Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld

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Set against the vivid backdrop of this demi-monde , Theo Aronson presents the first full account of the curious life of Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, known as Prince Eddy. The author explores the Prince's upbringing, his university and military careers, his alleged "secret marriage," his links with the Jack-the-Ripper murders, his early death, and, above Set against the vivid backdrop of this demi-monde , Theo Aronson presents the first full account of the curious life of Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, known as Prince Eddy.

The author explores the Prince's upbringing, his university and military careers, his alleged "secret marriage," his links with the Jack-the-Ripper murders, his early death, and, above all, his sexual orientation. For it was this that linked the young Prince's name to the Cleveland Street Scandal, the notorious homosexual brothel case that led to an extraordinary cover-up by the British government.

Students of the erotic will love this book, and so will royal-watchers, but arbiters of sexual purity should hate it, for Mr. Aronson displays an underground culture that exposed its judges as upright liars. Hardcover , pages. Published June 1st by Trafalgar Square Publishing. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld , please sign up.

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Oct 15, Edmund Marlowe rated it really liked it. A probably pederastic prince imprecisely portayed Eddy, as Albert Victor Duke of Clarence was known, was the grandson of Queen Victoria who would have become King-Emperor instead of his younger brother George V had he not died of pneumonia at the age of Unsurprisingly therefore, his family were particularly anxious both that he should turn out well and that any indications to the contrary should be hidden from public view.

It is thus ironic that the mystery in which his life was deliberately A probably pederastic prince imprecisely portayed Eddy, as Albert Victor Duke of Clarence was known, was the grandson of Queen Victoria who would have become King-Emperor instead of his younger brother George V had he not died of pneumonia at the age of It is thus ironic that the mystery in which his life was deliberately shrouded has fed the most lurid and outrageous speculation, most notably that the establishment covered up his being Jack the Ripper.

One might be tempted to consider this the most far-fetched conspiracy yet to gain credence with a swathe of the British public if the latter were not now taking serious notice of even more ludicrous allegations of child-torture and murder by a sadistic cabal headed by a Prime Minister.

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale

In this the most thorough biography of Prince Eddy yet, Theo Aronson amply demolishes both the theories that he was the Ripper and those that the latter in various suggested forms was acting to cover up a secret marriage of the prince. With good reasons, he takes far more seriously and indeed makes the main theme of his story the rumours, widely believed at the time, that Eddy was involved in the Cleveland Street scandal of This concerned the prostitution of telegraph boys in their mid-teens to the substantial aristocratic clientele of a brothel there.

Anyone imagining these rumours were not contemporary should read the extraordinarily vitriolic character assassination of the prince by the London correspondent of the New York Times. He overstates his case and in doing so displays his most serious flaw as a historian, that much of what he concludes is based on banal psychological generalisations. Nor was Eddy the only one to whom this woolly line of reasoning is applied.

Saying nothing about it may leave readers assuming that what Eddy was involved in were egalitarian sexual relations with men of the kind familiar to them from the gay community of today, far though these are from being the historical norm. By contrast, the homosexual acts by far the most practiced until a concept of fixed homosexual orientation emerged in 18th century Europe were fundamentally different in character, being pederastic, or between men and adolescent boys.

This older taste is what the Cleveland Street brothel catered to. It might be argued that in ignoring the distinction, Aronson is being true to the period he is writing about, in that there is probably no period in which these two forms of homosexuality co-existed with less interest shown by anyone in distinguishing between them. The very word homosexual came into vogue at precisely this time and supports this confusion.

Nevertheless, the distinction was nearly as real in practice as in any other era. Thus, if one is to understand Prince Eddy, it is misleading not to make clear towards which kind of homosexuality he was inclined. Fortunately, though only inadvertently, Aronson is sufficiently informative to make the answer at least as sure as his having had any homosexual inclinations at all.

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Quite apart from the pederastic character of the Cleveland Street brothel, the only specific affair Eddy is alleged to have been involved in within memory of his days is with a boy called Morgan to whom compromising letters are attested. Moreover, everything that can be adduced from his known tastes supports an attraction to boys. Frequent references are made to his preference for their company.

He had, indeed, always the tenderest corner in his heart for boys. Ignorance of how people thought sexually before the twentieth century sadly undermines what is otherwise a well-researched book. Aronson follows in the tradition of royal biographers devoted to the royal family-as-it-turned-out in final harsh dismissal of his subject: No doubt George V was more competent and dependable than Eddy, but Eddy appears far more sympathetic and I think his succession would have been much more interesting.

One more example should suffice: This is blatantly false; there was found on enquiry to be no basis then for extraditing anyone from France concerning the willing sexual acts of boys over thirteen. Prince Eddy Why on why did I even bother to read this book?

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You read over half of this before the Princes name is even mentioned. Whether you believe Prince Eddy was homosexual or not the 'evidence' presented seems to me to be hearsay or manufactured. Not a book I would recommend and really wish that I had not wasted my time with it. He merely brings up evidence from the period, including the correspondence of other aristocrats who were and who appear to implicate the Prince without actually mentioning him.

