Sorry for the month and a half of radio silence on this TL, as a sort-of-compensation, here's my last update based on the ideas of the pride month and bellow it will be one following the "list" of updates I had on page 4
THE FAIRY PRINCE, ARTHUR OF WALES
For some reason this update just did not like to flow easily, so, in the end, outside of the first paragraph it is closer to a small biography in structure than any sort of Wikipedia article
Prince Arthur of Wales (Arthur Alexander George Frederick Albert; 28 April 1864 – 25 July 1885) was during his lifetime the eldest child and son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (late Emperor Arthur of Albion and Empress Consort Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British/Albish Monarch, Victoria. Born the second in line to the Albish throne, Arthur never became Emperor, dying when his grandmother was still the holder of the position, and is instead most commonly known for his status as an openly gay man, and for his role on the earliest developments in relation to homosexual rights on the Albish Empire.
Born on early-to-middle 1864 as a sickly and small baby, Prince Arthur (known commonly as “Alex” to his family and friends) grew up a relatively sheltered and, while not spoiled, pampered child, being marred by bouts of sickness and near-encounters with death due to his weak health. Close to his parents and siblings, he seems to have never been that interested on becoming monarch on the future, and, in fact, was extremely close to his younger brother, the future Emperor Henry.
Finally leaving home (in a sense) as a 12-year-old, when he entered the Navy, Prince Arthur spent only a few years there (his disposition making him at best a capable member of the communications division), but during that time traveled across the Albish Empire with his younger brother, coming also to discover his homosexuality during that time, becoming romantically (and later sexually) involved with some of his friends and colleagues at sea.
Both fearless and fearful about the matter, whom he for quite a while only disclosed to his brother (who was known for his overt loyalty to him) and then to his mother (who discovered it through a bout of sherlockian deductiveness), it was only after returning to the Home Islands in 1880 that Arthur truly came to terms with his sexuality, coming to the open about it to his relatives on the holidays of 1879-1880, who, to quite a surprise, received him with open arms, Empress Victoria in particular having been swayed by the at-the-time recent publication of Jeremy Bentham’s “Paederasty”.
Living with his grandmother at Buckingham following his return, Prince Arthur’s personal life is relatively unknown from 1880 to 1882, with the Empress’ diaries being responsible for most of the knowledge about him for the era. During that time, the prince opened to her as well over his opinions about his position on the succession, revealing his belief that, for the monarchy of his grandmother, Arthur would be more of a hinder on the throne than a boon, and that he considered his younger brother a much better candidate (which culminate on his brother’s birthday in 1881, when the prince, after discussing the matter with both Henry and their grandmother, declared matter-of-fact that he would not marry, and that his reign would simply be him as a placeholder while Henry would be the heir and
de facto ruler of the empire). In the matter of relationships, Prince Arthur doesn’t seem to have had any lover until 1882, preferring to have a few recurring sexual partners.
On the Lent of 1882, Prince Arthur also came open to the Dean of Windsor of the time, Gerald Wellesley (who had actually already known about the matter, having been for years a friend and close confidant of the Empress), who would help him through some of his worries about his Faith and his sexuality[1].
It was also during late 1882 that Prince Arthur came to meet Daniel Seams, then 21-years-old during his visits to brothels on London, taking the then male prostitute to Buckingham Palace on a drunken whim and, as romantics always like to mention, falling in love with him over the course of the night, being so infatuated by the next morning that he officially invited Seams to become his paramour. Although rather one-sided and awkward at the beginning, even if, again, surprisingly accepted by his family, the relationship between Prince Arthur and his paramour soon blossomed from one motivated by sexual chemistry and money to an actual love-based one, the two being drawn closer especially by the birth of their first children in 1883[2].
The relationship (which was marked by the prince’s fondness for periodically still visiting brothels and orgies while his partner seems to have gone the opposite route) lasted until Arthur’s death, and the two had three children together.
It was finally in 1883 when Prince Arthur’s sexuality became known to the empire at large, after he was found sleeping with a rent boy[3] during a raid on a brothel near Gwynedd House on September 19th, 1883, causing a scandal of levels so extreme that it could be considered awe inspiring, causing even the confidence on the monarchy on the empire to wobble for a bit while Albion herself saw a wave of anti-gay rhetoric, including the nickname of the prince as “The Prince of the Fairies”[4]. For the remainder of that year, and for much of 1884, Prince Arthur and his family became
de facto exiled to Balmoral Castle, sent there by Empress Victoria in the hopes of letting him weather away the storm.
