As Alix prepared to travel to England and Eddy nervously planned how to propose to her, a police investigation was underway in London that would have devastating consequences for his reputation and, as a result, his prospects as a suitor. This unexpected turn of events was sparked by a seemingly inconsequential finding on 4 July 1889 at the London Post Office headquarters at St Martin’s-le-Grand in the city. A fifteen-year-old telegraph delivery boy, Charlie Swinscow, was found with far more cash in his pockets than he could possibly earn in a week. Careful probing by the Post Office’s internal police prompted Swinscow to reveal that he ‘had got the money . . . for going to bed with gentlemen’. Swinscow divulged the names of other messenger boys who were similarly engaged in supplementing their wages at a location in a rundown part of town north of Soho. The Post Office constable quickly established that 19 Cleveland Street was nothing less than a male brothel.29
The case escalated rapidly to the Postmaster General, who passed this hot potato on to Scotland Yard. It did not take detectives long to discover that members of the aristocracy had visited the brothel. The person named most frequently by the Post Office boys was a ‘Mr Brown’, who turned out to be none other than the head of the Prince of Wales’s stables: Lord Arthur Somerset. As the younger son of the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Arthur was not heir to the family mansion at Badminton, Gloucestershire, but made his way in the world working as head of stables for Bertie, who affectionately called him ‘Podge’. The Post Office boys’ testimony was soon backed up by police surveillance of Cleveland Street. ‘Podge’ appeared to be deeply implicated.30
Such was the seriousness of the matter that within a couple of weeks the police investigation was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Home Secretary, and by 24 July to the prime minister himself, Lord Salisbury. At this point the investigation ran into unexpected delays. Salisbury, who sprang from a long line of statesmen whose service dated back to the time of Elizabeth 1, was allegedly a subscriber to the maxim ‘whatever happens will be for the worse and therefore it is in our interests that as little should happen as possible’.31 Here was a man who understood that for certain delicate matters there was real value in a little ‘masterly inactivity’. He favoured downplaying the scandal and advised against the extradition of the proprietor of the male brothel, Charles Hammond, who had fled abroad. Letters between the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions during August reveal their strenuous efforts to avoid charging Lord Arthur Somerset.
Somerset meanwhile hired a young criminal law solicitor, Arthur Newton, who was earning a reputation defending those caught in awkward or shady circumstances. Newton was also acting for the Post Office boys, whose case was to be heard in court in early September. In the hands of Newton, the scandal took on an altogether astounding dimension. The Public Prosecutor, Sir Augustus Stephenson, was advised by his deputy, Hamilton Cuffe, on 15 September: ‘I am told that Newton has boasted that if we go on a very distinguished person will be involved (PAV).’32
In other words – Prince Albert Victor.
Arthur Newton appeared to be threatening the authorities. If his client, Somerset, was charged, the scandal would implicate none other than Queen Victoria’s grandson: the very prince whose estimable qualities and position she was trying to promote to Princess Alix of Hesse.
‘Sweet Alicky, looking lovely arrived just before tea,’ Queen Victoria noted on 13 August 1889 in her journal. A luxurious summer stretched ahead for the Hessian princess, first by the sea at Osborne and then in the Highlands at Balmoral, although her visit was not without pressure. The queen had sent her presents earlier in the year; a pretty shawl in April, a beautiful jewel for her birthday in June, which, Alix replied, made her think ‘of the best and dearest of Grandmamas, who always knows how to make people happy’.33 Their polite exchanges masked the queen’s serious expectations. Talk of marriage was in the air: Bertie’s oldest daughter, Princess Louise, had just married the Duke of Fife. Bertie’s oldest son, Eddy, still unattached, was soon to join the party. Alix realised that these were weeks that could change her life forever.
