Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale

Albert Victor was born two months prematurely at 8:58 pm on 8 January 1864 at Frogmore House, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the first child of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Alexandra of Denmark. At Queen Victoria's wish, he was named Albert Victor after the Queen and her late husband, Prince Albert. As a grandson of the reigning British monarch in the male line and the son of the Prince of Wales, he was styled "His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor of Wales" from birth. He was christened Albert Victor Christian Edward in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace on 10 March by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Longley, and became known informally as "Eddy".

Education

In June 1865, when Albert Victor was just under 17 months old, his brother, Prince George (later George V), was born. Because of their closeness in age, the boys were educated together. In 1871, Queen Victoria appointed John Neale Dalton as their tutor. Dalton set a strict programme of study that combined academic subjects with games and military drills. Dalton complained that Albert Victor's mind was "abnormally dormant".

Although Albert Victor learnt to speak his mother's native Danish, his progress in other languages and subjects was slow. Sir Henry Ponsonby suspected that Albert Victor might have inherited Alexandra's partial deafness. He never excelled academically. Possible physical explanations for his inattention include absence seizures or the effects of premature birth, both of which can be associated with learning difficulties, though Lady Geraldine Somerset blamed Albert Victor's poor education on Dalton, whom she considered uninspiring.

Separating the brothers for the remainder of their education was considered, but Dalton advised against it, arguing that "Prince Albert Victor requires the stimulus of Prince George's company to induce him to work at all." In 1877, the boys were sent to the Royal Navy's training ship, HMS Britannia. They began their studies there two months behind the other cadets because Albert Victor contracted typhoid fever, for which he was treated by Sir William Gull. Dalton accompanied them as chaplain to the ship.

In 1879, after discussion between the Queen, the Prince of Wales, their households, and the Government, the brothers were sent as naval cadets on a three-year world tour aboard HMS Bacchante. Albert Victor was rated midshipman on his 16th birthday. They toured the British Empire, accompanied by Dalton, visiting the Americas, the Falkland Islands, South Africa, Australia, Fiji, the Far East, Singapore, Ceylon, Aden, Egypt, the Holy Land, and Greece. They acquired tattoos in Japan. By the time they returned to Britain, Albert Victor was 18.

The brothers were separated in 1883: George remained in the navy, while Albert Victor entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Before arriving at the university, he was expected to cram at Bachelor's Cottage, Sandringham, under the supervision of Dalton, a French instructor, Monsieur Hua, and a newly appointed tutor and companion, James Kenneth Stephen. Some biographers have described Stephen as a misogynist, though this has been questioned, and he may have felt emotionally attached to Albert Victor; whether his feelings were overtly homosexual is uncertain. Stephen was initially optimistic about tutoring the prince, but by the time the party was due to move to Cambridge he had concluded, "I do not think he can possibly derive much benefit from attending lectures at Cambridge... He hardly knows the meaning of the words to read".

At the start of the new term in October, Albert Victor, Dalton, and Lieutenant Henderson from Bacchante moved into Nevile's Court at Trinity College, accommodation usually reserved for dons. Albert Victor showed little interest in the intellectual life of the university and was excused from examinations, though he did take part in undergraduate society. He was introduced to Oscar Browning, a noted don who hosted parties and "made pets of those undergraduates who were handsome and attractive", and became friendly with Dalton's godson, Alfred Fripp, who later served as his doctor and royal surgeon. It is not known whether he had any sexual experiences at Cambridge, though partners of either sex would have been available. In August 1884, he spent time at Heidelberg University studying German before returning to Cambridge. He left the university in 1885, having already served as a cadet in the 2nd Cambridge University Battalion, and was gazetted as an officer in the 10th Hussars. In 1888, he received an honorary degree from the university.

One of his instructors observed that Albert Victor learnt best by listening rather than reading or writing and had no difficulty retaining information, but Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, was less charitable, calling him "an inveterate and incurable dawdler". Princess Augusta of Cambridge was similarly dismissive, describing him as "si peu de chose" ("such a small thing").

Much of Albert Victor's time at Aldershot was spent drilling, which he disliked, though he enjoyed playing polo. In October 1886, while in Burnley to open a new hospital, he attended a match between Burnley F.C. and Bolton Wanderers at Turf Moor – the first visit to a professional football ground by a member of the royal family. To mark the occasion, Burnley received a set of kits embellished with the royal coat of arms. He passed his examinations and, in March 1887, was posted to Hounslow, where he was promoted to captain. He undertook more public engagements, visited Ireland and Gibraltar, and opened the Hammersmith suspension bridge in June 1887. A childhood friend later recalled that his private life was uneventful: "his brother officers had said that they would like to make a man of the world of him. Into that world he refused to be initiated."

