Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

Chapter 7

PRINCE EDDY

On October 11, 1890, Queen Victoria penned the following entry in her diary: "We had a quadrille in which I danced with Eddy (Hibbert, 317)!" The queen loved quadrilles and she loved Prince Albert Victor, whom the family called Eddy.

Eddy was the first-born son to the Prince of Wales and therefore "heir but one" to the British throne. Born prematurely in 1864 after hours of difficult labor, Eddy was a peculiar child--sluggish, dull-witted, perhaps retarded, maybe even autistic. He had a long neck, languid eyes, and preposterous moustaches.

As he grew up, members of the family became concerned about the future of the future King of England. He was sent to sea with his younger brother George (later George V) to learn discipline. He was sent to Oxford to learn to read. Finally, he was sent off into the dark streets of London to learn about life. And what he found there astonished the folks back home.

Credit for widening Eddy's social sphere generally goes to his mother, Princess Alexandra. She knew the painter Walter Sickert, who was a fellow compatriot from Denmark, and she asked him to take the boy around and show him the sights in order to bring him out. Eddy was so good that he needed to be made more of a man of the world. One sight of the world he received was in a Cleveland Street brothel for male homosexuals (Knight, 107). The Cleveland Street scandal rocked London, though Eddy's part in the affair was kept out of the papers.

Shortly afterwards, it was decided to send Eddy back out to sea on tours of the outer colonies until a suitable bride could be found for him. His name was linked with Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt (later Empress Alexandra of Russia) as well as Princess Helene, daughter of the Comte de Paris and heir to the lost throne of France.

Finally, Princess May of Teck was decided upon and a wedding date was set. Then on January 15, 1892, Prince Albert Victor died after succumbing to a sharp attack of influenza, which developed into pneumonia in the left lung (Hibbert, 321). In a letter to her granddaughter Victoria, the Princess Louis of Battenberg, the Queen wrote, "When you think that his poor young Bride who had who had come to spend his birthday with him, came to see him die--it is one of the most fearful tragedies one can imagine. It would sound unnatural and overdrawn if it was put into a Novel (Hibbert, 322)." It would indeed--especially since the hero of this fearful tragedy has been long suspected of being Jack the Ripper.

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