by Theo Aronson
A personable, well-mannered enough young man, without arrogance or conceit and with an air that some women found seductive, Prince Eddy was utterly lacking in the qualities of a future king. Anyone further removed from the late Prince Consort's ideal of an intelligent, enlightened, influential and unsullied monarch would have been difficult to imagine. Indeed, even more than his father, the Prince of Wales, Prince Eddy seemed like a throwback to those dissolute Hanoverian princes whose bad blood the Prince Consort had been at such pains to get rid of.
Prince Eddy's bizarre personality and dissipated habits have given rise to two persistent rumours: that he was involved in the Cleveland Street homosexual scandal and that he was Jack the Ripper.
The story of the Jack the Ripper murders, in which five, and possibly eight, prostitutes were murdered and hideously mutilated in London's Whitechapel district during the late 1880s, is too well known to bear repeating here. In spite of several well-argued theories, the identity of the famous mass murderer has never been conclusively established. But in November 1970, an article in The Criminologist, by a Dr Thomas Stowell, implied that Prince Eddy had been responsible for the horrific killings. Having studied the papers of Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir William Gull, Stowell hinted that the murders had been committed by Prince Eddy during a fit of insanity brought on by his alleged syphilis. The syphilis had been contracted by the Prince in the course of one of his voyages on HMS Bacchante.
The claim – that the Prince was syphilitic – may or may not be true. What seems more certain is that he at one stage suffered from a gonorrhoeal infection: a prescription found among the papers of one of his doctors apparently confirms this. If nothing else, this indicates that Prince Eddy led as active a sex life as any other fashionable young man.
Dr Stowell's theory, despite its deliberate vagueness, was eagerly taken up by the world's press. The Jack the Ripper story had always been an intriguing one; how much more intriguing was the possibility that the sadistic mass murderer might have been the prince destined one day to sit on the British throne.
Fascinating though the theory might be, it is patently absurd. In the first place, Prince Eddy had alibis for several of the nights on which the murders took place: for one he was in Scotland, for another at Sandringham, for a third on a tour of the Midlands. And, secondly, the Ripper must have been, above all else, an astute, quick-witted, fast-moving man; by no stretch of the imagination could poor, 'dawdly' Prince Eddy be described in those terms. He was simply not intelligent enough. And would such a kindly, good-natured, impractical oaf have been the type to slit a woman's throat, expertly eviscerate her body and carry off her uterus? Hardly.
About Eddy's possible involvement in the Cleveland Street scandal one is on firmer ground. Of the many male brothels, homosexual clubs and pubs that flourished in late Victorian London, one of the busiest places was the brothel in Cleveland Street, not far from Tottenham Court Road. The arrest, in July 1889, of several telegraph messenger boys, who seemed to have suspiciously large sums of money to spend, led the police not only to 19 Cleveland Street where the boys earned their money, but into a larger hornets' nest than they could ever have imagined. For among the many 'toffs' that frequented the brothel was Lord Arthur Somerset, third son of the eighth Duke of Beaufort, who was not only a distinguished soldier and an enthusiastic sportsman but an equerry to the Prince of Wales.