In 1891, Albert Victor wrote to Lady Sybil St Clair Erskine that he was in love once again, though he did not say with whom. A week later, he asked her, "I wonder if you really love me a little?... I should be very pleased if you did just a little bit."

In late 1891, Albert Victor was implicated in the case of Lydia Miller (stage name Lydia Manton), a former Gaiety Theatre chorus girl who committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid. Although she was the nominal mistress of Lord Charles Montagu, who gave evidence at the inquest, it was alleged that Montagu acted as a cover for Albert Victor, who had supposedly asked her to abandon her theatrical career on his behalf. It was further claimed that the authorities sought to suppress the case by holding the inquest in private and refusing access to the depositions. As with the Cleveland Street scandal, only overseas newspapers printed Albert Victor's name, but some regional British papers quoted the radical London newspaper The Star, which wrote: "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." The affair was described as "a scandal of the first magnitude... on the lips of every clubman", and compared to the Tranby Croft affair, in which his father had been called to give evidence at a slander trial.

Rumours resurfaced in 1900, after Albert Victor's death, of his association with another former Gaiety girl, Maude Richardson (born Louisa Lancey), and that the royal family had attempted to pay her off. In 2002, letters purportedly sent by Albert Victor to his solicitor referring to a £200 payment to Richardson were sold at Bonhams auction house in London. Owing to discrepancies in the dates and spelling, one historian has suggested that the letters may be forgeries.

In mid‑1890, Albert Victor was attended by several doctors. In his correspondence and that of others, his illness was referred to only as "fever" or "gout". Some biographers have assumed he was suffering from "a mild form of venereal disease", perhaps gonorrhea, which he may have contracted on an earlier occasion, but the exact nature of his illness is unknown. Letters dated 1885 and 1886 from Albert Victor to his doctor at Aldershot (known only as "Roche") show that he was taking medicine for "glete" (gleet), then a term for gonorrhoea discharge.

In July 1889, the Metropolitan Police uncovered a male brothel operated by Charles Hammond in Cleveland Street, London. Under 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. At the time, all homosexual acts between men were illegal, and those identified risked social ostracism, prosecution, and, at worst, two years' imprisonment with hard labour.

The resultant Cleveland Street scandal implicated other high-ranking figures in British society, and rumours swept upper-class London that a member of the royal family – specifically Albert Victor – was involved. The prostitutes had not named him, and it is suggested that Somerset's solicitor, Arthur Newton, fabricated and circulated the rumour to deflect attention from his client. 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.

In December 1889, it was reported that the Prince and Princess of Wales were "daily assailed with anonymous letters of the most outrageous character" relating to the scandal. The Prince of Wales intervened in the investigation; no clients were ever prosecuted, and nothing against Albert Victor was proven. Sir Charles Russell was retained to monitor the proceedings on Albert Victor's behalf. Although there is no conclusive evidence for or against his involvement, or that he ever visited a homosexual club or brothel, the rumours and the cover-up have led some biographers to speculate that he did visit Cleveland Street, and that he was "possibly bisexual, probably homosexual". Other commentators dispute this, one describing him as "ardently heterosexual" and his association with the rumours as "somewhat unfair". Historian H. Montgomery Hyde wrote: "There is no evidence that he was homosexual, or even bisexual."

While English newspapers suppressed mention of Albert Victor's name in connection with the case, Welsh-language, colonial, and American newspapers were less restrained. The New York Times ridiculed him as a "dullard" and "stupid perverse boy" who would "never be allowed to ascend the British throne". According to one American report, when departing the Gare du Nord in Paris in May 1890, Albert Victor was cheered by a waiting crowd of English travellers but hissed and catcalled by some of the French. A journalist asked him to 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 rebuke the man for impertinence.

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." She also believed Somerset's protestations of his own innocence. In surviving private letters to his friend Lord Esher, Somerset denied knowing anything directly about Albert Victor, but confirmed that he had heard the rumours and hoped they would help prevent 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].

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.

The rumours persisted. Sixty years later, the official biographer of 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." In fact, none of the lawyers involved in the case was convicted of perjury or struck off during the scandal. 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 client, the murderer Dr Crippen. In 1913, he was struck off indefinitely and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretences.