Prince Eddy Is Ordered To Malta Due To Scandal

ANOTHER ROYAL SCANDAL.

WHY PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR WAS ORDERED ABROAD.

A ROYAL LOVE STORY.

 

A London despatch of March 26th says: –

"Some of the society papers have hinted at a scandal in high London society which affected directly one of the members of the royal family. Everybody here understands and talks freely about what none of the papers here have ventured to more than hint at. The story, stripped of all its improbable features, relates to Prince Albert Victor of Wales, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, who is said to be infatuated with Lady Churchill, and whose attention to her had given rise to much talk.

The young prince, who is regarded as the next English King, as everyone thinks that the Queen will outlive the Prince of Wales, is a youth of very feeble mind and the constant butt of the radical papers. He is only 23, and as such is a typical dude in his manner and dress that is known among radical writers as "collars and cuffs." The young prince has been ordered to Malta. He was detached from the Prince of Wales’ Own (Tenth Hussars) and ordered to the Sixtieth Rifles. He left last week under the guardianship of Colonel Greville and one other equerry.

This is the first time, it is said, that the heir presumptive to the throne has been sent off on a foreign duty. The young man has evidently been put through a severe course of discipline. He has been lectured by his grandmother, the Queen, and his father and mother. The malady of the young prince is regarded simply as a severe case of calf love. Lady Churchill is blamed by no one. The proof that there is not the slightest blame to be attached to Lady Churchill is shown in the very gracious reception given to her by the Queen at the last drawing-room, and be the very marked attentions which have been paid to her by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Lord Randolph has since returned to England.

A London despatch of March 28th says: –

"The reason, it is stated, why Prince Albert Victor was sent to Gibraltar was that the Prince of Wales found his son taking a great fancy to the gaieties of London society, and also that he had fallen in love with the Princess Mary of Teck, the prettiest princess in the royal family, but who was disapproved of by the Queen and by the Princess of Wales."

 

Source: Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7367, 10 May 1887, Page 4

The Unpopular Prince

AN UNPOPULAR PRINCE.

 

The growing unpopularity of Prince Albert Victor is giving both the Queen and the Prince of Wales serious anxiety. The young man will take no pains to propitiate people. He is dense, apathetic, short-tempered, and sulky. The Marlborough House set made him their butt. His father alternately scolds or exhorts, whilst his mother pets and protects him. The young Princesses of Wales openly deride Victor’s "stolidity," and even "Brother George" must feel a certain amount of contempt for his elder’s lack of savoir faire. The Queen alone treats the heir-presumptive with consideration. At Windsor or Balmoral the young Prince is always sure of a cordial welcome, though her Majesty makes no secret of her disappointment at his repeated failures in public. Considering how well most of the Royal Family deliver common-place speeches, Albert Victor’s utter inability to string together half-a-dozen sentences coherently seems inexplicable. For years past the chief work of his life with Canon Dalton has been studying this very art, yet he has not even mastered the ABC of public speaking. Even if it is merely a case of returning thanks after dinner, the speech has to be written out for him. When he repeats it he does so like a parrot, without feeling or expression, and then, plumping down in his chair, takes no further interest in the proceedings whatever they may be. At several public dinners lately his Royal Highness has given offence by chatting loudly to his neighbour whilst speaking was going on. His guttural request, too – "Where can I have my suggurette?" comes nearly as often as his parent’s "I really must have a cigar"; and at Edinburgh, not long ago, he completely disorganised a whole day’s arrangements.

 

Source: Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 136, 23 October 1886, Page 1

The Cause Of Prince Eddie’s Death

I have never heard of this before:

 

PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR’S DEATH.

