Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (Albert Victor Christian Edward; 8 January 1864 – 14 January 1892) was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and Alexandra, Princess of Wales (later Queen Alexandra), and the grandson of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the throne, but he did not become king because he died before his father and his grandmother, the Queen.

Albert Victor was known to his family as "Eddy" and many later biographers have referred to him by this pet name. When young, he travelled the world extensively as a naval cadet. As an adult he joined the army, but did not undertake any active military duties. After two unsuccessful courtships, he was engaged to be married to Mary of Teck in late 1891. Just a few weeks later, he died in an influenza pandemic. Mary later married his younger brother, George, who became King George V in 1910.

Albert Victor's intellect, sexuality and sanity have been the subject of much speculation. Rumours linked him with the Cleveland Street scandal, which involved a homosexual brothel, but there is no conclusive evidence verifying or disproving the rumours or his sexual orientation. Some authors have argued that he was the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. Contemporary documents indicate that Albert Victor could not have been in London at the time of the murders, however, and the claim is widely dismissed.

Early life

Albert Victor was born two months premature on 8 January 1864 at Frogmore House, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the first child of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra, Princess of Wales (formerly Alexandra of Denmark). Following his grandmother Queen Victoria's wishes, he was named Albert Victor, after herself and her late husband Albert, but was known informally as "Eddy".^[1] As a grandchild of the reigning British monarch in the male line, he was styled His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor of Wales from birth.

Albert Victor was christened in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace on 10 March 1864 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Thomas Longley. His godparents were Queen Victoria (his paternal grandmother), King Christian IX of Denmark (his maternal grandfather, represented by his brother Prince Johann of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg), King Leopold I of Belgium (his great great-uncle), the Dowager Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (his maternal great-grandmother, for whom the Duchess of Cambridge stood proxy), the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (his great-aunt by marriage, for whom the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz stood proxy), the Landgrave of Hesse (his maternal great-grandfather, for whom Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, stood proxy), the Crown Princess of Prussia (his paternal aunt, for whom The Princess Helena, her sister, stood proxy) and The Prince Alfred (his paternal uncle).^[2]

Education

When Albert Victor was just short of seventeen months old, his brother, Prince George of Wales, was born on 3 June 1865. Given the closeness in age of the two royal brothers, they were educated together. In 1871, the Queen appointed John Neale Dalton as their tutor. The two princes were given a strict programme of study, which included games and military drills as well as academic subjects.^[3] Dalton complained that Albert Victor's mind was "abnormally dormant".^[4] Though he learned to speak Danish, progress in other languages and subjects was slow.^[5] Albert Victor never excelled intellectually. Lady Geraldine Somerset blamed Dalton for Albert Victor's poor education,^[6] but possible physical explanations for Albert Victor's inattention or indolence in class include his premature birth, which can be associated with learning difficulties, or petit mal, a mild form of epilepsy manifested in childhood as periods of mental vacuity.^[7] Sir Henry Ponsonby thought that Albert Victor might have inherited his mother's deafness.^[8]

Separating the brothers for the remainder of their education was considered, but Dalton advised the Prince of Wales against splitting them up as "Prince Albert Victor requires the stimulus of Prince George's company to induce him to work at all."^[9] In 1877, the two boys were sent to the Royal Navy's training ship, HMS Britannia. They began their studies there two months behind the other cadets as Albert Victor contracted typhoid fever, for which he was treated by Sir William Gull.^[10] Dalton accompanied them as chaplain to the ship. In 1879, after a great deal of discussion between the Queen, the Prince of Wales, their households and the Government, the royal brothers were sent as naval cadets on a three-year world tour aboard HMS Bacchante.^[11] Albert Victor was rated midshipman on his 16th birthday.^[12] 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 the UK, Albert Victor was 18.^[13]

The brothers were parted in 1883; George continued in the navy and Albert Victor attended Trinity College, Cambridge.^[14] James Kenneth Stephen was appointed as a tutor and lived partly at Sandringham during his tutorship, along with Dalton who was still in attendance both at Sandringham and at Trinity.^[15] Some biographers have said that Stephen was a misogynist, although this has recently been questioned,^[16] and he may have felt emotionally attached to Albert Victor, but whether or not his feelings were overtly homosexual is open to question.^[17] It is not known whether Albert Victor had any sexual experiences at Cambridge, but partners of either sex would have been available to him.^[18] He showed little interest in the intellectual atmosphere and he was excused examinations, though he did become involved in undergraduate life. In August 1884, he spent some time at the University of Heidelberg studying German.^[19] Leaving Cambridge in 1885, where he had already served as a cadet in the 2nd Cambridge University Battalion, he was gazetted as an officer in the 10th Hussars.^[20]

