Without going in to the details of the 'scandalous' behaviour of Ludwig Viktor we know that the man approached by him slapped him forcefully on the face. Everyone knew what sort of things were likely to go on at times in the baths but to have a member of the Imperial household involved in a public brawl was simply not acceptable and led to the disappearance 'for health reasons' of the Archduke.
FWIW the story of Andrew MB reminds me somewhat of the downfall and exile of the Archduke Ludwig Viktor,the youngest brother of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary.As a young man he was interested in the arts,although he did have a number of military titles. Again as a young man he was seen as witty and charming and full of, at times ,malicious gossip.
This came abruptly to an end one day when he made an unsuitable advance towards an other man in a public bathhouse.
The monarchy could not accept this public humiliation and so Ludwig Viktor was sent to take a cure at Meran in Tirol. After that he was exiled to his residence at Schloss Klessheim near Salzburg and never again took part in public life.
Like the suicide of the Emperor's son at Mayerling nothing was ever said publicly about the real reason why Ludwig Viktor was banished. He did however outlive his brother,the Emperor and outlive the fall of the monarchy,dying early in 1919. There was no burial in the Habsburg crypt of the Kapuziner church in Vienna. He lies at rest in the small local cemetery near Schloss Klessheim.
A closer parallel is perhaps the former king Juan Carlos of Spain who about a decade ago was forced from his throne by various scandals ( sexual improriety, dodgy financial affairs and other stuff). He was cut off by his son, the present King Felipe and fled to exile in the middle east.
By the coincidence the former king has just published a memoir of the ' I may have made some poor judgements, but look how appallingly I've been treated by my country, I'm the most wronged person in history ' type. I suppose we have that to look forward to from AMW
One of the challenges for former celebrities/ political figures is that they do not realize when they've been given a good deal. Juan Carlos was ushered out the door by his family when the alternative was deposition and likely political violence. AMW is being rusticated/internal exile when he could have been shipped off to the tender mercies of a state court in NY and the facilities afforded occupants of a detention cell (while a succesful prosecution was unlikely, the cost and discomfort would have been memorable).
With a bit of counselling as well as education in self-examination, he might come out of this a better human being.
Apropos of the archduke, there is a quite a list of German and Italian princes being given small country estates to live out their lives far away from noticeable temptation. Even into the Victorian period, monasteries were deemed to be suitable destinations (and in at least one case, a rural diocese). Some shipmates might feel that monasteries were not the best place for those susceptible to distraction.
Andrew was not particularly popular among locals in Lakefield after his time studying there; I moved to the village ten years after he left and lived in the area until three years ago.
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
I will say that, in mid-1980s Alberta(ie. when there was more consciousness about health and safety than in the mid-1970s), underaged drinking was still a pretty tolerated activity, lotsa high-school parties with kids getting sloshed and the parents presumably not caring or being willfully ignorant.
Maybe things in Ontario were different, or Andrew was doing it in open defiance of lawful authority?
Plus, at the time, the Archduke's behaviour was unacceptably scandalous. Ironically, if it had merely involved young girls, no one would have minded. Mary Vetsera was only 17, after all.
Goes to community standards at the time. Young heterosexual partners in the 1850s not that unheard off. Homosexual partners--had to keep that under wraps. Today: homosexual partners at age of consent, okay. Young heterosexual partners who claim they were trafficked, not okay especially if they are under legal age of consent.
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
I will say that, in mid-1980s Alberta(ie. when there was more consciousness about health and safety than in the mid-1970s), underaged drinking was still a pretty tolerated activity, lotsa high-school parties with kids getting sloshed and the parents presumably not caring or being willfully ignorant.
Maybe things in Ontario were different, or Andrew was doing it in open defiance of lawful authority?
When you go to a commercial bar as a minor and get served, it appears illegal.
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
I will say that, in mid-1980s Alberta(ie. when there was more consciousness about health and safety than in the mid-1970s), underaged drinking was still a pretty tolerated activity, lotsa high-school parties with kids getting sloshed and the parents presumably not caring or being willfully ignorant.
Maybe things in Ontario were different, or Andrew was doing it in open defiance of lawful authority?
When you go to a commercial bar as a minor and get served, it appears illegal.
For sure. I thought you might have been talking about drinking in the park, or at somebody's house.
I assume the servers at the bar knew who he was, and were making an exception for him? If so, I'd have to put some of the blame on them, unless he was threatening to call up the High Commissioner and get their license revoked, or some such.
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
I will say that, in mid-1980s Alberta(ie. when there was more consciousness about health and safety than in the mid-1970s), underaged drinking was still a pretty tolerated activity, lotsa high-school parties with kids getting sloshed and the parents presumably not caring or being willfully ignorant.
Maybe things in Ontario were different, or Andrew was doing it in open defiance of lawful authority?
When you go to a commercial bar as a minor and get served, it appears illegal.
If it's anything like eastern Ontario, for many years the minor would be served if he had some celebrity status-- quarterback, goalie, prince, etc. Were there police in the bar, he would be served his rye & ginger in a pepsi bottle to preserve appearances.