Sadly, it was also during the “waiting” at Balmoral that Prince Arthur’s health slowly begun to fail, as he contracted consumption at some point during the Winter of 1883-84 and not even the cold weather could help as it developed into an extrapulmonary one over the months. By 1885, the prince was marked by a gaunt appearance, a sallow and pale complexion and a bloody cough, and he had been forced to stay mostly on a wheelchair due to the level of wasting suffered by his body.
One (basically the sole) boon given to Prince Arthur through his disease was public support, as, in a rather grim and cynic manner, he and the Imperial Family, wishing to make the best of a horrible situation, used the prince’s grim image as a way of raising public sympathy and support for both him and homosexuality, as even moralist attacks grew lesser and weaker over time due to the rather awkward position that condemning a man already on a living hell for one of the few pleasures he could theoretically have could place the speaker on[5].
The Prince’s fight finally ended in July 25, 1885, when the consumption finally took him, but even at the end the prince ended up helping his case and homosexuality on the empire, as at the time the infamous Labouchere Amendment was being discussed on Commons as a part of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, and, feeling his days ending, the prince did a detailed interview with the Morning Post on July 21, which was published just over a week later, on the 29th, four days after his death.
Remembered as a figure of great importance for homosexual rights across the Empire, with his death and interview serving to break any momentum for anti-gay laws and being even honored by Emperor Henry on his 1917 Decree who
de facto decriminalized homosexuality on a private level, Prince Arthur’s life, death, and meaning are commemorated annually on the anniversary of his death, which is also the first day of Pride Week on the Albish Empire.
[1] Although there are various texts on the Bible used to condemn homosexuality (seven being the most commonly said number), Wellesley himself perceived them on a different light to the traditional readings, believing that the condemnations made on them were not over specifically homosexual acts and relationships but, instead, over non-consensual, prostitution-based, predatory and/or “pagan” homosexual acts.
[2] A transgender man, it was only on his much later years that Daniel actually went through a phalloplasty, and during the entirety of his relationship with Arthur the two were surprisingly comfortable in having vaginal sex
[3] Then 17-year-old James John Corbett, who had been working as a rent boy to help pay his living as a medical student
[4] A common slang of the era for homosexual men
[5] Even among the moralist crowd condemning Prince Arthur during his later months was seen as social suicide to many
THE 1ST DUKE OF MERIONETH, HIS LOVER AND HIS DYNASTY
Imre Xavier Borbély (1883-1951), photo dating to the late 1900s
Oswald FitzArthur, 1st Duke of Merioneth, 1st Duke of Methven, KT, KCB, KCVO (25 March 1883 – 3 August 1957) was the illegitimate eldest son and child of Prince Arthur of Wales and his paramour, Daniel Seams. A member of the peerages of the Empire and of New Zealand, he is the most recent Albish royal bastard to receive a dukedom, as well as the first member of the Imperial Family to be openly gay or bisexual.
Born on Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire, as the first illegitimate child to the then eldest son and heir of the Prince of Wales, the duke was, originally, only a lord by courtesy, being raised on a private and almost secretive manner by his parents until the death of his royal father.
Raised by his father and paternal grandmother, who gave him and his siblings titles when they were three, the duke was a remarkably sheltered child, living on an environment marked by his grief-stricken surviving parent and equally somber great-grandmother, the Empress. He was extremely close to his grandparents, uncle (the future Emperor Henry) and had a close relationship with both his younger sister and brother, as well as with some of his cousins by marriage.
Married at the age of 17 to one of his cousins by marriage, Wilhelmina Rothschild (daughter of Alfred de Rothschild and Lady Philippine Stanhope, sole daughter and heiress of the 8th Earl of Chesterfield), with whom he was a close friend. The two were always cold on the marital bed (even if warm on non-carnal interactions), and after having a pair of twin sons they rarely slept together before 1904. In 1925 Wilhelmina also was made a Baroness on the peerage of New Zealand.
Studying at Eton and then at Oxford, from where he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Arts, on 1904 the duke left to Europe on a Grand Tour, where, in 1906, he would meet Imre Borbély at a café while staying in Budapest. The duke spent some good months on the city, being often visited by his Hapsburg cousins, and during that time became first a friend and then a lover of the Hungarian military officer.
Returning to the Home Islands in late 1906 with Imre by his side, who was readily accepted by Lady Wilhelmina, who seems to have already known the truth about her husband’s preferences before the man himself new, the duke and his family only spent a few more years on there, during which his relationship with Imre became an open secret among the Imperial Family, before moving to Aotearoa shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.
