Eddy, meanwhile, was touring India and the East on an official series of visits that had been several months in the planning; it was not, as some asserted, a hastily organized excursion to get the heir presumptive conveniently out of town.
While British journalists kept the extent of the scandal somewhat under wraps, the foreign press was eager to report all the news that was fit—or not—to print.
The London correspondent for the New York Times had a field day speculating about Eddy’s involvement in the Cleveland Street Affair, insisting that it was “obvious to everybody that there has come to be within the last few days a general conviction that this long-necked, narrow-headed young dullard was mixed up in the scandal, and out of this had sprung a half-whimsical, half-serious notion which one hears propounded now about clubland, that matters will be arranged that he will never return from India. The most popular idea is that he will be killed in a tiger hunt, but runaway horses or a fractious elephant might serve as well. What this really mirrors is a public awakening to the fact that this stupid, perverse boy has become a man and has only two precious lives [Victoria’s and Bertie’s] between him and the English throne and is an utter blackguard and ruffian.
“Something besides a harmless simpleton has created a very painful feeling everywhere. Although he looks so strikingly like his mother, it turns out that he gets only his face from the Danish race and that morally and mentally he combines the worst attributes of those sons of George III, at whose mention history still holds her nose. It is not too early to predict that such a fellow will never be allowed to ascend the British throne; that is as clear as anything can be.”
And on November 10, the New York Times crowed, “Current rumor says that Prince Albert Victor will not return from India until the matter is completely over and forgotten, but there are certain stubborn moralists at work on the case who profess determination that it shall not be judicially burked, and the prospects are that the whole terrible affair will be dragged out into light.”
Somerset corroborated this when he wrote that Newton was not to be trifled with.
I don’t think they should have tackled a strong and dangerous man in N. If they put him in a corner he will very likely give them a nasty one. . . . I feel sure that with all this virulent prosecution of everybody they will end by having out in open court exactly what they are all trying to keep quiet. I wonder if it is really a fact or only an invention of that arch ruffian H[ammond].
Had Charles Hammond been the one to tell Newton that Prince Eddy was one of his clients, or had Newton planted that seed as part of a deal to get Hammond off the hook? Either way, the damage to Eddy’s reputation had been done.
It’s hard to imagine that the prince had a secret life diddling telegraph boys when his thoughts were so clearly focused on how he might win the heart of his first cousin Alexandra of Hesse. On October 7, 1889, the twenty-five-year-old prince wrote to Prince Louis of Battenburg, his confidant in the matter, reiterating his despair over Alicky’s coolness to his suit, and his intentions of convincing her of his love. Eddy played the queen card, insisting that his grandmother was overwhelmingly in favor of the match. After all, he would one day be king of England—the most prestigious and glamorous job in the world! What wasn’t to like?
Anxious for answers, Eddy asked Louis to intercede for him and to find out whether Alicky believed that he had in some way wronged or offended her, as perhaps that was the reason for her indifference.
The prince got his jollies with “fancy women” from time to time, but with girls of his own class, he was painfully shy. Where Alicky was concerned, Eddy was terrified of getting his heart broken by his beautiful cousin. As much of a sophisticated man-about-town as Bertie was, and a master seducer of the ladies, his son was something of a social naïf, in many ways ignorant of the world. Victorians were keen on infantilizing their offspring for as long as possible, and the queen herself was the greatest one of all for wishing to keep her children and grandchildren in a state of perpetual innocence.
Around the same time that Eddy was writing to Louis of Battenberg as though he were Dear Abby, the Prince of Wales learned that his extra equerry Sir Arthur Somerset had been implicated in the Cleveland Street Affair. At first, he was unwilling to believe that this manly, mustachioed former soldier was really involved in the scandal.
Eddy was still touring the Middle East with his father, while back in London rumors abounded regarding Somerset’s connection with the brothel, and by extension, Eddy’s. Many people were all too willing to believe that Somerset was not only guilty of gross indecency, but that he was the conduit by which the prince got his illicit kicks. However, Somerset would never actually be apprehended or tried, though a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was permitted to remain in self-imposed exile on the Continent. Hammond and his boy toy were also permitted to slip away from Antwerp on a boat bound for America. Only Veck, the faux parson, and Henry Newlove, one of the telegraph boys who had prostituted himself, were convicted and sentenced to hard labor. As is so often the case in royal scandals (see Erzsébet Báthory), the nobility’s involvement is downplayed, whitewashed, or ignored, while their hirelings and those from the lower social orders receive the full brunt of the punishment.
As 1890 dawned, and journalists refused to shake the Cleveland Street scandal from their teeth, Eddy’s parents became even more determined to find their elder son a bride. He would turn twenty-six in early January. The Waleses were adamant that their son marry a royal, but the pickings were slim; many of the single princesses were too young, too old, or too ugly.
Princess May of Teck had been scratched from the running years before, because, according to Queen Victoria’s private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, “The Prince and Princess of Wales have no love for the parents, and the boy does not care for the girl.” Kaiser Wilhelm’s sister Margaret, known as “Mossy,” had also been eliminated for being both homely and German.
