The Prince and the Assassin. Steve Harris
Kiste & Jordaan, Dearest Affie, p. 85.
43 Fulford, Dearest Mama, pp. 108, 121.
44 Rappaport, Magnificent Obsession, p. 163.
45 Ridley, Bertie, p. 58.
46 Wilson, Victoria: A Life, (London: Atlantic Books, 2014.), p. 272.
47 George Earle Buckle (ed.) Letters of QV 1862–69, (London: Murray, 1907), p. 48.
48 Fulford, Dearest Mama, cited from pp. 51, 211.
49 QV Journal, (18 February 1863, NLA).
50 Kiste & Jordaan, Dearest Affie, p. 48.
51 Fulford, Dearest Child, p. 334.
52 Fulford, Dearest Mama, p. 211.
53 ibid., pp. 261, 262, 265, 267, 325, 328, 331.
54 Kiste & Jordaan, Dearest Affie, p. 55.
55 George Buckle, Letters of Queen Victoria, (London: John Murray, 1926), p. 432.
56 Juliet Rieden, The Royals in Australia, (Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2015), p. 30.
57 Ridley, Bertie, p. 98.
58 Curtis Candler, Notes About Melbourne and Diaries, (Melbourne, 1848), p. 340.
2
Alfred, the unprincely
That frivolous and immoral court did frightful harm…and was very bad for…Affie…the utter want of seriousness and principle.
— Queen Victoria.
The Continent’s biggest city was abuzz as tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the Exposition Universelle de 1867, a world fair to demonstrate all the brilliant éclat that was France, and surpass Paris’ first exposition in 1855 and the underwhelming 1862 exposition put on by rival Britain.
Exposition Universelle des produits de l’Agriculture, de l’Industrie et des Beaux-Arts de Paris was Emperor Louis Napoleon III’s proclamation of Paris as the heart of a new world order, the mother of an emerging global civilisation of peace and prosperity under the cultural and spiritual leadership of France.
Seven million people descended onto the grand new boulevards of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussman to absorb 50,000 exhibits of human activity and excellence from 42 nations, a Napoleonic demonstration that the bounty of man and nature could be transformed into a universal harmony for all. As Victor Hugo effused in a preface to the exposition guide: ‘…O France, adieu!…thou shalt no longer be France: thou shalt be Humanity! No longer a nation, thou shalt be Ubiquity…as Athens became Greece, as Rome became Christianity, thou, France, become the world.’1
Notwithstanding the French challenge to her Empire’s pre-eminence, Queen Victoria would not be in attendance. She had visited the first Paris exhibition, taking her family at a pivotal moment in the rapprochement between the two countries in the Crimean War. Napoleon visited Windsor and then went on a full charm offensive with Victoria’s family as his guests in Paris, refitting the Palais de Saint-Cloud for their stay, and purchasing anything which was seen to please the Queen at the exposition.
Edward, the Prince of Wales, had also been seduced, as Victoria presciently noted. ‘The beauty of the French capital, the liveliness of the French people, the bonhomie of the French Emperor (Napoleon III), the elegance of the French empress (Empress Eugénie) made an indelible impression on his pleasure-hungry nature.’2
Now in 1867 both sons had a pleasure-hungry nature, but the Queen was, six years after her ‘day turned into night’ when her beloved Albert died, still in isolated mourning. Alfred and Edward were tired of the permanent black dress, and what would be her insistence that Albert’s rooms and routines remain exactly as when he was alive, such as servants daily delivering hot water for his shave, keeping his nightdress in her bed, and even visiting his cows.
Some had expected Victoria to abdicate soon after Albert’s passing, and whatever the concerns about Edward, her isolation worried the British Government which well understood that Royalty’s public standing and influence, even its existence, depended on public connectedness. It was difficult enough to justify royalty by divine right and absolute authority, so loyalty and esteem was essential and this required visibility. But Victoria refused invitations to commemorate the opening of public buildings, ensured the weddings of her children were drab and private affairs, and only rarely appeared to unveil a statue of her husband or reluctantly
open Parliament.
Anti-monarchical sentiment, if not outright republicanism, mounted. Victoria was hissed and booed on a rare trip to Parliament, such that even she wondered if ‘something unpleasant’ might happen. Newspapers and MPs questioned the cost of royalty and suggested Victoria was teaching people to think little of her office and that ‘the monarchy is practically dead.’3 A notice appeared on the railings of Buckingham Palace declaring ‘these commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant’s declining business’.4
There was ‘a great crisis of Royalty’, as Prime Minister William Gladstone observed. The Queen had an ‘immense fund of loyalty but she is now living on the capital’, he said, because Royalty was stuck in ‘a deep and nasty rut’5 as ‘the Queen is invisible.’6 And her heir was not seen as the answer. ‘The Prince of Wales is not respected’,7 some Freemasons writing letters hoping the Prince of Wales would ‘never dishonour his country by becoming its King’8 and one MP opining that even the staunchest supporters of Royalty ‘shake their heads and express anxiety as to whether the Queen’s successor will have the tact and talent to keep royalty upon its legs and out of the gutter’.9
Nevertheless the Widow of Windsor could not be persuaded from her black isolation, but diplomatic and political reality meant she could not prevent Edward and Alfred providing a royal presence in Paris.
The princes were ready for Paris, and she for them. Edward was married, but his slender attractive wife Princess Alix and a growing family was no restraint on his appetite for a good time and female company. Carrying their third baby, Alix at one point was almost near death, a bout of rheumatic fever forcing her to lay in bed with a frame to keep the bedding off a troubled leg. But as soon as three-month old Louise was christened in May, Edward left behind his ailing wife—and gossip that he might have contributed to her increasing deafness by passing on syphilis—to await Alfred’s arrival in Paris. ‘She don’t mind at all,’ he told the Queen, dismissing her concerns.10
The Queen was worried. She and Prince Albert thought the requirement of royalty was discipline, and that ostentatious courts, frivolous pleasures, immoral leadership and flattery of the monarch could only ever led to societal trouble. Now their two sons, well known for their ‘frivolous pleasures’ were heading for the ‘immoral court’ of Paris she despised.
And while ‘Dirty Bertie’ drew the most attention in free-spirited, boozy private men’s clubs like the Jockey Club and the new Yacht Club de France, Alfred had also learned much from the tutelage of his brother and fellow sailors. And since the arrival of Edward’s first son, Prince Albert Victor, he no longer had to endure the strictures of being the spare heir.
Courtesans would cheerfully say that ‘every girl is sitting on her fortune if only she knew it’, and now the exposition city was opening its bosom, and more, to its visitors. Alfred arrived in Paris early on 13 May to join his brother in a full feast of the high life before setting off for a long journey to faraway Australia.
By the time they left six days later, correspondents in Paris pointedly wrote that the future King and his ‘sailor brother’ had been ‘feted to their hearts content’ and must have ‘taken home a very lively remembrance of their visit’.11
On the surface, they were dutifully engaged in the exposition on the great military ground of Champ de Mars, especially the armaments and naval displays, and fulfilled a full card of official banquets, balls and receptions. Even official events raised some eyebrows. At the British Embassy, supper was just getting underway at 2am when guests were taken aback by Alfred’s surprise party offering: his Scottish piper,