These days, licences are more loseable and I would think that in most places, this would not happen except on a Saturday night when things might be busy. Most teenage serious drinking happens at house parties.
When I went to some event in middle-or-high school, I was required to have identification, so my mom made up a VERY unofficial ID card from the identifying-tag on some luggage. It was obviously home-made, and I wasn't even intending to pass it off as state-issue.
A few years later, I brought it along on one of my first trips to a liquor store, and presented it when asked by a police officer on the premises. He apparently considered it sufficiently authentic to allow me to stay and purchase booze.
If it's anything like eastern Ontario, for many years the minor would be served if he had some celebrity status-- quarterback, goalie, prince, etc. Were there police in the bar, he would be served his rye & ginger in a pepsi bottle to preserve appearances.
While I have no special familiarity with the vicinity of Lakefield, what you say sounds like it could be plausibly extrapolated westward, and Andrew woulda been accustomed to getting semi-legit entrance to restricted establishments.
But it would probably only take a few non-starstruck bouncers prompting Andrew to pull out a one-dollar bill and start shoving it in their faces while screaming the relevant geneaological tirade, for that to become his general image among the local folks.
... He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking). ...
The ex-Duke of York grew up in the UK and went to school there before he went to Canada. Being snobbish and entitled is as unpopular and offensive there as anywhere else, possibly more so. If however, drinking under age is the only evidence of his thumbing his nose at laws that applied to everyone else, that hardly washes as an accusation.
However, it may have been seen in Canada, and from some peoples comments on this thread it does not seem to have been taken that seriously then either, in the culture he grew up in, drinking under age may have been be illegal but was almost universal, a rite of passage.
There was a certain amount of outrage in the press way back in 1963 when a journalist spotted the king, then well under age, drinking a cherry brandy in a pub in Scotland on some school outing. For all the usual sanctimony in the press, most ordinary people at the time simply thought, 'good for him'.
There was a spate of pompous utterances from politicians about widespread underage drinking about 10 years ago which always struck me as particularly hypocritical even for a career choice given to hypocrisy, bearing in mind that everyone knew perfectly well that it was something they had all done personally when they were that age.
Gods help me, I remember the 1963 furore over Charles and his cherry brandy (ugh...). Yes, a lot of people, including My Old Dad, thought 'good for him'.
I think Charles would have been about 15 at the time.
I grew up in rural/not urban Ontario and underage drinking was a thing. As soon as one or other of my schoolmates got their drivers license and their hands on a car, the thing to do on a summer Friday or Saturday night was to drag race or "crop tour".
Crop touring was code for 2 cases of beer and 2 pints of Canadian whisky, four liters of coca cola, and four teenagers in a car going around the backroads. Every year, one of our classmates died of "crop touring" but it didn't seem to make a difference. It went on every year.
I look back on my shenanigans as a young person and am amazed I survived my youth. I drove one of the fastest cars and paid for a lot of my university expenses winning the quarter mile drag on county road 19.
All of that being a way of saying I find it hard to believe anybody noticed or even cared about a shitfaced young Royal down the local pub in a small town.
At the age of 16 or so, a few of us from the Church youth club were accustomed to resort (after singing of hymns, and playing of table-tennis) to the discreet back bar of a local hostelry for a half-pint of bitter, and a few Number 6 fags (smaller than yer normal fag, and only one shilling and three pence for ten...).
All of that being a way of saying I find it hard to believe anybody noticed or even cared about a shitfaced young Royal down the local pub in a small town.
Well, FWIW, back to 1980s Alberta for a sec, I heard a lot less about my underaged peers drinking in bars than about them drinking in their parents' rumpus room or out in the bush somewhere. And purchasing the alcohol often seemed to involve finding an older person to go into the store and buy it for you, known as "bootlegging".
Even if some bars were willing to look the other way, that probably wasn't an ironclad guarantee, because the police might decide to crack down for a few weeks, if eg. they were getting public complaints about the behaviour of underaged drinkers(*).
So, yeah, if Andrew had stumbled into a bar that, for whatever reason, was at that particular time not honouring the wink-and-nod, and then made a big scene about it, I could see that being something people remember and resent.
(*) That's how I once managed to get a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk. The cop told me he didn't usually ticket people for that, but elderly people had been complaining, and enforcement would probably be eased in a week or so.
Comments
A closer parallel is perhaps the former king Juan Carlos of Spain who about a decade ago was forced from his throne by various scandals ( sexual improriety, dodgy financial affairs and other stuff). He was cut off by his son, the present King Felipe and fled to exile in the middle east.
By the coincidence the former king has just published a memoir of the ' I may have made some poor judgements, but look how appallingly I've been treated by my country, I'm the most wronged person in history ' type. I suppose we have that to look forward to from AMW
With a bit of counselling as well as education in self-examination, he might come out of this a better human being.