On 22 August the queen, Beatrice and Alix made ‘a cheerless crossing’ from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth and travelled by train to Wales. The queen was to give Alix a taste of a royal tour, her first in this region for many years. In spite of intermittent rain, the grey-slated mining towns and straggling villages were transformed by flags and draperies and the enthusiastic crowds filling the narrow streets. The queen watched sheep-dog trials on the misty Welsh hills, where she marvelled at the skill of the dogs and their masters. Alix and Beatrice visited a coalmine at Ruabon, where Alix didn’t hesitate to go underground to see the shafts for herself. Choirs, sometimes forty strong, serenaded them through the Welsh valleys, and when the royal party finally departed the queen was gratified that ‘the good people sang “God save the Queen” the whole time till the train left the station’.34 Whether at any stage the growing rumours about Prince Eddy reached the queen is not clear; there were opportunities, for her diary shows she did have meetings with both Lord Salisbury and the Postmaster General, Mr Raikes, in late August.35
Alix and her grandmother did not reach Balmoral until the end of the month. If Alix was anxious about being pressured about her possible forthcoming marriage she had an ally at hand in the shape of her older brother, Ernie, who was there to greet them. The days soon fell into a familiar pattern with quiet mornings followed by carriage rides out in the afternoon to places of personal interest to the queen and full of wild beauty such as Loch Nagar or Aberarder. Occasionally, Alix found herself alone with her grandmama over tea, which gave the queen tantalising opportunities to try and gauge her granddaughter’s feelings before Eddy arrived. Alix was not easy to read, except for Ernie, in whom she confided.
It was ‘a fine fair morning’ with ‘a splendid sky’ on 9 September 1889 as Prince Eddy made his way to Balmoral.36 ‘I little thought what I had to expect, and to learn, on my arrival,’ Eddy confided later to Louis of Battenberg.37 He had never broached the subject of marriage with Alix directly, but there were grounds for optimism. Relatives whose opinion he valued, such as Prince Louis, had given him encouragement, his grandmother had welcomed Alix into the heart of the British royal family, and he was ready to offer all that he could give. As his carriage wound its way across expansive Scottish landscapes, brilliantly lit under the late summer sun, there was every reason to feel both apprehensive and excited. This was the day when his life might be transformed. The occasion: a luncheon party at which both he and Alix would be present. If he could engineer a suitable moment alone with her, he intended to find out her feelings towards him.
Any air of confidence that Eddy could summon for this first meeting was soon dispelled. Ernie took him to one side ‘soon after my arrival and had a long talk to him on the subject’, Eddy recorded later. Ernie warned Eddy that his sister would not find a proposal of marriage welcome. He advised the prince not to raise the subject. Eddy was dismayed. ‘Have I offended her in any way?’ he asked. Ernie could offer little by way of explanation, ‘which makes it all the harder for me to understand’, Eddy recorded.38 Not being a man overburdened with self-confidence or overwhelmed by strong feelings, he allowed himself to be persuaded by Ernie. Enough had been said for Eddy to lose his courage and endure the lunch, deflated.
Bertie came to Balmoral the following day without his son, perhaps hoping to clarify the position. On 11 September the queen’s party, in turn, visited the Wales family, who were with their newly married daughter, the Duchess of Fife, at Mar Lodge, a sporting lodge some eighteen miles from Balmoral. Eddy struggled with the awkward situation with his first cousin, uncertain whether or how to advance his case. The queen, harassed by the heat and the journey, took tea outside in the shade of the veranda, and left others to explore the estate and see the ballroom.39 The Fifes had guests that day, so any discussions about Alix and Eddy were limited, a hushed word here or there.
It wa
s left to Eddy’s grandmama to probe the delicate subject of Alix’s romantic inclinations on his behalf at Balmoral. The indomitable queen was perhaps surprised to find an equal forcefulness of character in her young granddaughter. Alix appeared to know her own mind with an unfailing certainty that did not diminish with the searching concerns of her grandmother. Eddy was not her first choice. Indeed, over the course of an awkward conversation with her grandmother, Alix managed to convey the unwelcome message that she had no desire to marry Eddy at all.