The Cleveland Street Scandal is the primary focus. Five telegraph boys were found to be trading favors at a house of "prostitution" male on Cleveland Street and implicated several aristocrats. They did not mention or identify Prince Eddy as one. However, one of the accused, Lord Arthur Somerset, who fled overseas to escape prosecution, seems to hint that part of his reason for wanting to escape trial is that he would have to implicate someone higher up - always assumed to be the Prince.

It was widely suspected that Eddy was homosexual - even his father was inclined to agree. But, of course, the Heir Presumptive could not be seen as decadent even though his father was an extreme womanizer and high liver to the point where many people despaired of what kind of King he would be.

Homosexuality did not fit with the Victorian morals. Although I do feel at times that Aronson is reaching and a bit repetitive, overall I think he has done a good job of giving us the reasons that might lead us to believe in Eddy's homosexuality. Whether he was or not will probably always remain a mystery, but this book, as well as dealing with the "mystery" of Prince Eddy, also gives us a good overview of the seedy side of Victorian life.

Given the number of celebrities that are coming out in current times, it should be no surprise that there were many aristocrats at that time who couldn't. Aronson does give us some fun by examining all the stories that were theorized later that Prince Eddy was actually Jack the Ripper. It's a crazy story and so much fun to read because it's so ridiculous.

Those who have tried to convince the world that he was the actual Ripper or the cause of the Ripper murders stretch themselves so far theorizing that they appear to be taut rubber bands ready to break. And Aronson treats them just as "seriously" as they deserve.

Although this is not a scholarly work, I found it great fun to read. This book is not a persuasive argument to me, but it sure is an interesting one. I might be more inclined to take Aronson seriously if he didn't have so many gay men highlighted in it.

Almost every single male figure that is mentioned as playing a role in Prince Albert Victor's life is tied to being gay, which I can't get on board with. Some, yes, but everyone? That said, Prince Eddy has always been one of the forgotten figures in history - I sure know more about Princess Charlotte This book is not a persuasive argument to me, but it sure is an interesting one. That said, Prince Eddy has always been one of the forgotten figures in history - I sure know more about Princess Charlotte than I did Eddy, although it may be because "the spare" was already lined up.

I do think this is an interesting idea and makes a lot of sense definitely more reasonable than tying him to Jack the Ripper! The author does a good job of highlighting coding and the consequences of being homosexual in Victorian England, so it's not out of the realm of probability. When their time aboard the Britannia ended, they were transferred to the Bacchante , to be midshipmen on a voyage around the world which began with a trip to Gibraltar in , again with Dalton installed to continue their non-nautical studies.

The boys were in their early teens, and it was noted by all that Eddy was taller and thinner than George, more shy and reserved. The princes learned to clamber the riggings, to handle themselves in all weathers, to assist in gunnery exercises. The experience would make a lifelong sailor out of Prince George.

Its effect on Prince Eddy seems to have been negligible.

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The Bacchante cruise eventually ended, and after a brief six-month interlude in Lausanne to improve their French, the young princes were finally separated in George was posted elsewhere at sea to continue his naval career; Eddy was to be sent in the autumn to Trinity College, Cambridge. So he and a group of close friends all male spent the summer in a picturesque cottage on the royal Sandringham estate, engaged in a leisurely program of study designed to prepare them for the rigors of university learning.

Like his cousin Virginia Woolf, Stephen was scintillatingly intelligent, complexly passionate, and high-strung. The days at Sandringham were full of shooting and hiking and football and perhaps some studying. Instead, the two years he spent at Cambridge were for him the distilled pleasures of college life without any of the pressures.

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He had the long conversations, the late nights carousing, the lazy spring days wandering one of the most beautiful campuses in the world, the camaraderie of close friends, without any of the fretting over tuition bills, room and board, or grades — little wonder he recalled the time with such pure fondness.

There was only one thing he had in common with even the lowliest of his college peers: Prince Eddy and Princess May. Eddy spent the Christmas holiday at Sandringham in , but after a day of hunting he felt unwell and retired to his rooms. He grew sicker — on Christmas Day he managed only a feeble glance at his gathered presents before returning to bed — and by the time Princess May arrived early in the new year, it was clear he had become the highest-profile victim of the massive influenza pandemic then gripping England and Europe. The Prince was laid to rest at Windsor Castle, and his younger brother George came reluctantly to the throne.

The world moved on into the calamitous 20th century, and history seemed to forget Eddy for about half a century.

Then all hell broke loose. There was the Cleveland Street affair, for instance.

Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld

In , a scandal erupted when a telegraph boy one of a cadre of poorly-paid, somewhat raffish youths employed to deliver messages all over London — the bike messengers of their day confessed that he and several of his fellow telegraph boys augmented their incomes by performing homosexual acts with various gentlemen at 19 Cleveland Street. Lord Arthur had been a regular patron of the Cleveland Street brothel, and when the scandal broke, he left the country.

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 highly precious lives between him and the English throne and is an utter blackguard and ruffian. The Prince of Wales was thunderstruck at the news that his stable-master, a bluff military man, might be involved in such an affair, and all his efforts to clear his friend look in hindsight like efforts to protect his son.

It typically takes far less provocation than this to bring conspiracy theorists swarming like nightjars, and they did not disappoint.

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