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Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (Albert Victor
Christian Edward; 8 January 1864 – 14 January 1892), was the eldest child of
the Prince and Princess of Wales (later
King Edward VII and
Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British monarch,
Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of
succession to the British throne, but never became king: he died before
his father and grandmother.
Albert Victor was known to his family, and many later biographers, as "Eddy". When young, he travelled the world extensively as a naval cadet, and as an adult he joined the British Army, but did not undertake any active military duties. After two unsuccessful courtships, he was engaged to be married to Princess Mary of Teck in late 1891. A few weeks later, he died during an influenza pandemic. Mary later married his younger brother, who became King George V in 1910.
Albert Victor's intellect, sexuality and mental health have been the subject of speculation. Rumours in his time linked him with the Cleveland Street scandal, which involved a homosexual brothel, but there is no conclusive evidence that he ever went there or was homosexual.[1] Some authors have argued that he was the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, but contemporary documents show that Albert Victor could not have been in London at the time of the murders, and the claim is widely dismissed.
In July 1889, the Metropolitan Police uncovered a male brothel operated by Charles Hammond in London's Cleveland Street. Under police interrogation, the male prostitutes and pimps revealed the names of their clients, who included Lord Arthur Somerset, an Extra Equerry to the Prince of Wales.[34] At the time, all homosexual acts between men were illegal, and the clients faced social ostracism, prosecution, and at worst, two years' imprisonment with hard labour.[35]
The resultant Cleveland Street scandal implicated other high-ranking figures in British society, and rumours swept upper-class London of the involvement of a member of the royal family, namely Prince Albert Victor.[36] The prostitutes had not named Albert Victor, and it is suggested that Somerset's solicitor, Arthur Newton, fabricated and spread the rumours to take the heat off his client.[37][38] Letters exchanged between the Treasury Solicitor, Sir Augustus Stephenson, and his assistant, Hamilton Cuffe, make coded reference to Newton's threats to implicate Albert Victor.[39]
In December 1889 it was reported that the Prince and Princess of Wales were "daily assailed with anonymous letters of the most outrageous character" bearing upon the scandal.[40] The Prince of Wales intervened in the investigation; no clients were ever prosecuted and nothing against Albert Victor was proven.[41] Sir Charles Russell was retained to watch the proceedings in the case on behalf of Albert Victor.[42] Although there is no conclusive evidence for or against his involvement, or that he ever visited a homosexual club or brothel,[43] the rumours and cover-up have led some biographers to speculate that he did visit Cleveland Street,[44] and that he was "possibly bisexual, probably homosexual".[45] This is contested by other commentators, one of whom refers to him as "ardently heterosexual" and his involvement in the rumours as "somewhat unfair".[46] The historian H. Montgomery Hyde wrote, "There is no evidence that he was homosexual, or even bisexual."[47]
While English newspapers suppressed mention of the Prince's name in association with the case, Welsh-language,[48] colonial, and American newspapers were less inhibited. The New York Times ridiculed him as a "dullard" and "stupid perverse boy", who would "never be allowed to ascend the British throne".[49] According to one American press report, when departing the Gare du Nord in Paris in May 1890, Albert Victor was cheered by a waiting crowd of English, but hissed and catcalled by some of the French; one journalist present asked him if he would comment "as to the cause of his sudden departure from England". According to the report, "The Prince's sallow face turned scarlet and his eyes seemed to start from their orbits," and he had one of his companions upbraid the fellow for impertinence.[50]
Somerset's sister, Lady Waterford, denied that her brother knew anything about Albert Victor. She wrote, "I am sure the boy is as straight as a line ... Arthur does not the least know how or where the boy spends his time ... he believes the boy to be perfectly innocent."[51] Lady Waterford also believed Somerset's protestations of his own innocence.[52] In surviving private letters to his friend Lord Esher, Somerset denies knowing anything directly about Albert Victor, but confirms that he has heard the rumours, and hopes that they will help quash any prosecution. He wrote,
I can quite understand the Prince of Wales being much annoyed at his son's name being coupled with the thing but that was the case before I left it ... we were both accused of going to this place but not together ... 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].[53]
He continued,
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, with all the authorities.[54]
The rumours persisted; sixty years later the official biographer of King George V, Harold Nicolson, was told by Lord Goddard, who was a twelve-year-old schoolboy at the time of the scandal, that Albert Victor "had been involved in a male brothel scene, and that a solicitor had to commit perjury to clear him. The solicitor was struck off the rolls for his offence, but was thereafter reinstated."[55] In fact, none of the lawyers in the case was convicted of perjury or struck off during the scandal, but Somerset's solicitor, Arthur Newton, was convicted of obstruction of justice for helping his clients escape abroad, and was sentenced to six weeks in prison. Over twenty years later in 1910, Newton was struck off for twelve months for professional misconduct after falsifying letters from another of his clients, the notorious murderer Dr Crippen.[56] In 1913, Newton was struck off indefinitely and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretences.[57]
Several women were lined up as possible brides for Albert Victor. The first, in 1889, was his cousin Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, but she did not return his affections and refused his offer of engagement.[70][71] She would later marry Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, another of Albert Victor's cousins, in 1894. The second, in 1890, was a love match with Princess Hélène of Orléans, a daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, a pretender to the French throne who was living in England after being banished from France in 1886.[72]
At first, Queen Victoria opposed any engagement because Hélène was Roman Catholic. Victoria wrote to her grandson suggesting another of her grandchildren, Princess Margaret of Prussia, as a suitable alternative,[73] but nothing came of her suggestion, and once Albert Victor and Hélène confided their love to her, the Queen relented and supported the proposed marriage.[74][75] Hélène offered to convert to the Church of England,[76] and Albert Victor offered to renounce his succession rights to marry her.[74] To the couple's disappointment, her father refused to countenance the marriage and was adamant she could not convert. Hélène travelled personally to intercede with Pope Leo XIII but he confirmed her father's verdict, and the courtship ended.[77] She later became the Duchess of Aosta.
