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That's amazon.com/ad-free

1:29

podcasts to catch up

1:31

on the latest episodes without the ads. In

1:42

a 2019 interview with the writer Ellen

1:44

Lavelle, historian Hallie Rubenholle stated that the

1:46

identity of Jack the Ripper was irrelevant.

1:49

I'm not interested in who he is, she went on.

1:52

And listen, why would she be? This came

1:54

in the wake of Rubenholle's brilliant book, The

1:56

Five, which examined the lives of the five

1:58

canonical victims of the Nine- 19th century

2:00

London ripper. Rubenhold wished to

2:03

shine a light on the lives of the women who were

2:05

killed in the East End of London in 1888, rather

2:08

than gourly focusing on the details of

2:10

their deaths, as so many accounts of

2:12

Jack the Ripper, by so-called ripperologists, have

2:14

done. And she has a

2:17

really good point. But as a

2:19

historian of masculinity and manhood, I am actually

2:21

interested in who he was. Or maybe I

2:23

should be more precise and say I'm interested

2:25

in who they said he was, both at

2:27

the time in the East End of London, and

2:30

now. Why

2:32

might this interest me? Well, the reasons

2:34

are twofold. Firstly, we are

2:36

certain, or we're as certain as we

2:38

can be, that the person who we know

2:40

as Jack the Ripper was a man, a

2:42

man who violently ended the lives of

2:44

multiple women. His masculinity, I

2:47

think, is key to this violence, and

2:49

we must not, therefore, shy away from

2:51

asking what it was about Victorian masculinity

2:53

in particular that so twisted his ideology

2:56

of gender and of sex that he

2:58

committed these crimes. This is vital,

3:00

I think, because we are experiencing a

3:02

very well-documented epidemic of violence against women perpetrated

3:05

by men in our own time. So I

3:07

don't feel really that we have earned

3:10

the right to look away as men. Perhaps

3:12

there are toxic elements of this Victorian

3:15

masculinity that remain with us now that

3:17

might, in some way, account

3:19

for our contemporary iterations of

3:22

violence. And surely they ought

3:24

to be identified, explored, dissected,

3:26

and expunged. Secondly, of

3:28

the men that have been named as

3:30

likely suspects, all but one is not

3:32

Jack the Ripper. And perhaps none

3:34

of them are. If you Google

3:36

the Ripper now, their names will instantly

3:38

appear, and then they have been preserved

3:40

for posterity in the same sentence as

3:42

the most notorious serial killer, perhaps, of

3:44

all time. Some of those

3:47

names, true enough, are associated with other

3:49

crimes, so therefore they've been linked to

3:51

this. Others, however, have

3:53

been accused because they were not English,

3:55

or because they were poor, or because

3:57

they struggled with mental health conditions. And

4:00

I think, much like Halley did

4:02

with the female victims, their reputations need

4:04

a re-examination too, do they not? So

4:08

in this After Dark limited series,

4:10

Maddie and I will explore four

4:12

of the canonical suspects linked to

4:14

the murders of Mary Ann Nichols,

4:16

Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine

4:19

Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

4:22

Vibrant and valued 19th century lives

4:24

snuffed out in the most violent

4:26

and degrading way by the

4:29

man they called the Whitechapel murderer, Leatherraper

4:32

or Jack the

4:34

Ripper. The

4:42

first suspect, Prince Albert

4:44

Victor. Prince

5:09

Albert Victor Christian Edward, Duke

5:12

of Clarence and Avondale, grandson

5:14

to Queen Victoria was

5:16

Jack the Ripper. Or so

5:18

the story goes. The only

5:21

problem is, those who would tell this

5:23

story cannot quite agree on what the

5:25

story is. You see, the

5:28

Prince was gay. Or was he? There

5:31

were rumours of a police raid on a male

5:33

brothel in 1889, certainly, the year after the

5:38

Whitechapel murders. One

5:40

young man, taken up in that raid,

5:42

supposedly named the Prince as a client

5:44

in order to secure his release. But

5:47

to some, the fact that Albert Victor

5:49

may have been sexually attracted to men,

5:51

and remember we don't know that he

5:53

was, was somehow enough

5:55

to convince them that he could

5:57

violently kill women as a result.

