Returning to the first line, the “Thirty of London” are clearly K.K.K. members, and as in Kabbalah, we must consider this figure as “3+0=3”. It coincides with the number of Americans on the “Lone Star.” The German and Finish people had no relationship with Black people. One of the three was Captain James Calhoun. The three conspired to kill Openshaw.
Jumping to the third line, “These satellites” must be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Lonely Openshaw asked them to help him, but he was killed before Holmes and Watson took any action. They lost the fight without taking any action. It was the biggest humiliation for them. Holmes said “That hurts my pride, Watson,” and “It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now.” “He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin hands.” In this way , these satellites tasted of death.
However, the Lone Star was punished by Heaven, and sunk in a storm. God himself, who gave power to the King, punished the villains instead of the King. “A King shall be elected” may refer to this.
The last question is about “born in the low countries.” I cannot find any explanation for this phrase, though if we pay attention to “low,” this word has a curious relevancy to deaths in this case. All of them died in a low place.
First, Colonel Elias Openshaw was found dead. “We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool.” Its depth was two feet. Openshaw’s “father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull.” John Openshaw died in Thames, near the Waterloo Bridge. Finally, the K.K.K. criminals sunk with their ship, in Atlantic Ocean.
Moreover, most of people in this case went to the land of dead. The “low countries” may mean “the land of dead.” However, Henry Roberts’ “Guy Fawkes” theory cannot explain the phrase either. I would like to hear your ideas about it.
Finally, I will try to calculate the date of this case from the number of the verse, Chapter four, number 89. We can use 4. 8 and 9.
8*9/4=18, 8=8, 9=9, 9=9, 4*9*(√4)/(√9)=24.
September 24, 1889 is the date given by Professor Christ.
Bibliography
1 Roberts, Henry C., The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus (new revised edition), Nostradamus Co., New York, 1982.
(The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.5, 1995, and vol.6, 1996)
The True Identity of King of Bohemia
It is an undisputed fact that the last true king of Bohemia was Ferdinand I (reigned 1526-1564), and that after his death, the Kingdom of Bohemia was absorbed by the Holy Roman Empire. “A Scandal in Bohemia” is estimated from1887 to 1889 by various chronologists, and it is clear there was not a king of Bohemia in the late 19th century.
Scholars have proposed the names of several noblemen as the real identity of the King of Bohemia in SCAN. However, some were already married by 1887-89; most others were too old or too young.
L. W. Baily1 and Julian Wolff2 proposed the Crown Prince Rudolf as the King of Bohemia. Rudolf was a son of Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, and Elizabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria. Rudolf was born in 1858, and he died in 1889. He married to Saxe-Coburg, Stephanie of Belgium in 1881. It would have been impossible for him to say “I am about to be married.”
Julian Blackburn3, E. V. Girand4 and Michael Harrison5 suggested Prince Alexander (“Sandro”) of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria (1857-1893). He was a nephew of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, and “Alexander was expected to be a faithful servant of St. Petersburg, but . . . he began to take a more independent line. This eventually disturbed Russia so much that her agents organized a conspiracy against Alexander among discontented army officers. One night in August 1886, they burst in on the Prince, forced him to abdicate on pain of death, and removed him to Russia.”6 Alexander married Johanna Loisinger (1865-1951), an opera singer in 1889. If Loisinger was the real Irene Adler, there would be no reason for SCAN to occur, because they married successfully. In addition, Alexander had already resigned as Prince of Bulgaria in 1886. He was not a monarch in SCAN time.
John D. Cleark7 and Goran Sundholm8 considered Albert Wilhelm Heinrich von Hohenzollern, who became Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1888, as the King of Bohemia. Wilhelm II was born in 1859, and his father was Frederick III, Emperor of Germany. His mother was Victoria Adelaide Mary, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. He married Augusta Victoria von Schleswig-Holstein in 1881. The king was going to marry to “Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia.” John B. Wolf pointed out that Wilhelm II “was married to Princess Auguste-Victoria zu Schleswig-Holstein; Schleswig-Holstein being the Danish duchies of the second German Reich.”9 Schleswig-Holstein is very near to Denmark, but it is not a part of Scandinavia.
T. S. Blakeny10 thought it was Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863 -1914). He married to Sophie Josefine Albina Choteck in 1900. However, D. Martin Dakin says “nothing is known of any arrangement with the Scandinavian royal house, but he fits better than anyone else.” Charles A. Meyer11 and Edgar W. Smith12 indicated the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, King of Britain, as the King of Bohemia. Actually, he had many mistresses, and his bride was Princess Alexandra of Denmark, “daughter of the King of Scandinavia.” The other monarchs mentioned in this article did not have brides who were from Scandinavia. It is the largest positive factor for Edward. However, he married in 1863, and was already a father of six children and too old in the late 1800s to be the 30-year-old king in the story. The King of Bohemia must have married in late 1880s, and his bride must have been from Scandinavia.
