In a box in the recesses of a certain archive department is a collection of sketches that the irreplaceable artist Walter Sickert kept under strict lock and key all his life. These priceless sketches, never before disclosed, reveal what appears to be the lost Prince whose identity and story lies at the heart of the 'Jack the Ripper' mystery. The box is strategically marked 'Walter Sickert: of no particular interest'.
Herewith evidence of a child who was protected by Walter Sickert throughout his short young life, a 'boy called Joe.' Joe, or 'Jo' as he was known, was around age six in 1888, apparently born around 1882.
" Now line supposes unbroken thought, a sentence said in a breadth. Line supposes the hand is not taken off the paper. In drawing a whole figure from nature we should be three times its length from it, to oversee it properly. If we draw normally, we must draw on the scale on which we should trace, if our sheet of paper were a glass held up, and if, instead of a pencil, we traced with a diamond on this interposed pane." (Walter Sickert, ARA, 'The Study of Drawing', in 'The New Age', 1910.)
Besides its clear uniqueness, another aspect to the picture of the little prince that suggests it's been drawn from life is the evidence of bone structure rehearsal prior to executing the full facial features. There's also evidence of a technique Sickert specifically relied upon when executing portraits, perhaps even more so when drawing a child:
" When painting portraits Sickert seldom posed his models; anything 'voulu' bored him and the portrait of a posed model generally petered out. He waited for a characteristic movement, a revealing look or gesture, then seized and intensified it." (Marjorie Lilly, 'Sickert, The Painter and His Circle', pp 53.)
.. " Character, rather than conventional beauty, interested him and he was seldom inspired by the drawing room type, so beloved of his generation." Marjorie Lilly, 'Sickert, The Painter and His Circle', pp 53.)
Walter Sickert's captured childhood, genesis, ascendancy, an Irish glint in the eye and a resolute yet poignant expression that might represent the look that appeared in James II eyes when the Duke of Monmouth flung himself at his feet, begging in vain for his life . Yet there's an 'astucieux', a gentleness. Something of the interested, the tolerant. Present in the adult face of Bonnie Charlie and always present , if only a glimmer, in Walter Sickert's pictures of Edward VII.
And very apparent in the two people Walter Sickert appears to be depicting as Jo's parents, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward and Marie Jeanette Kelly, the last of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper.
Walter Sickert was witnessed spending alot of time between 1882 and 1915 looking after a boy called ' Joe', or 'Jo' , though no mention of it has been made by Sickert scholars until now. Given the dates involved in the boy's life, this 'Jo' cannot possibly be 'Joseph Sickert', born December 1925, who in 1972 claimed to be the grandchild of Prince Albert Victor Christian in Edward and Annie Elisabeth Crook. Marjorie Lilly, upon whom experts in Walter Sickert's life rely, appears to have met the boy 'Jo' when he was in his early twenties, in 1914. She wrote the following story in her book 'Walter Sickert, the Painter and his Circle' about an experience in 1914:
...' A Special Protegé of Sickert's was a boy called Joe; I never knew his surname or whether he possessed any talent for painting. An ex-pupil from the Westminster, he was now a soldier, waiting to be sent to France. There was something very moving about Joe with his round, candid face, his shock of fair hair, and his shy friendly smile; he had such a great capacity for happiness. Whenever he could get leave he would be present on Wednesday's with his girl; sitting side by side, they seldom spoke, and he had no eyes for anyone but the Master. He worshiped Sickert....It was enough for him just to be there, listening and watching, in an ecstasy of wonder. ...
..But Joe was sent to France and in afew weeks he was lying dead with a bullet through his brain.
Christine wrote to his girl and asked her to come and see us on Wednesdays, just as before. The girl answered by thanking Christine for the invitation but she was sure we'd understand, she didn't want to see Fitzroy Street or any of us, ever again.
After Sickert heard of the death of Joe he shut himself up for three days and would not open his door. When he emerged, he never spoke of Joe and no one dared to mention his name.'
Quotation taken from 'Sickert, The Painter and his Circle', Marjorie Lilly, Elek London, 1971.