(London Correspondent "Dunedin Star")

 

A very strange story is being whispered about the clubs, but has not as yet got into print. I have heard it twice, and in each case the narrator explained that he learnt it from his wife, who was told the tale by one of the royal tradesfolk (presumably a dress maker), who got it – of course in strictest confidence – from the upper servant (the dresser or superiors lady’s maid to the Princess of Wales she said) at Sandringham. The narrative has to do with poor Prince Eddie’s death, which, it alleges, was not the result of natural causes. His Royal Highness, the story goes, had certainly the influenza, as given out, but he was getting over it nicely, when, in a fit of low spirits, he drank some of the carbolic disinfectant placed in the sick room. The doctors stomach-pumped him and did all they could to bring the young man round, but the influenza and the poison combined proved too much for a by no means robust constitution, and he ultimately sank and died, much as described in the newspapers. The yarn goes on that within a few hours of the Prince succumbing, the Princess of Wales, who was in the deepest distress, summoned the women folk of the household, and, besides entreating them as a suffering woman, laid her royal commands on them, one and all, that there should be no gossip either in or outside the house, concerning the duke’s death. Her Royal Highness gave no reason for or explanation of this strange request, which was also, it is said, made by the Prince to the men servant. Amongst the household it was no secret that Prince Eddie had been in wretched spirits for some time previously; ever since, indeed, the suicide of the Gaiety girl with whom the tongue of scandal connected his name. Whether there was or was not any truth in that rumor the servants don’t know. They say, however, that about the same date a violent quarrel took place between the duke and his father at Marlborough House. The two men were locked in the Prince’s sanctum together, and their voices were raised so high in anger that the Princess grew alarmed, and, regardless of the expose, summoned servants to assist her in interrupting them. From that day, Prince Eddie was dull and depressed. I can hardly imagine anybody deliberately or malevolently inventing a tale of this sort, so that I think it must have some foundation. Moreover, one instantly recalls the extraordinary precautions adopted to keep all strangers, especially reporters, outside Sandringham during the days immediately following the Prince’s decease.

 

Source: West Coast Times, Issue 9601, 14 August 1893, Page 4

 

 

Strange Command

A Big Job Ahead

A bureau of press clippings in London has received the royal "command" to furnish twenty distinct sets of newspaper cuttings from every periodical in the world, so far as obtainable, referring to the death of Prince Albert Victor. The sets are to be pasted each in a separate album. The section directed to American clippings should make a very edifying collection, if the bureau is faithful in obeying the command. – New York Sun.

Source: Barnstable Patriot, May 10, 1892, page 4

Note: I find this to be a very strange request indeed (pardon me, "Command"), and why would this be commanded 4 months after Prince Albert Victor’s death? Why not straight away? I mean, he died of influenza on January 14, 1892. Hmmmm…..

Strange it must have seemed to the British royal family and something of a forecast of doom to find that there were a hundred thousand workingmen, thoroughly organized, who refused to send resolutions of condolence on the death of Prince Albert Victor, at the same time that the same workingmen passed resolutions expressive of the sincerest sorrow at the loss of Cardinal Manning. They knew who had been their friend.

Source: Barnstable Patriot, March 29, 1892, page 1

Note: How pitiful! It never ceases to amaze me how certain individuals expect (Command) everyone to like them just because they wear a crown!

PAV In Another Scandal

Another Scandal Affecting the British Aristocracy.
Was Prince Albert Victor the Dead Actress’s "Friend?"

ANOTHER ENGLISH SCANDAL.

PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR AND THE DEAD ACTRESS.

LONDON, Oct. 5. – Newspapers here denounce the coroner for keeping secret the depositions taken at the inquest as to the cause of the death of Lydia Miller, or Manton, the actress, who suicided last week. Considerable interest is being taken in the case. At the inquest on Saturday Lord Charles Montague, a brother of the Duke of Manchester, testified to having been on very intimate terms with the deceased. Since the inquest mysterious allusions have been made in the newspapers to a certain high personage, understood to be Prince Albert Victor, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, even also is said to have had intimate relations with the dead girl. The London Star says that Lord Charles came forward at the inquest and assumed the role of a particular friend, in order to screen another.
The coroner today still refuses access to the depositions taken and it is openly stated that the members of the coroner’s jury were called upon to sign a blank paper instead of the usual record of proceedings. The Star says the truth as to the mystery will never be known and that it is obvious that another inquest has been hushed up without good cause.

