Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (1853-1884) - Page 3

LadyAlice · #41 09-22-2016, 06:27 AM

LL appears to have been Arts mistress just before his wife's death and after from what I read but it's not surprising they got close as she was Lou's friend.

I've read conflicting reports on where Leo stood politically. Some say he was Tory and others he was a socialist. He was probably somewhere in the grey.

I've read that Art did play around and that his mother stamped it out early as she didn't want him to turn out like his elder brothers but Leo had no connections with women other than friendships and admiration.
I'm just wondering if his homosexuality was covered up as he was the son of the monarch. Does anybody know if he had any close male friends apart from duckworth?

Denville · #42 09-22-2016, 07:10 AM

How on earth would the queen "stamp it out" if Arthur was playing around?? SHe couold not possilby do so.
I beleive that his marriage to Louise of Prussia was a good one and happy by royal standards, and it is possible that Leonie L was a good friend to both A and Louise, but perhaps she was more than a freind to him. however one discreet mistress whom his wife liked is hardly a wild career.. I suppose he had some pre marital relationships but very few Victorian men of the upper class didn't have soem.
As for Leo you seem to be taking it as a fact that he was homosexual, and IMO there's no evidence. If there had been, it would have almost certainly slipped out by now. Princess Louise's husband the Duke of Argyll was pretty certainly homosexual and there has been a fair bit of "heavy rumour" that has come out, and been mentioned in recent biographies, including the fact that their marriage wasn't a very happy one.
SO I'm sure if there was any real evidence on Leopold it wd have emerged by now. If he didn't have a wild sex life, odds are it was because of his ill health, taking up a lot of his energy.. and the fact that Victoria was a fussing and over protective mother to him...whiile he was in early manhood...
And he wasn't married long enough to have gotten out of hte "honeymoon phase"... where he might have turned ot other women...

Curryong · #43 09-22-2016, 07:45 AM

I don't know why you say, LadyAlice, that Leopold had no connections with women 'apart from friendship and admiration'. We don't know the names of several of the mistresses of Victoria's sons. They're lost to history. Leopold may have had a mistress or two, he may not. It's not compulsory for monarch's sons to have mistresses anyway, and he certainly wouldn't have gone to bed with unmarried women of his own class.

According to biographer Charlotte Zeepvat around 1878 a brother or a friend made arrangements for Leopold to be introduced to the delights of sex. This was exactly how the future Edward VIII was initiated in WW1. Fellow officers facilitated it.

Leopold also spent time entertaining Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in 1878 away from Windsor. Rudolf was already a womaniser and would become a roue. I don't think they would be spending their evenings in London reading until bedtime! He and friends often entertained actresses to supper at the Gaiety theatre in his bachelorhood. He wrote about the actress Phyllis Thornton that 'she is stouter, I think her figure is now perfect.'

However, Leopold did write to his friend and ex tutor, Robert Hawthorne Collins, about Edith Liddell's beauty, and that 'if she had been of higher rank I would myself take her to my --house. She is such a pretty bit of flesh.' (Edith died young)

So, all in all, I really don't get where this feeling is coming from that Leopold was homosexual! He wrote to his brother in law Louis of Hesse when he became engaged to Helen '...You only know Helen a little as yet --when you really know her' (the 'really' is underlined) 'then you will understand why I'm mad with joy today.'

Denville · #44 09-22-2016, 08:08 AM

If we dont know the names of some of the Mistresses of Vic's sons, how do we know they existed? Unless there was gossip that Prince X is having an affair wtih Mrs Y, (names suppressed)?
I imagine that Leo had a few pre marital affairs/flings but it might have been more diffcuclt for him than for the older sons as he was more under V's eye. She was fussing and protective, and due to his health problems he could not get away so much, for work purposes, unlike Bertie, Alfred and Arthur.

He might have been the sort of man who enjoyed a romantic friendship, with society ladies and wetn for sex to another type of woman, except for his wife.
but there simply isn't any evidence of his having any homosexual interests?

