Alfred: Queen Victoria's Second Son

by John van der Kiste

Prince Alfred, who was created Duke of Edinburgh in 1866 and became Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha in 1893, was the second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. A patron of the arts, pioneer philatelist and amateur violinist, he joined the Royal Navy as a boy and rose to become Admiral of the Fleet. At the age of 18 he was elected King of Greece by overwhelming popular vote in a plebiscite, although political agreements between the Great Powers of Europe prevented him from accepting the vacant crown. The most widely travelled member of his family, he had visited all five continents by the age of 27, and while on a tour of Australia in 1868 he narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a Fenian sympathiser. Married to Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, the only surviving daughter of Tsar Alexander II, at one stage he had to face the possibility that he might be required to fight on behalf of the British empire against that of his father-in-law. His last years were overshadowed by marital difficulties, alcoholism and ill-health, and the suicide of his only son and heir.

Genres: History, Biography, Royalty, Nonfiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 9, 2013

About the author

John Van der Kiste, British author, was born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, on September 15, 1954, son of Wing Commander Guy Van der Kiste (1912–99). He was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, where he briefly formed a rock band Cobweb with fellow pupil Miles Tredinnick, later vocalist with new wave band London and subsequently playwright and scriptwriter, and read Librarianship at Ealing Technical College, where he edited the librarians’ student magazine.
He has worked for several years in public and academic libraries, but is best known as a writer. His first book, Frederick III, appeared in 1981, and since then he has published over twenty historical biographies, as well as books on local history, true crime, rock music, a novel and a play. He is also a contributor to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Guinness Rockopaedia, and has produced articles on historical, musical and art subjects in national and local journals, including Illustrated London News, Royalty Digest, European Royal History Journal, Best of British, BBC History Magazine, Record Collector, Antique Collector, This England, The Independent, and Gibbons Stamp Monthly. He has reviewed books and records for the press, written CD booklet notes, and between 1991 and 1996 edited the 70s rock fanzine Keep on Rockin.
In 2002 he was a consultant for the BBC TV documentary 'The King, the Kaiser and the Tsar', first screened in January 2003.
He married professional musician and teacher Kim Graham (née Geldard) in 2003 and lives in Devon.

Reviews

[Ghost of the Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serviceable but pedestrian biography of Queen Victoria's second son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who served for many years in the British navy and eventually succeeded his father's brother Ernest as Duke of Saxony (Coburg, Gotha). You don't really learn too much new, and the author has a very pronounced English animus against Germans, which rather colors the narrative given the Germanic circumstances of the British royal family. For instance, he gives a very one-sided version of the contested events surrounding the death by cancer of the German Emperor Frederick III (husband of Victoria's eldest daughter). There are a lot of generalizations about what various characters were like that generally have no specific source (there are footnotes, but these are basically only for direct quotations). When the sources are indicated, this isn't reassuring. For example, the author seems to rely on the much later reminiscences of Alfred's daughter Marie, who became Queen of Romania. She isn't a particularly reliable source in general, and in any case, since her country suffered disastrously from its entry on the Allied side during the First World War (being crushed by the German campaign that resulted from the declaration of war), she's hardly a very good source.

The book is strewn with typos that seem to result from the original typing of the manuscript ("have" for "gave", "just" for "must" etc.; at one point "varied" appears for "carried", which is presumably the result of an "autocorrection" of "varried"), and there are even sentence fragments and sentences without verbs. The publisher is apparently a legitimate publisher of actual hard-copy books (its name and poor editing made me suspect a "self-publisher"), but it would appear that they don't believe in proof readers. Since the author has written a number of books on European royalty, you'd think he could have gotten a better publisher.

[Sabrina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was published by an actual publishing company?????? It feels like a self publish there were so many spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. It looks like it was never edited at all. Short chapters are nice but the timeline they cover needs to be less or the chapters longer. There is an index for everything referenced, but only the source it was taken from no notes but the references are poor and don't help at all they are just direct quotes. Would have been better with notes to explain the background of any quotes used. Written poorly, the layout was straight forward but there was hardly any substance, it was like this was the outline for a biography and they didn't do any of the filling in. Also written as if the author knew the subject and surrounding figures personally. This nearly put me to sleep every time I opened it and could only read a few pages at a time before become board. I do not recommend this book to anyone at all except maybe insomniacs.

[Papa Smurf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alfred Queen Victoria's second son

Excellent reading learnt a lot about her second son. Their relationship with each other after his father died. The author has done a brilliant job

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria is often glossed over in histories and biographies of the times. Sent to sea as a naval officer from the age of fourteen, Alfred was often absent from home during momentous events - the deaths of his father and sister Alice, the wedding of his brother Bertie. This separation was aided and abetted by Queen Victoria's antipathy for him, which still comes through in her letters.

When Alfred does appear in others' stories, he's relegated to the background, drinking and talking about the navy while everyone tries to avoid him. But van der Kiste turns the tables, putting Alfred at the center of the story with sympathy while acknowledging his flaws. Straddling two duties, as prince and naval officer, never able to fully give attention to either, Alfred found little support from those around him. Raised with the expectation that he would inherit his uncle's German duchy, he would probably have been much happier if he'd been left alone in the Navy.

The complicated political and family relationships of the Victorian era are so fascinating because they cannot really be separated from each other. Alfred is a fine example of all these conflicting threads - British prince, Navy officer, Romanov in-law, German duke.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

John van der Kiste has written what may be the definitive biography on the subject of Alfred, Queen Victoria's Second Son. This is the second of two books written by van der Kiste on Alfred. However, the first one was published many years ago before some sources became available, and what we have here is a more complete picture of the man. The publisher, however, is sorely lacking in its editorial department. There are several glaring typos. Of supreme frustration are sentences with words that are missing. I find this to be inexcusable, as it doesn't take a genius to figure out the mistakes they made. Also, the book is without an index, which should be a staple of any biography.

[Kimberly Krauch · Rating 5 out of 5]

HRH PRINCE ALFRED, DUKE OF EDINBURGH

So excited to have found a book that had more then a chapter on Prince Alfred. For years I didn't think I would find a credible book. John Van der Kristen wrote a thoughtful and thorough book and I found the reading easy and informative. This is not just a history but an enjoyable book of family, friendship and sorrow. I give it 5 stars.

[Lori Putz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting Second Son

We rarely hear about the second son of Queen Victoria. He was in love with E gland and the navy, but assigned as a toddler to sacrifice it all for his father's family.

[SARA GASKILL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marred by many proofing reading and grammatical errors . Disappointing as have enjoyed other books by J Van Der kiste .

[Vincent Solomeno · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Van der Kiste's slim biography is a sad account of the life of Prince Alfred The Duke of Edinburgh and later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

[Sara Marques · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general I appreciated this book. It was a good and short insight into Prince Alfred's life, as well as into those of his close family which we rarelly hear about. Although it is a rather short book, all relevant information was there. However, there is a very negative point which I must bring out. My edition was full of typos. This is bad enough for cheap ebooks, but to allow so many typos to pass into the printed edition is distracting and gives a very bad image of both the author and the publisher. I sincerely hope the edition was revised and the typos corrected. In all other aspects, it was an excellent read.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay book that sometimes got tedious as he mentioned everything, including random visits. The footnotes should have been for everything not just direct quotes. Note: some editions credit Bee Jordhann as well.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be excellent biography of Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria. He was able to follow his dream by joining the Navy. More importantly he was able to be away from his mother.