Source: The Winona Daily Republican, Winona, Minnesota, Monday Evening, October 5, 1891

Prince Jack

VIEWPOINT

"Prince Jack" Adds Fuel To Fire
By PHILIP NOBILE

The case of Jack the Ripper remains officially unsolved. Despite rumors that certain British authorities knew who the killer was, his identity has never been made public.
However, in 1970, an elderly British physician named Dr. Thomas Stowell wrote an article in an obscure criminology journal strongly suggesting that Jack the Ripper had been a member of the royal family. Dr. Stowell had access to the private papers of the physician who had actually treated the murderer of five London prostitutes between 1888 and 1891.
Dr. Stowell’s evidence led directly to Edward, Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria, older brother of George V, the father of Queen Elizabeth and heir to the throne of England.
The current Royal Family was aghast. They kept a stiff upper lip in the face of Dr. Stowell’s revelation, but pressure from the crown forced the old man to deny that the Duke of Clarence was the killer in his article.
Only one investigator outside Scotland Yard has seen the Jack the Ripper files. He is Frank Spiering, author of "Prince Jack" (Doubleday), a book that is perhaps the final solution to this fascinating historical cover-up.

Question: Are you certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the Duke of Clarence was Jack the Ripper?

Answer: Absolutely. – The evidence shows that Jack the Ripper couldn’t be anybody else but him – despite a 90 year cover-up by Scotland Yard and the British government.

Q: Have you been able to prove by royal documents and calendars that the Duke of Clarence was present in London at the time of each murder?

A. Well, there’s no indication he wasn’t present. The royal family issued a circular in 1970 in order to refute Dr. Stowell’s theory stating that the Duke was at Sandringham at his father’s birthday on the date of the last murder. However, I know that the Duke could have taken an early train after the slaying and arrived at Sandringham in time for the party.

Q. Did the Duke of Clarence have the character of a mass murderer?

A. His childhood was horrifying. His deaf mother, Princess Alexandra disliked him. And his distant father, the Prince of Wales neglected him. At Cambridge, he fell into the hands of a homosexual tutor named James Steven. They became lovers and the duke eventually contracted syphilis. Steven despised whores and apparently transferred this intense feeling to his friend.

Q. What was Jack the Ripper’s motive?

A. I believe this man identified very strongly with his victims and by destroying them was acting out his own sense of self-destruction.

Q. How did Scotland Yard cover up Jack the Ripper’s identity?

A. First, the investigation was subverted by the withdrawal of all the policemen on the case who were heading in the right direction. Second, over the years, all the incriminating Jack the Ripper files were gutted, especially by a police commissioner in the early 1900’s.

Q. Yet you examined these files and discovered evidence pointing to the Duke of Clarence?

A. Yes, I am the only person outside of Scotland Yard who has ever seen the Home Office files in addition to the police files on the case. I found a statement by George Hutchinson, an unemployed night watchman, who saw Jack the Ripper and his fifth victim, Marie Kelly, on the night of her murder.
Hutchinson told a police inspector (whose report I discovered in the Home Office files) that Jack the Ripper was extremely well-dressed for the neighborhood of the murder, in his early 30’s, above 5 feet 6 inches tall, with a pale complexion, dark hair, and his slight mustache curled up at each end.
Despite this detailed description that fitted the Duke of Clarence to a T, Hutchinson was not allowed to testify at the inquest.

Q. Although British authorities covered up Jack the Ripper’s identity, they did see to his confinement?

A. Probably, the police first learned who Jack the Ripper was through palace informants who noticed the strange behavior of the duke. They were also informed by Dr. William Gull who was treating the duke for syphilis.
The authorities then agreed that the Duke of Clarence – Jack the Ripper – should be taken out of public view. He was confined to a nursing home in Ascot near Windsor Castle where he was ostensibly treated for his syphilitic condition. In fact, he was a prisoner.

Q. And what happened to him there?

A. It is my conjecture that the duke was finally put out of his misery in that home by an overdose of morphine.
Coincidentally, James Steven, the duke’s homosexual lover, was starved to death in an insane asylum shortly afterward. This is a matter of record.
I believe that the Duke of Clarence and James Steven were both murdered.

Source: The Observer-Dispatch, Utica, Sunday August 13, 1978

The Claims Of Stowell

                                      – AP Wirephoto

Edward, Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria, once heir to the throne of England, was Jack the Ripper, hints Thomas Stowell, surgeon and respected British author.

Jack the Ripper Grandson Of Queen Victoria, Claim

LONDON (UPI) – Citing as evidence an article published today about Jack the Ripper, a London newspaper has suggested London’s 1888’s sex killer was the grandson of Queen Victoria and heir to the throne of England.
The Sunday Times raised the name of Duke of Clarence, Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, brother to George V and heir to the throne on the strength of an article in the journal Criminology by surgeon Dr. Thomas Stowell.
"All the points of Mr. Stowell’s odd story fit this man," the newspaper said in an article on the still-unidentified killer of at least five prostitutes in London’s East End.
"The evidence suggests that the murderer was a man so senior in the hierarchy of the land, of so noble a family that the police, when they realized who was involved, were forced to conceal his identity," the criminology article said.
Stowell said he knew who the killer was but refused to identify him. "I would never dream of doing harm to a family whom I love and admire he wrote," but he supplied a detailed series of clues.
"Jack the Ripper, he said, "was" the heir to power and wealth. His family, for 50 years, had earned the love and admiration of large numbers of people by its devotion to public service."
"His grandmother, who outlived him, was very much the stern, Victorian matriarch, widely and deeply respected. His father, to whose title he was the heir, was a gay cosmopolitan and did much to improve the status of England internationally," Stowell said.
Stowell referred to his suspect as "S", who at the age of 16 went on a world tour during which he contracted syphilis. The disease gradually began to dominate his life, Stowell added.
The Sunday Times said the suspect resigned his commission at age 24 after a raid on a homosexual brothel, the name of which had been linked to a member of the royal family.
Sir William Gull, the royal doctor, treated "S", Stowell said. Gull’s daughter, Caroline Acland, a friend of Stowell, who is now in his 80’s, described an 1889 entry in her father’s diary to him which said "informed blank that his son was dying of syphilis of the brain."
According to Stowell, Gull realized his patient was Jack the Ripper and asked commissioner of police Sir Charles Warren to keep the name secret. For that reason, he contended, many of the clues of the killer’s identity were destroyed, including at least one message by Warren himself.
Police vigilance relaxed in November 1888, because the police knew the killer had been restrained in a mental home, Stowell said.
Prince Albert Victor, first child of King Edward VII, who was the eldest son of Queen Victoria, was born in 1864 and was on a world tour from 1879 to 1882. He died early in 1892, at the age of 28, outlived by his grandmother, Queen Victoria who died in 1901.

Source: Watertown Daily Times, Watertown, N.Y., Tuesday Nov. 3, 1970, page 9

More Truth About Prince Albert Victor

 

 

 

In 1889, Queen Victoria was so desperate to find a suitable bride for Prince Albert Victor, that she was prepared to allow him to wed his first cousin, Princess Victoria of Prussia! These sorts of incestuous unions were, for a long time, very frequent and common among the British Monarchy and their European royal relatives.

 

It is stated upon tolerable authority that young Prince Albert Victor, who is irreverently known as "Collars and Cuffs," is shortly to be married to his first cousin, Princess Victoria of Prussia, a sister of William the Highflyer. This is the young lady whose earnest desire to become the bride of Alexander of Battenberg created such a tempest in the royal teapot a year ago and led Bismarck to say those painful things about the impulses hereditary in women of the Guelph family. This marriage, if brought about, will not be at all palatable here in England. Primarily, there is an objection to the union of cousins, which is rendered peculiarly important in this case by the fact that Albert Victor is by no means an intellectual gladiator himself, to begin with, and it is enough that his posterity need all the assistance they can have from natural causes, instead of being handicapped by a ban of consanguinity. Then again this stream of Germans makes the English weary.

 

Source: The New York Times, June 30, 1889

 

 

THE BRITISH SUCCESSION.