6:00

an oddly intersecting Venn

6:02

diagram of homophobia and

6:04

misogyny. Others were

6:06

not convinced he was same-sex attracted at

6:09

all. He was the

6:11

killer, they mused, but wasn't

6:13

linked to male sex workers, but

6:16

female sex workers. Dr.

6:18

Thomas Edmund Alexander Stowell was

6:21

a physician, though not the

6:23

prince. In fact, he

6:25

was only three when leather apron

6:27

stalked the east end. That,

6:30

however, did not stop him from

6:32

posthumously diagnosing the prince with syphilis

6:35

and linking him with the crimes of

6:37

Jack the Ripper. Stowell

6:39

later retracted his assertions in a

6:41

letter published after his death in

6:43

November 1970, but

6:46

they went on to form the

6:48

basis for Stephen Knight's Jack the

6:51

Ripper, the Final Solution, which fed

6:53

significantly into these theories surrounding the

6:56

prince. Knight

6:58

claimed that the prince had contracted

7:00

syphilis from a female sex

7:02

worker in the West Indies. As

7:05

a result of this, he had gone into a

7:08

steady and violent medical decline.

7:10

Now, delirious with rage and

7:12

bent upon revenge, the

7:15

prince stalked the east end of

7:17

London, taking revenge on its

7:19

sex workers. We're

7:21

familiar with the iconic image of the

7:24

Ripper in the black top hat. We

7:26

can hear the clip of his shoes

7:28

on the cobblestones as he prays on

7:31

his victims. And Prince

7:33

Albert Victor certainly was the type of

7:35

man who would have worn such an

7:37

item. It all fits. So

7:41

what are the facts? How

7:44

comfortably does fact and fiction sit side

7:46

by side in this instance? And

7:49

despite the inconstancies of

7:52

these stories, was Prince

7:54

Albert Victor Jack the Ripper?

8:03

Hello, and welcome to After Dark. I'm

8:05

Anthony. And I'm Maddy. Now,

8:07

you will be familiar if you've listened

8:09

to some of our podcast episodes previously

8:12

that we have covered the topic of

8:14

Jack the Ripper before. And

8:17

it was an incredibly popular episode,

8:19

so we decided we'd look at it again, but we really wanted

8:21

to get a unique way

8:24

into this. And one of the

8:26

ways that we thought we could do that was by exploring

8:30

ideas of masculinity and how

8:32

masculinity plays into this. And

8:34

so that's the approach that we're going to be

8:36

taking over this mini-series. And you

8:38

mentioned in the introduction there, Hallie

8:41

Rubin-Hold's fantastic book, The Five. And

8:43

that's done so much to shift

8:45

the conversation around the Jack the

8:47

Ripper murders, the murders specifically

8:49

of these five canonical victims, these women

8:52

whose names we gave at the beginning.

8:55

And I think what Hallie's work has done has invited

8:58

people to consider the societal context,

9:00

the cultural context of this a

9:02

lot more, but it's specifically looking

9:04

at the women themselves

9:06

and their lives. And when

9:08

we discussed doing these episodes, I think I was

9:11

initially a little bit reticent.