At that time, there were two kingdoms in Scandinavia. One was Sweden and the other was Denmark. Sweden’s king was Oscar II (1829-1907), but he had four princes and no princesses. And his grandchildren were too young to have married by 1887-89.
The other king was Christian IX of Denmark. He was born in 1818, acceded in 1863 and died in 1906. He married to Princess Louise Wilhelmina of Hesse-Cassel in 1842, and had six children. His eldest son, Frederick VIII, King of Denmark, was born in 1843. His eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra was born in 1844 and married to Edward VII of Britain. His second son, Prince William George, born in 1845, became the King of Greece, George I. Christian’s second princess, Dagmar “Marie” of Denmark, was born in 1847. She was married to Alexander III and became the Empress Marie of Russia. Their third princess, Thyra Amelia Caroline, was born in 1853, and married to Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover and third Duke of Cumberland in 1878. The third prince, Valdemar, was born in 1858 and married Princess Marie d’Orleans.
Frederick VIII’s eldest daughter, Louise Caroline Josephine, was born in 1875, and was only thirteen years old in 1888 -- too young to be a bride for the “King of Bohemia.” She married Prince Frederick von Schaumburg-Lippe in 1896. The daughters of Alix, Marie and Thyra are not members of Glücksburg family. Prince Valdemar’s only daughter was born in 1895.
Prince William George, King George I of Greece and his wife, Olga Constantinovna, Princess of Russia, had four princes and three princesses. Their eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece was born on 18 August 1870. She married Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanov on 5 June 1889. As far as my research has found, this is the only marriage of a Glücksburg princess between 1887 and 1889.
Though Princess Alexandra was a Princess of Greece, she was also a member of Glücksburg, the Danish Royal family. It is not exact to say she is a “daughter of the King of Scandinavia,” but she was a granddaughter of the King of Scandinavia, and a daughter of the King of a member of the Scandinavian Royal Family.
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanov was the King of Bohemia? He was born in 1860, and was 29 years old when he married. The King of Bohemia said “I am but thirty now.”
His father was Alexander II of Russia and his mother was Princess Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt. It is a well known fact that the Romanov family had married extensively into the German aristocracy: Alexander II’s mother was Princess Alexandra (Charlotte) of Prussia. But the most famous example is Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia (1729-1796). She was a daughter of Christian Augustus, Prince of Anholt-Zerbst and married to Peter III, Tsar of Russia. It is natural that Grand Duke Paul disguised himself as a German noble, and that Watson used a German pseudonym for him.
The King of Bohemia said “I am about to be married.” Though the Canon says “it was on the twentieth of March, 1888,” Blakeney, Brend, Christ, Dakin, Folsom, Hall and Zeisler consider that it was March, 1889. This coincides with that fact Grand Duke Paul’s marriage was 5 June 1889, only three months after Holmes’ involvement in the affair. The King of Bohemia also said “You may know the strict principles of her family.” King George I and Queen Olga “led a happy, but simple life with their large family.” 6
The King of Bohemia “could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules . . . with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.” The king had a moustache and no beard in Sidney Paget’s illustrations. The Grand Duke Paul “was a very tall, thin, broad shouldered man with a rounded forehead, a long thin nose, a moustache and no beard.”
The King and Irene Adler met in Warsaw, which was a part of the Russian Empire at that time. Adler was “Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw” [emphasis added]. It is natural that a member of Russian Imperial family visited the Imperial Opera of Warsaw. If he was a German noble, the opera houses of Berlin or Vienna were probable destinations. The Grand Duke Paul “was charming, elegant, humorous, a good dancer and a great favorite among the ladies.” It is not hard to imagine Irene and Grand Duke Paul falling in love.
A Grand Duke is not a king, but then, Prince Alexander (“Sandro”) of Battenberg, Crown Prince Rudolf, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Edward VII were not kings at the time of SCAN, either. It is not an important problem. The most important points in favor of Grand Duke Paul are, one: he married a member of the Glücksburg family; two: his marriage was just after the SCAN; and three: he was about thirty in late 1880s. I consider Grand Duke Paul as the most believable candidate for the King of Bohemia.
Grand Duke Paul had two children, Maria Pavlovna, was born on 6 April 1890, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (the man who killed Rasputin), born 6 September 1891. Princess Alexandra died on 12 September 1891. In 1902, he married Olga Valerienovna Karnovich, Princess Paleij, as a morganatic marriage, and had three children. This second marriage caused a scandal in Russian society, forcing Grand Duke Paul to leave Russia to reside in Paris until 1912. This scandalous love affair of Grand Duke Paul supports my theory that he was the actual “King of Bohemia.” He returned to Russia and lived “not far from the Alexander Palace, where Nicholas II and his family lived . . . when his health permitted, he commanded the First Imperial Guards Corps at the front, ranking as a full general of cavalry.”
He was arrested and killed by the Soviets on 29 January 1919, at Fortress Peter & Paul, Petrograd, Russia.