 

American readers who pay any attention at all to the gossip that is cabled from London are aware that the Duke of CLARENCE, whose illness is now acknowledged to be critical, if not desperate, is not of himself by any means an important person. Indeed, the recent illness of his younger brother was regarded, if one may say so, with resentment, inasmuch as in his personal qualities Prince GEORGE of Wales promised to be much more capable than his elder of occupying the throne without discredit. It seems rather hard to say of a man that he is not fit to be a constitutional monarch in a country like Great Britain, where the constitutionality has been carried so far as to leave him no direct and substantial power. Hard as it may be, it seems to be true of Prince ALBERT VICTOR. The last King of England who could be called a "bright man" was CHARLES II., who would have shown to much better advantage in a private station. The last who was an able man and a statesman was WILLIAM III. Yet there have been a good many monarchs since the Revolution of 1688 who have cut a far from discreditable figure on the throne, and to say that an heir is unfit for the succession is to impute to him actual mental deficiency, and this, in effect, the imputation that is currently respecting the Prince of WALES’S eldest son.

In these circumstances it seems a little strange that the illness of Prince ALBERT VICTOR should have so agitating an effect as it is reported to be having upon all ranks of British society. This agitation certainly does not proceed from any personal admiration for the patient, who does not seem to have excited that sentiment even among his acquaintances. The feeling is purely public and political, and seems to have no ground. The heir apparent is not the Duke of CLARENCE, but his father, a middle-aged man now in good health. When the Prince of WALES himself was desperately ill, some twenty years ago, the popular feeling upon the subject was quite intelligible, for the Prince was then very popular, and he was the heir apparent of a sovereign then older than he himself is now. But now the succession to the British throne is provided for even superabundantly, as the British taxpayer is occasionally heard to complain, and among all the possible successors the Prince who is now ill has been regarded as the least eligible. The flagrant incompetency of an actual sovereign, as was shown during the insanity of GEORGE III., is an extremely troublesome thing, considering the relations between the theories and fictions and the facts of the British Constitution. The incompetency of a prospective sovereign ought to be less troublesome, since it is a much simpler matter to divert the succession than to transfer the actual attributes and functions of royalty. As our London correspondent informed our readers some time ago, the engagement of the Prince was generally opposed, both by the intelligent public and by the majority of the royal family, which is extensive enough to constitute a considerable public by itself. That he should not only succeed to the throne but should possibly raise up other successors to it was a grievance even to those Englishmen who expect but a very moderate capacity in their hereditary rulers.

Nevertheless, the serious illness of this Prince seems to be received as a politically disquieting circumstance. It is impossible that any result of it should have any great political significance. Not only is the supply of heirs to the throne ample, but the order of succession is clear and undisputed, and nothing short of a pestilence could make the succession to the throne a burning question. The continued existence of the throne is, indeed, more doubtful than the succession to it. In order to insure that existence, the only thing that "royalty" can do is to take care not to convert the throne into an important political power, into a scandal, or into a laughing stock. No possible heir to the throne has shown enough interest in politics, or in any other form of intellectual activity, to endanger the monarchy on that account. The disclosure in court of the convivial habits of the Prince of WALES goes much too near making royalty a scandal, and the accession of the Duke of CLARENCE might very possibly convert it into a laughing stock. While the educated Englishmen, however, find the illness of the Duke exciting, it is reported that uneducated Englishmen find it afflicting. This is mainly due, doubtless, to the announced engagement of the Duke to his cousin. "All the world loves a lover," and the marryings and givings in marriage of the royal family have always been matters of deep and sympathetic interest to the English populace. Gloomy as the prospect opened by the engagement of a weak Prince to his cousin appeared to people whose interest in royalty was merely political, the sentimental populace declined to look beyond the fact of the betrothal, and it is in his character of lover that Prince ALBERT VICTOR receives demonstrations of popular sympathy.

 

Source: The New York Times, January 14, 1892

Common Misconception Of PAV

 A common misconception about Prince Albert Victor is that his intelligence level was normal or above normal. Nothing can be further from the truth and this fact was known by the Queen’s servants and subjects, the Prince’s tutors, the British public, the Pall Mall Gazette, and The New York Times.

 

PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR DULL.

