Christopher Hibbert - Edward VII - The Last Victorian King

The elder of the two, Prince Albert Victor, known as Prince Eddy, was rather a worrying child, amiable, slow, lethargic and dull, or, as his loving mother put it, well-disposed but ‘dawdly’. His kindness and good nature seemed due not so much to positive virtue as to a lazy rejection of vice. The Prince had hoped to send him to Wellington College, which, opened in 1853, had been founded as a memorial to the great Duke for the sons of officers and for boys who, it was hoped, would become officers themselves. But, as the boys’ tutor, the Revd John Neale Dalton, soon observed, Prince Eddy was not at all suited for such an education and could never have kept up with the other boys. He could never ‘fix his attention to any given subject for more than a few minutes consecutively’, his mind being at all times in an ‘abnormally dormant condition’. Prince Eddy was therefore sent, together with his younger brother, George, as a naval cadet to the training-ship Britannia.

The two boys left for Dartmouth in 1877, Eddy being thirteen and George twelve, both of them crying bitterly as they said good-bye to their mother, who was quite as unhappy as they were themselves. Queen Victoria was not at all sure that a training-ship would provide an adequate curriculum for her grandsons, particularly with regard to foreign languages which were of the ‘greatest importance’ and in which they were both ‘sadly deficient’. She had favoured the idea of a public school. But she was at least thankful that the two boys would be far removed from possible contamination by contact with the Marlborough House set, a danger which she mentioned to their father several times, warning him of the ‘vital importance’ of the ‘dear Boys being kept … above all apart, from the society of fashionable and fast people’, and not being completely convinced when her son assured her that he entirely agreed with her, that his ‘greatest wish’ was to keep the boys ‘simple, pure and childlike as long as possible’.

Prince George got on well in the Britannia. He was a bright, affectionate child, high-spirited but obedient, adored by his ‘Motherdear’ who wrote him deeply affectionate letters to which ‘little George dear’ responded in the same loving, childish tone. He passed his examinations and pleased his tutors, whereas poor Prince Eddy was so utterly incapable of mastering a single subject that the desirability of removing him from the ship had to be discussed. Dalton considered that the only answer was to separate the two brothers after two years aboard the Britannia and to send the elder on a cruise round the world attended by various tutors specially trained to deal with backward children. Their father did not agree. The two boys were devoted to each other; if they were kept apart he feared that Prince Eddy would lapse permanently into that slough of lethargy from which his brother seemed alone sometimes capable of arousing him. So in September 1879 both boys sailed for the West Indies aboard the Bacchante — with a carefully selected complement of officers and a staff of tutors under Dalton’s direction — leaving their mother so unhappy at parting with them for so long that her husband kindly gave up his holiday at Homburg that year and went with her to Denmark. Seven months later the boys returned but only to sail away again shortly afterwards, once more in tears, for an even longer period.

Their father was almost as miserable at having to part with them, particularly with the younger boy, as was their mother. He wrote to Prince George after one parting:

On seeing you going off by the train yesterday I felt very sad and you could, I am sure, see that I had a lump in my throat when I wished you good-bye … I shall miss you more than ever, my dear Georgy … Now God bless you, my dear boy, and may He guard you against all harm and evil, and bless and protect you. Don’t forget your devoted Papa, A.E.

‘When I wished you good-bye on Thursday in your cabin I had a lump in my throat which I am sure you saw,’ the Prince wrote after yet another parting a year later. ‘It is the greatest bane in one’s life saying good-bye, especially to one’s children, relations and friends …’

Although he was often homesick — writing home to his ‘dearest Papa’

to tell him that he missed him ‘every minute of the day’ and confessing to his mother that he sometimes almost cried when he thought of Sandringham — Prince George assured his parents that he liked the navy and was perfectly happy to make it his profession. He was progressing well, and it was expected of him that were he free to continue in the service he might achieve high rank. It was all the more galling to him, therefore, that he just failed to obtain the marks necessary for a first-class pilot’s certificate. But his father wrote to comfort him: ‘You have, I hope, got over your disappointment about a First. It would of course have been better if you had obtained it; but being only within twenty marks is very satisfactory, and shows that there is no favoritism in your case.’

Prince Eddy afforded his father no such satisfaction. He ‘sits listless and vacant,’ Dalton reported, ‘and … wastes as much time in doing nothing, as he ever wasted. This weakness of brain, this feebleness and lack of power to grasp almost anything put before him, is manifested … also in his hours of recreation and social intercourse.’ After disembarking from the Bacchante for the last time the boy, then aged eighteen, was sent to Lausanne to learn French, an undertaking totally beyond his powers. He was then entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, although in the opinion of J.K. Stephen, who had gone to Sandringham to help to cram him for the ordeal, he could not ‘possibly derive much benefit’ from attending university lectures, since he hardly knew ‘the meaning of the words to read’. However, as a tribute to his birth rather than his intellect — which was not in the least stimulated by university studies and no doubt hampered by his being rather deaf — he was granted an honorary LL.D. in 1888.

He was not an unattractive young man. Edward Hamilton, who played bowls and billiards with him at Sandringham when he was twenty, described him as ‘a pleasing young fellow, natural and un-stuck-up’. Sir Lionel Cust thought that he had inherited much from his mother, to whom he was devoted, and that he might one day win the nation’s heart as she had done. Prince Eddy confessed, however, to being rather afraid of his father, and aware that he was not quite up to what his father expected of him. He was extremely polite in his manner, modest, equable and deferential to his elders, particularly to his grandmother. In her turn, Queen Victoria regarded him with affection: he was a ‘dear good simple boy’, dutiful and even ‘steadily inclined’; she loved him ‘so dearly’, she told Lady Downe, ‘an affection he returned so warmly’. The Queen’s secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, thought that, although his sentences were inclined to ‘tail off’ as though he had forgotten what he was going to say, Prince Eddy could talk quite sensibly when he chose and would be popular when he got ‘more at his ease’. But he was certainly incapable of applying himself to anything for ‘a length of time’, and when he was bored his perpetual fidgeting seemed like a nervous tic. He was, in fact, constitutionally incapable of concentration, except on whist, which he played quite well, and on polo, at which he was adept. As he grew older, he appeared only to be fully alive when indulging his strongly developed sensuality. Despite a somewhat droopy cast of countenance, he was quite good looking and was undoubtedly attractive to women.

Since he had evinced not the least enthusiasm for either the navy or for Cambridge, it was now decided that Prince Eddy should go into the army. But at first he showed no aptitude for that either. His instructor at Aldershot was ‘quite astounded at his utter ignorance’. When the Commander-in-Chief came down on a tour of inspection he expressed the hope of seeing him perform ‘some most elementary movement’; but the Colonel ‘begged him not to attempt it as the Prince had not an idea how to do it! And the [Commander-in-Chief] not wishing to expose him let it alone!’ His slowness was overlooked, however, and in time he did become moderately efficient. When he was twenty-two he was given a commission in the Tenth Hussars. He did at least like the uniform, since he had always taken a great interest in clothes and, despite his lackadaisical demeanour, dressed himself with the utmost care. Always smart to the point of dandification, he was nicknamed ‘Collar and Cuffs’.