One of Albert Victor's instructors said he learnt by listening rather than reading or writing and had no difficulty remembering information,^[21] but Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, had a less favourable opinion of him, calling him "an inveterate and incurable dawdler".^[22] Much of Albert Victor's time at his post in Aldershot was spent drilling, which he disliked, though he did like to play polo.^[23] He passed his examinations, and in March 1887, he was posted to Hounslow where he was promoted to captain. He was given more public engagements, visited Ireland and Gibraltar, and opened the Hammersmith suspension bridge.^[24] Of his private life, a childhood friend of Albert Victor later recalled that it 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."^[25]

Cleveland Street scandal

In July 1889, the Metropolitan Police uncovered a male brothel in London's Cleveland Street. Under police 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.^[26] At the time, all homosexual acts between men were illegal, and the clients faced 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. Rumours swept upper-class London of the involvement of a member of the royal family: Prince Albert Victor.^[27] The prostitutes had not named Albert Victor and it is suggested that Somerset's solicitor, Arthur Newton, fabricated and spread the rumours to take the heat off his client.^[28] Letters exchanged between the Treasury Solicitor, Sir Augustus Stephenson, and his assistant, The Hon. Hamilton Cuffe, make coded reference to Newton's threats to implicate Albert Victor.^[29] The Prince of Wales intervened in the investigation; none of the clients were ever prosecuted and nothing against Albert Victor was proven.^[30] Although there is no conclusive evidence for or against his involvement, or whether or not he ever visited a homosexual club or brothel,^[31] the rumours and cover-up led some biographers to suppose that he did visit Cleveland Street,^[32] and that he was "possibly bisexual, probably homosexual".^[33] This is contested by other biographers, one of which refers to him as "ardently heterosexual" and his involvement in the rumours as "somewhat unfair".^[34] The historian H. Montgomery Hyde wrote, "There is no evidence that he was homosexual, or even bisexual."^[35]

Somerset's sister, Lady Waterford, denied that her brother knew anything about Albert Victor, "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 wrote.^[36] In surviving private letters from Somerset to his friend Lord Esher, Somerset denies knowing anything about Albert Victor, but confirms that he has heard the rumours and hopes that they will help quash 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."^[37] 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."^[38]

The rumours have persisted; 60 years later the official biographer of King George V, Harold Nicolson, was told by Lord Goddard, who was a 12-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."^[39] None of the lawyers in the case was convicted of perjury or struck off during the scandal but 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 20 years later in 1910, Newton was struck off for 12 months for professional misconduct after falsifying letters from another of his clients—the notorious murderer Dr. Hawley Crippen.^[40] In 1913, he was struck off indefinitely and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretences.^[41]

Tour of India

The foreign press suggested that Albert Victor was sent on a seven-month tour to British India from October 1889 to avoid the gossip which swept London society in the wake of the scandal.^[42] This is not true;^[43] the trip had actually been planned since the spring.^[44] Travelling via Athens, Port Said, Cairo and Aden, Albert Victor arrived in Bombay on 9 November 1889.^[45] He was entertained sumptuously in Hyderabad by the Nizam,^[46] and elsewhere by many other maharajahs.^[47] He spent Christmas at Mandalay and the New Year at Calcutta. Most of the extensive travelling was done by train,^[48] although elephants were ridden as part of ceremonies.^[49] In the style of the time, a great many animals were shot for sport.^[50]

During the trip, Albert Victor met Mrs. Margery Haddon, the wife of a civil engineer, Henry Haddon. After several failed marriages and Albert Victor's death, Margery came to England and claimed the Prince was the father of her son, Clarence Haddon. There was no evidence and her claims were dismissed. She had become an alcoholic and seemed deranged. The allegations were reported to Buckingham Palace and the head of the police Special Branch investigated. Papers in the National Archives show that neither courtiers nor Margery had any proof of the allegation. In a statement to police Albert Victor's lawyers admitted that there had been "some relations" between him and Mrs. Haddon, but denied the claim of fatherhood.^[51]