Apropos of the archduke, there is a quite a list of German and Italian princes being given small country estates to live out their lives far away from noticeable temptation. Even into the Victorian period, monasteries were deemed to be suitable destinations (and in at least one case, a rural diocese). Some shipmates might feel that monasteries were not the best place for those susceptible to distraction.
He was snobbish, entitled and thumbed his nose at laws that applied to everyone else (see underage drinking).
He wasn't remembered fondly. He never changed.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/06/andrew-hrh-style-prince-title-officially-removed-king-charles
I don't think there's any difference from what was previously reported, but presumably it takes a while to ensure that the paperwork is correct.
I will say that, in mid-1980s Alberta(ie. when there was more consciousness about health and safety than in the mid-1970s), underaged drinking was still a pretty tolerated activity, lotsa high-school parties with kids getting sloshed and the parents presumably not caring or being willfully ignorant.
Maybe things in Ontario were different, or Andrew was doing it in open defiance of lawful authority?
Goes to community standards at the time. Young heterosexual partners in the 1850s not that unheard off. Homosexual partners--had to keep that under wraps. Today: homosexual partners at age of consent, okay. Young heterosexual partners who claim they were trafficked, not okay especially if they are under legal age of consent.
When you go to a commercial bar as a minor and get served, it appears illegal.
For sure. I thought you might have been talking about drinking in the park, or at somebody's house.
I assume the servers at the bar knew who he was, and were making an exception for him? If so, I'd have to put some of the blame on them, unless he was threatening to call up the High Commissioner and get their license revoked, or some such.
If it's anything like eastern Ontario, for many years the minor would be served if he had some celebrity status-- quarterback, goalie, prince, etc. Were there police in the bar, he would be served his rye & ginger in a pepsi bottle to preserve appearances.
These days, licences are more loseable and I would think that in most places, this would not happen except on a Saturday night when things might be busy. Most teenage serious drinking happens at house parties.
When I went to some event in middle-or-high school, I was required to have identification, so my mom made up a VERY unofficial ID card from the identifying-tag on some luggage. It was obviously home-made, and I wasn't even intending to pass it off as state-issue.
A few years later, I brought it along on one of my first trips to a liquor store, and presented it when asked by a police officer on the premises. He apparently considered it sufficiently authentic to allow me to stay and purchase booze.
While I have no special familiarity with the vicinity of Lakefield, what you say sounds like it could be plausibly extrapolated westward, and Andrew woulda been accustomed to getting semi-legit entrance to restricted establishments.
But it would probably only take a few non-starstruck bouncers prompting Andrew to pull out a one-dollar bill and start shoving it in their faces while screaming the relevant geneaological tirade, for that to become his general image among the local folks.
However, it may have been seen in Canada, and from some peoples comments on this thread it does not seem to have been taken that seriously then either, in the culture he grew up in, drinking under age may have been be illegal but was almost universal, a rite of passage.
There was a certain amount of outrage in the press way back in 1963 when a journalist spotted the king, then well under age, drinking a cherry brandy in a pub in Scotland on some school outing. For all the usual sanctimony in the press, most ordinary people at the time simply thought, 'good for him'.
There was a spate of pompous utterances from politicians about widespread underage drinking about 10 years ago which always struck me as particularly hypocritical even for a career choice given to hypocrisy, bearing in mind that everyone knew perfectly well that it was something they had all done personally when they were that age.
I think Charles would have been about 15 at the time.
Crop touring was code for 2 cases of beer and 2 pints of Canadian whisky, four liters of coca cola, and four teenagers in a car going around the backroads. Every year, one of our classmates died of "crop touring" but it didn't seem to make a difference. It went on every year.
I look back on my shenanigans as a young person and am amazed I survived my youth. I drove one of the fastest cars and paid for a lot of my university expenses winning the quarter mile drag on county road 19.
All of that being a way of saying I find it hard to believe anybody noticed or even cared about a shitfaced young Royal down the local pub in a small town.
AFF
At the age of 16 or so, a few of us from the Church youth club were accustomed to resort (after singing of hymns, and playing of table-tennis) to the discreet back bar of a local hostelry for a half-pint of bitter, and a few Number 6 fags (smaller than yer normal fag, and only one shilling and three pence for ten...).
O! what sinful and abandoned Dogs we were!
Well, FWIW, back to 1980s Alberta for a sec, I heard a lot less about my underaged peers drinking in bars than about them drinking in their parents' rumpus room or out in the bush somewhere. And purchasing the alcohol often seemed to involve finding an older person to go into the store and buy it for you, known as "bootlegging".
Even if some bars were willing to look the other way, that probably wasn't an ironclad guarantee, because the police might decide to crack down for a few weeks, if eg. they were getting public complaints about the behaviour of underaged drinkers(*).
So, yeah, if Andrew had stumbled into a bar that, for whatever reason, was at that particular time not honouring the wink-and-nod, and then made a big scene about it, I could see that being something people remember and resent.
(*) That's how I once managed to get a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk. The cop told me he didn't usually ticket people for that, but elderly people had been complaining, and enforcement would probably be eased in a week or so.