That Lord Arthur Somerset had not actually committed sodomy, but had only indulged in what was charmingly described as 'gentle dalliance with the boys',23 was neither here nor there. He had broken the law. The Prince of Wales, on hearing the accusation, refused to credit it. 'I won't believe it any more than I would if they had accused the Archbishop of Canterbury,'24 he exclaimed. If it were true, then Lord Arthur Somerset must be 'an unfortunate Lunatic'.25
But there was worse to come. No sooner had Lord Arthur Somerset fled the country to avoid prosecution than the press began to hint at what was already common talk in the London clubs: that Prince Eddy had also visited 19 Cleveland Street. Lord Arthur's solicitor had apparently warned that if his client were to come to trial, 'a very distinguished person will be involved (PAV)'26 – the initials PAV standing, of course, for Prince Albert Victor. And Lord Arthur's sister, Lady Waterford, was very anxious to quash any notion that it might have been her brother who had taken Prince Eddy to the Cleveland Street house. 'Please correct any impression that Arthur and the boy ever went out together,' she instructed one of her brother's friends. 'Arthur knows nothing of his movements and was horrified to think he might be supposed to take the Father's money and lead the son into mischief of any kind. I am sure the boy is as straight as a line . . .' 27
But Lord Arthur seems to have known rather more about Eddy than he was prepared to admit to his sister. Not long after he had fled to the Continent, Lord Arthur was accused, by Princess Alexandra's admirer, Oliver Montagu, of pretending that he had left the country only in order to avoid implicating others in the scandal. His silence on the real reason for his flight – that is, his own guilt – merely strengthened the rumours that he was keeping quiet for the sake of others, chief amongst them Prince Eddy.
But that, answered Lord Arthur, was one of the main reasons for his silence. 'I cannot see what good I could do Prince Eddy if I went into Court,' he explained. 'I might do him harm because if I was asked if I had ever heard anything against him – from whom? – has any person mentioned with whom he went there etc? – the questions would be very awkward. I have never mentioned the boy's name except to Probyn, Montagu and Knollys when they were acting for me and I thought they ought to know. Had they been wise, hearing what I knew and therefore what others knew, they ought to have hushed the matter up, instead of stirring it up as they did . . . Nothing will ever make me divulge anything I know even if I were arrested.'28
None of this, of course, is irrefutable proof that Prince Eddy visited 19 Cleveland Street. Those who agree with Lady Waterford that he was 'as straight as a line' point to the fact that his name, in the years ahead, was to be coupled with those of several women and that he would eventually become engaged to be married. But being 'straight as a line' does not preclude a man from having sex with the odd telegraph boy, any more than getting married proves him to be incontestably heterosexual.
Prince Eddy may well have been one of those over-sexed, easy-going and pliable young men who are ready to try anything once – or, if they enjoy it, twice or three times – without letting it become a way of life. Or he might, as has been suggested, have been taken to Cleveland Street on the understanding that he was to see some of those poses plastiques which were 'the Victorian equivalent of striptease'.29 The owner of the establishment certainly advertised poses plastiques; these might well have been performed by girls or by boys dressed as girls. Eddy is said to have been accompanied by Lord Euston who later professed himself incensed at being offered naked boys instead of stripping girls.
'I have never even mentioned Euston's name,' wrote Lord Arthur, 'nor have I ever told anyone with whom Prince Eddy was supposed to have gone there. I did not think it fair as I could not prove it, and it must have been his ruin.'30
Whether any of this gossip reached the ears of the Prince and Princess of Wales is unknown. But there is no doubt that it was at that time that the parents decided that some sort of action was necessary to halt their son's all-too-possible drift into depravity. The only possible solution for Prince Eddy's many problems was, they agreed, the conventional one: marriage. So between the years 1889 and 1891 the names of several candidates for the post of a future Queen of England were bandied about (with Eddy falling in love with the only really unsuitable one, Princess Hélène of Orleans, the daughter of the Roman Catholic Pretender to the French throne) but in the end it was decided that he must marry Princess May of Teck. Although Princess May's pedigree was not, by royal standards, impeccable (like the Battenbergs, there was a morganatic marriage in the background) she was, as the approving Queen Victoria put it, 'v
ery sensible and well-informed, a solid girl which we want . . .' 31
Prince Eddy, who could usually be relied upon to do as he was told, not only agreed to the match but obliged everyone by falling in love with Princess May. The couple became engaged, at one of those inevitable house parties, on 3 December 1891. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales were delighted; 'this time I do hope that dear Eddy has found the right bride,'32 wrote a relieved Alexandra to the Queen.