9:13

I was a little bit concerned that we

9:15

were going to give airtime to the

9:17

Ripper himself, whoever he was, and those crimes,

9:19

and to focus on the details in a

9:22

way that I think is

9:24

distasteful. Not necessarily

9:26

relevant, it doesn't give us any real

9:28

historical information. But we've been

9:30

discussing this, and I think your approach, Anthony,

9:32

here of looking at the

9:34

men who are accused of being the

9:36

Ripper, whether in their own time or

9:39

in the century and a half since,

9:42

I think there is something in there. I do think

9:44

there's a value in it in terms of thinking, as

9:46

you say, about masculinity, about what it meant to be

9:48

a man in Victorian England. Because

9:50

of course that impacted, in

9:52

the case of the victims, terribly so, the

9:55

lives and the deaths of the women around

9:57

these men. And we don't want to detract

9:59

from the women. their lives from their

10:01

deaths, from the terrible hardship and

10:03

misogyny that these women faced. But

10:06

I think there is a case, as you set out

10:09

at the beginning, for looking at

10:11

where this male violence came from

10:14

and that context and how masculinity

10:16

in the 19th century could be

10:18

toxic, but also looking at the

10:21

other people who were accused who in all

10:23

likelihood were not the ripper

10:25

himself. Why were

10:27

they put forward by society as being

10:29

the candidate for that? What

10:32

was it about their identities,

10:34

their performances of masculinity that

10:37

made them stand out for people then

10:39

and now? And I think

10:41

it's going to give us so much information about

10:43

the 19th century, about the East End,

10:46

but also about the Royal

10:49

Courts, about the newspaper printing

10:51

presses and book

10:53

sellers' offices and taverns,

10:56

pubs, coffee houses, cafes,

11:00

life on the streets, the work house. We're

11:03

going to see all of these things and more besides. And I think

11:05

stepping into this world with this

11:07

specific perspective actually is

11:10

hopefully going to give us something fresh. So

11:13

shall we get to them then? Shall we get

11:15

to the first of the suspects? The first being,

11:17

of course, as we have said, Prince Albert Victor.

11:20

He was born in 1864 at Frogmore, which we

11:22

hear an awful lot about now in the media,

11:24

but that's where he was born. That

11:26

was the home of Harry and

11:28

Meghan. Yes. At the time

11:30

of the White Chappa murders, he was 24 years

11:32

old. So if

11:35

we're looking at building a profile, a lot

11:37

of the witnesses would have said that the person

11:39

that we now know as Jack the Ripper was

11:41

older than early 20s, but certainly he's an

11:44

adult at this time. He would have had

11:46

the physical vigor in which to carry out some of

11:48

these crimes. So he's 24 at this time. He's

11:51

the grandson of the Queen, as we

11:53

said in the outset. So he's in

11:56

an elevated part of society. Yeah. I

11:58

mean, we've gone in with a royal candidate for

12:01

this immediately and who

12:03

could be more Victorian in the Victorian era

12:05

than a member of Victoria's family,

12:07

right? He's going to represent so much

12:10

of masculinity in this period, but

12:12

also royalty in this period, of the upper class in

12:14

this period. There's so much that I think he's going

12:16

to give us a way into the story. And

12:18

he's expected to be king. He is second

12:20

in line to the throne at this particular

12:23

point in time. So his father is the

12:25

future Edward VII. So this

12:27

is legacy. This is inheritance. This is

12:29

establishment. These are people who matter

12:32

to the establishment, as I'm saying. He

12:35

had inherited his mother's deafness. So

12:37

he had a hearing impairment. He was

12:39

able to hear to a certain extent,

12:41

but he was certainly hearing impaired and

12:44

he was known as Eddie to the family. Now, some

12:47

of these details are quite interesting because it tells

12:49

us a lot about family and you know, Victoria

12:51

and family go hand in hand at this time.

12:53

And we can all picture those images of her later on

12:55

in life with surrounded by all of her children. I

12:57

mean, she looks miserable in those images,

13:00

but yes. I think famously she wasn't thrilled

13:02

about children, right? She sort of had

13:04

eyes only for her husband. Yes.

13:06

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't exactly an

13:08

ammage with the results of that. Yeah.

13:11

So he adored his brother, the

13:14

future George V, and they

13:16

had a really intense and bonded relationship,

13:18

which is kind of nice to hear,

13:20

especially when we think about what's about

13:22

to unfold. They became naval cadets together

13:24

and they trained on the ship Britannia

13:27

in 1877. In

13:30

1883, Prince Albert Victor entered Trinity

13:32

College, Cambridge, but university, Maddy, was

13:34

not for him. Dare I

13:36

say that's something that runs in the Royal Family?

13:39

Absolutely. There's something that runs. One tutor had actually said

13:41

he hardly knows the meaning of the words to

13:43

read. Sure. But I will say this is the

13:46

same of most undergraduates. I certainly didn't spend

13:48

my undergraduate years solely reading.

13:51

So we'll let him off the rock. No, I don't. First

13:53

year, I don't think I did any reading at all. But like, you know, he

13:55

leaves, he doesn't stick it out, he goes and

13:58

then he joins the army. So he's moving

14:00

around a little bit, trying to find his place.

14:02

And obviously because he's so elite, the most elite

14:04

of all the elite, he has those options available

14:06

to him and he can switch and change. And

14:09

those options are there for him. He

14:12

was noted once he entered the army, he

14:15

hated it. Absolutely despised it. And he left very

14:17

quickly. I think in 1891,

14:20

physical descriptions of Albert Victor. It's very striking.

