How the First Celebrity Stalker Stole Queen Victoria's Underwear

LONDON -- Modern celebrities shake off stalkers with restraining orders. But if they really want to discourage their obsessive fans, they should borrow a tactic from Queen Victoria: Have them kidnapped and shipped to the other side of the world.

That's what happened to Edward Jones, a troublesome teen who repeatedly broke into the queen's London residence throughout the 1830s and '40s. During his explorations of Buckingham Palace, he sat on the throne, hid under Victoria's sofa and even snatched some underwear.

His remarkable tale is recounted in "Queen Victoria's Stalker," a new book by Dr. Jan Bondeson, a rheumatologist and lecturer at the Cardiff University School of Medicine and author of "A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities" and "Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear."

"I think that a strong case can be made for Boy Jones, as he was dubbed by the press, being the first recorded celebrity stalker on record," Bondeson told AOL News. "He has many things in common with people who bother actors and actresses today. Just like them, he was obsessed with a person of the opposite sex, and of much higher social standing."

The class difference between Jones and Victoria couldn't have been more extreme. While she was born into a life of palaces and plenty, he grew up in desperate poverty. His home consisted of a single room in the west of London, which he shared with five or six siblings and his drunken tailor father.

Bondeson suspects that Jones' infatuation with Victoria could have started when he spotted an illustration of the queen in a cheap newspaper.

"In all of those portraits, the young Victoria was depicted as really beautiful, although in real life she wasn't much to look at," he said. "But after seeing those pictures, he may have thought, 'That queen's the girl for me.'"

Jones was first caught inside Buckingham Palace in 1838 when he was just 14. He was discovered in the queen's dressing room with several pairs of regal underwear stuffed inside his trousers. He'd also stolen several letters to Her Majesty -- which he'd opened -- and a portrait.

Victoria, then 19, was shocked to hear about the intruder. "But supposing he had come into the Bedroom, how frightened I should have been," she wrote in her journal.

It's likely that Jones had sneaked into the palace before. The building is "a huge structure," says Bondeson, and it would have taken a first-time visitor a long time to discover the queen's private rooms.

"His father later testified that the boy had some very odd habits. He slept all day and was awake all night, and went away for days on end and never told anyone where he'd been," Bondeson explained. "I'd say he was probably visiting the queen."

It would have been surprisingly easy for the ragamuffin to gain access to the royal residence.

"Buckingham Palace was run like a medieval castle. No person was responsible for security, and windows on the ground floor were often left open," said Bondeson. "There were porters and pages inside the building, but the pages could be as old as 80 because they never retired."

Security outside the palace was just as shabby. Military sentries who should have been keeping guard often spent their time getting drunk and carousing with prostitutes.

When authorities questioned Jones about his intrusion, he claimed he'd simply been gathering research material for a book on the palace and its royal resident. Palace officials didn't accept that excuse, and Jones was charged with theft. He was found not guilty and freed after a hearing in court.

But Jones couldn't stay away from his beloved queen and was caught inside the palace again in December 1840 and March 1841. Determined to punish the scamp, authorities hauled Jones before a secret tribunal -- to minimize the royal family's embarrassment -- on both occasions and sentenced him to three months in jail for the crime of being "a rogue and a vagabond." (It wasn't illegal to trespass in royal palaces in those days.)

The royals' reputation wasn't protected, though. Wily journalists tracked Jones down in prison and interviewed him about his exploits.

Finally, the government and the royals grew tired of Jones' obsession. Worried that he might one day prove a threat to the queen, or that he'd perhaps catch her in the nude during a future intrusion, British authorities decided to put some distance between Jones and his dream girl.

"If legal means were not adequate to get rid of him, illegal means had to be resorted to," Bondeson said. "So they had him kidnapped and shanghaied onboard a Royal Navy vessel."

He was forced to slave away as a seaman for six years, before being allowed to settle in Perth, western Australia, where he worked as a town crier. Jones eventually took to drink, and after a particularly heavy binge on Boxing Day in 1893, fell to his death from a bridge in Bairnsdale, southeast Australia.

Despite his harsh treatment at the hands of the royal family, Bondeson says Jones remained loyal to his first love throughout his life.

"He didn't have any children and never wanted anything to do with women," he said, "apart from his beloved queen."