The pictures of the young royal boy in Walter Sickert's secret and unpublished sketches appear to have been drawn between 1881-1914/1915. Many seem to have been drawn for the little boy himself. They are something of a little boy's 'life story book', a compilation of personalised pictures about his life as apparent heir to both the English Throne, (the Hanoverian estate), and the Royal House of Stuart. They appear to celebrate the lost life of the Lost Prince, who we might now safely say is the child who's always been thought to have been at the heart of the 'Jack the Ripper' case mystery.
Walter Sickert's secret pictures reveal the boy's mother, Catholic heiress 'Mary Kelly', his father, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward of Wales, his grandfather, the future King Edward VII and his grandparents, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. They seem to celebrate a Stuart ancestry and illustrate the extraordinary adventures of the Bonnie Prince Charlie, the legends of the King Arthur that Prince Charlie loved, and stories about the lost Stuart Kings.The little Prince in the picture appears to be about six years old. There's a very strong resemblance to all King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra's young children, though it's apparent that he's none of these. There's a particularly strong resemblance to Princess Maud, Prince Eddy's sister, as she appeared at two years old . Yet the lost prince is visibly more fragile. There's something of the faun, the baby deer about him.
He demonstrates the fragility apparent in the Stuart children. And his facial expression evokes another age .
Compare the little boy's bone structure to that of his purported grandfather, the future King Edward VII, ( left). Striking similarities do not exclude the all important skull shape, the arch of the nose, the positioning of the eyes, height of the brow and tendency in the flow of the hair. The little boy's key features, however, are curiously accentuated, beyond that which one might expect in a younger individual.
Arguments against making facial feature comparisons between one European royal progeny and the next present themselves instantly. Nonetheless, it 's as well in this particular case to compare the boy's features and bone structure with those that dominate the House Of Stuart, evident, needless to say, in the Bonnie Prince Charlie, (right.)
Striking similarities between the arch of the nose, the placement of the eyes, the shape of the brow and the cheekbone structure are not absent. On the face of it, the boy appears to have inherited the 'Stuart' features apparent in his grandfather the future King Edward VII and accentuated them with his those of his immediate ancestors, which suggestibly</FONT> derive from a less diluted Stuart source.
Young 'Jo' closely resembles the future Edward VII, then Bertie, Prince of Wales; the early nineteenth century Stuart monarch, Victor Emanuel, better still. He appears to resemble the young people of the Saxe Coberg Hanoverian dynasty and the Stuarts of the early eighteenth century to a striking extent.
Stuart males on the whole are fragile in early childhood and as adolescents, fairly tall, slim but well built; graceful and slender waisted. (We're talking about the Royal ancestral line only, which bears no relation to the modern fads). A marked fragility perpetuates their young lives, dating back to Charles I, having less and less effect as they develop. In Rome there was anxiety over the very young Bonnie Charlie, whose liveliness is gratefully recorded by The Duke of Lyria, son of James III elder illegitimate brother the Duke of Berwick, who's recorded describing him as remarkable for his dexterity, grace and bearing, a fluent reader, skillful with the gun, adept on horseback, apt at killing birds with a crossbow, speaking both Italian and English perfectly. ( Age six and a half. ) James III private secretary, James Edgar, speaks in less rapturous but nonetheless positive terms about the very young Bonnie Charlie, ( 27th march 1727) commenting on 'daily improvement in mind and body.' ' He speaks English very well, French and Italian a very little worse. He has a stable of little horses and diverts himself by riding.' As for sport, it was shuttlecock and tennis. He was an 'excellent dancer'. At age six and half, Charles, calling himself 'Charles P' ( Charles Prince) wrote
I thank you mightily for your kind letter. I shall strive to obey you in all things. I will be very dutiful to Mama, and not jump too near her. I shall be much obliged to the Cardinal for his animals. I long to see you soon and in good health. I am
your most Dutiful and affectionate Son
(The whimsical and self affirming letter format, the individualized placing of the capital letters near the signature and the quirky 'Charles P' ( ie Prince Charles) signature is absolutely typical. An independent, imaginative and very confident boy, ducking and diving his pedantic tutors.)