14:22

If you Google an image of him and

14:24

we'll put some up on socials, he was

14:26

described as having an unnaturally long neck. Not

14:28

my description, that's a contemporary one and

14:31

also really long arms. And his father

14:33

had nicknamed him, Collar and Cuffs as

14:35

a result. This family dynamic

14:37

is so interesting within the context of what

14:39

we are actually talking about, which is a

14:41

wider crime spree

14:43

that's happening in the East End of London.

14:46

And then we are transported into these other

14:48

stately homes, these palaces, literally, and we have

14:50

people calling Collars and Cuffs and it's all

14:52

very like familiar. So, I mean, you're

14:55

painting this really intimate picture. Yes, this is the

14:57

Royal Family, but this is someone who

14:59

exists in a familial context with

15:01

a very famous grandmother, but one

15:03

who is very focused on domestic

15:06

life and both the image

15:08

of it and that life in practice. He's

15:11

got these nicknames, he's close to his

15:13

family. This doesn't necessarily strike

15:15

me as someone who's going to go on

15:17

to be a serial killer. Stranger things

15:19

have happened. I'm not saying it's not

15:21

possible, but this doesn't seem

15:23

like a particularly sinister or narratively

15:27

predictable beginning to someone's

15:29

life. OK, let's go straight

15:32

into it then and let's

15:34

talk about where this comes from,

15:36

where the idea that Prince Albert

15:38

Victor could be, Jack the Ripper,

15:40

comes from. Have

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18:01

because I would like to just point out here, before we go into

18:03

his movements around shards

18:06

out! this

18:21

time, these are worlds apart.

18:24

The East End of London and the

18:26

Royal Court, the Royal Palace Royal Family,

18:28

they could not be at further opposite

18:31

ends of the spectrum of

18:33

Victorian life. How are these

18:35

spheres colliding? They don't. They don't collide.

18:38

And as soon as you sit down and look

18:40

at any type of evidence whatsoever, and I'll go

18:42

through it now just to be really methodical about

18:44

it, they do not line up. This

18:46

man is not Jack the Ripper. So spoiler.

18:48

Spoiler. Bear with me on this because there

18:50

will be some details here, but I think it's

18:53

important to go through the details to just shut

18:55

it down. Hit me with them. Absolutely not

18:57

Jack the Ripper. So Marianne

18:59

Nicholls is killed on the 31st of August, 1888. We know

19:01

because of Royal records,

19:05

bear in mind when the Royal Family are

19:07

moving around, they're constantly recorded. They're either recording

19:10

themselves in their own diaries, the newspapers may

19:12

be recording them. People know

19:14

where the Royal Family are. It's always

19:16

traceable. That continues today. He

19:19

is staying at Danby Lodge in Yorkshire on

19:21

that day. Because of course, that's one

19:23

of the obvious things about the Royal Family

19:26

in this period, that their movements, much like

19:28

the Royal Family today, were

19:30

reported in the media, were heavily recorded. We

19:32

can, I assume, trace what most of Victoria's

19:34

family was doing on any one day. Yes.

19:37

At this time, well even now as you say,

19:39

we could do. And we know that he's there,

19:41

he's in Yorkshire from the 29th of August to

19:43

the 7th of September. So that

19:45

rules him out of having any involvement.

19:47

Him directly, because we'll come to something

19:50

else that's a little bit greyer arried,

19:52

but, greyer arried, but that

19:54

rules him out for the 31st of August. He did not

19:56

kill Marianne Nicholls. But there are other

19:58

victims. There are other victims. to

20:00

Annie Chapman, for instance. She is killed on the

20:02

8th of September 1888. We know that Prince

20:06

Albert Victor is in the cavalry barrack

20:08

at York, and he remains there until

20:10

the 10th of September at this time. I

20:13

know those barracks really well. I'm sure you do actually.

