Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld

by Theo Aronson

  One can appreciate why the Princess of Wales who, although able to cope with her husband’s many infidelities in private, hated being exposed to public humiliation, decided to prolong her stay abroad that autumn. Instead of returning from Denmark to celebrate her husband’s fiftieth birthday on 9 November 1891, she went to visit her sister Dagmar, the Tsaritsa Marie Feodorovna, in Russia. Her gesture did not go unnoticed.

  Prince Eddy’s dissipations must have been in some way exceptional for the Prince of Wales – so racked by his own scandals – to consider sending him away. If Prince Eddy’s transgressions were indeed homosexual, he would have had every opportunity for committing them in London. One knows from his few surviving letters that he often met friends from his Cambridge days, particularly his greatest friend Henry Wilson, for little dinners à deux in clubs or restaurants. Wilson, who played host to that assortment of young men (‘who had’, as another member of the circle put it, ‘no particular intellectual gifts but did possess certain very definite qualities which were necessary to gain his friendship’) at his ‘chummery’ in Chiswick Mall, would have been in a very good position to shepherd the Prince through London’s homosexual underworld. After a good dinner and possibly a balloon of brandy too many, Prince Eddy and a companion would have been able to stroll, unrecognized, along Piccadilly and into Hyde Park where, in the darkness under the great trees, they could have sampled whatever sexual activities were being offered by soliciting guardsmen. Or they could have taken a hansom cab to one of the many maisons de passe or even made their way to the Hundred Guineas Club in time for the nightly lights-out after which every conceivable and entirely incognito variety of sexual gratification was on offer.

  Only if Prince Eddy were enjoying such reckless and illegal adventures, can one understand why his father was so anxious to keep him out of the courts and capitals of Europe. There were, as Queen Victoria had pointed out, just as many ‘designing pretty women in the colonies’ but there would not have been, at that time, any active homosexual coteries there. The capitals of Europe, on the other hand, all had well-established homosexual underworlds. In cities like Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg, Vienna and Rome there was a great deal of homosexual activity; it was particularly widespread in all levels of the German and Russian military. There were said to be more soldier prostitutes in the Russian army than in any other. These poorly paid, largely peasant conscripts from the far reaches of the Russian Empire were only too ready to earn a little extra money by buggering or being fellated by some rich, idle, aristocratic fop. How else could they possibly save up enough to get married?

  In the end – as Queen Victoria strongly disapproved of the colonial idea and the Prince of Wales felt that a tour of Europe’s capitals would be too risky – the problem of Prince Eddy was approached in the conventional fashion. Once again, it was decided that the answer lay in a suitable marriage. ‘A good sensible wife with some considerable character is what he needs most,’ wrote the despairing Prince of Wales to Queen Victoria, ‘but where is she to be found?’9

  She was to be found in the person of Princess May of Teck.

  Princess May was the only daughter of the four children of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. The Tecks were members, albeit fringe members, of the British royal family. The Duke of Teck was the son, by a morganatic marriage, of Duke Alexander of Wurttemberg, while the Duchess of Teck was Queen Victoria’s first cousin: like the Queen, the Duchess of Teck (born Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge) was a granddaughter of King George III. The Tecks were a somewhat unorthodox couple. The Duke was moody, irascible and obsessed by the fact that, as his mother had not been born royal, there was a morganatic ‘taint’ in his blood. The Duchess was extravagant, effusive and enormously fat. Two factors overshadowed their lives: a lack of money and a lack, because of the Duke’s parentage, of a clearly defined royal status. These factors were seriously affecting the chances of their only daughter, Princess May, making a good marriage. She was regarded as too royal for a non-royal marriage and not royal enough for an important royal match. In the spring of 1891 she turned twenty-four; this was considered late for a princess to be unmarried.

  Princess May appears to have inherited none of her parents’ failings. On the contrary, life with her cantankerous father and capricious mother had brought out all the stability of her own nature: she was even-tempered and unemotional. Her manner was reserved, even shy, but when one penetrated this façade, she revealed considerable depth of character, surprising self-confidence and a fund of common sense. She was also very good-looking with an excellent figure and a dignified bearing. When set against these solid virtues, the royal family decided that her somewhat equivocal status could be overlooked. For, quite unbeknown to herself or Prince Eddy, Princess May was now chosen as the young man’s future wife and, ultimately, Britain’s Queen.

