Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
The Curious Connection between Prince Eddy and Jack the Ripper
Dec 31, 2008
Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, known as Prince Eddy, was born in 1864 as the first son to the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. His brother, the future George V, was born the following year. During their youth, the boys were largely influenced by their grandmother, Queen Victoria, as her watchful eye oversaw their naval training and college direction. While George was a slow learner, Prince Eddy was always known as the stupid one. It was a reputation that stayed with him for his entire life and set the stage for the media to fabricate fascinating stories about the troubled prince who would never become king.
Prince Eddy at Cambridge
After his strict naval training, he found the relaxed atmosphere of his extra-curricular life at Cambridge suited him well. Although this was the Victorian age, a new movement of “Greek love” at the university led the prince into a period of sexual ambiguity. One of his closest confidants of this time was another student by the name of James Kenneth Stephen and by 1889 the two allegedly became regular patrons at 19 Cleveland Street, which was soon exposed as a male prostitution ring. Not surprisingly, Prince Eddy’s biographer, Andrew Cook, largely discredited this connection. Nonetheless, the royal household sent the prince on a tour of India to rid him of the scandal soon after the story broke. However, in 1975, nearly a hundred years later, the Public Record Office police papers show evidence of a cover up and that the prince was in fact involved in the scandal “beyond a reasonable doubt“.
Prince Eddy’s impending marriage to Mary of Teck
Meanwhile, Prince Edward knew that if his son were to be seen in unsavory light that the monarchy could be jeopardized, so he hastened a marriage arrangement for his son to Princess Mary of Teck. Although the prince agreed to the arranged marriage, his heart belonged to Princess Alix of Hesse, Queen Victoria’s granddaughter. While he was away in India, Alix had agreed to marry Tsarevitch Nicholas of Russia, a distant cousin, in a move that would break his heart.
Though Princess Mary, or May as she was known, prepared for their wedding the next year, shortly after his 28th birthday Eddy would die of pneumonia. It has been said that the royal family breathed a sigh of relief with his passing.
Prince Eddy’s connection with Jack the Ripper
Then curiously during the 1960’s and 1970’s, many other theories arose that Prince Eddy was in fact Jack the Ripper, the mysterious serial killer who committed at least five murders between August and November 1888 in London. This allegation has been widely sensationalized and well documented. Rising from a claim that the prince had contracted syphilis in his youth, by the time of the murders he was said to have been suffering the affects of insanity to the point of becoming sadistically aroused with passion. These charges were quieted with the release of the “court circulars” showing that during the times of all of the murders, Prince Eddy was on official engagements in the areas of Scotland and Yorkshire. The story goes on with speculation that Prince Eddy died not from pneumonia, but from softening of the brain due to syphilis. Another theory goes even further in that the prince did not die in 1892 as noted, but rather he was locked away by reason of insanity and he finally died in 1930. These legends, however imaginative, still make for an interesting tale of crime and passion in an era of emotional restraint.
Sources:
www.casebook.org
