The ragtag crew of The Irregulars includes a prince escaping from the palace, and he is based on the real Prince Leopold, son of Queen Victoria. The other members of the band solving supernatural cases for Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes were teenagers in poverty trying to make enough money for rent, but Prince Leopold joined them without revealing his identity and fell in love with Bea. While the real Prince Leopold was not sneaking out to solve paranormal crime, The Irregulars did use many of the historical details of his life to create the character.
Prince Leopold ran into the Irregulars during a carriage ride when his carriage almost ran over Jessie as she wandered into the street. While the others were struggling to get by to keep from going back to the workhouse, Prince Leopold was kept sheltered in the palace because of his hemophilia and had to sneak away to join the Irregulars on their cases. He could not stay away from his royal life forever, though, and eventually agreed to a marriage with Princess Helena despite his feelings for Bea.
Most of the basic details match the real Prince Leopold’s life. He was the youngest son of Queen Victoria and inherited hemophilia from his mother. Hemophilia is a genetic condition that impairs the formation of blood clots to stop bleeding, making any injury risky. The condition was common among European royalty, who were often closely related to each other and intermarried. Because of his hemophilia, Queen Victoria wanted to keep Leopold at home, but he did attend Oxford and join the Freemasons, the famous secretive organization with associations with the Golden Dawn Society shown in The Irregulars.
Leopold knew the only way he was likely to gain his independence from Queen Victoria was to marry. He considered several noblewomen, but had trouble finding a wife. Victoria suggested that he meet Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont, the same princess featured in The Irregulars. Leopold married Helena in 1882, when Leopold was in his late 20s. They had two children, but Leopold did not survive to see the birth of his second child. In 1884, he went to Cannes on his doctor’s orders, hoping a change in climate would relieve the joint pain common with his condition, while his pregnant wife stayed home. While there, he slipped and fell, hitting his head. The injuries were exacerbated by hemophilia, and he died from a cerebral hemorrhage the next morning. Prince Leopold was 30 years old at his death.
Just as The Irregulars makes changes to the Sherlock Holmes stories, the show also weaves the real Prince Leopold’s life together with fiction. While the plot is entirely a fabrication, most of the details of Leopold’s life at the palace are relatively accurate, though the timeline is compressed into his teenage years. The Irregulars draws upon many real historical details to craft its unusual paranormal plot, including Prince Leopold’s life story.