The Heir Apparent

by Jane Ridley

  A still more far-fetched theory proposes that Eddy himself was Jack the Ripper.§51 This version turns on the alleged “discovery” of the secret papers of Sir William Gull, which supposedly reveal that Eddy contracted syphilis while on a cruise in the West Indies, causing him to go insane, and committed the murders in a fit of mad rage. Gull then confined him to a private mental home near Sandringham, where he died of softening of the brain. This crackpot theory has been rightly demolished. Gull’s secret papers are nowhere to be found. Eddy didn’t suffer from syphilis. Far from being incarcerated, he was active and living a very public life between 1888 and 1891. Nor was he anywhere near Whitechapel on the date of any of the murders; his alibis can be verified from reading The Times Court and Social.52 The Eddy/Ripper theory is interesting, however, because it is a classic royal myth. Like so many such stories, it builds a conspiracy theory, which is by definition almost impossible to prove or refute. Key ingredients in such narratives are syphilis and/or pregnancy, madness, sex, prostitutes, establishment cover-ups, and “missing” papers that seemingly contain the solution to the mystery. Our image today of Jack the Ripper is not that of an impoverished Jewish or Irish immigrant in the East End, but of a toff in a cloak, top hat, and elegant Edwardian evening clothes. In the popular imagination, the Ripper lives on as a figure like Eddy.

  At seven o’clock on the evening of 13 December 1888, Bertie walked into the gloom of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The choir was shrouded in darkness, and a small group of watchers stood beside the hole that workmen had carefully made in the floor, revealing the royal vault below. The coffins of Henry VIII and Charles I could be dimly seen by the light of a single coil of magnesium wire. Bertie stooped down and silently lowered a small oak case, which he placed on the coffin of the martyr king Charles I. Inside the case was an ivory casket containing relics taken from Charles’s coffin when the Prince Regent opened it in 1813: a chip of cervical vertebra cut with a sharp instrument, a piece of auburn hair from the king’s head, and a tooth. Bertie withdrew, and the workmen immediately returned to close the vault.53 His feelings are unrecorded, but this grim little ceremony surely gave a chilling reminder of the transience of princes.‖

  Bertie spent the morning shooting ducks at Sandringham on 30 January 1889, the day he received news of the sudden death of Crown Prince Rudolf.54 He was shocked and “greatly upset.”

  “I knew him so well,” he told Jennie Churchill, “and had seen so much of him last year that I cannot bring myself to believe that I shall never see him again.”55 Rudolf was found shot through the head at his hunting lodge at Mayerling. In his bed lay the dead body of his mistress, the eighteen-year-old Marie Vetsera. Official reports claimed that the Mayerling tragedy was a double suicide, the result of a lovers’ pact, but Salisbury was convinced that Rudolf and Marie Vetsera had been assassinated.56 Bertie made it his business to ascertain the true story.57 He told the Queen on 12 February that Rudolf had killed Marie Vetsera and then himself.

  It seems poor Rudolf has had suicide on the brain for some time past—he wrote letters saying he was going to die—and the poor young lady wrote the same to her family. He shot her first—then decked her out with flowers—and then blew his brains out—and he had only half an hour for all this.… Nobody knew that the young lady was with him but his valet. The latter seems to have had orders from the Emperor not to leave him alone—but he peremptorily ordered him away—ag[ain]st the poor man’s wishes before the deed was done.

  According to Bertie’s informant, there was “some unknown reason” why Rudolf committed suicide, and he didn’t do it on account of Marie Vetsera. Bertie hinted at dark secrets: “There are details I could tell you—which I cannot write—which clearly show complete aberration of the mind for some time past—the whole story is like a bad dream and I can think of nothing else.”58

  Rudolf had plenty of reasons to blow his brains out. He suffered from syphilis, and he may well have inherited the Wittelsbach depression through his mother, the Empress Elizabeth, whose cousin, the mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, died in mysterious circumstances in 1886. But what really happened at Mayerling is still a mystery, and the answer is said to lie in a locked archive in the Vatican. With its stories of secret papers that will reveal all and hints at an establishment cover-up, Mayerling mirrors the Eddy/Ripper myth—a tale of a flawed and mentally unbalanced heir to the throne, syphilis, sexual promiscuity, and murder.