  In October 1891, Princess May was summoned to Balmoral. Her mother was not invited: Queen Victoria always found the company of the ebullient Duchess of Teck far too exhausting. During the ten days that the Princess spent at Balmoral she impressed the Queen considerably. ‘I think she is a superior girl – quiet and reserved till you know her well …’ she reported to the Empress Frederick. ‘She is the reverse of oberflächlich [superficial]. She has no frivolous tastes, has been very carefully brought up and is well informed and always occupied.’10 Princess May was, she later said, ‘a solid girl, which we want’.11

  Whether this was what Prince Eddy wanted was, it seems, neither here nor there. Although the young man was once heard to say that he did not like Princess May very much, Sir Francis Knollys assured Sir Henry Ponsonby that he did not ‘anticipate any real opposition on Prince Eddy’s part’; if he ‘is told he must do it – that it is for the good of the country, etc, etc,’ then he would. But did Sir Henry suppose that Princess May ‘will make any resistance’?12

  Princess May would not. No more than any other princess did she ever expect to marry for love; marriage was simply regarded as part of the royal vocation. And Princess May was imbued with a particularly strong sense of royal obligation. Brought up to revere the monarchy, to believe that it was one’s solemn duty to support it, it would never have occurred to her to turn down this opportunity of serving it in so spectacular a fashion. For although shy, Princess May had ‘a profound conviction of her own capacities’;13 she never doubted that she would be able to sustain her new role. And, with her relatively modest background, the prospect of becoming Queen of England was a heady one. At a stroke those years of comparative obscurity and poverty would be wiped out. Even without her parents’ enthusiastic encouragement, Princess May was prepared to marry Prince Eddy. An added incentive was that, although she did not know him very well, she rather liked him. Whatever his faults, there was nothing repulsive about Prince Eddy.

  As Knollys had predicted, the young man raised no objections. ‘You may, I think, make your mind quite easy about Eddy …’ wrote the Prince of Wales to Queen Victoria on 3 December 1891, ‘he has made up his mind to propose to May.’14

  The proposal took place that very evening. In the course of a ball at Luton Hoo, home of the Danish Minister at the Court of St James’s, Prince Eddy led Princess May into an overfurnished little boudoir and asked her to marry him. ‘Of course’, noted the Princess in her diary that evening, ‘I said yes.’15 So elated, in fact, was Princess May by the proposal that, later that evening, forgetting her habitual reserve, she lifted her skirts a fraction and, in full view of her fellow female guests, danced about the room.

  Two days later, after the couple had had their photographs taken, Prince Eddy left Luton Hoo for London and Windsor, to make an official announcement of his engagement to his parents and to seek the sanction of Queen Victoria. The Queen professed herself delighted and, in a letter thanking the Archbishop of Canterbury for his congratulations, blithely assured him that ‘the young people will set an example of a steady, quiet life which, alas, is not the fashion these days.’16

  In her letter to Pri
ncess May, Queen Victoria sounded a very necessary note of caution. ‘Marriage is the most important step which can be taken and should not be looked upon lightly or as all roses,’ she warned. ‘The trials of life in fact begin with marriage …’17 Wisely, she advised a short engagement. She realized that the better Princess May came to know Prince Eddy, the more aware she would become of his curious personality. Accordingly, the wedding date was set for 27 February 1892, just over two and a half months after the announcement of the engagement.

