EDDY & HÉLÈNE ... an impossible match
by Prince Michael of Greece
If Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale,
‘Eddy’ to his family and friends, had lived to become king, Britain might have
had a Roman Catholic queen. He certainly hoped it would. Biographers have
dismissed Eddy’s love for Princess Hélène of Orléans as a thing of no
consequence, the passing whim of an ineffectual prince who did the monarchy a
favour by dying. But the recent discovery of a cache of original documents
relating to their romance casts a new light on the affair, showing just how much
the relationship meant to the couple themselves, and the lengths to which their
families went in searching for a settlement that would allow them to marry.
Ultimately, the religious obstacles proved too great, to the lasting sorrow of
all concerned. Echoes of the affair lingered for many years, as this collection
shows, though Eddy did not long survive the end of his hopes.
He lived long enough to contract a ‘suitable’ engagement to
a childhood friend before dying of infl uenza in the winter of 1891-1892, and
his reputation almost died with him. So little evidence was known until now of
the man he was – the man Hélène and those close to him knew – that later
generations created their own myth to fi ll the blank. But the newly-discovered
material in this book includes the letters Eddy sent to Hélène, which open a
unique window into the character of a muchmaligned prince, and suggest that his
whole biography may need to be rewritten ...
To purchase the book:
http://www.royalbooks.se/kategori/4/books.html
No comments:
Post a Comment