  Bertie attended the Catholic requiem mass for Rudolf at Farm Street Church of the Immaculate Conception, but he disappointed the Austrian court by staying away from the funeral in Vienna, though he sent a “beautiful” wreath—“the words were in black on white satin.” By then tales were spreading of the “awful crime” that Rudolf had committed, and no one in Vienna regretted his death.59 Bertie, however, remained loyal to his friend’s memory. For him, the prince’s death was more than a personal tragedy. Rudolf, who had also been a favorite of Vicky’s, was the last link in Bertie’s project of an Anglophile German bloc. First Fritz’s death had ruled out the prospect of a good Germany. Now Rudolf’s death ended the dream of a liberal Austria.

  Bertie did gain one key contact in Austria through Rudolf: Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the Austrian railway magnate, who was descended from a family of Jewish financiers at the Bavarian court. Rudolf had agreed to give him an introduction to the Prince of Wales in exchange for a loan.60 After Rudolf’s death, Hirsch became Bertie’s financial adviser, helping to fill the growing gap between the prince’s income and his spending.

  In February 1889, the kaiser let it be known that he wished to visit England in the summer. Still smoldering from the Vienna incident, Victoria was adamant that “William must not come this year,” telling Bertie, “you could not meet him, and I could not after all he has done and said.”61 Bertie agreed, refusing to meet the kaiser unless he received an expression of regret for the incident at Vienna. But Bertie and his mother failed to reckon with Lord Salisbury. He insisted that Britain needed good relations with Germany, and William must be allowed to come. “It is your Majesty’s interest,” he told the Queen, “to make his penitential return as easy to him as possible.”62

  Pushed by Salisbury, Victoria reluctantly consented to invite her nephew, but only to Cowes and not to Windsor. Like a small child, the kaiser was ecstatic, and wired Victoria that he was “overjoyed to be allowed” to come to the “dear old Home.”63 This was strange language for a German emperor to use, but it hints at his confused sense of identity. For William (as one psycho-historian has suggested), England was identified with his mother, and though he resented the dominance of Vicky/England, at the same time he longed for her approval. Validation by Vicky/England was crucial to his sense of self-worth.64 To Vicky, the news of William’s impending visit came as a “stab.”

  “The thought that W[illiam] who has so trampled upon me, and on his beloved father’s memory, should now be received … in my own dear home,” she found unbearable, betraying by the violence of her language—“stab,” “trampled”—the rawness of her emotions toward her son.65

  Bertie’s quarrel with the kaiser was still unresolved. Bertie was by now “sick … of the whole affair,” and, guided perhaps by Knollys, who had thought all along that the Queen was the best person to reach a settlement, he decided in May to “leave the matter entirely in dear Mama’s hands.”66 His relations with Victoria had never been better. At Easter she granted him his “long looked for wish”: She stayed at Sandringham.67 Only once had she come before, in 1871–72, when she thought Bertie was dying of typhoid. The Easter visit was a success; she was “pleased with her reception” through the triumphal arches escorted by the West Norfolk Hunt, and she enjoyed the theatrical performance that Bertie arranged with Ellen Terry and Henry Irving.68

  Salisbury frightened the Queen by threatening that a rupture with Germany caused by a personal quarrel within the royal family would endanger the position of the monarchy at home.69 He then drafted a friendly letter to William f
or the Queen to sign.70 Bertie considered the letter was “too mild.”

  “My only fear,” he told Vicky, “is that W[illiam] will consider the matter as over and will not allude to it again.”71 He needn’t have worried. William’s reply to this innocuous document was as insulting as it was postmodern. The whole Vienna incident, he now declared, “is purely a fixed idea which originated either in Uncle Bertie’s own imagination or in somebody else’s, who put it into his head.”72

  The kaiser’s mendacious reply “made matters worse than ever,” wrote Ponsonby.73 At Windsor and Marlborough House the Queen and prince and their advisers feverishly wrote and rewrote angrier or less angry letters to William deploring the insult and outrage to the prince.74 But it was no use. Salisbury insisted that their letters would only worsen the quarrel, and none was sent. Knollys lamented that “the Prince of Wales is sacrificed by Lord Salisbury to political expediency.”75 Bertie deplored what he saw as Salisbury’s weakness and willingness to appease the bullying Bismarcks. Salisbury had given “the worst possible advice, making us virtually ‘eat humble pie’!”76 In fact, the episode was a triumph for Salisbury, who had skillfully finessed both the Queen and the Prince of Wales into dropping their family quarrels where these conflicted with the foreign policy of constitutionally elected ministers.

