Prince Albert in a Can

Myth:  Prince Albert, of the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was the husband and first cousin of the longest reigning queen in British History, Queen Victoria.  Initially disheartened by the status of Prince Consort, meaning Victoria held true power as the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland and Albert was merely “the husband,” Albert overcame his sense of inferiority and initiated some of the most progressive reforms in the kingdom to date.  An advocate of educational reform, Albert also conformed to his status as Prince Consort and oversaw Victoria’s estates, household and office duties.  Moreover, Albert was a strong proponent of the worldwide abolition of slavery, but his zeal for such a cause would be short-lived as he expired at the age of 42 in December of 1861 after a battle with intestinal problems.  His doting wife, the Queen, lived the rest of her life, ultimately dying in 1901, in a perpetual state of mourning and donning the traditional black of a widow until her dying day.  Much beloved by the people of Britain, Prince Albert surmounted the emasculating nature of his role as husband to the Queen in such a patriarchal age, and gained admiration through his numerous benevolent social projects.

Fact:  When one thinks of Prince Albert, the first thing to come to the layman’s mind is not the progressive Prince Consort, but rather a genital piercing – a hoop jutting out of a man’s urethra.  Though no official connection has been made between the historical figure and the piercing, this does not mean the connection is nonexistent – on the contrary, far from it.  As stated before, Prince Albert was initially uncomfortable in his womanly position as aide to his wife, or to take a term from that day in age, he was Hoed before Broed.  Consistently battling this subservience, Albert took action into his own hands: Using a horseshoe from the royal stables and an arrow from the armory, Albert penetrated his urethra with the arrow and then quickly inserted the horseshoe into the gaping hole.  The always-trustworthy royal blacksmith, Dragon Tat as he was called, bonded the two ends of the horseshoe in order to create a closed circle, or hoop.  Victoria was despondent at first, horrified by her husband’s self-mutilation, but two aspects of the new “piercing” would change her mind: 1) Sexual pleasure (something of the utmost importance since the average Victorian couple copulated about once every two years), and 2) Control over her defiant, emasculated husband.  Albert did indeed wish to please his wife and fill the role of Prince Consort, but if he were to ever Broeth-it-up more than necessary, Victoria merely had to tug on his horseshoe and Albert would become as docile as a lamb.  Although the method did eventually work, Albert was in a constant state of dismay during the first few trying years.  He would often run away sobbing and lock himself in the estate’s prison, commonly referred to as The Can at the time.  As Dragon Tat noted in his flesh diary, “Albert would be in The Can for days on end.  Others would inquire about his absence, so I would dutifully respond that he was in The Can.  ‘Well, you had better let him out,’ they would always say.  But they didn’t know Albert as I did, and it took some time to coax him out of The Can.”  Albert eventually accepted his fate by way of the horseshoe device and never returned to The Can, but he met an untimely fate at the young age of 42, ironically dying of intestinal issues in a place that would later be referred to as The Can in years to come.