Next, a sketch of 'Jo' in his teenage years. He begins to take on Prince Eddy's adolescent appearance. During his teenage years Eddy perhaps resembled Queen Alexandra more than he did during any other period. Walter Sickert's loving relationship with young 'Jo', described by Marjorie Lilly, is apparent in the little engraving on the side of the picture: 'IIII Jo', i.e '4 Jo', meaning, 'For Jo'.
Compare the treasured sketch of the boy 'Jo' c 1907-10 (above) with a photograph from the Danish Royal Archives of his father Prince Eddy's mother, Queen Alexandra, age sixteen, ( right) taken three years before before she left Denmark to wed Bertie, the Prince of Wales, future King Edward VII. Her beautiful features are visibly present in the sketch of the young boy. See also (below) a picture of Prince Eddie, age sixteen.
Jo(e) will have been interested in the fact that his father, HRH Prince Albert Victor Edward of Wales, KG was first comissioned a Lieutenant in the Kings Royal Hussars in 1885. He'll have been keen to hear about Eddy's equerry, ( 1885) Captain the Honourable Alwyn Greville ( Bertie's Darling Daisy's brother in law,) Major Archer Shee of the 10th regiment and Captain Peary, his riding master , who insisted Eddie start his training at 6.30 every morning for his first six months. Since Jo's father prized little above the 10th regiment he'll have wanted to hear about field days under the Duke Of Cambridge, (1886), the Tenths' NCO's, hunting with the York regiment, the Aldershot Royal review of 1887 and the 1888 appointment to Captain of the B troop, Kings Royal Hussars. He'll have heard all about the Order of the Knight of Justice of St John of Jerusalem, and being escorted by the 10th Regiment through the City on the way to receiving the Freedom of the City of York.
And he'll have listened attentively as his grandfather the future King Edward VII's widely reputed horsemanship was outlined.
King Edward was a master of the B Troop's horses. And famously, of horsemanship generally-the races in particular.
Prince Eddie, when new to the Kings Royal Hussars, spent a good deal of time with the men who'd trained alongside his father, the Prince of Wales, many of whom were now Colonels in the 10th regiment.
Among the sketches (opposite) is a dismounted Hussar with a puffed up chest, squared chin and beard, ostensibly Prince Eddie's father, Bertie, future Edward VII; in 1888, Colonel in the King's Royal Hussars, a highly skilled horseman. Note the multiple feather helmet plume on this Hussar, which denotes status of Colonel. See it in the CDV of Bertie, Prince of Wales , future King Edward VII ( above.) The sketched Hussar is training a younger man, ( Eddy, presumably); he maneuvers a flag to summon requisite moves from soldier and his steed.
Little 'Jo' appears to have wanted to emulate the training skills his father and grandfather acquired when in training for Captaincy of the B Troop, King's Royal Hussars.
Walter Sickert has sketched 'Jo' doing his best to train his father's horses, presumably right after the little boy said he knew he could do it....!
Note the way in which the little boy's supposed early equestrian training is entered into from all angles. The horse is proportionately as young as the boy, Sickert hasn't drawn him a military stallion. Walter Sickert's giving the little boy serious quality time.
The same little boy, horsewhip in hand, is sketched on the same page as a beautiful picture of his mother, Mary Kelly, who's visibly pregnant. A storyteller bends down to greet him as he stands listening, horsewhip in hand. The implication in the sketch is that the little boy's 'inside his mother's tummy' . Walter Sickert appears - presumably whilst drawing the sketch- to have been telling him 'This is what your Mama looked like, this was your Mama .'
Walter Sickert's secret sketches show baby 'Jo' carried along by his bowler hatted gentleman father, presumably, who's strolling down the street alongside a midwife with a trustworthy, genteel and considerate expression. Little Jo's starting his life courtesy of a strictly private gentleman's arrangement, perhaps via a Catholic Convent. (Note that Prince Eddy's picture- Prince Eddie it probably is- demonstrates the slightly elongated, turned up, 'Sobieski' or 'Mackenzie' Stuart' nose, often deployed by artists wishing to imply a 'Stuart' connection to personalities present in their paintings.) Our Eddie is of course no less a Stuart than any confederate counterpart.