  Salisbury was equally shrewd in dealing with the kaiser. On learning that William cared even more about uniforms than his uncle Bertie, he persuaded Victoria to offer William the rank of a British admiral. The effect was electric. William was childishly grateful. “Fancy wearing the same uniform as St. Vincent and Nelson,” he gushed; “it is enough to make one quite giddy.”77 Soon he was writing gaily to “Dearest Grandmama” to say how glad he was that the Vienna incident was concluded, “and I shall be happy to meet Uncle Bertie in Osborne.”78

  The visit to Osborne in August was a triumph. Bertie was on board the royal yacht Osborne to welcome William, who arrived on the Hohenzollern wearing his new admiral’s uniform, and William kissed the Queen affectionately on both cheeks. Bertie was constantly in attendance, and even Alix was present.79 William was gratified when Victoria invited him to breakfast in her tent, “a rare honour.”80 He told the Queen afterward how delighted he was “to feel and take an interest in your fleet as if it were my own.”81

  William’s honeymoon with England enabled Germany to adopt the liberal foreign policy urged by Vicky and Fritz. Soon the Bismarcks were sacked and their pro-Russian policies abandoned. Vicky watched with divided feelings. She approved of William’s pro-English views, but she found his triumphalism and boasting about the way he had been feted by the English court a toxic pill to swallow. She deliberately refrained from interfering. “Wronged and persecuted as I have been, I could have appealed to you,” she told her mother, “and all my brothers and sisters to seek redress for me.… But this I could not do in my position. England must appear to ignore what are affairs of the German court and see that relations between the two great countries be not disturbed or affected by family affairs.”82 Lord Salisbury could not have put it better himself.

  But Salisbury’s insistence on elected governments controlling foreign policy failed to allow for the dynastic marriages of Queen Victoria’s extended family. Never before had the English royal family been so closely related to the rulers of the great powers. As the generation of Victoria’s grandchildren succeeded to the thrones of Europe, the scope for the dynastic diplomacy at which Bertie excelled was to expand. But not yet: not while Salisbury and Victoria were in control.

  * * *

  * Dona was the niece of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Her father was the unsuccessful claimant to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in 1864, which explains why Alix objected to her.

  † William’s criticism of Bertie was hypocritical; while boasting of his faithfulness to Dona, he, too, consorted with Viennese prostitutes. (Rohl, Young Wilhelm, pp. 464–69, 489.)

  ‡ Mother and daughter were alike in their habits, too. Vicky’s daughter Moretta (Victoria) traveled on a sleeper to Balmoral in the same compartment as Queen Victoria in 1889. She wrote to her mother: “I was just dozing off when Grandmama came to bed—and how it reminded me of you, my Mother. She looked so clean and dear—all in white—& it took some time before she was settled—the shawls, & cushions—then the lamps to put out—then again, it felt too hot—then not warm enough, & in the night—Annie was called many a time—to bring her something to drink etc. Oh! It did remind me so of our travels!” (Queen Victoria at Windsor and Balmoral: Letters from Her Grand-daughter Princess Victoria of Prussia, ed. James Pope-Hennessy [George Allen and Unwin, 1959], p. 51 [7 June 1889].)

  § An even more fantastical variant claims that Eddy’s former tutor Jem Stephen committed the murders. Devastated by the breakup of his alleged homosexual relationship with Eddy and driven insane by a blow to the head, Stephen is claimed to have sought revenge against Eddy by killing prostitutes. (Why?) (Casebook: Jack the Ripper, http://​www.​casebook.​org/​suspects/.)