Alicky had written Eddy a “Dear John” letter, rejecting his suit. Although she liked him as a cousin, she didn’t love him. She would eventually make a love match, wedding another cousin, Nicholas, the czarevitch of Russia. Their marriage was one of the great royal love stories of the century, though it would end in tragedy in 1918 when their entire family was assassinated by the Bolsheviks.
As further proof that Eddy probably didn’t have a secret life engaging in hole-in-the-wall trysts with underage boys, he developed a new passion for another gorgeous royal. With Alicky out of the picture, the prince had already begun to focus his sights elsewhere, falling just as madly in love with Hélène d’Orléans, the daughter of the comte de Paris, the pretender to the French throne. He had been delighted to learn that she reciprocated his ardor.
But just as a homosexual couldn’t become king (because “gross indecency” was a felonious offense), the 1707 Act of Union barred Catholics, or anyone married to a Catholic, from inheriting the throne. Accordingly, although the chestnut-haired Hélène was lovely, accomplished, and vivacious, her religion made her eminently ineligible to be the future queen of England. Were Eddy to wed her, he would have to forfeit his rights to the crown.
Queen Victoria was not amused, writing to her grandson: I wish to say a few words about the subject of your future marriage. I quite agree with you that you should not be hurried [yet the prince was twenty-six; what was he waiting for?] and I feel sure that you will resist all the wiles and attempts of intriguers and bad women to catch you. But I wish to say that I have heard it rumoured that you had been thinking and talking of Princesse Hélène of Orleans! I can’t believe this for you know that I told you (as 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 would never change her religion and to change her religion merely to marry is a thing much to be deprecated, and which would have the very worst effect possible and be most unpopular, besides which you could not marry the daughter o
f the Pretender to the French throne. Politically in this way it would also be impossible.
Victoria’s letter had no effect. Eddy’s clandestine flirtation with the nineteen-year-old Hélène continued throughout the summer. That June he received a title so that he could take his place in the House of Lords, becoming Duke of Clarence and Avondale and Earl of Athlone. The queen of micromanagement, Her Majesty herself, had chosen her grandson’s title, although she considered it a demotion from prince. Eddy would still be a prince, of course, but from then on he was styled as a duke.
As some politicians and sports stars will insist, the romantic love one has for one’s wife has nothing to do with a man’s need to satisfy his lust with other women. And as Eddy’s prospective brides were expected to remain virginal until their wedding night, the prince needed to take care of business from time to time. But actions have consequences. In mid-July 1890, Eddy was hospitalized with a fever, although his symptoms were suspiciously venereal. His chain-smoking didn’t ameliorate matters, despite the efforts of his treating physician, a young doctor named Alfred Fripp, to get him to reduce his tobacco consumption.
Fripp chronicled his sessions with his royal patient, but betrayed Eddy’s trust by sharing the details with his father, writing to the elder Fripp, “HRH pours out all his little woes [including the details of “his love affair” with Princesse Hélène] and always makes me smoke in his room. He smokes himself until he is stupid. I have knocked him down to three cigarettes and one cigar a day.” However, Dr. Fripp cautioned his father, “don’t mention HRH’s illness outside our house as the Prince of Wales particularly wants it not to get into the papers. He is afraid the public will get the impression that his son is a chronic invalid.”
Eddy’s biographer Theo Aronson suggests that there was another reason Bertie wanted the prince’s ailment to remain a secret. Although the palace’s official lie was that Eddy was convalescing after a nasty fall from a horse, Aronson believes that Dr. Fripp was treating the young prince for symptoms of gonorrhea.
The Prince of Wales had given Fripp an ultimatum: It was imperative to cure Eddy before any thoughts of a royal engagement could take place. Dr. Fripp must have been successful, because the prince was prepared to press his suit for Hélène’s hand with the highest authority, bringing her to Balmoral to meet his grandmother.
Queen Victoria advised her prime minister, Lord Salisbury: . . . a message came that “Prince Albert Victor” wished to speak to me. . . . He came in and said “I have brought Hélène with me” taking her by the hand and bringing her up to where I sat, saying they were devoted to each other and hoped I would help them. I answered they knew it was impossible, on which he said she was prepared to change her religion for his sake. I said to her would it not be very difficult to do this and she answered in a most pathetic way with tears in her eyes “For him, only for him. Oh! Help pray do” and he said the same and that “She has been attached to me for years and I never knew it,” that he was sure I would try and help them. I assured them, I would do what I could to help them but it might be difficult. He told me she had not told her parents of it—she had done it all of her own free will. “I thought I would come straight to you. I have not told Mama even,” he said.
The queen quizzed Hélène about her parents’ reaction to her willingness to become a Protestant if it meant that she could wed Eddy, and the young girl admitted that while “her mother winked at it,” her father would be livid.
Miraculously, Victoria came around and was willing to support the match, on the condition that Hélène abjure her Catholicism. The French princess was clever, strong, and healthy and would make a good mate for the lethargic Eddy.
