An Inquiry into: “A Scandal in Bohemia” Vol. XII No. 42 June 24, 2021 “A Scandal in Bohemia” was first published in The Strand Magazine in July 1891. It is part of The Adventures of Sher- lock Holmes. As the table shows, the majority of our chronologists agree on which year this adventure took place. If indeed the year in which this case took place was 1889, as the majority of our experts think, then at the time Sherlock Holmes was 35 years old and Doctor John H. Wat- son 37. Main Characters: Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, king of Bohemia. Irene Adler, American opera singer, not- ed adventuress and King Wil- helm’s former mistress. Godfrey Norton, English barrister who weds Irene. Notable Quotes: To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particular- ly, were abhorrent to his cold, pre- cise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high- power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and question- able memory. Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. “You see, but do not observe.” “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theo- ries, instead of theories to suit facts.” “She was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for.” It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime. The Soulless Detective “All emotions . were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind,” Watson tells us of Holmes. Then he comments that “He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer.” Our Biographer evaluated him as “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen.” But Sherlock Holmes was not a machine. His experience with Irene Adler—especially its aftermath— proves that he was far from being unfeeling. His reaction when Watson was shot in 3GAB, his con- sideration of the rose in NAVA, and his compassion for old Turner in BOSC, to name just a few instances when deeper feel- ings emerged, put the lie to this. I suspect that effort to isolate himself from the finer emotions in his dealings with mankind went beyond simply a desire to keep himself from becoming too involved with the people that he met in his cases in order to main- tain his mind detached for what- ever investigation he was con- ducting. One must wonder whether Holmes would still have been Holmes if he had given his feeling a slight chance to surface once in a while. Had he done that, aside, Courtesy of ITV Granada perhaps, of the possibility of lead- ing a somewhat happier life, I do not believe that this would have necessarily resulted in the com- promise of his observational, deductive, and detecting abilities. Some Canon scholars have suggested that for anyone to live the emotional life that our sleuth led, there had to have been some experience in his past, early life, that was emotionally damaging; some- thing which traumatized him to the point at which his mind, in search of refuge, simply refused the normal personal contact most of us enjoy. It would certainly explain much about his almost defensive attitude over the prospect of becoming deeply involved with someone, and might also be a reason for his occasional drug use. Thankfully, later in life we see him leading a more normal existence, as in LION, with friends drop- ping unannounced to visit. An Implausible Scandal I have often wondered what the true story of the matter between Irene Adler and the King of Bohe- mia was and what, exactly, it was that he held over his head. I fear that perhaps this is one of the ear- lier instances of Watson being his very discreet self, by leaving a few facts unrevealed. Let us consider the situation as we know it. Von Ormstein is to marry Clotilde Lothman von Saxe- Meningen, the second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. According to the would-be-groom, she comes from a very strictly prin- cipled family and she herself is “the very soul of delicacy.” This means that were there to be the slightest blemish on his con- duct the relationship would be ended and there and there would be no wedding. Without researching the mat- ter, offhand I can think of only three Royal husbands who (from all accounts) very likely were faithful to their wives: Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort; Maximilian von Haps- burg, the short-lived Emperor of Mexico, husband to the hap- less Carlotta; and the ill-fated Courtesy of ITV Granada Nicholas II, Tsar of all the Russias. Aside from these and considering the likes of Emperor Franz-Joseph and Crown Prince Rudolph, the Bonapartes (both Napoleon and Napoleon III) and many others, the fact is that royalty was rather weak on marriage fidelity. Nobility in general was the same. From season to season, particularly during the hunting season when they all gathered at friends’ estates, the foxes and vixens were extremely busy—and I am not solely referring to the four-legged kind. In those days Royals and the upper aristocracy struggled to maintain appearances to an extent that, unfortunately, has all but disappeared today. While Victoria and most certainly her great-great- granddaughter today stand as paragons of virtue, the fact is that there was considerable winking and shrugging of shoulders back then. And although royal and noble girls and women were expected to preserve an innocence that bordered on ignorance, this was not true for their male counterparts; af- ter all, boys will be boys. It was not at all unusual for some innocent woman to find herself afflicted by STDs, courtesy of their husband. Even if the would-be-bride, Princess Clotilde had been raised in a nunnery it is highly unlikely that she could have been that overly shocked over the fact that her intended, a healthy bachelor would have had some sort of an intimate relationship with a woman. Although not a bachelor, the escapades of Bertie (poor Queen Victoria’s bane) were well-known noble and subject alike, and his female “friends,” such as Lilly Langtry were followed with awe by ladies’ magazines, covering every aspect of their fashions. The long and short of all this is that the unmarried King of Bohemia’s escapades with Irene Adler could hardly have come to the level of an intolerable scandal. So what was it that The Woman had that would have been sufficiently explosive to cancel the coming wedding? It seems ex- tremely improbable that it could have been a simple photograph of the couple. Unless, of course, the subject was so utterly sala- cious, shocking, or deviant that no sane fa- ther, regardless of the advantages that such a union might bring to his kingdom, would be willing to entrust a daughter to such a Courtesy of ITV Granada man. Perhaps it was better that Holmes did not recover the photograph. It kept the illusion intact. What else happened in 1889: Empire Great Seal of the United Kingdom is affixed to the charter of the British South Africa Company. Company is assigned trading and other rights over a vast territory, with the express reservation to the Crown to take over at any time the works and buildings of the Company. Transvaal claimed to be “encircled” by Rhodes’ concessions in East Africa. Rhodesia established. ◄ At Cairo, Henry Stanley ends his three-year African expedition. He is knighted upon his return to England. Writes In Darkest Africa. Colonel Woodehouse defeats Dervish horde in Sudan. General Grenfell, commanding British troops on the Nile attacks and defeats Dervish troops, with 500 killed and wounded, and as many taken prisoner. The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed from coast to coast. Britain Great London Dockers’ Strike; the “Dockers’ Tanner”; growth of unskilled workers’ unions; New Unionism; Gasworkers’ Union formed. Strike is finally arbitrated in the workers’ favor by the popu- lar Catholic Cardinal Henry Manning. Parnell vindicated as all charges are revealed as false. The London Times apologizes. Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, opens.