 

LONDON, Jan. 15. – Out of the hundreds of thousands of words which have been written and printed about young Prince Albert Victor, or Edward, as you will, literally nothing has been said about the youngster himself – that is, of his qualities of mind, his views on things, his capacity for observation, judgement, and action. Many acres of paper have been covered by the press with speculation as to his ever coming to the throne, or more properly, as to there being any throne left for him to come to, with sharp controversies regarding his name, and with arguments pro and con concerning the propriety of his being supported out of the private royal funds. There have been, too, other wearisome acres of rhetoric spun out on the thin text that he happens to be the first eldest son of a Prince of Wales who has attained his majority during his father’s lifetime since the hapless baby Edward II was invested with the title, and, of course, an incalculable amount of twaddle about the grandeur of the heritage to which he was born, and the natural love and devotion all properly constituted Britons, Britonesses, and Britonlets have for him. But out of it all, as has been said, there is nothing at all to tell any one what he is like. If he were the Crown Prince of Montenegro or the heir to the unstable throne of Annam, Englishmen could scarcely know less of the young man than they do.

Commenting upon this among some well-informed subjects of his grandmother, the explanation was given in this form: "It is true that nothing is known of him, but that is because there is absolutely nothing to know. Up to the present time he hasn’t developed a single vice, and he is presumed to have virtues only upon the principle that nature abhors a vacuum." This interested me, and I have since made inquiries of others even better informed, of people who know his former tutors and whilom associates. Each has contributed his quota to the general verdict of utter stupidity. The Pall Mall Gazette tells a story to-day, the first of its kind to find place in an English newspaper, of the boy being shown over the buildings by the Master of Trinity when he first visited Cambridge. The Master, with pardonable pride, pointed out on the walls a portrait of himself, saying: "That is by Herkomer." "Very charming," replied the Prince; "is he one of the old masters?"

It is a pet theory of Professors of heredity that sexes are reversed in each generation, and that sons resemble their mothers. Prince Edward certainly looks like his mother, or rather like a caricature of her. In his face the sweet and stately Gothic lines of the Princess’s are exaggerated into almost a monstrosity of vacuous narrowness. There is no speculation in the eyes, nor depth; the forehead is slim and short; the mouth is feeble, and below it droops a chin so long and purposeless as almost to amount to a deformity. There are numerous anecdotes afloat sub rosa to show that the youth comes honestly by his dullness, accepting the theory of maternal responsibility. A lady told me the other evening of this, which she herself heard. It was the opening day of an exhibition of old masters at the Royal Academy, and the President was escorting the Princess through the rooms. Stopping before a celebrated picture, he said: "Ah, this deserves special attention; this Cupid and Psyche is quite the most interesting thing So-and-so painted." "What is it about?" asked the Princess. "It represents Cupid and Psyche as -" Sir Frederick was replying, when her Royal Highness asked, "Who were they?"

This innocence has not prevented the Princess of Wales from being easily the most popular woman, taking the English people as a whole, who has lived inside a palace within man’s memory. But it is one thing for a woman to be slow intellectually and quite another for a man. Nobody supposes the Prince of Wales to be a genius, but he is unquestionably a man of large perceptive faculties and a considerable amount of shrewd sense. He has his limitations everybody understands; he is not a bookish prig, like his late and generally unlamented father, and he is not a fiddler, like his next brother, the excessively unpopular Duke of Edinburgh. He never wrote a book, or tried to; his judgement of pictures is confessedly raw; and it is no secret that his speeches are quite generally learned from the manuscript of a secretary. Nobody thinks the less of him for all this; indeed, it appears to be an important element in the friendliness with which all Englishmen seem to have settled down into regarding him. He has the shortcomings which render it easy for all sorts and conditions of men to in a way patronize him in their minds and say, "Oh, he’s a good fellow." Besides the long reign of a gloomy woman, who shuts herself up in out-of-the-way refuges, and has the people driven out of railway stations so that none may see her as she flits from one to the other, who moons around over a servant’s grave, insists upon speaking and being spoken to in German in her family, and has foisted upon the country a swarm of disdainful German starvelings who have not even the grace to be civil for their bread and butter – this long reign has wearied and sickened everybody, and no one can guess how much this feeling contributes to the Prince’s popularity. He wouldn’t do these foolish things everybody feels. He hated John Brown; he dislikes these Germans as much as we do; English is good enough for him and his family to speak; he never shuts himself up nor hides himself; he wouldn’t let everybody else pay the bills and he salt his money down – all this the people say to themselves, or think, and it is by force of contrast that the Prince grows yearly to be more popular, as much as by his innate qualities of cheeriness, fairness, and untiring labor at the queer duties which have come to devolve upon him.