A. J. Balfour, the Secretary for Ireland and a Conservative MP, was gravely concerned that the young couple had managed to win over the queen. “The political objections a little frighten her, but she is in process of persuading herself that they may be ignored,” he wrote to his uncle, Prime Minister Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.
Salisbury’s reply was blunt. “Prevent any Royal consent being given.”
The marital pickings were slim, which was one reason Victoria had caved so readily. Laying out the situation in detail, Balfour reminded Lord Salisbury, According to her [Victoria] there are but three marriageable Protestant princesses at this moment in Europe, besides the Teck girl and the Hesse girl [Alicky]. The Teck girl they won’t have because they hate Teck and because the vision of [May Teck’s prodigiously fat mother] haunting Marlborough House makes the Prince of Wales ill. . . . The Hesse girl won’t have him. There remain a Mecklenburg and two Anhalt Princesses (I am not sure that I have the names right). According to her Majesty they are all three ugly, unhealthy, and idiotic; and if that be not enough, they are also penniless and narrow-minded—or as she put it—German of the Germans! They might do perhaps (as she said) for a younger son, but . . . here we have (she went on) a charming and clever young lady—against whom no legal objection can be urged, who has loved Prince Eddy for three years (NB she is only 19 now) to whom he is devoted, and who will fill her position splendidly—how can it be stopped? The Prince will never marry anyone else—his health will break down—and so on.
It was a genuine scandal; behind the scenes, in what they viewed as the interest of the realm, government officials at the highest levels were endeavoring to manipulate the personal lives of the royal family, including the queen.
Stalling for time, hoping the whole unpleasant business would blow over, Balfour felt the mixed marriage might be pulled off “by patiently carrying out a well considered policy for some years . . . If he [Eddy] showed for a sufficient length of time that he would look at no one else, and she [Hélène] began to advertise her conversion by attending the parish church . . .”
Eddy was politely exasperated, under the impression that all that was required for the match was Victoria’s consent, as the monarch, and that her ministers were bound to abide by her decision.
However, there was another good reason to delay any engagement. Bertie knew the clap when he saw it, although he tried to keep the details of Eddy’s illness from his prudish grandmother. However, the Prince of Wales did encourage Dr. Fripp to inform Eddy’s mother that their son’s condition was “far more serious than she has any idea of.”
Alix’s private secretary, Sir Dighton Probyn, wrote to Fripp, couching his instructions in euphemism: “The gout and every other ailment must be completely eradicated from the system. . . .”
Sir Henry Thompson, a specialist in urinary tract infections, was quietly brought on board to consult. Thompson’s other specialty was venereal disease.
By this time the Waleses thought it best that Eddy have a minder at all times, to keep him from getting into further trouble. More often than not, the task fell to Dr. Fripp, who was a year and a half younger than his royal patient.
Both Eddy and Victoria continued to review all avenues by which a marriage with Hélène might be feasible. The queen’s secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, wrote to Balfour on September 10, 1890: The queen asks for your opinion as to whom the succession would go if the Duke of Clarence [Eddy] married a Papist but had children who were Protestants. His Royal Highness saw the Queen yesterday and was depressed at the aspect of affairs. He told the Queen that if consent to the marriage was refused he would marry PH [Princesse Hélène] and lose his rights to the throne. But that his children would be Protestants and he imagined would therefore [be eligible to] succeed.
Like it or not, the constitution was on Eddy’s side and he was correct about the rules of succession. That autumn he remained as passionate about Hélène as ever, writing to his younger brother, “You have no idea how I love this sweet girl now, and I feel I could never be happy without her.”
And yet, as besotted as he may have been with the French princess, Eddy’s indiscretions with other women had already cost him his health. Now he was about to be hit in the wallet. The prince had become involved with two disreputable ladies and had fool
ishly written to at least one of the girls, a Miss Richardson—who had already extracted £200 (over $27,000 today) for the return of a number of compromising letters Eddy had written to her. She then demanded an additional £100 for her silence.
No wonder the prince’s family had determined that he needed a babysitter!
Meanwhile, the prime minister was brushing up on his continental history. Because she was still under twenty-one, Hélène would need her father’s consent to wed. And even if she were to receive it, her marriage would not be considered valid in France until she turned twenty-five, unless she received a special dispensation from the pope. Additionally, a religious conversion from Catholicism would still be in contravention of England’s Act of Succession, which barred a Catholic (or someone married to one) from ascending the throne. Once a Papist, always a Papist, evidently.
There would be social ramifications as well. The English Catholics would fume over Hélène’s rejection of her religion for the sake of a crown. And the Anglicans would still view her as Catholic, no matter what religion she adopted.
But all concerns regarding the problematic royal marriage were laid to rest when Hélène’s father, the comte de Paris, refused his consent. Hélène went above his head and appealed to the pope, but His Holiness was equally disinclined to support the match. In the spring of 1891 Hélène wrote to Eddy to release him from his prenuptial promise. The prince was distraught, but his mother, who had pinned all her hopes on the Bourbon alliance, was even more devastated.
Royal Pains: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds Page 29