Monthly Archives: November 2021

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History Bits #6 – The Prince and the Pupil

Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein – and his magnificent beard! – was a Danish-born, German prince who had the good fortune to marry into the British royal family, his wife being one of Queen Victoria’s daughters – Princess Helena.

Queen Victoria was extremely fond of Prince Christian, and when he asked to marry Princess Helena, Queen Victoria gave her consent – on the condition that the married couple resided in England, so that she could see them whenever she wanted to.

Prince Christian and his wife, Princess Helena

To make the transition easier, the queen gave the prince and his wife (and their growing family) the use of Frogmore Cottage on the Sandringham Estate. She also invited them to live in Buckingham Palace whenever they visited London.

In December, 1891, Prince Christian was out pheasant-shooting at Osbourne House, the queen’s island retreat on the Isle of Wight, with his wife’s brother, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. While firing at game, pellets from the duke’s shotgun ricocheted off a tree, striking Prince Christian in the face, and taking out his left eye!

Queen Victoria was horrified when she heard of the accident, and Arthur was wracked with guilt over what had happened. People living in the vicinity of Osbourne were also shocked – Prince Christian was a popular figure, and much liked by the locals.

The queen’s doctor was called, and after a careful examination, it was determined that – apart from losing his left eye – Prince Christian was in perfectly good health, and would survive the accidental gunshot wound to the head. Fearing that the eye might become infected, the surgeons and doctors attending the prince asked if he would like to have the now useless eye removed. He decided that he did.

Queen Victoria was appalled, but eventually gave her consent for the operation to go ahead – on the condition that nobody ever mentioned it to her ever again! The prince was knocked out with chloroform and the operation duly carried out. Once it was over, a London optometrist was commissioned to manufacture a glass eye for the prince.

The prince liked it.

He liked it very much!

He liked it TOO much!!

Prince Christian liked his glass eye so much that he started ordering extra eyes! He was fascinated by them, and developed a very dark sense of humour about his missing eye, and started a new hobby of ordering custom-made glass eyes.

He soon amassed quite a collection, and would chop and change which glass eye he would wear each day, simply by popping one eye out of his head, and popping in another, as, and when, he pleased, according to his mood.

During dinners with friends, he would order his manservant to bring out his collection (which he kept in a special display-case) so that he could show them off to his guests! To entertain them (or gross them out!), he would regale his guests by giving lengthy explanations of the reasons why each particular eye had been added to his collection.

He joked that his favourite one was the bloodshot eye that he had specially made so that he could wear it whenever he caught a cold!

Want to Read More? There’s more information here:

http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-high-steward-of-windsor-ranger-of.html

 
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The White Star Ghost Ship: The S.S. Naronic

Saturday, 11th of February, 1893

The S.S. Naronic, a White Star Line steamship, leaves Liverpool, UK, bound for New York City.

The Naronic is a small ship – only 6,594GRT, and with a top speed of just 13kt.

The Naronic is no speed-demon, no size-queen, and is no comparison with the White Star’s larger, grander oceanic greyhounds – the enormous superliners of the late Victorian era.

She is a cargo ship. Specifically, she’s a livestock carrier, designed to ship British livestock to the United States. This is why she is prefixed “S.S.” (“Steamship”), and not “R.M.S.” (“Royal Mail Steamer”), as she carried no mail from either the USPS, or the Royal Mail service.

The S.S. Naronic in 1892

Aboard the Naronic are 74 persons: Fifty crew, and two dozen passengers – mostly livestock men, horsemen, and a handful of fare-paying travelers who occupy the few cheap passenger-cabins available on board.

The ship sails past the southern coast of Ireland and is never seen again.

To this day, nobody knows what happened to the S.S. Naronic, its crew, its cargo, or its livestock.

If messages-in-bottles are to be believed, the ship struck an iceberg on the 19th while sailing through heavy, snowing seas in the middle of the night, and sank with all hands. The crews of other ships passing through the area where it’s believed the Naronic likely sank, reported seeing icebergs when they were questioned at the official inquiry into the Naronic’s loss.

In the 1890s, ships did not carry wireless telegraph mechanisms on board. The new-age radio systems which ships like the Titanic, Olympic and Majestic carried would not be commercially available until 1898 at the earliest. As a result, ship-to-ship distress messages could not be sent, except by distress rockets or flares shot into the air, in the hopes that some passing ship might see them, and render aid. This means that whatever the crew of the Naronic faced between Liverpool and New York – they faced it alone and helpless, likely in the middle of the night, and in freezing temperatures and heavy seas.

Two lifeboats from the Naronic were discovered floating at sea by passing ships, but no other wreckage, nor any dead bodies, have ever been found. The fate of the Naronic, and those aboard her, are a complete mystery, which will likely never be solved.