However, in the 1920s, the son, Clarence, repeated the story and published a book in the United States, My Uncle George V, in which he claimed he was born in London in September 1890, about nine months after Albert Victor's meeting with Mrs. Haddon. In 1933, he was charged with demanding money with menace and attempted extortion after writing to the King asking for hush money. At his trial the following January, the prosecution produced documents showing that Haddon's enlistment papers, marriage certificate, officer's commission, demobilisation papers and employment records all showed he was born in or before 1887, at least two years before Albert Victor met Mrs. Haddon. Haddon was found guilty and the judge, believing Haddon to be suffering from delusions, did not jail him but bound him over for three years on the condition that he made no claim that he was Albert Victor's son.^[52] Haddon breached the conditions and was jailed for a year. Dismissed as a crank, he died a broken man. Even if Haddon's claim had been true, as with other royal illegitimacies, it would have made no difference to the royal line of succession.^[51] On his return from India, on 24 May 1890, Albert Victor was created Duke of Clarence and Avondale and Earl of Athlone.^[53]

Prospective royal brides

Several women were lined up as possible brides for Albert Victor. The first, in 1889, was Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine but she did not return his affection and refused his offer of engagement.^[54][55] She married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in 1894, and was killed along with her husband and children after the Russian revolution of 1917. The second, in 1890, was a love match with Princess Hélène of Orléans, a daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, and great-granddaughter of King Louis-Philippe I, the last Bourbon King of France.

At first, Queen Victoria opposed any engagement because Hélène was Roman Catholic. Victoria wrote to her grandson suggesting another of her grandchildren Princess Margaret of Prussia, as a suitable alternative,^[56] but nothing came of her suggestion and once the couple confided their love to her, the Queen relented and supported the marriage.^[57][58] Hélène offered to convert,^[59] and Albert Victor offered to abdicate his succession rights to marry her.^[57] To the couple's disappointment, her father refused to countenance the marriage and was adamant she could not convert. Hélène travelled personally to intercede with Pope Leo XIII but he confirmed her father's verdict, and the affair ended.^[60] She later became the Duchess of Aosta.

In mid-1890, Albert Victor was attended by several doctors, but in correspondence his illness is only referred to as "fever" or "gout".^[61] Many biographers have assumed that he was suffering from "a mild form of venereal disease",^[34] perhaps gonorrhea,^[62] but there is no known source confirming this.^[63] It is claimed that in 1891 Albert Victor was subject to blackmail by two prostitutes to whom he had written incriminating letters.^[64] The letters supposedly referring to the case were sold at Bonham's auction house in London in 2002.^[65] Owing to discrepancies in the dates and spelling of the letters, however, they are suspected of being forgeries.^[66]

In 1891, Albert Victor wrote to Lady Sybil St Clair Erskine that he was in love once again, though he does not say with whom,^[67] but by this time another potential bride, Princess Mary of Teck, was under consideration. Mary was the daughter of Queen Victoria's first cousin Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. Queen Victoria was very supportive, considering Mary ideal—charming, sensible and pretty.^[68] On 3 December 1891 Albert Victor, to her "great surprise" proposed to Mary at Luton Hoo, the country residence of the Danish ambassador to Britain.^[69] The wedding was set for 27 February 1892.^[70]

Death

Just as plans for both his marriage to Mary and his appointment as Viceroy of Ireland were under discussion, Albert Victor fell ill with influenza in the great influenza pandemic of 1889–92. He developed pneumonia and died at Sandringham House in Norfolk on 14 January 1892, less than a week after his 28th birthday. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princesses Maud and Victoria, Prince George, Princess Mary, the Duke and Duchess of Teck, three doctors (Manby, Laking and Broadbent) and three nurses were present.^[71] The Prince of Wales's chaplain, Canon Frederick Hervey, stood over Albert Victor reading prayers for the dying.^[72]

The nation was shocked. Shops put up their shutters. The Prince of Wales wrote to Queen Victoria, "Gladly would I have given my life for his".^[73] Princess Mary wrote to Queen Victoria of the Princess of Wales, "the despairing look on her face was the most heart-rending thing I have ever seen."^[74] His younger brother Prince George wrote, "how deeply I did love him; & I remember with pain nearly every hard word & little quarrel I ever had with him & I long to ask his forgiveness, but, alas, it is too late now!"^[75] George took Albert Victor's place in the line of succession, eventually succeeding to the throne as King George V in 1910. Drawn together during their shared period of mourning, Prince George later married Mary himself in 1893. She became Queen on George's accession.^[76]

Conspiracy theories surrounding Albert Victor's death—that he died of syphilis or poison, that he was pushed off a cliff on the instructions of Lord Randolph Churchill or that his death was faked to remove him from the line of succession—are fabrications.^[77]

Albert Victor's mother, Alexandra, never fully recovered from her son's death and kept the room in which he died as a shrine.^[78] Poignantly, at the funeral Mary laid her bridal wreath of orange blossom upon the coffin.^[79] Remarkably, James Kenneth Stephen, Albert Victor's former tutor, refused all food from the day of Albert Victor's death and died 20 days later; he had suffered a head injury in 1886 which left him suffering from psychosis.^[80] The Prince is buried in the Albert Memorial Chapel close to St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His tomb, by Alfred Gilbert, is "the finest single example of late 19th-century sculpture in the British Isles".^[81] A recumbent effigy of the Prince in a Hussar uniform (almost impossible to see properly in situ) lies above the tomb. Kneeling over him is an angel, holding a heavenly crown. The tomb is surrounded by an elaborate railing, with figures of saints.^[82] The perfectionist Gilbert spent too much on the commission, went bankrupt, and left the country. Five of the smaller figures were only completed with "a greater roughness and pittedness of texture" after his return to Britain in the 1920s.^[81]

Legacy

During his life, the bulk of the British press treated Albert Victor with nothing but respect and the eulogies that immediately followed his death were full of praise. The radical politician, Henry Broadhurst, who had met both Albert Victor and his brother George, noted that they had "a total absence of affectation or haughtiness".^[83] On the day of Albert Victor's death, the leading Liberal politician, William Ewart Gladstone, wrote in his personal private diary "a great loss to our party".^[84] However, Queen Victoria referred to Albert Victor's "dissipated life" in private letters to her eldest daughter,^[85] which were later published and, in the mid-20th century, the official biographers of Queen Mary and King George V, James Pope-Hennessy and Harold Nicolson respectively, promoted hostile assessments of Albert Victor's life, portraying him as lazy, ill-educated and physically feeble. The exact nature of his "dissipations" is not clear, but in 1994 Theo Aronson favoured the theory on "admittedly circumstantial" evidence that the "unspecified 'dissipations' were predominantly homosexual".^[31] Aronson's judgement was based on Albert Victor's "adoration of his elegant and possessive mother; his 'want of manliness'; his 'shrinking from horseplay'; [and] his 'sweet, gentle, quiet and charming' nature",^[31] as well as the Cleveland Street rumours and his opinion that there is "a certain amount of homosexuality in all men".^[86] He admitted, however, that "the allegations of Prince Eddy's homosexuality must be treated cautiously."^[87]

Rumours that Prince Albert Victor may have committed, or been responsible for, the Jack the Ripper murders were first mentioned in print in 1962.^[88][89] It was later alleged, amongst others by Stephen Knight in Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, that Albert Victor fathered a child with a woman in the Whitechapel district of London, and either he or several high-ranking men committed the murders in an effort to cover up his indiscretion. Though repeated frequently, scholars have dismissed the claims as fantasies, and refer to indisputable proof of the Prince's innocence.^[90] For example, on 30 September 1888, when Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered, Albert Victor was at Balmoral, the royal retreat in Scotland, in the presence of Queen Victoria, other family members, visiting German royalty and a large number of staff. According to the official Court Circular, family journals and letters, newspaper reports and other sources, he could not have been near any of the murders.^[91]

Albert Victor's posthumous reputation became so bad that in 1964 Philip Magnus called his death a "merciful act of providence", supporting the theory that his death removed an unsuitable heir to the throne and replaced him with the reliable and sober George V.^[92] In 1972, Michael Harrison was the first modern author to re-assess Albert Victor and portray him in a more sympathetic light.^[93] In recent years, Andrew Cook has continued attempts to rehabilitate Albert Victor's reputation, arguing that his lack of academic progress was partly due to the incompetence of his tutor, Dalton; that he was a warm and charming man; that there is no tangible evidence that he was homosexual or bisexual; that he held liberal views, particularly on Irish Home Rule; and that his reputation has been diminished by biographers eager to improve the image of his brother, George.^[94]

Fictional portrayals

The conspiracy theories surrounding Albert Victor have led to his portrayal in film as somehow responsible for or involved in the Jack the Ripper murders. Bob Clark's Sherlock Holmes' mystery Murder by Decree was released in 1979 with "Duke of Clarence (Eddy)" played by Robin Marshall. David Wickes' Jack the Ripper was released in 1988 with Marc Culwick as Prince Albert Victor. Janet Meyers' The Ripper was released in 1997 with Samuel West as "Prince Eddy". Coincidentally, West had played Albert Victor as a child in the TV miniseries Edward the Seventh which starred his father Timothy West as the title character. The Hughes Brothers' From Hell was based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and was released in 2001. Mark Dexter portrayed both "Prince Edward" and "Albert Sickert". The story is also the basis for the play Force and Hypocrisy by Doug Lucie.^[95]

A pair of alternative history novels, written by Peter Dickinson, imagine a world where Albert Victor survives and reigns as Victor I.^[96] In Gary Lovisi's parallel universe Sherlock Holmes short story, "The Adventure of the Missing Detective", he is portrayed as a tyrannical king, who rules after the deaths (under suspicious circumstances) of both his grandmother and father.^[97] The Prince also appears as the murder victim in the first of the Lord Francis Powerscourt crime novels Goodnight Sweet Prince,^[98] as a vampire in the novel I, Vampire by Michael Romkey, and as a murder suspect in the novel Death at Glamis Castle by Robin Paige.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 8 January 1864 – 24 May 1890: His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor of Wales
• 24 May 1890 – 14 January 1892: His Royal Highness The Duke of Clarence and Avondale

Honours

British Honours^[99]

• KG: Knight of the Garter, 3 September 1883
• KP: Knight of St Patrick, 28 June 1887
• ADC(P): Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, 1887
• LL.D: Doctor of Laws, University of Dublin, 1887
• LL.D: Doctor of Laws, University of Cambridge, 1888

Foreign Honours^[99]

• Knight Grand Cross, Order of the Netherlands Lion
• Grand Cross, Order of the Tower and Sword
• Grand Cross, Order of Charles III
• Grand Cross, Order of the Osmanli
• Grand Cross, Order of the Star
• Grand Cross, Order of the Annunziata
• Grand Cross, Order of the Southern Cross

Military

• 1877–1879: Cadet aboard training ship HMS Britannia, Dartmouth, Devon
• 1879–1880: Cadet, HMS Bacchante
• Mid, 1880–1883: Promoted to Midshipman, HMS Bacchante^[99]
• Lt, 1886–1887: Appointed Lieutenant, 10th (Prince of Wales' Own) Royal Hussars^[99]
• Capt, 1887: Promoted to Captain, 9th Queen's Royal Lancers^[99]
• Capt, 1887–1889: Captain, 3rd King's Royal Rifle Corps^[99]
• Maj, 1889–1892: Major, 10th (Prince of Wales' Own) Royal Hussars^[99]

Honorary military appointments

British

• Honorary Colonel, of 4th Regiment, Bengal Infantry^[100]
• Honorary Colonel, of 4th Bombay Cavalry^[101]
• Honorary Colonel, of 1st Punjab Cavalry^[102]

Arms

With his dukedom, Albert Victor was granted a coat of arms, being the royal arms of the United Kingdom, differenced by an inescutcheon of the arms of Saxony and a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing a cross gules.^[103]

Ancestry

Notes and sources

References

• Aronson, Theo (1994). Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-5278-8.
• Bradford, Sarah (1989). King George VI. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-79667-4.
• Cook, Andrew (2006). Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-3410-1.
• Cornwell, Patricia (2003). Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed. London: Time Warner Paperbacks. ISBN 0-7515-3359-9.
• Duff, David (1980) Alexandra: Princess and Queen. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-216667-4.
• Harrison, Michael (1972). Clarence: The life of H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence and Avondale (1864–1892). London and New York: W. H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-00722-1.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery (1970). The Other Love: An Historical and Contemporary Survey of Homosexuality in Britain. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-35902-5.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery (1976). The Cleveland Street Scandal. London: W. H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-01995-5.
• Knight, Stephen (1976). Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. New York: McKay. ISBN 0-679-50711-6.
• Lees-Milne, James (1981). Harold Nicolson: A Biography. Volume 2: 1930–1968 London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-2602-7.
• Marriott, Trevor (2005). Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation. London: John Blake. ISBN 1-84454-103-7.
• McDonald, Deborah (2007). The Prince, His Tutor and the Ripper. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-3018-5.
• Meikle, Denis (2002). Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies. Richmond, Surrey: Reynolds and Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-32-3.
• Neubecker, Ottfried (1976). Heraldry: sources, symbols and meaning. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-046308-5.
• Nicolson, Harold (1952). King George the Fifth: His Life and Reign. London: Constable.
• Pope-Hennessy, James (1959). Queen Mary: 1867–1953. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
• Rumbelow, Donald (2004). The Complete Jack the Ripper: Fully Revised and Updated Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017395-1.
• Van der Kiste, John (September 2004; online edition January 2008). "Albert Victor, Prince, duke of Clarence and Avondale (1864–1892)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Accessed 1 May 2010. (Subscription required)