Walter Sickert's secret sketches contain pictures of the little Prince as a toddler being walked about by his guardians. The sketch shown below suggests that at around age two, the little Prince was toddling around the back streets of Whitechapel and presumably the length and breadth of Cleveland Street, holding a Matronly Catholic hand. Walter Sickert etches the little boy Prince in the knee length skirt that 'well to do' boys wore until age three, wearing the traditional ribbon at the top of his pulled back, ringleted, shoulder- length hair. Victorian baby girls wore skirts that reached down almost to their ankles, and their hair, very long, loose, ringleted and elaborately ribbonned. Cast a quick glance at the coloured ambrotype CDV of the little aristocrat Oscar Wilde at age two, (right). Oscar's dress is knee length, and his hair is tied with one high ribbon at the top. The toddler holding the matron's hand in the sketch below is an aristocrat boy, not a little girl. The little Prince.
The same sketch paper ( see below) on which the toddler Prince appears is covered in pictures of characters from Cleveland Street, 1888; rather mawkish looking backstreet teenage boys. Apparently, the Telegraph Boys who worked for both the Post Office in Cleveland Street and for 'Kelly's Library at no. 21'. Where Catherine 'Kitty' Eddowes, aka Catharine Kelly, worked secretly for Fenian Factions and Mary Kelly and Albert Edward, while betraying Chief John Littlechild of Special Branch. The long nosed persona resembles Montague Druitt, ( probably) or perhaps Lord Heuston.
Note that above the picture of the toddler there's a sketch of a Lion Cub , emblem of the House of Stuart and particular favourite of Cardinal Henry Stuart, ( Henry I and IX ), Bonnie Prince Charlie's brother, whose Villa 'La Rocca' at Frascati, near Rome, still holds several examples in the crumbling fountains and resilient stonework, ( see right).
Suggestibly, if we go by Walter's pictures, Secret Stuarts working with Fenian factions in the East and West End of London were waiting for the political climate to adapt to the extent that they could make known the existence of the little heir throughout the British Empire . This little 'Stuart Prince's' reputation as heir apparent appears to have been envisaged by the young Hanoverian princes as a peaceful (and permanent) solution to the politically volatile 'Irish Question.'
Walter Sickert's sketches appear to suggest that Conspirators or rather 'Confederates' in the plan to restore the British throne to the House of Stuart, and England and Ireland to one Stuart King, seem not to have left the young Prince to the unique supervision of back street Convent staff, as might be anticipated.
The box of secret pictures contains a picture of a back street 'Confederate' Stuart disguised quite well in an ordinary man's working clothes, elevating a horse-whip or kane of some kind . Unless the history books are entirely mistaken as to features in the Stuart line, he appears to resemble Bonnie Charlie's brother, Cardinal Henry Stuart, 'King Henry and I and IX ' .
The back street Stuart Confederate carries a type of rod, or staff, which you would expect to see in the hand of the driver of a horse drawn Victorian cab or bus. It tends to emphasise the confederate's idiosynchracies somehow, ( Catholic Stuart in this case); one would expect a man with features so very like Cardinal Henry Stuart I and IX to carry a staff of some kind.
Note that beside the 'Secret Stuart', or 'Confederate Stuart' holding a staff, or horse whip, Walter Sickert originally drew a figure holding the hand of a small child, who can still be seen in the picture. ( All tear lines are Walter Sickert's own. He, or the little boy, for whom these pictures were obviously drawn, preserved the pictures he wanted to). Beneath the picture of the child depicted walking along holding someone's hand is a Catholic nun, carrying a little baby; 'Jo', apparently.
When in the East Enda Lundun, Jo was dressed in the braces and high waisted mid length trousers London children wore 1870-1920. He doesn't seem to have been togged up any more than the others.