This mood of general gratification did not last long. Just over a month later, when Princess May and her parents were at Sandringham to celebrate Prince Eddy's twenty-eighth birthday, he fell ill. It was influenza. This quickly developed into pneumonia and for six days, in his tiny bedroom, the Prince lay dangerously ill. By the dawn of 14 January 1892, it was realised that he was dying. Soon after half-past nine that morning, surrounded by the shocked and exhausted members of his family, he died.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were desolate. The faithful Oliver Montagu, on hurrying to Sandringham, found them shattered by their loss. 'The Prince broke down terribly at our first meeting; as did also the poor Princess, but they all got calmer after and took me to see the boy three different times before I left again,'33 reported Montagu.
For a while, their shared sorrow brought husband and wife very close together. On a booklet containing the sermon preached at Sandringham Church on the Sunday after Prince Eddy's funeral, the Prince of Wales wrote an inscription. 'To my dearest Wife, in rememberance of our beloved Eddy, who was taken from us. "He is not dead but sleepeth." From her devoted but heart-broken husband, Bertie.'34
Given her opinion of Daisy Brooke, Princess Alexandra would no doubt have been astonished to hear the assertion, made in 1891, 'that since the Prince had taken up with Lady Brooke, he had led a much better life . . . and that her influence had been distinctly and visibly for the better, and had terminated all the late hours and generally fast living that had prevailed before.'35
These were not the views of Daisy Brooke herself, but of two people in the Prince's circle. One was his private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys; the other was Lady Henry Somerset, sister-in-law of the now disgraced Lord Arthur Somerset and President of the British Women's Temperance Association. Their views had been given to W.T. Stead, the editor of Review of Reviews, in the course of his research for a character sketch of the Prince of Wales.
There was a great deal of truth in what Stead had been told. Daisy Brooke might have been all that Princess Alexandra thought she was – showy, flighty, amoral – but she disapproved strongly of heavy gambling and excessive drinking. In this, she was undoubtedly a good influence on the Prince of Wales. And, after Daisy's meeting with W.T. Stead in the spring of 1892 – the year after he had published his piece on the Prince – she became fired with an ambition to become an even better influence on her royal lover.
William Thomas Stead was one of the great crusading journalists of the late Victorian age. Bushily bearded and burning-eyed, this son of a Congregational minister brought to his journalism a powerful blend of moral indignation and sensationalism. Tirelessly, he flung himself into cause after cause; devoting to each, in turn, all his energy, enthusiasm and idealism. He originated what was to be known as 'the new journalism' of the late nineteenth century: the journalism of frankness, conviction and vision.
One of his most celebrated journalistic exposés was the series of astonishing articles entitled 'The Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon' which he wrote for the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885. The number of male brothels in Victorian London was as nothing compared with the number of female brothels; and of all forms of prostitution, none was more reprehensible than child prostitution. Girls as young as eight or nine were readily available and, with virgins (or what were passed off as virgins) being especially highly prized, these young girls were in great demand. The widely-held belief that the taking of a girl's virginity could cure venereal disease made them even more sought after. One of the clients of the notorious Mrs Jeffries, who ran a child brothel, was said to have been another of Lillie Langtry's admirers, the lecherous old King Leopold II of the Belgians.
Determined to expose the evils of child prostitution, Stead bought a thirteen-year-old girl. His accounts of this transaction, and of the sordid world in which such trade flourished, ran for weeks in the Pall Mall Gazette. Whereas today such investigative journalism would be applauded, in the late nineteenth century it was deplored. The Victorians were far more shocked by the writing of the articles than by the circumstances which caused them to be written. On the grounds that Stead had not secured the consent of the girl's father when buying her (and regardless of the fact that the incident had been stage-managed and that Stead had no intention of having sex with the girl) he was charged with criminal abduction and sent to jail for two months.
Stead's imprisonment did nothing to quench his crusading ardour. His campaigning, after he moved from the Pall Mall Gazette to the editorship of Review of Reviews, remained as fervent as ever. And when, at a dinner party in the spring of 1892, he met Lady Brooke, Stead immediately saw in her the means whereby he could further yet another of his causes: the moral and intellectual uplifting of the Prince of Wales.
