matter less flippantly. In a ponderous memorandum to the Queen, he pointed out the many disadvantages of the match. ‘It may profoundly affect the feelings of the people towards the throne, and of foreign countries towards England,’ he warned. The British did not like the French. Might they not regard the Princess’s conversion to Protestantism as a supremely self-serving act? And might she not, in later life, fall back under Roman Catholic influences? Then what about the French? Surely the Republicans would resent the Comte de Paris becoming the father-in-law of a future King of England? And would the Royalists and Catholics not resent the Princess’s change of religion?
To the Prince of Wales’s suggestion that Princess Hélène be allowed to remain a Roman Catholic provided she gave an understanding that the children would be brought up in the Anglican Church, Lord Salisbury was dismissive. Even to contemplate any such idea would be to rouse the anger of the middle and lower classes, he said.
In the end, it all depended on the Comte de Paris. Without his consent, the Princess could not change her religion. And this he adamantly refused to give. Nor did the Pope, whom the desperate Princess rushed to consult in Rome, prove any more accommodating. Faced with this insurmountable obstacle, the affair had to end. The relationship was broken off.
The bitter-sweet story of Prince Eddy and Princess Hélène has gone down as one of history’s great royal romances. This seems to be borne out by the fact that on the Prince’s elaborate tomb in the Albert Chapel at Windsor there lies, to this day, a bead wreath with the single word ‘Hélène’ on it. The Prince of Wales reported his son as being ‘quite wretched’20 at the break-up of the affair, and Queen Victoria felt sure that he would not recover from the blow for many years. But those who – with good reason – understood Prince Eddy better, viewed the business more cynically. ‘He declares that he will never marry anyone else,’ reported Sir Francis Knollys to Sir Henry Ponsonby, ‘which I believe People have said before in similar cases.’21 And Ponsonby himself, meeting the Prince accidentally at Marlborough House immediately after the break-up, reported that ‘His Royal Highness did not appear depressed but talked away in a most lively manner.’22
But positive proof that Prince Eddy’s emotions were not all that seriously engaged is to be found in a series of curious letters which, at the very time that he was believed to be passionately in love with Princess Hélène, he was writing to someone else.
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Prince Eddy was one of those men who is happiest with a female confidante. His closest companions were undoubtedly his mother and sisters; they could be relied upon to give him that uncritical adoration and reassurance which his self-doubting nature always needed. It is in the light of this taste for feminine companionship that one must read his letters to Lady Sybil St Clair Erskine, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the 4th Earl of Rosslyn. Lord Rosslyn was the half-brother of the Prince of Wales’s current mistress, Lady Brooke. For artlessness, for muddle-headedness, as examples of a complete misunderstanding of the true nature of love – and all written at a time when the Prince was supposed to be besotted by Princess Hélène d’Orléans – these letters can hardly be surpassed.
‘I thought it was impossible a short time ago to [love] more than one person at the same time,’ he wrote in the summer of 1891, ‘and I believe according to things in
general it should be so, but I feel that exceptions will happen at times. I can explain it easier to you when next we meet, than by writing. I only hope and trust that this charming creature which has so fascinated me, is not merely playing with my feelings … I can’t believe she would after what she has already said, and asked me to say … If one could only transplant oneself now and then, and then all of a sudden appear before the person one most wishes to see how delightful that would be. I am sure that if it were only possible, the world would be a great deal happier than it is. Don’t you think so?’
‘I wonder if you really love me a little?’ he wrote a week later. ‘I ought not to ask such a silly question I suppose but still I should be very pleased if you did just a little bit … It is very hot today and I feel very languid and not up to doing much …’
Would she, by the way, always be sure to destroy the coat of arms and signature on his letters? ‘You can’t be too careful what you do in these days, when hardly anybody is to be trusted.’23
Needless to say, the lady did nothing of the sort.
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Throughout the time that Prince Eddy was conducting his simultaneous love affairs with Princess Hélène and Lady Sybil St Clair Erskine, he was involved in a third relationship: with a young doctor named Alfred Fripp.
In July 1890, Prince Eddy was taking a break from his never very exacting military duties with the 10th Hussars, then headquartered at York, by spending a few weeks at the Royal Hotel in nearby Scarborough. While he was there he fell ill with what has been described as ‘a sharpish attack of fever’.24 As the Prince’s usual doctor, Dr Jallard, was on leave, he was attended by Jallard’s locum, the newly qualified, twenty-four-year-old Alfred Fripp. For the following three weeks, Fripp was in daily attendance on his royal patient.