  ‖ Staying at Newburgh Priory with Sir George Wombwell in 1877 or later, Bertie asked his host to break open the vault that allegedly contained Oliver Cromwell’s bones. According to the local story, Bertie and the estate carpenter were caught in the act, trying to break into the coffin. (The Times, 18 October 1913.)

  CHAPTER 17

  Scandal

  1889–90

  One day in February 1889, Bertie received a surprise visit from a member of the Marlborough House set: Lady Brooke. Daisy Brooke at twenty-eight had china-blue eyes, a tiny waist, a curvaceous figure of the type that delighted the prince, and the irresistible charm of manner that comes from always getting one’s own way. Bertie found himself unable to decline an appeal for help from “Beauty in Distress.”1 Years later, Daisy recalled her conquest: “He was more than kind … and suddenly I saw him looking at me in a way all women understand. I knew I had won, so I asked him to come to tea. For ten years afterwards he came to tea with me every day when we were both in London.”2 This was Daisy’s way of saying that she had become the prince’s mistress.

  Daisy’s enemies alleged that she had barely met the prince at the time of her Beauty in Distress interview, but this was far from the case. Bertie had known her since she was a child. She was an heiress, inheriting a fortune and Easton Lodge, an estate in Essex, from her grandfather Viscount Maynard at the age of three; this gave her a confidence and sense of entitlement that was unusual among women of her class. She was a court insider, as her stepfather, Lord Rosslyn, a friend of Disraeli, was a favorite of Queen Victoria. The Queen chose Daisy as a suitable bride for Prince Leopold, but this project suited neither party. Determined to take possession of her inheritance at Easton Lodge, the nineteen-year-old Daisy infuriated her parents by marrying her childhood sweetheart, Lord Brooke, heir to the Earl of Warwick.* Bertie attended the wedding and signed the register at Westminster Abbey in 1881.3 Daisy came into Bertie’s life again in 1886, two children later, when she and “Brookey” stayed at Sandringham in January, and in June the prince paid his first visit to the Brookes at Easton Lodge. The names at that first royal house party are listed in Bertie’s diary. The guests included the nucleus of the Marlborough House set: Lady Randolph Churchill, Lady Mandeville, and Lord and Lady Charles Beresford.4 Together with Daisy herself, these people were to form the dramatis personae of the scandals that almost derailed Bertie’s life in the years 1889–91.

  Daisy Brooke was a fearless rider and dedicated fox hunter. Once, as she later related, while staying at Windsor, she defied etiquette by leaving before breakfast by the earliest train in order to go hunting, wearing the scarlet riding habit she had designed for herself (it was considered bad form for women to wear red). Peeping behind a curtain at an upstairs window, Victoria watched her go. “How fast!” said the Queen. “How very fast!”5 This story is probably apocryphal, but it is revealing about Daisy’s image of herself. Liberated by her marriage, and bored by L
ord Brooke, whose passion was shooting, she began an affair with Lord Charles Beresford. The swashbuckling naval officer, who had won glory at the bombardment of Alexandria and then in the rescue operation after General Charles Gordon’s death at Khartoum, was “a Regency figure trapped in a Victorian moral universe.”6 He was an old friend of Bertie’s—he had commanded the royal yacht Osborne, and accompanied Bertie to India—and the Prince of Wales no doubt knew all about this liaison. Beresford’s wife, Mina, was already forty; the couple were dubbed the Red Admiral and the Painted Lady, on account of Mina’s frowned-upon habit of applying her makeup in public.7 Daisy was merciless about the older woman, describing with cruel glee an occasion when Mina, caught out by a blast of wind, found her hat blown off on the grass, with her yellow hair attached.8 So far as the nubile Daisy was concerned, Mina was no competition. Beresford was the father of Daisy’s second child, Marjorie (born in 1884). When he announced that he must end the affair because Mina was pregnant, Daisy was furious.9 In January 1889, she wrote him an absurdly indiscreet letter, demanding that he leave his wife and implying that Mina had no right to have a child by her husband. Unfortunately for Daisy, Beresford was abroad, inspecting Kaiser William’s navy, and in his absence Mina opened the letter. Mina fought back tooth and claw. She consulted the solicitor George Lewis, giving him Daisy’s letter for safekeeping, and he wrote to Daisy warning her off.