Top 10 Naughty S3x Stories From History

2 The Cleveland Street Scandal

Photo credit: W. & D. Downey
Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, is from a largely forgotten branch of the royal family. Haunted all his life by rumors regarding his mental health, he died at age 28 during a flu pandemic. The prince is best remembered today as one of the most intriguing (although highly unlikely) suspects in the Jack the Ripper case. He might also have been involved in one of the biggest s3x scandals of Victorian England. In summer 1889, a male brothel on Cleveland Street in London was raided by police after they found out that young messenger boys were prostituting themselves to high-class clientele. Back then, homos3xuality was still illegal, but that’s not what caused the scandal. The uproar was caused by all the high-ranking officials and lords rumored to have been caught in the raid, including Prince Albert Victor. It was never proven that the prince was there, although some point to a royal cover-up as the reason. The British media refrained from openly talking about the subject, but across the waters, French and American newspapers had no such qualms. Prince Albert Victor was quickly sent away on a tour of India in the hopes that the scandal would blow over. But he became inexorably linked with the “den of infamy” that was Number 19 Cleveland Street.