The original Italian version is available here.
The most famous theory about Jack the Ripper's identity is undoubtedly the royal conspiracy one. According to this theory, Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson, was a frequent visitor of London's East End, where he established a relationship with a woman called Annie Elizabeth Crook, with whom he also had a daughter called Alice Margaret. Obviously the royal family could not accept the situation because Annie Elizabeth was not of royal descent and moreover she was Catholic. The Queen therefore decided to resolve the issue drastically: Annie Elizabeth was kidnapped and laboratory experiments were carried out on her in order to make her lose her memory; during the kidnapping Alice Margaret managed to escape and her traces were lost for decades.
The problem would have been solved if it weren't for a lady living in Whitechapel whose name was Mary Jane Kelly who knew all the truth having nursed Alice Margaret and who had confided her secrets to three friends. The Queen then decided to silence everyone and commissioned her personal doctor, Sir William Gull, assisted by coachman John Netley to resolve the matter. Gull then began lurking in Whitechapel's dark nights killing five women: Mary Kelly, the three friends and Catherine Eddowes mistaken for Mary Kelly, as Catherine also sometimes called herself Mary Kelly. After killing Eddowes, the killer threw a shred of the apron of the woman with which he had cleaned his knife in a archway in Goulston Street and left a chalk writing on the wall with which he clarified his belonging to Freemasonry with a dark and disturbing language. The writing said The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing and according to conspiracy theorists the word Jewes would be a collective name that in Freemasonry is used to indicate Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the three alleged killers of the imaginary Masonic character Hiram Abif.
This theory was popularized by the BBC television series Jack The Ripper in 1973 followed by Stephen Knight's notorious book Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution in 1976. Since then it has been the most famous portrayed in novels and movies, including the ludicrous From Hell with Johnny Depp produced in 2001: an excellent example of cinema and a very bad example of historical reconstruction.
Aside from the historical checks that can be made, which have not confirmed the royal conspiracy theory to be true, this hypothesis does not stand up to a minimum of critical thinking. Sir William Gull was 72 years old in 1888 and there is not a single case in the history of a respected professional who becomes a serial killer at such an old age by order of others. He also had at least two heart attacks and doesn't seem like a good candidate to have killed five women by force.
The theorists of this conspiracy mention a statement by Dr. Llewellyn about the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, according to which the killer had removed her organs with the precision of a surgeon, to claim that the Ripper may have been a doctor. However Gull was not a surgeon but a physician and had never operated on anyone in his career; therefore he could not have any surgical ability, let alone precision.
There is no evidence that Gull was a Freemason, however Freemasonry is a secret society and not a mob-like criminal organization to be hired for murder. Furthermore, the word Jewes written in the Goulston Street graffiti has no Masonic meaning at all and does not occur in the Masonic texts and there's no explanation to why the killer would have had to waste precious time during his escape to write a message that gave correct indications to the investigators on his identity.
There is also no evidence that the five victims of the Ripper knew each other, nor is it clear why the royal conspirators would have decided to reserve different treatments for the four witnesses and Annie Elizabeth Crook: they could have simply killed Annie Elizabeth too. If the royal hired assassin had to silence the four women he would have done so in a much shorter time than the more than two months the killer took; nor would the ferocity used by the murderer be explained: if they had been murders for hire, the murderer would have been as quick as possible without unnecessarily risking getting dirty with blood.
The fact that Gull may have mistaken Catherine Eddowes for Mary Kelly because of the partial homonymy is also completely laughable: the two women were very different in age and appearance and we do not believe that the killer asked the victims' names before slaughtering them, he surely would have known in advance which girl he had to kill. And Mary Kelly is obviously a very popular name in London: both in 1888 and today.
Finally, a royal hired assassin with a coachman at his service would have had better means that would not have forced him to clean his weapon with a piece of apron and then leave it in an archway where he knew it would be found, it would be enough to simply bring the dirty knife with himself on the royal coach.
Unfortunately this is one of the best known theories; it is undoubtedly fascinating, but completely unfounded and absurd. To accuse an esteemed professional of being a murderer is not a legitimate theory and is not even funny: it is infamy.
This conspiracy theory is a nonsense that deserves no consideration but only derision and which should be eradicated from the world of ripperology.