Eddy’s practical younger brother George had a clear measure of the situation by the end of the week. Along with all-important news of the stag shoot at Balmoral he told Louis on 15 September, ‘it is all over between her and Eddy’. Alix had been bold enough to admit ‘she does not care about him sufficiently to marry him but is very fond of him as a cousin’. George admired her ‘very much for saying it out straight’. Much better, he thought, than any kind of vagueness. Eddy had taken the news ‘very sensibly’, he reported, but ‘was very low’.40
Eddy was, in fact, deeply wounded. Alix’s rejection was humiliatingly personal; no princess could dream of more glittering prospects than the future British throne. He himself was found wanting in some way that was yet unknown to him. As the glorious Indian summer swiftly faded in late September, the weather suddenly raw and cold, Eddy found the opportunity was fast slipping from his grasp. Beautiful Alix remained unobtainable. He left Scotland for a long tour of the empire on 1 October; Alix departed the next day. Once again she stopped at Buckingham Palace for a few days before returning home. Relaxed at last with her beloved brother Ernie, they roamed around London all day, taking in art galleries and visiting the theatre, Alix relieved to have stated her feelings and shaken off the pressure.41
There was no such relief for Eddy. He was convinced he was in love and several days elapsed before he could bring himself to confide in Alix’s brother-in-law. ‘I said nothing to Alicky,’ he told Prince Louis on 7 October:
but now begin to regret that I did not, for I might have explained things a little better if I had. For I can’t really believe Alicky knows how much I really love her, or she would not I think have treated me quite so cruelly. For I can’t help considering it so, as she apparently gives me no chance at all, and little or no hope; although I shall continue loving her, and in the hope that someday she may think better of what she has said, and give me the chance of being one of the happiest beings in the world. For I should indeed consider myself so, if I would only call her my own. I am almost certain, as certain as most people are who are in love with a girl, that I could make her happy, if she would only give me a chance of doing so . . . I am sure you feel for me in my disappointment or you would not have taken the trouble to write me such a nice letter as you did. Grandmama was extremely nice about it all and said some very kind things to me, for as you know, she was always in favour of a union between me and Alix and spoke to me on the subject last year . . .
Eddy asked Louis to find out the ‘real reason why Alix does not care for me, and if I have ever offended her in any way’. He could not quite bring himself to give up hope and asked Louis to find out ‘what you think of my prospects and whether I shall ever have a chance again with Alicky’.42
Queen Victoria, too, was stunned and ‘most sad’. She turned to Alix’s oldest sister, Victoria. ‘We have still a faint, lingering hope that she may – if he remains unmarried, after all when she comes to reflect & see what a sad & serious thing it is to throw away such a marriage with such a position, & in such an amiable family in her Mother’s country – where she would be received with open arms,’ she wrote on 12 October. As if to spell out the attractions clearly, she added, ‘Moreover Eddie is not stupid, is very good, affectionate & a good looking young man.’43
This hardly ringing endorsement from Queen Victoria was soon reduced still further by a rumour considered so shameful it was enough to dent the confidence of any anxious suitor. Once Lord Somerset’s solicitor, Arthur Newton, claimed that a detailed investigation of the Cleveland Street male brothel would implicate none other than Prince Eddy, the ‘gross scandal’ took on a new dimension. Unwilling to pursue lines of inquiry that might possibly expose a member of the royal family to criminal charges, the authorities continued to downplay the case – while trusted members of the Prince of Wales’s staff discreetly endeavoured to make sense of it.