Bibliography
1. Bailey, L. W. “The Scandal Behind the ‘Scandal,’” SHJ, 9, No. 3 (Winter 1969), pp.82-85.
2.Wolff, Julian. “The King of Bohemia,” Practical Handbook of Sherlockian Heraldry. Compiled by Julian Wolff. New York: [Privately Printed], 1955. pp.22-23.
“The Arms of the King of Bohemia,” BSJ, 15, No. 3 (September 1965), 147- 149.
3. Blackburn, Julian. “The Identity of the King of Bohemia,” BSJ, 21, No. 2 (June 1971), pp.114-116.
4. Girand, E. V. “On the Antiquity of Scandal in Bohemia,” BSJ, 23, No. 3
(September 1973), 162-169.
5. Harrison, Michael. “Sherlock Holmes and the King of Bohemia: The Solution of a Royal Mystery,” Beyond Baker Street: A Sherlockian Anthology. Edited and annotated by Michael Harrison. Indianapolis/New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., [1976], pp. 137-172. illus.
6. Kroll, Maria, Lindsey, Jason; Europe’s Royal Families, Country Life Books, London, 1979
7. Clark, John D. “The King of Bohemia?” BSJ, 15, No. 3 (September 1965), pp.142-146.
8. Sundholm, Goran “Vem var Kungen av Bohmen?” Baker Street Cab Lantern, No. 7 (1969), pp.17-20.
“Who Was the King of Bohemia?” Tr. by the author; revised and edited by Herbert A. Eaton. VH, 4, No. 3 (September 1970), pp.2-4.
9. Baring-Gould; The Annotated Sherlock Holmes volume I, Clarkson N. Potter Inc., New York, 1967, pp.354
10. Blakeney, T.S.; Sherlock Holmes Journal, vol.3, No.2, pp15-16.
11. Meyer, Charles A. “Some Thoughts on A Scandal in Bohemia,” NS, No.26 (March 25, 1986), pp.3-8.
12. Smith, Edgar W. “A Scandal in Identity,” Profile by Gaslight, edited by Edgar E. Smith, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1944, pp.262-273.
(The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.7, 1997)
The Game Is Afoot!
I am always reminded of this phrase when I start to write a Sherlockian article.
We first see this famous phrase in the Canon in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” when Holmes tells Watson: “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!” The word “game” has two meanings. One is “quarry” or “spoils,” which would be the main meaning in Shakespeare’s and Holmes’ words. However, the other meaning of “game” is “a diversion, pastime, or amusement; or a form of mental or physical competitive play, governed by specific rules and testing the skill, endurance, or luck of the participants.”
This latter meaning is important, as Sherlockiana is a “game,” like chess or Monopoly for me. “Sherlock Holmes is alive” and “Dr. Watson wrote the Canon” are rules of the game, and I do not want to change these rules. It would be impossible to play chess if you deny the rules of movement of the chess pieces. We can enjoy playing games when we adhere strictly to the rules.
I am also a member of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, and I know there are many distinguished studies of ACD. I read these studies with great interest, but this is a different matter - this is English literature. It is one thing to play Monopoly, and another to study someone who invented Monopoly. Playing the game is not a substitute for studying history. They are completely different matters.
Recently some people have claimed that most of the problems in the Canon have already been solved, and there are no new subjects for Sherlockian scholars to discuss. They propose “Victoriana” - the study of Victorian times - as the new way for Sherlockians. I cannot accept this view. There are no problems solved with regard to the Canon. You would understand this simple truth just by seeing De Waal’s massive bibliography, where thousands of pages list tens of thousands of writings about Canonical problems. Surely people would not have so much to say about problems which have already been solved.
Victoriana is required as basic knowledge for serious Sherlockians. Michael Harrison, Vincent Starrett and other Sherlockians of my grandfather’s generation knew first-hand what the Victorian world was, and Sherlockians of my father’s generation also have good knowledge of the era, passed down by their parents. For the third generation Sherlockians, however, the Victorian era is long-past history, and it is especially difficult for non-English Sherlockians to get - and understand - detailed information on the Victorian lifestyle. We must put forth much hard work to understand the world of Sherlock Holmes.
However, this is only an entrance, an “undergraduate course.” Having gotten that far, one sees the entire, great world of Sherlockian fun stretching beyond.
I hope The Shoso-in Bulletin helps you to join - and enjoy the “game.”
(The Shoso-in Bulletin vol.8, 1998)
John Clay’s Grandfather
Jabez Wilson described John Clay as “not short of thirty.” As this case occurred in 1887 (Baring-Gould), 1889 (Folsom and Zeisler) or 1890 (Bell, Blakeney, Brend, Christ, Dakin and Hall), Clay would have been born before 1860. Wilson also stated “he’s not such a youth either. It’s hard to say his age.” Holmes called him “young John Clay.” Clay would have been in his thirties, or might have been in his early forties. Namely, he was born between about 1845 to 1860.
John Clay had no titles. Holmes mentioned him as “Mr. John Clay.” Inspector Jones called him “your highness,” but it was a joke. His father would not have been a peer.
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