20:15

I do. Interesting. Didn't see any royal family

20:18

there. This is one of the things about

20:20

history that you pass by these things,

20:22

and it happens in London and it happens everywhere, where

20:24

you're literally living with history, and you just pass by

20:26

them and you don't know. Those layers of history

20:28

as well that places in your life mean certain

20:31

things to you at certain times, but you might

20:33

revisit them and realise that actually they have completely

20:35

different associations and different moments that in this case,

20:37

we're talking about one man

20:39

being present. Think of all the lives that have

20:41

passed through that building and every

20:44

other. There's so many moments of history that we're

20:46

not aware of in the buildings that we know

20:48

and love. Yeah. I'm sure as you were passing

20:50

by that every day, you didn't realise this building

20:52

has a link to the Jack the Ripper case.

20:54

Yeah. That it's the alibi for one of the

20:57

suspects. For the second

20:59

victim, yeah. Yeah. So, okay,

21:01

we can rule him out definitively from having

21:03

murdered Mary Ann Nichols and Danny Chapman. Let's

21:05

move on to Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes,

21:08

two women that were killed in a frenzy on the

21:10

30th of September 1888. We

21:13

know for a fact that Prince Albert Victor is

21:15

in Scotland at this time, so we can imagine

21:17

he's moving through Yorkshire up into Scotland.

21:19

And we know this because Queen Victoria

21:21

herself records him as being up

21:24

in Scotland with the family at that particular time. So

21:26

we can rule him out of that one too. With

21:28

my conspiracy hat on, I'm saying Victoria's in on it.

21:30

You know what? Well, we'll come back

21:32

to that. Put a pin in that

21:34

because we're coming back to it. But

21:36

it's true. People don't necessarily... Yeah, it's

21:38

like, oh, well, of course she would say that.

21:40

Of course she's kind of covering it up. But

21:42

we'll discuss that in just a second. And then

21:44

Mary Jane Kelly, who when we did our previous

21:47

episode in Jack the Ripper, we concentrated on Mary

21:49

Jane mostly just because it was the last case.

21:51

She was killed on the 9th of November 1888. And

21:54

he is at a place that you

21:56

are also familiar with, Sandringham in Norfolk.

21:59

You make me sound like... I hang out with the Royal

22:01

Family. You do. I know Norfolk. I don't know Sandringham,

22:03

but I do know Norfolk. Norfolk hosts

22:05

very nice. Yeah. Well, that's where he was.

22:08

Yeah. So we know for every

22:10

single date that he

22:13

has accounted for, he has alibis for every

22:15

single date. So it's incredible really that, I

22:17

mean, look, this is not a downtrodden man.

22:19

This is not an immigrant. This is not

22:21

a poor person, as we will discuss in

22:23

other cases. This is somebody who's very, very

22:25

elite, but he has not checked the river. So

22:27

when do these accusations surface them? Is

22:29

it stole in the late 20th

22:32

century making these claims? Is he the first person

22:34

to do that? Because it just seems remarkable to

22:36

me that this prince,

22:38

this grandson of the queen, not

22:40

that means of course that he hasn't committed

22:42

a crime, just because he's a member of

22:45

the Royal Family, of course, but his

22:47

whereabouts are reported and

22:50

documented every day. Why

22:52

on earth would he come up as a

22:54

suspect? What is that about? Well,

22:56

this is conjecture, right? But I

22:59

think it's worth conjecturing on power,

23:02

distrust of power. And

23:04

we can relate to this, not necessarily you and

23:06

I, but we know what that feels like in

23:08

our own time, where there is talk about something

23:11

is going on above us that we

23:13

don't know about. And it's

23:15

making me distrust what I

23:17

can put my faith in.

23:19

Power is against me. And

23:21

so this is a 20th century development

23:24

that Prince Albert Victor really comes into

23:26

focus here. And the reason it's happening

23:29

then is because it feels like it's enough distance

23:31

for people to go, well, they covered it up.

23:33

There was a coverup. There was a conspiracy at

23:36

the time. And this is why we haven't found

23:38

him. This is why he wasn't brought to justice

23:40

because they were blind to it in the 19th

23:42

century. But now we know. Yeah.

23:44

And I suppose in the 20th century, when

23:46

is the psychostation made in 1970, that

23:49

there's a changing relationship with the Royal Family in

23:53

those decades of the 20th century?