In mid-1890, Albert Victor was attended by several doctors, but in correspondence his illness is only referred to as "fever" or "gout".[78] Some biographers have assumed he was suffering from "a mild form of venereal disease",[46] perhaps gonorrhea,[79] which he may have suffered from on an earlier occasion,[80] but the exact nature of his illness is unknown.[81]
In late 1891, the Prince was implicated as having been involved with a former Gaiety Theatre chorus girl, Lydia Miller (stage name Lydia Manton), who committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid.[82] Although she was the nominal mistress of Lord Charles Montagu, who gave evidence at the inquest, it was alleged that he was merely a cover for the Prince who had requested she give up her theatrical career on his behalf, and that the authorities sought to suppress the case by making the inquest private and refusing access to the depositions.[83] Similarly to the Cleveland Street scandal only overseas newspapers printed Albert Victor's name, but regional British newspapers did quote the radical London newspaper The Star[84] which published: "It is a fact so well known that the blind denials of it given in some quarters are childishly futile. Lydia Manton was the petite amie of a certain young prince, and that, too, quite recently."[82] It was labelled "a scandal of the first magnitude ... on the lips of every clubman",[82] and compared to the Tranby Croft affair, in which his father was called to give evidence at a trial for slander.[85]
Rumours also surfaced in 1900, after Albert Victor's death, of his association with another former Gaiety girl, Maude Richardson (birth name: Louisa Lancey),[86] and that the royal family had attempted to pay her off.[87] In 2002, letters purported to have been sent by Albert Victor to his solicitor referring to a payoff made to Richardson of £200 were sold at Bonhams auction house in London.[88][89] Owing to discrepancies in the dates and spelling of the letters, one historian has suggested they could be forgeries.[90]
In 1891, Albert Victor wrote to Lady Sybil St Clair Erskine that he was in love once again, though he does not say with whom,[91] but by this time another potential bride, Princess Mary of Teck, was under consideration. Mary was the daughter of Queen Victoria's first cousin Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. Queen Victoria was very supportive, considering Mary ideal—charming, sensible and pretty.[92] On 3 December 1891 Albert Victor, to Mary's "great surprise", proposed to her at Luton Hoo, the country residence of the Danish ambassador to Britain.[93] The wedding was set for 27 February 1892.[94]
Just as plans for both his marriage to Mary and his appointment as Viceroy of Ireland were under discussion, Albert Victor fell ill with influenza in the pandemic of 1889–92. He developed pneumonia and died at Sandringham House in Norfolk on 14 January 1892, less than a week after his 28th birthday. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princesses Maud and Victoria, Prince George, Princess Mary, the Duke and Duchess of Teck, three physicians (Alan Reeve Manby, Francis Laking and William Broadbent) and three nurses were present.[95] The Prince of Wales's chaplain, Canon Frederick Hervey, stood over Albert Victor reading prayers for the dying.[96]
The nation was shocked. Shops put up their shutters. The Prince of Wales wrote to Queen Victoria, "Gladly would I have given my life for his".[97] Princess Mary wrote to Queen Victoria of the Princess of Wales, "the despairing look on her face was the most heart-rending thing I have ever seen."[98] His younger brother Prince George wrote, "how deeply I did love him; & I remember with pain nearly every hard word & little quarrel I ever had with him & I long to ask his forgiveness, but, alas, it is too late now!"[99] George took Albert Victor's place in the line of succession, eventually succeeding to the throne as George V in 1910. Drawn together during their shared period of mourning, Prince George later married Mary himself in 1893. She became queen on George's accession.[100]
Albert Victor's mother, Alexandra, never fully recovered from her son's death and kept the room in which he died as a shrine.[101] At the funeral, Mary laid her bridal wreath of orange blossom upon the coffin.[102] James Kenneth Stephen, Albert Victor's former tutor, refused all food from the day of Albert Victor's death and died 20 days later; he had suffered a head injury in 1886 which left him suffering from psychosis.[103] The Prince is buried in the Albert Memorial Chapel close to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His tomb, by Alfred Gilbert, is "the finest single example of late 19th-century sculpture in the British Isles".[104] A recumbent effigy of the Prince in a Hussar uniform (almost impossible to see properly in situ) lies above the tomb. Kneeling over him is an angel, holding a heavenly crown. The tomb is surrounded by an elaborate railing, with figures of saints.[105] The perfectionist Gilbert spent too much on the commission, went bankrupt, and left the country. Five of the smaller figures were only completed with "a greater roughness and pittedness of texture" after his return to Britain in the 1920s.[104]
One obituary, written by a journalist who claimed to have attended the majority of Albert Victor's public appearances, stated:
He was little known personally to the English public. His absence at sea, and on travels and duty with his regiment, kept him out of the general eye ... at times, there was a sallowness of hue, which much increased the grave aspect ... not only in the metropolis, but throughout the country, somehow, it was always said, 'He will never come to the throne.'[106]
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