The Mystery of Princess Louise by Lucinda Hawksley - book review

Life of a royal rebel spiced up by secrets and scandals

Is there anything more compulsively inviting than a file marked "SECRET"? Lucinda Hawksley encountered this irresistible lure when she began research on "a complete artistic biography" of Queen Victoria's sixth child. Though Princess Louise, who surprisingly trained at art college to be a sculptor, died in 1939 at the age of 91.

After applying to use the Royal Archives, Hawksley was informed: "We regret Princess Louise's files are closed." She was more brusquely fobbed off at Inveraray Castle, family seat of Louise's husband Lorne, Duke of Argyll. The clean sweep even extended to the National Gallery. When Hawksley asked to see the files on three of Louise's art tutors, she received a reply "from a bemused archivist" that everything had "been appropriated by the Royal Archives".

So what explains this deletion of a princess? Relying on "rumours… as well as tittle-tattle of the era", Hawksley suggests that the passionate, sexually driven Princess had a baby by Walter Stirling, tutor to her sickly brother Leopold. We're informed that she would have been able to hide her condition via a gruesome device known as the maternity corset and "very highly decorated" dresses that "could well have been disguising a pregnancy". The baby boy is said to have been adopted by the son of the Queen's gynaecologist Sir Charles Locock. Unfortunately, Hawksley can produce little more evidence than a letter from Louise during her "pregnancy" declaring: "I sit in my room and cry. I cannot tell you why."

If a royal bastard isn't enough to be going on with, Hawksley fires allegations in the direction of Louise's husband. Noting that the Prince of Wales, who "could tolerate most peccadilloes and indiscretions", detested him, Hawksley asserts: "Lorne numbered many of the well-known gay underworld amongst his closest friends." This could explain the "charade" (to use Hawksley's term) of Louise's marriage. Hawksley maintains that she regularly sought solace in the arms of her art tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm. Indeed, his sudden death at 56 was, according to "the gossips of London's artistic world", due to "the exertion of making love to her".

Such spicy episodes enliven a life that would otherwise only be of moderate interest. Royal apologists may dismiss the book as wild speculation but they would have no grounds for complaint if Buckingham Palace had not drawn a shroud of secrecy over Princess Louise and those associated with her. How very peculiar, creepy and revealing that royal muscle should still be exercised about long-dead figures in the 21st century.