Curryong · #45 09-22-2016, 08:24 AM

There was certainly always a lot of gossip zooming around London Society with regard to Bertie the Prince of Wales and his brother Affie (Alfred) and their sexual proclivities. When I say mistresses I include brief flings with minor actresses and others, the details not having come down to us. As in the future King George V sharing the delights of an unknown young woman with his brother AV at one stage.

I don't think Leopold was in any way as louche as his two oldest brothers, though there were rumours that he was having an affair in 1879 with the beautiful and ambitious Alma, Lady Breadelbane. (He was apparently deeply in love with her.)

However, in the accepted Victorian way Leopold may have slept, while he was a bachelor, with a few actresses, Gaiety Girls, dancers, who were considered fair game I suppose by the upper classes.

I don't think Leopold and his friends were holding regular little supper parties with actresses in order to talk politics and philosophy. In other words, from all I've read, I don't believe Leopold was a virgin when he married Helen, nor do I think he'd had sex with men nor fancied males. Nor do I believe he was unfaithful to his wife with women or men during his brief marriage. Leopold and Helen were by all accounts extremely happy together.

Denville · #46 09-22-2016, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curryong

T

I don't think Leopold was in any way as louche as his two oldest brothers, though there were rumours that he was having an affair in 1879 with the beautiful and ambitious Alma, Lady Breadelbane. (He was apparently deeply in love with her.)

However, in the accepted Victorian way Leopold may have slept, while he was a bachelor, with a few actresses, Gaiety Girls, dancers, who were considered fair game I suppose by the upper classes.er.

I hope he did more than sleep with them!!

of course actresses, Gaiety girls, and lower class girls who were up for it, were indeed considered fair game for men who could pay or charm them into bed.. Middle class women were generally off bounds and upper class women were not fair game unless they were safely married. (which for some reason a lot of modern people dont seem to "get".)
I agree that its safe that Leo wasn't as big a womaniser as his 2 older brothers but he problaby had his affairs prior to marraige, just not that many.
And he was only a few years married, and was in love with his wife, so odds are that he was faithful to her....

Mbruno · #47 09-22-2016, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmkrcwi

I'm pretty sure the throne he renounced his (and his heirs) right to was Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, not The United Kingdom. Didn't all the German sovereigns do the same thing?

Well, I checked the Titles Deprivation Act and it does look like he did lose all his British titles plus his HRH. But he did not lose his place in the Order of Succession.

The German Empire was actually a federation of monarchies (kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies, principalities, etc.) presided by the King of Prussia, who also held the title of German Emperor. When the Empire was created, the constituent monarchies continued to exist, but ceded part of their sovereignty (e.g. control over monetary policy, trade, the armed forces, international relations, etc.) to the imperial government.

When the German Empire fell in 1918 , all existing kings, grand dukes, dukes and sovereign princes in the constituent member states within the empire also lost their respective thrones.

Iluvbertie · #48 09-23-2016, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Denville

What on earht do you mean he had a child as well as a Nazi Monster?

I think what is meant is that he had two children, which he did.

How much of a 'monster' his son was is a matter of degree. That he joined the Nazi party is without doubt but so did many other Germans who then didn't do any of the horrific things at all.

Curryong · #49 09-23-2016, 03:09 AM

Charles Edward was 'dispossessed' in 1919, along with other German rulers and Heads of Royal and aristocratic Houses due to uprisings by soviets. Titles, lands and a way of life gone. A lot of these royals and aristos were so one-eyed about the dangers of Communism that they couldn't see the dangers that Nazism represented. Some even believed (forlorn hope) that Adolf would facilitate the return of the monarchy.

However, it is a matter of degree. Charles Edward may not have committed terrible deeds himself, but he was certainly a prominent member of the Nazi Party, who allowed himself to be used for prestige and propaganda purposes. I don't believe he was half as influential in BRF circles as the Nazi leadership believed him to be. Nevertheless, he was certainly rather an embarrassment, to say the least, to Kings George V and VI.