Settling into a large seaside manor on Cape Foulwind on the Southern Island, during the war the duke was made the Lord Lieutenant for the region of the Westcoast, a position he held until death, but otherwise saw little difference. On 1925, the same year his wife became a Baroness, the duke was granted a secondary dukedom, Methven, this time on the peerage of Aotearoa.
Spending rather peaceful times during the interwar years, although the Swiss Flu would nearly kill him and his entire family, it was during the 1930s that his relationship with Imre,
de facto a common law marriage to many, entered the public knowledge, with many comparing the duke to his late royal father. He even published a book on the matter “Imre: A Memorandum”[1], based on his diary records of his stay in Budapest.
The duke’s later years were relatively marked by sorrow, as Imre died in 1951 from a pulmonary cancer, and the duke himself died during the Second World War, when an Allied bombing raid hit Moorvent Park, confounding it with a marine base and lighthouse, collapsing half of the manor on top of him and his family, although the duke was the only one killed, suffering grave burns as well as dramatic internal hemorrhage caused by being smashed by falling debris when he pushed his wife (who broke her legs and was partially blinded of an eye by the flames) out of harm’s way.
He was outlived by both her, their children and his father, and became a symbol for the war in Aotearoa.
[1] An actual real-life book published by Edward Prime-Stevenson in 1906, it is considered possibly the first gay novel where the ending sees the homosexual couple both united and happy (I have never read it, but I liked hearing about it so Oswald and Imre are a reference to it)
List of Dukes of Merioneth and of Methven (1886-)
1. Oswald Valentine FitzArthur-Windsor, 1st Duke (1883-1957)
2. Thomas Daniel FitzArthur-Windsor, 2nd Duke (1901-1965)
3. Gregory Matthew FitzArthur-Windsor, 3rd Duke (1930-2005)
4. Henry Lawrence FitzArthur-Windsor, 4th Duke (1955-2007)
5. Valerian Arthur FitzArthur-Windsor, 5th Duke (1959)
Heir Apparent: Oswald Imre FitzArthur-Windsor, Marquess of Nullarbor (1994)
The FitzArthur-Windsor Family
Arms – Escutcheon of Prince Arthur of Wales, crossed by a bend of ermine and gules
Country – Albish Empire (Home Islands, Canada, Jamaica, Aotearoa)
Origin – Albish Imperial Family, illegitimate branch
Agnatic House – House of Windsor (House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Wettin)
Founded – c.1883
Founder – Prince Arthur of Wales, Daniel Seams
Current Head – Valerian Arthur FitzArthur-Windsor, 5th Duke of Merioneth and of Methven
Titles – Duke of Merioneth, Duke of Methven, Duke of Ardudwy, Marquess of Nullarbor, Earl of Westmeath and Moydrum, Earl of Westport, Earl of Rolleston, Earl of Chesterfield, Viscount of Reefton, Viscount Burghfield, Baron Stanhope, Baron Stanhope of Wellington, Baron of Denniston, Baron Cartier
Branches – Seven Families (including “Stanhope-FitzArthur-Windsor”, “Stanhope-Windsor” and “FitzArthur-Jones)
Motto – per sanguinem unitum (united through blood)
SOME SHORT NOTES THAT I COULDN’T MAKE INTO REAL UPDATES
The reason why I couldn't is because I am pretty sure I would end up fucking somethign up in the process of writting these, and even now I'm not 100% sure I didn't do so in some level (and so I feel a preemptive apology to anyone who is negatively affected by this in some way is nescessary, so, I apologize, and ask for your forgiveness)
THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY AND BEING LGBT IN ALBION
Note: this is specifically about Albion, outside of it there are countries just like, better and/or worse than OTL
In the Albish Empire, being LGBT+ (or being straight either) isn’t seen nearly as much as being a part of your identity and sexuality in general is seen as being something domestic and personal (think of it as “your grandmother isn’t going to silently judge a gay couple making out on the park for being gay, but for making out on the park, and if she sees a straight couple making out shell just judge them as well”), and in general the top-down manner through which decriminalization and rights came about in Albion, as well as the earlier timeline of many of them, have caused the matter of sexuality, gender, and anything of that area to be a much “mellower” matter. The LGBT+ community isn’t nearly as much of a “community”, and the closest analogy I can get on what it is would probably some sort of bridge club where the baseline uniter is not being straight.
Pride and Discrimination, though, still do exist, even if both are on relatively different manners. The “Pride Week” that happens at the end of July is less about commemorating the fight for gay rights and discrimination and much more about remembrance of both landmark moments and historical figures, in part due to the less-rocky history of the government on non-straight matters (speaking of less-rocky histories, AIDS, or at least the variant known to OTL, doesn’t exist[1]); I could best describe a Pride Parade as a livelier version of a funerary procession.