Despite precautions that the Secret Stuarts appear to have taken over the little Prince's protection, he appears ( age three or so, around 1886) to have enjoyed wandering about the London backstreets , hands in pockets, making friends and turning up to tea. Walter Sickert's sketch (above) reveals an interesting character coming across him outside a backyard gate . He seems to be saying "What might you be doing here, Jo(e)?"
'Jo' appears to have some idea that he's been 'wandering about' despite being asked not to. He's recognised the visitor, who carries the traditional artist's 'Gladstone bag' and sports the seventeenth century Italian origin broad rimmed hat ( recommended by Oscar Wilde, in the Pall Mal Gazette,1884 ) that the earlier impressionists and 'Pre-Raphaelite brothers' promoted. He's wearing a painter's smock and a loose waistcoat that no longer spans his widened stomach. Not a burly local, then. A visiting artist, late middle age, who's revived his revolutionary Whitechapel sympathies ( cognisance re Jo.) The little boy's larger-than-life friend resembles William Morris, Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood artist and proactive socialist, who according to newly surfaced 1888 information from the Specialist Operations Retained Archives at Special Branch, Scotland Yard, regularly inspired Rebels at meetings in the East End of London in 1888 to the extent he was supervised by spymasters Melville and Jenkinson a great deal.
Note that little Jo's reflection appears in a mirror at the gate. He's shown looking up in surprised innocence at the enquiring visitor. Behind the back-yard a high, palacial building emerges. The Pre-Raphealite brotherhood often incorporated a mirror in their detailed paintings ( 'The Awakening Conscience',1853, Holman Hunt, 'Take Your Son, Sir' Ford Maddox Brown,1821-1853). Instead of painting a reflection of the scenario they were painting onto a mirror's glass, the Pre Raphealites painted incidences or memorabilia from their principal subject's past , as if to suggest that past events cast a shadow on the (often tragic) scene. Walter Sickert's sketched a Pre-Raphealite artist greeting a boy whose past appears behind a mirror in which his precise yet unaltered reflection appears. Walter Sickert's message : Fact is, nothing about the past alters the present . We see the present, we see the little Prince. We glimpse into the past, we see the Palacial turrets- and the little Prince. The subject is an innocent boy, rightful heir to the Palace.
Both the boy and his reflection look up at the amiable Pre Raphaelite in innocent inquiry. This is typical of Sickert's genie. William Morris, we see, 1886, knows about the little Prince hidden by political rebels in the East End of London.
Jacobites concealed their secrets in paintings involving mirror reflections. For the Jacobites, the mirror reflection never reflected the scene in the rest of the painting, and instead, usually gave a clue about some secret. Here we have a glimpse at the Jacobite secret the artist conceals, since this is a secret and unpublished sketch. An undisguised reflection of the Happy Prince.
Little Jo, Eddie's son, seems to have spent alot of his time with a little girl by the name of Alice Margaret Crook. She was Walter Sickert's little girl, not Eddie's. So Sickert's evidence suggests. Walter seems to have treasured his lovely pictures of this little plaited character, some the size of a thumbnail, throughout his life. She seems to have been a little younger than Jo, but quite abit taller, which one might expect- little Jo was obviously very frail in childhood, while the Sickerts were all very tall and strong. The two children are not blood brother and sister, and the family physiognomy differences are distinct. This picture will represent the children's appearance c. 1890, two years after the ripper murders, around the time of the ongoing investigations consequent to the 'Cleveland Street affair'.
Alice's life story and he connection to little Jo is explored fully under 'Walter Sickert's Alice.'
Below, Walter's drawn Jo and a secret little girl, probably little Alice, joining a procession during one of their sejours with the Royal family or their close acquaintance . They're probably at Goodwood. See how they stop to look at us. As ever, when Walter Sickert sets secret characters in context for a formal audience, their faces aren't penciled in. Presumably, the Royal family at first suspected no violent interference from Special Branch section d in respect of the little boy. By Walter's pictures, unplanned royal children seem to have been adopted into the circle without exclusion on a number of occasions. Perhaps Thickbroom, Algie, Swinscow and 'young Mouldy, Dodger and Carrots' , Jo's East End friends, saw Joe in 'is little whistle (suit) and exclaimed ; ' Cor look at 'is togs!' etc.etc. ' With all the swells- and nobby persons!' Certainly the 'persons' in the picture are making quite a theatrical display of their nobbiness, and flaunt the flamboyant dandy demonstration of the cane prescribed by trend setter Oscar Wilde.