The most famous theory about Jack the Ripper's identity is undoubtedly the royal conspiracy one. According to this theory, Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson, was a frequent visitor of London's East End, where he established a relationship with a woman called Annie Elizabeth Crook, with whom he also had a daughter called Alice Margaret. Obviously the royal family could not accept the situation because Annie Elizabeth was not of royal descent and moreover she was Catholic. The Queen therefore decided to resolve the issue drastically: Annie Elizabeth was kidnapped and laboratory experiments were carried out on her in order to make her lose her memory; during the kidnapping Alice Margaret managed to escape and her traces were lost for decades.
The problem would have been solved if it weren't for a lady living in Whitechapel whose name was Mary Jane Kelly who knew all the truth having nursed Alice Margaret and who had confided her secrets to three friends. The Queen then decided to silence everyone and commissioned her personal doctor, Sir William Gull, assisted by coachman John Netley to resolve the matter. Gull then began lurking in Whitechapel's dark nights killing five women: Mary Kelly, the three friends and Catherine Eddowes mistaken for Mary Kelly, as Catherine also sometimes called herself Mary Kelly. After killing Eddowes, the killer threw a shred of the apron of the woman with which he had cleaned his knife in a archway in Goulston Street and left a chalk writing on the wall with which he clarified his belonging to Freemasonry with a dark and disturbing language. The writing said The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing and according to conspiracy theorists the word Jewes would be a collective name that in Freemasonry is used to indicate Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the three alleged killers of the imaginary Masonic character Hiram Abif.
This theory was popularized by the BBC television series Jack The Ripper in 1973 followed by Stephen Knight's notorious book Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution in 1976. Since then it has been the most famous portrayed in novels and movies, including the ludicrous From Hell with Johnny Depp produced in 2001: an excellent example of cinema and a very bad example of historical reconstruction.
Aside from the historical checks that can be made, which have not confirmed the royal conspiracy theory to be true, this hypothesis does not stand up to a minimum of critical thinking. Sir William Gull was 72 years old in 1888 and there is not a single case in the history of a respected professional who becomes a serial killer at such an old age by order of others. He also had at least two heart attacks and doesn't seem like a good candidate to have killed five women by force.
The theorists of this conspiracy mention a statement by Dr. Llewellyn about the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, according to which the killer had removed her organs with the precision of a surgeon, to claim that the Ripper may have been a doctor. However Gull was not a surgeon but a physician and had never operated on anyone in his career; therefore he could not have any surgical ability, let alone precision.
There is no evidence that Gull was a Freemason, however Freemasonry is a secret society and not a mob-like criminal organization to be hired for murder. Furthermore, the word Jewes written in the Goulston Street graffiti has no Masonic meaning at all and does not occur in the Masonic texts and there's no explanation to why the killer would have had to waste precious time during his escape to write a message that gave correct indications to the investigators on his identity.
There is also no evidence that the five victims of the Ripper knew each other, nor is it clear why the royal conspirators would have decided to reserve different treatments for the four witnesses and Annie Elizabeth Crook: they could have simply killed Annie Elizabeth too. If the royal hired assassin had to silence the four women he would have done so in a much shorter time than the more than two months the killer took; nor would the ferocity used by the murderer be explained: if they had been murders for hire, the murderer would have been as quick as possible without unnecessarily risking getting dirty with blood.
The fact that Gull may have mistaken Catherine Eddowes for Mary Kelly because of the partial homonymy is also completely laughable: the two women were very different in age and appearance and we do not believe that the killer asked the victims' names before slaughtering them, he surely would have known in advance which girl he had to kill. And Mary Kelly is obviously a very popular name in London: both in 1888 and today.
Finally, a royal hired assassin with a coachman at his service would have had better means that would not have forced him to clean his weapon with a piece of apron and then leave it in an archway where he knew it would be found, it would be enough to simply bring the dirty knife with himself on the royal coach.
Unfortunately this is one of the best known theories; it is undoubtedly fascinating, but completely unfounded and absurd. To accuse an esteemed professional of being a murderer is not a legitimate theory and is not even funny: it is infamy.
This conspiracy theory is a nonsense that deserves no consideration but only derision and which should be eradicated from the world of ripperology.
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