Discrimination, in turn, is different in its style, size and public perception, as, for example, while low-key discrimination (generally through stereotyping) is still a thing, massive attacks against gay or trans people aren’t, and someone spouting homophobic/transphobic rhetoric in front of others will probably end with them at minimum receiving the stink eye, if not being shunned and ostracized.
This general reaction has also something to do with general societal norms and the old stereotype that “British People Are Emotionally Constipated”, and in general any sort of sudden and very public displays of opinion, in special in matters that most people would consider “not any of your business”, will get the people doing it a stink eye out of principle for being a nuisance without a drop of self-awareness.
Religion as a motivation to discrimination in relation to sexuality has also fallen out of favor in the Empire at least, which was greatly caused by the development of the train of thought that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality in general during the reign of Empress Victoria and the purposeful spread of said stance across the Anglican Church and the Empire over the 20th century. Religion used to discriminate transgender individuals also did fall out of favor due to a similar train of thought to the above.
An interesting thing about the relation between families and not-being straight is that the Albish, in many ways, took a page of the book of Chinese culture on the matter. Generally speaking, unless they are predisposed to shun their child for not being straight or cisgender (or aren’t worried about genetic descendants), parents place a greater focus on the matter of grandchildren than on the matter of sexuality or gender identity, in special in cases where their child is an only one. No-one is quite sure when this development truly started, but, in broad terms, a parent whose child discovers themselves as gay or trans will probably try and just convince them to either donate/freeze gametes[2] or help them find a “reproductive partner”[3].
Among the gentry and peerage of the empire, a similar manner of this is often seen to occur, with many families, when their heir is gay or even trans, purposefully setting them with a spouse (often times of similar “inclinations”) so they can have children and either live separately or divorce.
TL, DR, being LGBT+ in Albion is a bit of a dizzy, and this writer’s feelings and emotional and social constipation are showing themselves
[1] Although the HVI that causes the OTL AIDS exists, due to alternate developments the virus is much weaker, and instead of causing the progressive failure of the human immune system by destroying its cells it causes a great deal of damage but never manages to do a complete job, with the best analogy being that if the virus infects a 22-year-old, it will cause them to have the immune system of a 55-year-old. Often times the human immune system even manages to fight the disease off without the help of medication, but it takes about one decade and often times results on an autoimmune disease
[2] In special if the child is trans, the mother or a sibling often offering themselves to be a surrogate
[3] In the ancient Albish tradition of parents networking to help their children find a spouse/partner, as it never truly fell out of favor, in special within suburban communities and outside of the great cities
CHRISTIAN OPINIONS ON LGBT+ MATTERS
While most Christian religious groups prefer to simply not comment or have a neutral stance on the matter, and others are specifically against any sort of homosexual activities and transgender individuals (and some are even an in-between, condemning one and supporting the other or something on that vein), there are some with a specifically accepting stance on the matter.
As mentioned beforehand, the legacy of Dean Gerald Wellesley of Windsor was the creation of a line of thought among the Anglican Clergy that identifies the bible as not condemning general acts of homosexuality, and, instead, the more specific sins done on the scriptures (rape, breaking of guest rights, prostitution, pederasty, etc.). Said line of though spread through the church over the late 19th and early 20th century, and even outside of the Anglican Church to other churches within the Empire, resulting on the official stance of the Church to be changed less than a month after homosexuality was decriminalized in the Empire, with the Church opening marriages to same-sex couples a while later. Nowadays (ITTL 2020) the general stance of many churches within the empire has been this one.
In relation to being transgender, a similar thing occurred before and following the Bolton v Forbes-Smyth landmark judging in 1959, and by the 1990s the official stance of the Anglican Church became that the binary of men and woman was in specific relation to sex, and that gender itself was created by God as a spectrum (a branch of that thought was that also that even if being transgender was a development not within God’s plan that occurred after the Fall from the Garden of Eden, God had shown Himself to accept them as part of His creation).
Other Christian churches of note with similar positions (some even influenced by the Anglicans) are the national Churches of the Nordic Federation, some Eastern Orthodox, Syrian and Coptic Churches, and some minor protestant churches in Europe, Oceania and the Americas. The Catholic Church itself is, while not entirely and officially has a neutral stance, with most priests and officials deflecting when asked on the matter), accepting in some level, and has, surprisingly to some, slowly come to align itself with the Anglicans in the matter ever since the reforms of the mid-to-late-20th century.
TL, DR, this author's periodical religious turmoil has shown itself (and will now show itself out)