  But even this, apparently, was not soon enough. Within days of the announcement, Princess May was having second thoughts. They were not about her own abilities but about the desirability of being married to Prince Eddy. Matters were not helped by the Prince of Wales always asking her to ‘keep Eddy up to the mark’, ‘see that Eddy does this, May’ or ‘May, please do see that Eddy does that’. In mounting alarm the Princess appealed to her mother. ‘Do you think I can really take this on, Mama?’ she once asked. The Duchess of Teck’s answer was characteristically robust. ‘Of course you can, May.’ Had she herself not ‘taken on’ the notoriously difficult Duke of Teck?18

  Prince Eddy’s attitude to the business is difficult to gauge. His letter of thanks to his aunt, Princess Louise and her husband, the sexually ambivalent Marquess of Lorne, was hardly that of an ardent, recently affianced young man. ‘I wonder if you were surprised when you saw that I was engaged?’ he wrote. ‘I daresay you were, for I must say I made up my mind rather suddenly, which I think however was the best thing after all, and it is really time that I thought of getting married, if I ever am to be. Anyway, it is now settled at last, and I think I have done well in my choice, for I feel certain May will make an excellent wife, and you may be certain that I shall do my best to make her a good husband …’ He signed himself ‘your affectionate old nephew Eddy’.19

  There was nothing tepid about the Duchess of Teck’s attitude. She was ecstatic. ‘Aunt May Teck will be in the 7th heaven,’ wrote the Empress Frederick to one of her daughters; ‘for years and years it has been her ardent wish, and she has thought of nothing else. What a marriage, and what a position for her daughter!’20

  At White Lodge, the Tecks’ home in Richmond Park, the elephantine Duchess was indeed in ‘the 7th heaven’. While admitting to a close friend that Prince Eddy was ‘naturally timid’ and prone to underestimate his abilities, the Duchess closed her mind to the other possible disadvantages of the match. A worldly and well-informed woman, she would almost certainly have heard the rumours of – if nothing else – Prince Eddy’s alleged involvement in the Cleveland Street scandal. She would have regarded any such involvement as most Victorians would have regarded it: sex between men was simply another manifestation of male lust, a sign of a jaded sexual appetite. Marriage would soon put a stop to that nonsense and, if it did not, it would be one of the prices to be paid for a brilliant match.

  Through rooms awash with letters, telegrams, fabrics, flowers and the profusion of her daughter’s trousseau, the Duchess of Teck moved in a whirl of pleasurable activity. ‘I am so happy’, she once exclaimed, ‘that I am afraid.’21

  On 4 January 1892, almost exactly a month after Prince Eddy had proposed, he accompanied the rest of his family from London to Sandringham where his twenty-eighth birthday was to be celebrated, on 8 January. With the party travelled Princess May and her parents. The sprawling Sandringham House, never the warmest of places in winter, made a particularly inappropriate setting for a house party decimated by illness: Prince Eddy’s brother, Prince George, was recovering from a dangerous attack of typhoid fever; five members of the household, including the Prince’s sister, Princess Victoria, and his equerry, Captain Holford, had fallen victim to the influenza epidemic that was sweeping the country; the Princess of Wales and Princess May had heavy colds. The entire party were taking doses of quinine, as a precautionary measure.

  On the day before his birthday, Prince Eddy felt unwell while out shooting. He was persuaded to go back to the house where Prince George took his temperature and sent him up to bed. Prince Eddy’s bedroom, where the drama of the next few days was to be played out, was a surprisingly small one for the man who was destined to be King of England: by spreading out his arm as he lay in bed, the Prince could touch the mantelpiece on the opposite wall. On the following day – Prince Eddy’s birthday – it was realized that he, too, had influenza. In spite of this, he managed to make his way downstairs to look at his presents. But he was unable to attend the birthday dinner that evening and so missed the typical Sandringham after-dinner entertainment provided by a ventriloquist and a banjo player. ‘Poor Eddy got influenza, cannot dine, so tiresome,’ telegraphed Princess Alexandra airily to Queen Victoria.22

  On 9 January Prince George insisted that Dr Laking, Physician-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, be sent for to assist the local medical attendant, Dr Manby. Laking diagnosed incipient pneumonia as well as influenza and telegraphed for the specialist, Dr Broadbent. Prince Eddy had never been very strong and, during the following six days, his condition gradually deteriorated. Sometimes he lay quite still while his devoted mother, who almost never left his side, fanned his face and wiped his brow; at other times he railed deliriously, shouting about his regiment, his brother officers and Lord Salisbury. As the doctors had insisted that only his parents be allowed into the sickroom, the rest of the family, including Princess May and her parents, crowded into the little sitting-room next door. But on 13 January, when it was clear that he was dying, his brother and sisters, and Princess May, were given permission to come into the room.