23:55

And it's interesting that this

23:58

case, this very infamous. case,

24:00

this kind of defining moment of the Victorian

24:02

era in a lot of ways in sort

24:05

of pop culture and historical memory, that

24:07

that is then used

24:09

maybe as a way to reassess 20th century

24:12

feelings about the royals. And

24:14

remember, we have this thing now where

24:16

we're fed that certain historical

24:18

figures, and I'm speaking specifically about Queen

24:20

Victoria now, were beloved because they become

24:23

iconic that they were untouchable in their

24:25

own time. But actually, for quite a

24:27

significant chunk of time post the death

24:29

of her husband, there was a lot

24:31

of suspicion around Victoria. Why has she

24:34

retreated? Why won't she come out of

24:36

mourning? That's odd. We need to

24:38

see her. If we're not seeing her, we can't

24:40

trust her fully. So trust is already a problem.

24:43

Yeah. And I suppose as well, it speaks to the 19th

24:45

century misogyny, right? That Victoria doesn't behave as

24:48

a woman is expected to and as

24:50

a monarch is expected to. As a monarch, I

24:52

think more so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

24:54

So I think this is where this

24:56

is coalescing around Prince Albert Victor, also

24:59

because he's potentially a little wayward. He's

25:01

potentially a little different. As we've said,

25:03

there are maybe some learning difficulties. He

25:05

certainly has a hearing impairment. There's an

25:07

othering of him that's happening. We've seen

25:09

that he's described as being physically odd.

25:12

He can't settle in life. He's not

25:14

fulfilling the duties of what one would

25:16

see. Victoria really worried about him as

25:18

an heir. She was like, this isn't

25:20

good. I don't know what he's doing.

25:22

It doesn't fill me with confidence. But

25:26

systematically, as I said, and as we've been through,

25:28

we can rule him out. He didn't kill any

25:31

of these women. However, the

25:33

conspiracy theory element of this morphs then because

25:36

we're not willing to let him off the

25:38

hook that easily. Tell me more.

25:46

Right. So we've established that Prince Albert Victor

25:48

did not kill these women himself, but

25:51

surely there was some connection with

25:53

him in the murders. Maybe other people murdered on

25:55

his behalf. After all, isn't it awfully convenient that

25:58

he was never in London at the time? of

26:00

murder. Well, as it turned out,

26:03

Albert had a deadly secret. Albert

26:06

was in love with a young Catholic girl

26:08

who lived in Whitechapel. So in

26:10

love were they that the mismatched

26:12

pair had secretly gotten married. That

26:15

might have been manageable. Royal marriages to

26:17

Catholics had been managed before, but

26:19

Albert's supposed wife had had a child

26:22

by him too. Now the

26:24

heir to the throne was at least

26:26

partially Catholic, working class,

26:28

and from Whitechapel of all

26:30

places. This simply would not do. The

26:33

Queen would not allow it. And

26:35

so royal agents were dispatched, it

26:37

was said, instructed to murder anyone

26:39

who had any knowledge of this

26:41

secret marriage or child. Except

26:44

none of this is true. All of

26:47

this is based on the remarkable

26:49

but wholly unsubstantiated claims by a

26:51

man interviewed in the 1970s by

26:53

Stephen Knight, who claimed that

26:56

his grandmother was the girl

26:58

who Albert got pregnant, and

27:01

that meant that he was one of the legitimate

27:03

heirs to the British throne. Stephen

27:06

Knight's conceit was essentially that

27:08

there was no Jack the Ripper

27:11

at all, that it's why we've

27:13

never found him. He never existed.

27:15

Instead, the Whitechapel murders had been

27:17

a collaboration between the royal family

27:20

and the Freemasons, who

27:22

else, who wished to secure the

27:24

Protestant legitimacy of the British crown. Okay,

27:30

I have... What

27:32

do you have? Doubts? I have

27:34

several points to make. Let's

27:38

take this at face value for a minute

27:40

and imagine that this is a

27:43

true story. Where would

27:45

Albert have met this young

27:47

woman in Whitechapel? I mean,

27:50

the idea that she's Catholic and that she has had

27:53

his child who therefore is now a partially

27:56

Catholic heir to the throne. It's

27:58

compelling. It would make a

28:00

good film, it's probably been made into a film, hasn't it?

28:02

I feel like it's... It's the basis of From Hell. Right.

28:05

There we go. So it's cinematic.