In researching his article on the Prince the year before, Stead had clearly come to appreciate something of his subject's potential. If only the Prince had been given a chance, if only he had been entrusted with some of his father's responsibilities, claimed Stead, 'he might have developed somewhat more of his father's virtues.'36 The tone of Stead's article had come as a pleasant surprise to the Prince. Knowing all about Stead's high-mindedness and outspokenness, Bertie had been afraid to read it.
'I am told that there is an awful article in here about me,' he had said to Daisy, handing her a copy of Review of Reviews. 'I dare not open it, I want you to do so, read it, and tell me what it says.'
She had been able to put his mind at rest. Daisy considered it 'a very good article, very just, and that it gave him good advice and was very fair.'37 In fact, Stead had succumbed to a bout of that deference which afflicts even the most hard-bitten of journalists, then and now, when writing serious articles about princes of Wales.
On meeting Lady Brooke, Stead lost no time in interesting her in his scheme for 'improving' the Prince. And who more suitable to undertake this important task, he asked her, than herself? She must use what he tactfully called her 'friendship' with the Heir to influence him for the better. Daisy was only too ready to oblige. Already she had recognised in Stead a soul-mate and a mentor: someone who could both share and direct her as yet unformed yearnings to lead a more useful life. So his suggestion that she help lift her royal lover's eyes towards more worthwhile goals, that she interest him in philanthropic causes and moral issues, was very well received. Few women, and least of all Lady Brooke, would have turned down the opportunity of using her powers to mould a great public figure.
Just how anxious the Prince was to be moulded is another matter. To date, his interest in what were then described as 'social questions' had been, at best, fitful. Although always careful to cultivate leading Radical figures such as Sir Charles Dilke and Joseph Chamberlain (partly, as has been suggested, 'from a perverse desire to know those of whom his mother disapproved'38), he would issue dire warnings against 'the lower classes getting the upper hand'.39 But this, too, might have been in reaction to Queen Victoria's championship of the hard-working 'lower orders' against the frivolous 'higher classes'.
Some years before, in 1884, the Prince had agreed to sit on a Royal Commission concerned with housing the working classes. This had entailed a tour, incognito (a slouch hat and an off-the-peg ulster) through the slums of Holborn and St Pancras. What he saw appalled him. He had had no idea that people lived in such squalor and misery. His immediate reaction – to start handing out money to ragged beggarwomen – was prevented by his companions: that was hardly the wisest way to alleviate poverty.
In a subsequent speech to the House of Lords, the Prince spoke out strongly i
n favour of legislation to improve these 'perfectly disgraceful'40 conditions, while admitting that his own London properties – the estates of the Duchy of Cornwall – were in just as disgraceful a condition. He would not be the last Prince of Wales to find himself embarrassed by the state of his own back yard. To this day, even as altruistic a landlord as the present Prince of Wales is occasionally attacked for some example of exploitation or neglect in his Duchy properties.
Again, in 1892, the Prince sat on another Royal Commission, this time concerned with the problems of destitution in old age. And although, on both commissions, his colleagues found him to be affable and sympathetic, his attendance was intermittent. His frequent absences were as often due to social engagements as they were to public duties.
For Daisy Brooke, though, he was always prepared to make the effort. In 1894 she decided to stand for election as a trustee of a local workhouse. If standing for public office were not innovation enough, Daisy also beat a resoundingly feminist drum in her election message. She spoke of 'the great principle, which is gradually gaining recognition, of the joint and mutual responsibility of man and woman, which is equally important in the administration of the affairs of the community as in the management of the home.'41 In the 1890s, that was very progressive thinking.
Daisy was duly elected and among the first visitors she showed over the workhouse was the Prince of Wales. 'I did everything that was in my power to let him know the truth about such places as workhouses and prisons,' she afterwards wrote, 'and I told him all I knew of the lives of the poor he would one day govern.'42