Forbidden love of a star-crossed prince
It has all the ingredients of a romantic bestseller: a prince and a princess are desperately in love but, forbidden from marrying, they beg the Queen and the Pope for help.
It even boasts a tragic ending, as the young prince dies shortly after becoming engaged to another woman, while his fiancée is comforted by his heartbroken family.
In fact it is the true story of how Prince Albert, Duke of Clarence and Avondale and grandson of Queen Victoria, wooed Princess Hélène of Orléans, whose father was a pretender to the French throne.
The couple’s intimate correspondence has now come to light, showing for the first time the details of an affair which at the time came close to causing a constitutional crisis. Prince Albert considered renouncing his right to accede to the throne to marry Hélène, who was forbidden from joining the Royal family because she was a Roman Catholic....