Cook Prince Eddy

The King Britain Never Had
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6909-6
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

Prince Albert Victor, King Edward Vll's (r 1901-10) first son and heir to the throne, and popularly known as Eddy, has virtually been airbrushed out of history. In this book, Andrew Cook, the presenter and historical consultant of the Channel 4 documentary on the life of Prince Eddy, reveals the truth about a key royal figure, a man who would have made a fine king and changed the face of the British monarchy.

ANDREW COOK is an author and TV consultant with a degree in History & Ancient History. He was a programme director of the Hansard Scholars Programme for the University of London. Andrew has written for The Times, Guardian, Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today. His previous books include On His Majesty's Secret Service (Tempus, 2002); Ace of Spies (Tempus, 2003); M: MI5's First Spymaster (Tempus, 2006); The Great Train Robbery (The History Press, 2013); and 1963: That Was the Year That Was (The History Press, 2013).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cook, Andrew

Leseproben

1
Scandal
1889
The first thirty-eight years of Lord Arthur Somerset’s life were perfectly delightful. The third son of the Duke of Beaufort, brought up at Badminton, educated at Eton, he had by 1889 survived military action in the Sudan to become a senior Guards officer, Superintendent of the Stables and Extra Equerry to the Prince of Wales. As a nobleman in the inner circle surrounding the future King of England and Emperor of India, no doors were closed to him. He dined at the best houses and belonged to the best clubs in the biggest and most powerful city in the world. The rich and beautiful of London society were delighted to call him a friend. At the start of July 1889, all this would change. Some lives are like that; a paralysing accident, the sudden death of a beloved partner, a crash in the value of stock – an unexpected event turns them upside down. And so it was with Lord Arthur Somerset. Worse still, his reaction to this personal disaster would resound for well over a century. It would result first in the shameful dismissal of Prince Albert Victor, the Prince of Wales’s heir, from royal history, and eighty-five years later to the final calumny: that the young prince’s outrageous misbehaviour was the dark secret behind Jack the Ripper. Lord Arthur’s nemesis arrived in the prosaic surroundings of Post Office headquarters in the City of London, on Thursday 4 July. Happily ignorant of the disaster that would soon overwhelm him, the distinguished soldier was busy a few miles away with the Shah of Persia’s visit to Marlborough House in the Mall. The Shah had arrived in London at the start of the week with a retinue of forty, and was staying as the Queen’s guest at Buckingham Palace. Persia was strategically important in the rumbling disagreement between Turkey (a British ally) and Russia, and the Queen supported her politicians by flattering the Shah with pomp and ceremony. At sixty years of age, his moustachios as black as ever and his reputation as savage, he cut a fine figure.1 Cheering crowds lined the streets to welcome him, while the Crown had provided a splendid complement of gilded coaches and attendant cavalrymen, including Prince Albert Victor himself, to accompany the visitors to Windsor, the Guildhall and Covent Garden, as the exhausting week of formalities progressed. Today, a party of Persian notables would bowl down the Mall to visit the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House. The sixty horses in the Royal Stables, which Wales inspected every morning, would await visitors in a state of gleaming perfection; Lord Arthur Somerset, of the Blues, was an efficient master and would make sure of that. Meanwhile, three or four miles away in the City’s main sorting office at St Martin’s Le Grand, a telegraph boy called Charlie Swinscow had been hauled in front of Post Office Constable Luke Hanks to explain himself.2 In 1889, money was generally conveyed from person to person not by banks – whose branches were inconveniently located and whose clientele was a small, well-heeled minority – but by postal order or cash, through the mail. The system offered ample opportunity for theft. Post Office delivery boys and men must, therefore, be trustworthy and be seen to be trustworthy. They were prohibited from carrying cash or personal effects of any kind; their own items must be kept in lockers back at headquarters. So when fifteen-year-old Swinscow was found to have eighteen shillings in his possession – one and a half times his weekly wage – PC Hanks interviewed him at once. The boy denied having stolen the money. He had done some ‘private work away from the office’, he said. Questioned further, he insisted that this work was nothing to do with his job. The internal police of the Post Office were an astute body of men. Many had formerly served in the regular Metropolitan service. And PC Hanks, like his colleagues, was persistent. Finally, Charlie Swinscow admitted having earned the money from gentlemen who paid him a guinea for his sexual favours. But not, he insisted, on Post Office premises. These activities had taken place at an address in the seedy Bohemian district of Fitzrovia, two or three miles west. He would pass on his guinea to the landlord, a