28:07

It's a great historical romp, let's

28:09

say. It's a sort of sinister

28:12

adventure story, but I can't

28:16

see that this is the case. And then this idea

28:18

that the queen would be in

28:20

on this and would order... What did you

28:22

say? Royal agents? Who are dispatched? Who are

28:24

they? Who are the royal agents? Question mark

28:26

there. I mean, I'm not buying it at

28:29

all. What I will say is I'm

28:31

really interested actually in the human element of this story.

28:33

And by that, I mean the

28:35

person, the man who was interviewed by

28:37

Stephen Knight in the 70s who claimed

28:40

that his grandmother was this woman, this

28:42

young woman from Whitechapel who Albert

28:45

had secretly married and had

28:47

a child with. Because I find that fascinating.

28:49

I am at the moment writing a book

28:51

all about different hoaxes in the past. And

28:54

I'm very, very interested in people's

28:57

motivations for coming forward with these

28:59

kinds of stories and the

29:03

different reasons why people might sometimes

29:05

really believe the story that they're

29:07

telling, or they might not. And

29:09

they may want different things, fame

29:11

or riches or whatever, from putting

29:14

themselves forward and claiming these things.

29:16

That's the interesting bit to me. I find that

29:19

fascinating. And we know from

29:21

history, we've spoken about this before on the

29:23

podcast about people who have claimed to be

29:25

members, long lost members of the royal family

29:27

or members of the royal family who've been

29:29

dismissed or cheated out of their inheritance or

29:31

the crown or whatever it is. That happens-

29:33

That's a whole family of

29:35

them in Australia, right? Yeah, exactly. And

29:37

we did the episode on the Duke

29:40

of Cumberland's attempted assassination by his valet.

29:43

And in that story,

29:45

there's a woman who comes forward and claims to

29:47

be a long lost descendant, I think, of George

29:49

III. That's fascinating to me. So

29:52

there's always, I guess, people who are going

29:54

to claim this. And it's quite the backstory.

29:56

And I suppose it's guaranteed to get media

29:58

attention and the attention of history. where

34:00

you get this idea of the idealized

34:02

masculine body is really starting to formulate

34:04

in the 19th century during Victoria's reign.

34:07

It becomes far more muscular, it becomes

34:09

far more robust. Ideas of violence where

34:11

they had been dying away in the

34:13

18th century now start to rise again

34:16

in the 19th century. Well, not

34:18

ideas of violence, but ideas of the

34:20

physical prowess that men can possess, boxing

34:22

matches, for instance. I'm picturing the strong

34:24

man. Exactly. So that's becoming really to

34:26

the forefront. Whereas in the 18th century,

34:28

we had lean men with

34:30

long legs and elegance and quite

34:33

feminine actually, and that was celebrated.

34:35

Whereas in Victorian masculinity, we get

34:37

this much harder. Something I think

34:40

we can identify a little

34:42

bit more within our own time where you are supposed to be

34:44

this type of a man. You have to be, shut

34:47

your mouth, don't feel, get out there

34:49

and do some lifting and do some

34:51

physical stuff. And that power

34:53

that comes from that developed

34:55

physicality then shows that you

34:57

have ultimate authority in society, also that

34:59

you have ultimate authority over women and

35:02

that you can enact that authority through

35:04

your physicality. And at the same time,

35:06

it's like you've got this mirror image

35:08

of the woman as being meek, as

35:10

being little, as being literally corseted and

35:13

bird-like and caged and limited and restricted, and

35:15

you can't see past the bounds of your

35:17

own bonnet. And all of your clothes are

35:19

meant for

35:21

dress historians. I'm not saying that corsets were tied

35:24

too tight. We don't want to get into that.

35:26

But everything's about limiting and about shaping

35:28

and moulding someone to a perfect form,

35:31

whereas men are being

35:33

encouraged to expand themselves in all kinds

35:35

of ways. Yeah. And so

35:37

this is why I think we can't look away from who

35:39

the suspects are. Well, it's

35:43

not so much who Jack the Ripper is, but who

35:45

the suspects are, why there are certain types of men.

35:47

And just to kind of round up with this, I

35:50

suppose, Prince Albert Victor, I

35:52

think, is targeted because he is potentially

35:54

powerful. Now, whether that's physically or in

35:56

terms of his position in society, but

35:59

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