Walter Sickert seems to have made copies of the procession picture. This next one's slightly fuller. Perhaps the first got torn in a fight between Alice and Joe about who should have it!
In the park and all so gay! With all the swells and nobby persons!
Notice little Alice has gone off to see another little girl near the back of the procession, leaving Prince Jo behind the two nobs who're still larking with their fancy kanes. Those two nobs are very suggestibly Walter Sickert and Prince Eddy. The children are presumably their own, Alice and Jo.
The Special Branch book containing lists of Actions and Operations 1888 from the Special Operations Retained Archive details an extrordinary looking file, suggestibly referring to the Lost Prince 'Jo',/Joe' entitled : 'King of the Fenians said to be at Goodwood.' King is an unambiguous term. Special Branch 1888 reference file no : 4099. The reference differs distinctly from others on the same page. It's referencing/number pattern type tends to signify files pertaining to Royal Security arrangements.
The Special Branch evidence alone would tend to suggest that a 'King', connected to Fenian hopes and aspirations, was being sheilded circa 1885-95 ( no precise date is given on the reference) by Special Branch and Secret Service , ie Jenkinson's spies, and on occasions, hidden at Goodwood. 'Said to be at', as marked on the Special Branch files, denotes Informants' or (more particularly in this case) Secret Service Information via Jenkinson's select spies; an opened file (as indicated in the photo here) indicates the follow up.
They're probably referring to 'Jo'. 'King.' There was never any question of an open acknowledgement of a Fenian King, 'no such a one existed'. Senior Special Branch detectives are calling him 'King', which tends to suggest that he's either been recognised as legitimate heir, ie heir to a married Royal couple ( no evidence has yet surfaced of a marriage certificate between Eddie and any of his lovers), or that his status as a 'Stuart King' has been recognised by Special Branch as an entity of itself. The Stuart descendants of the displaced King James II unfailingly referred to themselves as English 'Kings', the Bonnie Prince Charlie ( for example) calling himself 'Charles III' and signing 'Charles R'.
It will have been a small step for Stuart heirs to have been christened 'Kings' by Fenian rebels.
Suggestibly, this 'King' was effectively uniting splintered Irish Fenian Factions under one banner, to one intent and purpose. 'King'. And he's been placed somewhere safe, apparently, quite possibly while the 1888 Fenian business was going on, at 'Goodwood.' Clearly Special Branch / the Jenkinson Spy Ring are taking a serious interest in the whereabouts of the one they call 'King'. And they've located him. He's being carefully kept at a place where the Prince of Wales, future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra regularly visited well known and trusted acquaintance. 'Goodwood.'I have uncovered pages from a child's photo album that apparently belonged to a little boy associated to both Goodwood and the Royal family. He'd apparently been presented with a blank family photograph album commissioned for children close to Bertie, Prince of Wales, and Alexandra of Wales. The boy who collated the album's pictures is clearly close to Alexandra. He seems to have been given immediate access to private Royal photographs of Alexandra's children, taken whilst they were at Goodwood. The album also apparently contained numerous photographs of soldiers in uniform, dating approx 1870.
The album pages are strewn with members of Bertie and Alexandra's young royal family or CDV's of soldiers in uniform, and dispersed with comments written by a young child and an apparently guiding adult hand. They suggestibly belonged to Prince Eddie, as a small boy. The little boy seems to have cut off Eddie's rather lovely shoes, (right) and stuck them under the table on the little picture on the left. This was Eddie in one of the somewhat dotty moments his tutors eg Dalton report seeing him experience on occasion..!