Mr Hammond, and receive four shillings to keep. He explained that he had originally been seduced (after a fumble in the basement toilets of the Post Office) by another boy at St Martin’s Le Grand, appropriately called Newlove. Newlove had introduced him to the house in Fitzrovia, and he was not the only one. Other young employees had been earning four shillings a time at 19, Cleveland Street. It was a regular racket. The Post Office employed hundreds of boys to deliver urgent messages throughout London. They were aged from thirteen upwards, and made a charming picture in their little blue jackets, smart trousers and caps. But the Post Office could not afford to gain a reputation as an employer to which mothers dare not send their sons, an employer which could not guarantee a reputable job, with prospects. PC Hanks informed his superior, John Phillips. John Phillips told the Postmaster General. On the Friday, Hanks and Phillips interviewed telegraph boys Wright and Thickbroom (another name not easily forgotten). They confirmed that Newlove, who had since been promoted and was a clerk, had introduced them to Hammond. All four boys were suspended on full pay. The Post Office was a vitally important department of state and must not be involved in a scandal; but as things stood, at least one of its employees might well be charged under the Labouchère Amendment to the Criminal Law Act. This controversial addition to the law was only four years old, and allowed for penalties of up to two years for committing, or procuring or attempting to procure others to commit, the sexual act with men. It made even consensual non-penetrative sex between men illegal, which is how it became known as the Blackmailers’ Charter. A poorly drafted piece of law, it had inspired little Parliamentary scrutiny or objection, because the entire subject of homosexuality was judged too indecent to discuss even in the House of Commons. No decent person, at any level of life, mentioned such things. The Postmaster General informed Commissioner Monro of Scotland Yard about the boys, the gentlemen clients, and the brothel. Commissioner Monro agreed that his best men must be employed and the matter cleared up and swept away, immediately. Only one detective would do. Inspector Abberline stood out from the rest, which was why he had been working on the Jack the Ripper murders since they began about ten months ago, and no one was sure that the Ripper’s activities had ceased. Nonetheless, Monro told Abberline to step down and direct all his attention to this Cleveland Street affair. It must be stopped before it attracted any publicity. Abberline acted immediately. He arranged a special Saturday sitting at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court. Newlove, or someone who had so far evaded contact with the investigators, must have got a message to Hammond, the proprietor of 19, Cleveland Street, that boys had been suspended from the Post Office and the wind was up. Hammond, an old hand at brothel-keeping now in his forties, didn’t need to be told twice. On Saturday 6 July, when police forced an entry to the house, they found that he had made a hurried exit from his place of business, with its good furniture, antimacassars and tastefully placed mirrors, having lugged his personal items away in a large portmanteau and abandoned a pile of dirty laundry. Warrants were issued for the arrest of Hammond and Newlove, on charges of conspiring to incite and procure the named boys to commit buggery. Hammond may have vaporised, but Newlove was innocently staying with his mother at 38, Bayham Street, Camden Town, and PC Hanks collected him from that address without trouble on Sunday morning, 7 July. Hammond, who was wily and understood that a name dropped in the right place and time could cool the heat, had left a message for Newlove that he must deny everything; Hammond would take control. He knew that at least one of his clients would bring influence to bear, rather than face a potential scandal. But Henry Newlove was just a boy, and did not understand. He complained bitterly to Hanks that his own seducer at the Post Office, a boy called Hewett, was not being charged. He pursued this grievance as they walked together to the police station. He didn’t see why he should get into trouble while there were plenty of people in a high position who had visited Cleveland Street. Lord Euston went there, and Colonel Jervois, and Lord Arthur Somerset. PC Hanks wrote this up in a report when they got to the station. The Sunday papers rounded up the news of the week. The Prince and Princess of Wales had announced the engagement of their eldest daughter, Louise, to the Duke of Fife; there would be a royal wedding at the end of the month. It was expected, reported Le Courrier de Londres, that the Waleses’ elder son, Prince Albert Victor, would soon become betrothed to Princess Victoria, a sister of the young German Emperor. On Monday 9 July, Newlove, now remanded in custody, repeated his allegations to Inspector Abberline. Lord Arthur Somerset, he said, called himself Mr Brown, but everyone knew who he was. Hammond, who had until now been hiding at the home of a relation in Gravesend, took the boat for France. On the Tuesday, PC Hanks got a surprise when he visited Newlove’s mother. They were in the middle of a heart-to-heart when a caller arrived. Hanks, concealed in a corridor, saw and heard a man he...