Editing From Hell (section)

==Plot==
[[Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale|Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence]], also known as Prince Eddy, secretly marries and fathers a child with Annie Crook, a shop girl in London's [[East End]]. Prince Eddy had visited the area under an assumed name and Annie is unaware of her husband's royal position. [[Queen Victoria]] becomes aware of the marriage and has Albert separated forcibly from his wife, whom she places in an [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]]. Victoria then instructs her royal physician Sir [[William Gull]] to impair Annie's sanity, which he does by damaging or impairing her [[thyroid gland]]. The prince's daughter is taken to Annie's parents by the artist [[Walter Sickert]], a friend of Eddy's who had accompanied him on his trips to the East End. Annie's father believes the child to be his through an [[incest]]uous relationship with his daughter. Sickert reluctantly leaves the child with Annie's parents.

The potentially scandalous matter is resolved, until a group of prostitutes – Annie's friends [[Mary Jane Kelly|Mary Kelly]], [[Polly Nichols]], [[Annie Chapman|Anne Chapman]], and [[Liz Stride]] – who are aware of the illegitimate child and its royal connections, attempt to [[blackmail]] Sickert. After Queen Victoria learns of the blackmail attempt, Gull is enlisted to silence the group of women. The police are granted prior knowledge of Gull's intentions, and are adjured not to interfere until the plot is completed.

Gull, a high-ranking [[Freemasonry|Freemason]], murders the four women in [[Whitechapel]] with the aid of a carriage driver, [[John Netley]]. While he justifies the murders by claiming they are a Masonic warning to an apparent [[Illuminati]] threat to the throne, the killings are, in Gull's mind, part of an elaborate mystical ritual to ensure male societal dominance over women. While targeting Kelly, Gull also kills [[Catherine Eddowes]], who was using Kelly's name as an alias. As the killings progress, Gull becomes psychologically unhinged and has a vision of the future while murdering a woman he believes to be Kelly.

Gull takes Netley on a tour of London landmarks, expounding on their hidden mystical significance. Later, Gull forces the semi-literate Netley to write the infamous [[From Hell letter]]. Following this, several people write letters to the police claiming to be the murderer, and the nickname "[[Jack the Ripper]]" becomes a household name.

Inspector [[Frederick Abberline]], who once patrolled Whitechapel as a police officer, investigates the Ripper crimes without success. He meets [[Robert James Lees]], a fraudulent psychic who acts as a spiritual advisor to Queen Victoria. Lees contacts Abberline and identifies Gull as the murderer. Abberline and Lees confront Gull, who instantly confesses. Abberline reports the confession to his superiors at [[Scotland Yard]], who cover up the discovery. The police inform both Abberline and Lees that Gull was operating alone and was gripped by insanity. Abberline later discovers Gull's intentions to cover up the matter of the royal "[[Illegitimacy|bastard]]" fathered by the Duke of Clarence. He resigns from the [[Metropolitan Police]] in protest of the official cover-up of the murders, and contemplates leaving England to join the [[Pinkertons]].

Gull is tried by a secret Masonic council, which determines he is insane. Gull refuses to submit to the council, informing them that because of his accomplishments and his visions, no man amongst them may be counted as his peer and cannot judge the "mighty work" he has wrought. A phony funeral is staged, and Gull is imprisoned under a pseudonym "Thomas Mason." The Freemasons frame boarding school teacher [[Montague Druitt]] as a suspect, killing him and making his death look like suicide. Years later, and moments before his death, Gull has an extended mystical experience, where his spirit [[time travel|travels through time]], observing the crimes of the [[London Monster]], instigating or inspiring a number of other killers ([[Peter Sutcliffe]], [[Moors murders|Ian Brady]]), causing Netley's death, as well as serving as the inspiration for both [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'' and [[William Blake]]'s painting ''[[The Ghost of a Flea]]''. The last experience his spirit undergoes before it "becomes God" is visiting a woman living in [[Ireland]]. The woman has four children who are named after the women murdered by Gull in Whitechapel. She is apparently able to see Gull's spirit, and abjures him to begone "back to Hell."