I've printed here, a study of a group of gentry visiting Goodwood, which the little boy author stuck on the same album page ( verso). The boy keeping the photo album has apparently been demonstrated the gentlemen and ladies' individual names, penciled in by a contemporaneous hand. He's written the title of the picture, 'Goodwood', himself, ( apparently under guidance). The child's handwriting coincides with Eddie's as a young boy. Interesting to note that the picture's entered in the photo album by the boy author some years after it was taken; Bertie and Alexandra in the photo appear as they were in their second year of marriage, ie the year Eddie was later born. Insomuch, the photo album is something of a 'life story book', a record of a child's life, in keeping with the style of Walter Sickert's secret pictures. I believe the little photograph album to be Eddie's. He features in its picture below. Note the picture of the Queen Alexandra at the centre.
Of all the Saxe Coberg offshoots it is Eddie whose physique and disposition emanates his displaced Stuart ancestors' most closely. Jo(e), born of an Irish Stuart mother and a father with Prince Eddy's Saxe Coberg/Danish make up , would be expected to have the recognisable slender waist, deportment, quick grace, a steady build -and emanate his father's physique and disposition more than that of any other Royal. Walter Sickert's secret sketches would tend to demonstrate that he did, distinctly.
Walter Sickert appears to have sketched a number of pictures of 'Jo' in adolescence.
Left, a picture of Eddy in his adolescence, age eighteen, seated with his family.
Below we see 'Jo' at work doing the gardening, presumably in some garden well known to Walter Sickert, sketched with his face turned away from us, in keeping with Walter Sickert's method of keeping identity secret. Compare the youg man's deportment and build against the many pictures of Eddie available today.
Above: Jo(e) in formal attire, age twenty-one or so.
At age twenty or so, by Walter Sickert's pictures, the young prince's six/ seven year old and adolescent features combine. His puppy fat, which both he and Eddie retained until their early twenties, appears to have left him.
Walter Sickert's left us a picture of Eddie's Stuart son Jo in maturity, aged about twenty-one years old. His rather beautiful face appears to combine the hypothesized Stuart ancestry an Eddie's more mature features, which were very apparent when he was about twenty-eight, when he was very slender. Eddy was also a slender eighteen year old ( see above.)
We can see both the picture of the child and the later picture of the adolescent who so closely resembles Queen Alexandra, in the young man's face.
The portrait of the BPC dates from the days when the ransom of every estate in England was placed on his head, and not one person turned him in.
1. Bonnie Charlie's now awa',
3. Many a gallant sodger gaught,
4. Whene'er I hear the blackbird sing,
5. Sweet the lav'rock's note and lang,
Another little Celtic ditty that the 19th Century Special Branch dreaded utterly and absolutely. The Jacobites.
The old Celtic Ballad that tells the story of the Bonnie Prince Charlie's flight from England into exile consequent to the catastrophic battle on Culloden Moor, 'Speed Bonny boat'.. 'Speed Bonnie Boat, like a bird on a wing, Onward the sailor's cry. Carry the lad that's born to be King, Over the sea to Skye'.. could almost have come from Mendelssohn's pen.
'Speed Bonny Boat' was on Prince Eddie's shelves, apparently, in the 1880's format. Eddie's love of Robert Louis Stevenson, (poet and writer 1850-1894) is made apparent ( it is severally) by his University friend and colleague Harry Wilson, the Cambridge Chancellor's medalist for English verse, in a light hearted poem he dedicated to him from which we extract the following lines-
'I made the burglous entry vile and, took from your shelves "Treasure Island". My brother wanted it to read, so please forgive the desperate deed....' (Harry Wilson, to Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, 1885.)Robert Louis Stevenson, author of 'Treasure Island' frequently alluded to the Stuart's and their cause. He extended the Bonnie Charlie 'To Skye' ballad, and gave it a poignant, contemporaneous 1880's feel.
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry a soul he sailed on a day,
Over the sea to Skye.
Mull was astern. Rum on the port,
Eigg on the Starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul,
Where is that glory now?
Sing me a song of a lad who is gone.
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry a soul he sailed on a day,
Over the sea to Skye.
Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that’s gone!
Sing me a song of a lad who is gone.
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry a soul he sailed on a day,
Over the sea to Skye.
Billows and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry a soul he sailed on a day,
Over the sea to Skye.
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894.
Research Copyright Felicity J Lowde.