Royal Conspiracy Theory holds the best for the possible killer !
The Royal Conspiracy theory first appeared in 1973 in the BBC programme, Jack the Ripper. In it, fictional detectives Barlow and Watt finally solve the Ripper mystery through a series of conspiracies and cover-ups. The story goes that the producers of the program, in doing research, were told to contact a man named Sickert who knew about a secret marriage between Eddy and a poor Catholic girl named Alice Mary Crook. Sickert painted a strange story involving Eddy, Lord Salisbury, Sir Robert Anderson, Sir William Gull, and even Queen Victoria herself!
The man, Joseph Sickert, was the son of famous painter, Walter Sickert, from whom he reportedly got the story. Sickert had lived in the East End during the time of the murders and was supposedly a close friend of the Royal family. Princess Alex asked Sickert to take Eddy under his wing and watch out for him. Sickert eventually introduced Eddy to a poor girl named Annie Crook who worked in one of the local shops in Cleveland Street. Eddy soon got the girl pregnant and they were living quite happily with their daughter Alice until the Queen discovered her grandson's indiscretion and demanded that the situation be terminated. Not only was Annie a commoner, but a Catholic as well and there was belief that news of a Catholic heir to the throne would spark a revolution. The Queen gave the matter to her Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, to solve and he, in turn, went to Sir William Gull. After a daring raid on the Cleveland Street love nest, Eddy was taken away and Annie was sent to one of Gull's hospitals where Gull performed experiments on her designed to erase her memory and drive her insane. Their child, however, escaped the raid unharmed with her nanny, Mary Kelly.
Kelly had been a coworker of Annie's, as well as a model for Sickert, and she became the child's nanny soon after its birth. Knowing that the game was up, Kelly hid Alice with nuns and fled into the East End. Eventually, she told the story to several of her cronies (Nichols, Stride and Chapman) and they decided to blackmail the government when they needed money to pay local protection thugs. When Salisbury learned of the threat, he called on Gull again
This time, Gull devised an elaborate scheme to silence the women based on Masonic rituals. Enlisting the help of John Netley, a coachman, he created Jack the Ripper as a symbol of Freemasonry. Sir Robert Anderson was enlisted to help cover up the crimes and act as lookout during the murders. The murders would be silent messages about the power and strength of Masonry and the fate awaiting any who opposed them.
Eddowes, Sickert said, was a mistake. She often went by the name of Mary Kelly and it was a case of mistaken identity. Once the truth was known, the real Mary Kelly was found and silenced. The conspiracy closed in upon itself and chose M.J. Druitt as a scapegoat to take the blame and, Sickert hinted, Druitt was murdered for it. The girl, Alice, grew up and later, by an odd series of twists and turns, married Walter Sickert and gave birth to Joseph.
The program caused a sensation and lead directly to the publication of Stephen Knight's controversial book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution in 1978. In it, Knight tries to prove that the conspiracy not only existed but that the third man in the murder triad was not Sir Robert Anderson, but Walter Sickert himself!
The Knight theory, though interesting and entertaining in its own way, has been effectively debunked by many Ripperologists. Most notable was Rumbelow's refutation in his revised edition of Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook where Rumbelow provides evidence that Annie lived longer than Knight claims, spent time after 1888 in workhouses, and had Alice with her through some of this time. There are no marriage or birth records listing Eddy as Annie's husband or as Alice's father. Aside from rumor or secondhand statements, there was never any hard evidence linking Eddy to Cleveland Street, Annie Crook, or even Walter Sickert. The lack of evidence, conspiracy theorists purport, proves the theory because all evidence was destroyed! Regardless of the legitimate criticisms, the Royal Conspiracy remains one of the most popular theories with several movies, novels, and graphic novels built around it.
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