Denville · #50 09-23-2016, 03:56 AM

I think that "Nazi monster" is a bit OTT. He did join the Nazi Party, and so did other German royals and aristocrats. Some changed hteir minds, others did it because it was patriotic, or because it was common to join it.
Charles Edw was I think involved a bit in the awful programme to euthanize or sterilise handicapped people, so he wasn't just someone who joined because it was expected. OTOH, other people at the time believed in sterilising the mentally ill.. and weren't Nazis.. So I wouldn't say he was a monster but he wasn't someone who innocently joined the party and just expected some social kudos...

**JessRulz** · #51 09-23-2016, 04:40 AM

Several posts have been removed.

Please remember that opinions and theories are to be backed up with facts and reliable sources - if someone asks for a source on one of your comments, it is up to you to provide it.

As always, questions to be directed to the moderating team.

LadyAlice · #52 09-27-2016, 12:44 PM

I apologise if my personal opinions offended anyone

Katrianna · #53 09-28-2016, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iluvbertie

I think what is meant is that he had two children, which he did.

How much of a 'monster' his son was is a matter of degree. That he joined the Nazi party is without doubt but so did many other Germans who then didn't do any of the horrific things at all.

I'm puzzled as to how Leopold was responsible for his son's life choices? Charles Edward was born after Leopold's death. Charles Edward became a Nazi party member of his own will and he was an adult.

Denville · #54 09-28-2016, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katrianna

I'm puzzled as to how Leopold was responsible for his son's life choices? Charles Edward was born after Leopold's death. Charles Edward became a Nazi party member of his own will and he was an adult.

No of course he wasn't responsible for C Edward.. But I think that LadyAlice (Forgive me if I m wrong) felt that CE suppressed info about Leopolds sexuality... Im not sure why his being a Nazi would mean that he did this....

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadyAlice

I apologise if my personal opinions offended anyone

I am not offended, personally. It is nothing to me, if Leopold was gay.. but I think that opinions should be based on facts...

LadyAlice · #55 10-26-2016, 04:11 PM

When Leo died did any of his brothers apart from Bertie played a part in his funeral? I know that affie went to Alice's in Darmstadt

Curryong · #56 10-26-2016, 05:28 PM

Below is a report of the funeral and the attendees, which included the Queen, British-based Royal princesses and the Prince of Wales.

15 May 1884 - FUNERAL OF THE DUKE OF ALBANY. - Trove

From this it appears that Bertie was the only brother present. Affie wasn't, and Arthur wasn't. As the latter almost certainly would not have absented himself if he'd been stationed in Britain my guess is that he was serving abroad, probably in India, and couldn't have got back in time. Don't know what Affie's excuse was, especially as Louis Battenberg (also a senior naval officer) and Prince Philip of Saxe Coburg Gotha were present.

Arthur had been on active service in Egypt against Arabi's forces a couple of years before, in 1882, and there is a chance that he was also still there at the time of Leopold's death, but IMHO it's more likely he was on the Indian sub-continent.

He went on to serve as Chief of the Bombay Armies only a few years later and he wouldn't have been given that command without extensive service in the armies of the Bombay Presidency, as it was known, first, so my guess is that Arthur was there when he got the news about Leopold. He would have been very upset as the two were close in boyhood.

CyrilVladisla · #57 10-05-2018, 08:10 PM

Prince Leopold in his cap and gown at Oxford University
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/se...Duke-of-Albany

XeniaCasaraghi · #58 10-31-2018, 12:01 AM

So I watched a documentary on Victoria and hemophilia, has anyone heard about Leopold stabbing himself in the top of his mouth with a pen?

Denville · #59 10-31-2018, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XeniaCasaraghi

So I watched a documentary on Victoria and hemophilia, has anyone heard about Leopold stabbing himself in the top of his mouth with a pen?

why woud he do that?

Curryong · #60 10-31-2018, 12:37 AM

It's possible if he was writing and stopped for a moment to check something, that he might have popped his pen in his mouth and by swinging his chair inadvertently jabbed the flesh on the top of his mouth. If it cut the skin then it would have bled copiously of course.

I have a bio of Leopold but I can't recall this incident being mentioned. However there were so many times in Leopold's life when slight accidents that wouldn't have affected a person who didn't have his condition at all, but laid him low for weeks.