Book description
Prince Albert Victor, King Edward VII's (r. 1901-10) first son and
heir to the throne, and popularly known as Eddy, has virtually been
airbrushed out of history. Eddy was as popular and charismatic a
figure in his own time as Princess Diana a century later. As in her
case, his sudden death in 1892 resulted in public demonstrations of
grief on a scale rarely seen at the time, and it was even rumoured (as
in the case of Diana) that he was murdered to save him besmirching the
monarchy. Had he lived, he would have been crowned king in 1911,
ushering in a profoundly different style of monarchy from that of his
younger brother, who ultimately succeeded as the stodgy George V.
Eddy's life was virtually ignored by historians until the 1970s, when
myths began to accumulate and his character somehow grew horns and a
tail. As a result, he is remembered today primarily as a suspect in
the Jack the Ripper muders of 1888 and for his alleged involvement in
the Cleveland Street homosexual scandal of 1889. But history has found
Eddy guilty of crimes he did not commit. Now, for the first time,
using modern forensic evidence combined with Eddy's previously unseen
records, personal correspondence and photographs, Andrew Cook proves
his innocence. 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.
