It will be remembered by some of our fashionable New Yorkers that years ago extensive preparations were made here for the reception of the late lamented Prince Leopold, but that all of a sudden it was announced that he had left the country and returned to England.
The real reason for this change of programme, which so disappointed many of our New York fashionables has only lately transpired. It now comes out that the circumstances which led to the Prince’s hasty departure were in the main the same as those which led to his death, though different in details.
The Prince was a good young man, for a Prince, but still he was a man, and a young one, and he sometimes felt like assertin’ his manhood and enjoyin’ his youth. And in those cases he invariably and very naturally forgot that he was the victim of an hereditary disease, and committed imprudences, which though they would have been nothing to an ordinary man in a normal state of health, proved to be to him very disastrous.
Although on the whole of a rather reserved and studious disposition, Prince Leopold was fond of the theatre and theatrical people, like his brother, the Prince of Wales. And as often happens, his enjoyment of the theatre was as intense as it was rare. Men and women who do a thing all the time, such as going to theatres and minglin’ with theatrical people for example, think nothin’ of it; get to be rather bored by it in fact; whereas people who indulge in this sort of thing but seldom are apt to regard it as an excitement, and in these latter cases the same enjoyment acts as a nervous stimulant which in the former cases has almost no effect at all.
Well, when Prince Leopold was over in this country, stoppin’ in Canada, a New York comic opera troupe came to Montreal and then to Quebec and performed with a good deal of success. The prince attended the performance and was highly pleased. Attached to the comic opera troupe was a very pretty little New York actress who produced a profound impression upon his royal highness. She was piquant, petite, had a fine figure and fine eyes, and knew how to display the one and use the other. The Prince fell in love with her as he had before fallen in love with any number of young women.
Prince Leopold was the most susceptible to female influence of all the members of his family. He was in a chronic state of fallin’ in love and fallin’ out of it again. He was moral and all that, but his very morality only intensified his tender sentiments, just as dammin’ up a stream only makes its current more powerful. It is within bounds to assert that Prince Leopold had at least a dozen affairs of the heart durin’ his brief career, and he certainly tumbled head over ears in love with the pretty little actress.
Had he not been a really good young man and a Prince he would have formed a liaison with the actress, or have married her–but bein’ born a Prince of the proudest race in the world, and being a sincerely moral and religious young man, he did all he could do, and that was to get introduced to the little actress, make her valuable presents, and, under various pretexts, follow her around.
He formed the acquaintance of the young actress through a member of his suite, well-known formerly in New York circles, Lord Colin Campbell, quite an eccentric character himself, very fast and a queer dresser, addicted to all sorts of loud suits, formerly a member of the wild set of the Prince of Wales.
Leopold’s infatuation for the actress began to cause talk. More than this it and the sort of life it led to begin to affect the Prince’s health seriously. Every night there was a supper after the theatre, plenty of wines, high livin’ and strong cigars and little of sleep, and this sort of life soon told upon the delicate constitution of the Prince.
So biddin’ farewell to his charmer and America together, the ill-starred Prince bein’ attacked by epilepsy was obliged suddenly to leave this country without undergoin’ the hospitalities of New York, which probably would have killed him.
After all, the dead Prince was an estimable character, and deserves respect. But at the same time, with all his blue blood, he was so wretched an object of sympathy, that not one New York boy would have been willin’ to change places with this English Prince.
[Editor’s notes: No other accounts have been found suggesting that Prince Leopold was infatuated with an actress while visiting Canada in May-June, 1880, but…
In Quebec, the Prince went to see the new comic opera, The Pirates Of Penzance, performed by the D’Oyly Carte company, which had spent the previous months staging the play in New York. The company, composed almost entirely of English actors and actresses, premiered the play in New York to avoid a problem that had plagued the previous Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera, H.M.S. Pinafore. Pinafore had premiered in England, and had great success; but as there was no international copyright agreement, copycat productions of dubious quality were staged in the United States to capitalize on its popularity. Therefore, it was decided to premiere The Pirates of Penzance in North America, then return to England. If the Prince had his eye on an actress, she was likely English, not a New Yorker.
Earlier in 1880, Prince Leopold had been rumored to be engaged to Frances “Daisy” Evelyn Maynard; and then to Mary Baring. He also was good friends with Emily Liddell and her younger sister, Alice–the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.
Leopold did marry a couple of years later, to royalty, to the relief of his mother, Queen Victoria. He suffered from hereditary hemophilia, but was also said to have epileptic fits.
Leopold’s visit was cut short due to ill health, though contemporary reports suggest that his sister, Princess Louise, who was also in Canada, had a health issue more serious than Leopold’s. Louise’s husband, John Campbell, was the Governor-General of Canada; but their marriage had many periods of separation.
There are no reports that John Campbell’s wayward brother, Lord Colin Campbell, was in Canada with Prince Leopold. He would not have been a very good chaperone; in late 1884 Lord Colin Campbell had a very public divorce, in which it came out that his wife refused intimacy with him because he had syphilis. In turn, he accused her of adultery.]