  ‘All we could hear were the sounds of terrible agony in his throat and chest and our own sobs,’ said Princess Alexandra afterwards. For seven long, harrowing hours the watchers sat by the bedside until, at half-past nine on the morning of 14 January 1892, he began murmuring, over and over again, ‘Who is that? Who is that?’23 A few minutes later, he died.

  The Prince and Princess of Wales were desolate. Oliver Montagu, Princess Alexandra’s faithful admirer, who had done so much to keep Prince Eddy’s name out of the Cleveland Street scandal, a mere two years before, came hurrying to Sandringham. ‘The Prince broke down terribly at our first meeting,’ he reported to a friend, ‘as did also the poor Princess, but they got calmer after and took me to see the poor boy three different times before I left again. He looked quite peaceful and calm.’24

  For a while, their shared sorrow brought husband and wife closer together. On a booklet containing the sermon preached at Sandringham Church on the Sunday after Prince Eddy’s funeral, the Prince of Wales wrote the inscription, ‘To my dearest wife, in remembrance of our beloved Eddy, who was taken from us. “He is not dead but sleepeth.” From her devoted but heart-broken husband, Bertie.’25

  Once Prince Eddy’s body had been put in its coffin and removed to Sandringham Church, the little room in which he had died was preserved as a shrine to his memory. A Union flag was draped over the bed and on his dressing-table were laid out, just as he had left them, his wristwatch, brushes, comb and soap dish. For many years afterwards, a fire was kept burning in the grate. On to the royal family’s pew in Sandringham Church was affixed a little brass plate which read, ‘This place was occupied for 28 years by my darling Eddy, next to his ever loving and sorrowing mother.’26

  The Princess of Wales had wanted her son to be buried at her beloved Sandringham and Queen Victoria was inclined to grant her wish but the Prince of Wales, conscious of his son’s status as the Heir Presumptive, insisted that he be given an official funeral in St George’s Chapel at Windsor. On the morning of 20 January the coffin was taken on a gun-carriage from Sandringham Church to Wolverton station and from there by train to Windsor. Even on this solemn occasion things did not go smoothly for poor Prince Eddy. The hurriedly printed invitation cards gave the time of the funeral as 3 o’clock in the morning and had to be altered by hand to ‘afternoon’. And, at the end of the service, the Prince’s aunts, Princesses Helena, Louise and Beatrice, wh
om the Princess of Wales had not wanted to attend, found themselves unable to open the door of their pew. Nothing would convince them that it had merely jammed; they felt sure that they had been purposely locked in.

  Perhaps the most poignant moment during the funeral service came when the Duke of Teck handed the Prince of Wales a replica of Princess May’s bridal bouquet of orange blossom which was then laid on the coffin. Not unnaturally, in the mind of the general public, the most vivid image was that of the heartbroken bride-to-be standing beside the coffin of her beloved prince, their dreams of marital bliss cruelly shattered by fate. Queen Victoria’s appreciation of the situation was more realistic. ‘May never really loved poor Eddy,’ she commented briskly.27

  One would have thought, from the tone of the sermons and obituaries, that Prince Eddy had been a saint. Fulsome tributes were paid to his manliness, his devotion to duty, even to his high moral standards. But one or two proved less obsequious. The Illustrated London News admitted that ‘he had no great intellectual gifts; he was not a scholar; he was not a conversationalist.’ He did, however, show ‘a very strong affection for his home and his mother’. 28 The editorial in Reynolds Newspaper was harsher. ‘For the poor young man who has just died’, it declared, ‘we have nothing but pity. Weak physically, not strong mentally, having seemingly no interest whatever in life, there was a certain element of the tragic in that curious and cruel constitution of Society which placed him in a position for which he had no aptitude and no love …’

  There was little doubt, continued the editorial, that the Prince would have abdicated his rights to the throne ‘had he not been restrained by his relatives and by those who find it to their advantage to pretend that a monarchy is the ideal form of government.

  ‘Nothing can stay the advancing march of democracy. The extinction of the English monarchial system is a mere question of time. It may end with the Queen or her possible successor. A good deal will depend on the character of the Heir Presumptive to the throne …’29