Bertie’s private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, and his Comptroller, Sir Dighton Probyn, went to interview Lord Arthur Somerset on 16 October 1889. Bertie had complete faith in his head of stables. Infamous for his heterosexual appetites, the Prince of Wales could not believe Lord Somerset had visited a male brothel ‘anymore than I would if they had accused the Archbishop of Canterbury’.44 Somerset himself exuded all the self-confidence of his position as a young aristocrat of good family, asserting his innocence and urging Probyn and Knollys to interview his lawyer, Arthur Newton. It would appear the honourable gentlemen of the prince’s household ‘were very strongly impressed against’ the possibly crooked solicitor.45 They urged Somerset to hire a different solicitor, a step he was curiously reluctant to take. The indefatigable Probyn and Knollys pursued their inquiries all the way to the prime minister, who was abroad but was greeted with a telegram from them as he set foot in Dover on 18 October. It is perhaps a measure of the urgency that Lord Salisbury agreed to meet them as soon as he arrived at King’s Cross, from where he was due to take a train north to his family home. Without exactly being explicit, the prime minister managed to convey to the horrified Probyn that there were grounds for the allegations against Somerset. His arrest could not be delayed for much longer. The rendezvous at the busy station, the platforms heavy with smoke from the steam trains, somehow escaped the attention of the press. But the news did not escape Lord Somerset, who evidently got word of his imminent arrest and fled the country that very evening.46
By now rumours were spreading ‘on the street corners . . . and all the clubs of the Metropolis’ that leading members of the aristocracy, perhaps even Prince Albert Victor too, were implicated. The press started to make veiled references to the Tory government looking after its own. Finally by mid-November the North London Press broke ranks and published names: the Earl of Euston and Lord Arthur Somerset. Both men had been allowed to leave the country, claimed the editor, Ernie Parke, because their prosecution would incriminate ‘a far more distinguished and more highly placed personage’ in their ‘disgusting crimes’. Euston sued for libel, the case soon attracting the interest of the foreign press, who had a field day. In France La Lanterne alleged ‘une douzaine de Lords’ were involved in the Cleveland Street scandal, while in America, Eddy was openly referred to as a ‘wild young prince’ who was ‘physically and mentally something of a wreck’.47 He was condemned as possessing ‘all his father’s vices’ without any of his compensating virtues and was ‘not half the man in all the attributes of manly makeup’ of his younger brother, George. the New York Times concluded on 10 November that there was ‘a general conviction’ the prince ‘was mixed up in the scandal’.48 Such was the outrage felt among the public that ‘Marlborough House is daily assailed with anonymous letters of the most outrageous character’, reported the Cardiff Times on 7 December. Both Bertie and his wife Alexandra were receiving communications ‘of a monstrous character’.49
Beatrice’s destruction of many of Eddy’s records after her mother’s death has served the prince badly over the years, creating a vacuum in which the wildest conspiracy theories have flourished. By the 1960s, Prince Albert Victor’s name was demonised to such an extent that some claimed he was none other than Jack the Ripper, the serial murderer who mutilated his female victims in the streets of Whitechapel in 1888. This notion has been repeated by many authors despite the fact that Eddy’s whereabouts on key nights in question can be proved from surviving records. Regarding the Cleveland Street case, at the time, Lord Arthur Somerset created the impression that he had fled abroad to avoid drawing Prince
Eddy into the scandal. Having pointed at the prince, Somerset would say no more, beyond revealing that he had never taken Eddy to the male brothel himself. Whether the prince was supposed to be a regular visitor to the male brothel or the guileless victim of some ill-judged prank – Somerset’s lips were sealed. There remains the possibility that Prince Eddy was innocent. Somerset’s lawyer, Newton, could have encouraged his client to make false claims about a royal connection to the brothel, hoping this would stop any official investigation in its tracks. Years later Newton’s career ended in two scandals that speak volumes for his unscrupulous character. He was suspended from law practice in 1911 for misconduct in selling a client’s story to the press and later struck off entirely for falsifying data.50
While it is not possible to establish whether the prince had visited Cleveland Street, biographers are in agreement about Eddy’s unspecified ‘dissipations’ from this time. The future heir to the throne was causing his parents anxiety because he was ‘dissipated and unstable’, according to Edward VII’s biographer, Sir Philip Magnus, ‘dissolute and essentially trivial’ for Princess Alexandra’s biographer, Georgina Battiscombe, and infatuated with ‘every form of dissipation or amusement’ for James Pope-Hennessy.51 Even his mother, his most devoted ally, who had for years invariably referred to her adored oldest child as ‘good’ and ‘dear’, was beginning to see him as ‘a naughty bad boy’, according to Georgina Battiscombe.52 Bertie was ‘much annoyed at his son’s name being coupled with this thing’, and his staff, such as Sir Dighton Probyn, referred to ‘cruel and unjust rumours’ relating to his oldest son.53 Any hope Bertie and Alexandra entertained that they might shield the queen from the news was no easy matter given the alarming comments in the foreign press. But whatever her private views, Queen Victoria behaved as though she had not heard the rumours, and if she had, they were beneath her contempt. In late 1889 she was still entertaining hopes of uniting Eddy with her favourite granddaughter, Alix, suggesting that she did not think badly of him. Her letters show her to be kindly disposed to her oldest British grandson, still seeing him as a ‘dear good boy’.
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