But it is the nature of things that he will not be able to transmit this popularity, even if he himself preserves it, as a legacy to a stupid, characterless son. Democracy is more than knocking at the gates. As Mr. Chamberlain said last night at Ipswich, it is intrenched in the very seat of power. A sovereign of trained adaptability and with a personality which, if not strong, was at least well defined and pleasant in the popular eye, might get along fairly well with this democracy by the sheer necessity of some monarchical figurehead to keep the colonies in awe. But if it was true in Palmerston’s time, as he said it was, that a man of genius on the English throne might work incalculable mischief to the country and destroy its institutions, it is true of the coming democratic days that a dull, slow sovereign will be an impossibility.

 

                                                                                                                                 H.F.

 Source: The New York Times, January 30, 1885

 

PRINCE VICTOR’S SHORT SPEECH.

From the London World.

 

As the custom of the Goldsmith’s forbids the presence of reporters, very little appeared next day about their festivities on Tuesday last, when Prince Albert Victor became "one of them." The necessary formalities were gone through in camera, but the banquet which followed was worthy of the best traditions of the company. The Prince has undoubtedly a great deal to learn before he becomes an efficient under-study for his father. He seemed quite unable to get over the short speech which had been written out for him on a card with commendable neatness.

 

Source: The New York Times, April 20, 1886

 

 

It would appear that not only was he a dullard, he was clumsy as well. Read this:

 

A CLUMSY PRINCE.

From the London World.

 

It is a pity that Prince Albert Victor does not indulge in a few lessons in deportment and dancing. His partners complain terribly of torn gowns and trodden toes, and in Ireland his reputation for general clumsiness is supreme.

 

Source: The New York Times, July 19, 1886

 

DIDN’T GET THE EXTRA TWOPENCE.

From the London World.

 

I am afraid that Prof. Ihne, of Heidelberg, who was intrusted with the education of Prince Albert Victor, did not receive "the extra two-pence" which, according to the old story, has to be paid for teaching "manners." In this respect the young gentleman is reported to be somewhat deficient. He is said to give himself many airs, and the guttural cry of "Whe-r-r-e can I have my cigar-r-r-rette?" is heard as often from the filial as from the paternal lips. On a recent occasion, at a dejeuner given in connection with some function at the Infant Orphan Asylum at Wanstead, cigarettes were lighted by the young Prince and his companion, Lord Brooke, before the ladies had left the table, and while one of the oldest and most influential patrons was speaking the young gentleman talked so loudly that Lord Brooke had to give him a hint to be quiet. This is very bad form at any time, and particularly unwise form just at the present.

 

Source: The New York Times, July 19, 1886

 

HOW PRINCES LOOK IN KILTS.

From London Truth.

 

Prince Henry (of Battenberg) was in full Highland costume, in which he looked as comfortable as a salmon on a gravel walk. Prince Albert Victor reminds one of the typical sheep in wolf’s clothing when attired in "the garb of old Gaul."

 

Source: The New York Times, September 18, 1887

 

GARTER FEES PAID BY THE STATE.

From the London Truth.

 

That the country should be required to pay £548 for the Garter fees of Prince Albert Victor is quite monstrous, and I do not understand why it should cost £100 more to make His Royal Highness a Knight than was paid last year for the King of the Netherlands. This amount is, for the most part, a "perquisite" of the Dean of Windsor, who (a young man not yet 36) receives besides over £2000 a year (with an excellent house) from the revenues of "her Majesty’s free chapel," and £600 a year as Domestic Chaplain to the Queen.

 

Source: The New York Times, April 6, 1884

 

Knowing these facts, it’s a wonder why most Ripperologists still defend Prince Albert Victor’s intelligence, behavior, actions and innocence. It’s not as if they actually knew him personally. Did they ever spend time in his presence? Did they ever accompany him to a public or private engagement? I rather think not.