Customer Reviews
Prince Eddy. - By: Mr. Adrian J. Gardner, 11 Jun 2006 
The point of this book seems to want to prove that Prince Eddy 'would have made a fine king & changed the face of the British monarchy'.Unfortunately for me, the book seems to meander as much as Prince Eddy's mind didin his life.Far too much space is devoted to prove the obvious fact that he was not Jack the Ripper or maybe not involvedin the Cleveland Street scandal & far too many other pages are devoted to subjects that really have no bearing on his life.A muddling & unsatisfactory book.
a fresh look at Prince Eddy - By: K. van Amelorde, 12 Mar 2006 
Andrew Cook sets out to have a fresh look on HRH Prince Albert Victor of Wales or popular known as Prince Eddy.
The prince was the eldest son of Edward VII. & Queen Alexandra & the elder brother of King George V. He already diedin 1892. So he never became Prince of Wales (1901) or King (1910) as it had meant to be.
The prince seems to be largely forgotten (except for some history buffs) & his meager historical reputation is a bad one - stupid, involvedin a homosexual scandal & suspected to be Jack the Ripper.
Andrew Cook has a different view of the Prince: popular & charismatic like the late Diana Princess of Wales, not guilty of any crimes history seems to believe he committed, a key role figure who would have made a fine king & would have changed the face of the British monarchy.
Quite opposing views: did Andrew Cook prove his point with his biography?
The book offers indeed a very interesting fresh look on the Prince. It is the first proper full fleshed biography; the life to this prince is not just a footnotein the biographies of his parents or this brother & his wife, Queen Mary, who had been Prince Eddy's fiancée. I feel that this is very positive.
Tat Prince Eddy was indeed not Jack the Ripper had been proved. His involvementin the homosexual Cleveland Street Scandal is open to debate. Andrew Cook writes in-depth about it & one wonders why if the Prince was not involved. Not very convincing!
For the argument that the Prince was not the brightest of persons the authors seems to believe that the education he received was inadequate (that is to say it was not Eddy's fault) or that the reputation was not deserved: Page 109 states "he who so notoriously reacted with indolence & inattention could spend long evenings concentrating on the complexities of whist, furiously energetic afternoons playing hockey or lacrosse, because these things mattered to him.
In my view not at all a great or convincing argument.
That he was charismatic & popular as Princess Diana is not proved at all. The author seems to be taken the usual dues to royalty as a real prove of being popular & loved by the population. On the other hand he states that "other than the Queen & the Princes & Princess of Wales ....the faces of the royal family were not well known (pages 132). So does he want to say that a basically unknown prince was as popular as the late Princess Diana? Does that make sense? My answer is simply no. For the aspect of charisma I could not find any prove of that.
The author states that Prince Eddy had made no mark on history as he done nothing remarkable or even reprehensible (page 278). Yes, this is indeed true (quite different from Princess Diana I may add). Mr. Cook continues this statement by adding that the Prince was "spotless" & because goodness is dull, he was easily forgotten. I feel this carries the notion too far. I rather feel as there was indeed not much about this Prince he was forgotten. The whole book did not give one single aspect why this Prince should be remembered as somebody remarkable who would have made a great king.
However, I would grant Mr. Cook to have been proving that the historic reputation could have been better. Eddy was liked by his family & circle. He was properly a charming, but rather uninteresting person. Nice company but not much more.
That he had the stuff for a great king, I cannot see this.
It was interesting to read this book & see if Andrew Cook can prove his basic points. I believe he did not do this as he seems to be "obsessed" by the idea of Prince Eddy being something more & better than historic reputation had it. Nevertheless I enjoyed reading the book.
