Inside Victoria & Albert's Saucy Marriage | Victorians Uncovered | Real Royalty with Foxy Games

at the end of her reign this was victoria's favorite pose the grim empress disapproving and prudish she seems to preside over a joyless world in which dominant men gave their submissive women little pleasure particularly in the bedroom [Music] sexual relationships were often unhappy affairs but the victorians uncovered are far more complex even the queen herself was an ardent lover it was the fun she and albert enjoyed in bed that gave her marriage enduring power and that marriage became an inspiring example to the entire nation it was an example that many simply could not follow their failure condemned them to live in a harsh and unforgiving world [Music] princess victoria was born into a wicked world in the 1820s the upper classes knew how to drop their knickers weekend house parties were an excuse for bed swapping aristocratic excess was satirized by popular cartoonists one of their chief targets was george iv victoria's uncle a spendthrift divorcee lampooned for his love of mistresses the respectable middle classes despised him stop stop wriggling madea in 1826 victoria visited her uncle for the first time victoria had a bunch of sleazy uncles they were not only near-dewell uncles and spencer of uncles they were also womanizing uncles she was in a very peculiar situation where she had a great number of uncles and a great number of aunts but no cousins because all the children they had were illegitimate when the little princess arrived at court she was received by the king and his mistress give me a little paw hey no victoria was charmed victoria had a lot in common with her dissolute uncles she shared their passion for pleasure she adored the theater music and dancing but this sensual pleasure-loving world was being swept away by a new religious movement [Music] evangelical christianity had grown up with the new middle classes its followers were the new puritans expected to be pious hard-working and chaste the evangelicals rejected the sexual depravity of the upper classes and preached a return to godliness and virtue [Music] victoria's advisors decided that she would represent this new era of respectability where her uncles had been wicked she would be good her innocence and virtue would be a fresh start for the embattled monarchy victoria came to the throne in 1837 when she was 18 years old the young queen recorded her good intentions in her diary i am very young and perhaps in many though not all things inexperienced but i am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than i have [Music] her moral upbringing had paid off but her passionate nature had not been quite tamed she was hungry for life [Music] she was fascinated by her prime minister lord melbourne melbourne was a rakish wit who'd survived a series of scandals he was one of the old order an embodiment of everything she had been kept away from so far she spent up to six hours a day in his company entranced by his racy stories melbourne frequented all the uh posh uh mansions in london uh lady hollands dinner parties and so on and he came back with lovely stories to tell her stories of sexual intrigue and of people running off with other duchesses or duke's wives or husbands and he retailed them to her and she learned a lot about society and maybe all she ever knew about sex from these stories their relationship grew so close that people began to gossip the wilder side of victoria's nature loved melbourne's stories but faced with a real sex scandal her moral upbringing triumphed with terrible consequences for one of her own staff lady flora hastings the crisis that followed is still remembered by the hastings family today when i was young i used to go up to stay in my grandmother's house next to the castle and my grandmother when we wrote letters home used to produce these sheets of little stamps like this with lady flora's picture on so that her memory was kept alive the condition of that early in 1839 buckingham palace was buzzing with rumor the unmarried lady flora hastings had just returned to court she was not feeling well her stomach was swollen within days queen victoria had jumped to a shocking conclusion we have no doubt that she is to use plain words with child panic gripped the court melbourne fueled the scandal and victoria had to act victoria was certain that there was hanky-panky at court and yet lady flora hastings was a extremely virtuous woman it was totally unlikely but victoria speculated about this and finally decided that she had to purify her court of this lady lady flora herself was appalled by the charges to clear her name she agreed to the indignity of an internal examination the doctor certified that she was a virgin but confusion remained sir charles clarke had said that though she is a virgin still that it might be possible and one could not tell if such things could not happen that there was an enlargement in the womb like a child [Music] but flora was not pregnant a few weeks after the examination she died from cancer of the stomach [Music] the family were very angry because she'd been completely ignored by queen victoria all the time she was ill and really suffering and i think the final straw is that the family never received any apology from anybody at court either public or private after flora died as news of flora's innocent death broke the country fell out of love with the queen she and melbourne were booed when they appeared in public the reputation of the monarchy as the moral arbiter of the nation was under threat many of victoria's subjects believed the young queen needed the steadying hand of a husband three months after lady flora's death victoria awaited the arrival of her german cousin prince albert a royal wedding would certainly restore her lost popularity but victoria was not sure all reports of albert are most favorable but i might like him as a friend as a brother as a cousin but not more [Music] the young queen was enjoying her freedom marriage might undermine that independence [Music] [Applause] [Music] albert was now 19. he was much taller than she was she was only an inch under 5 feet tall very very slight young lady albert was handsome albert just uh floored her the first time she saw him and we know that from her diaries it was with some emotion that i beheld albert who is beautiful such beautiful eyes an exquisite nose and such a pretty mouth with delicate mustachios victoria was fortunate she fell in love with her prince after only four days she told melbourne she had decided to marry albert but there was a problem she was queen he was a second son in an obscure principality in germany even though he was a cousin she had to propose to him on the afternoon of tuesday the 15th of october 1839 queen victoria sent for albert you must be aware why i wished you to come it would make me too happy if you would consent to what i wished [Music] that was probably the first time she had ever kissed a man when she proposed and they kissed she was a quick study [Music] oh to feel i was and am loved by such an angel as albert was too great delight to describe he is perfection i told him i was quite unworthy of him her prince charming had a troubled past as a child he'd lost his mother when he was five she'd been driven from home by her husband's debauchery albert was determined his marriage would be different this golden couple seemed to have it all physical passion on a bedrock of virtue and morality the evangelicals rejoiced the nation was delighted [Music] the royal partnership became the ideal of the perfect marriage but others found marriage a terrible trap what is so amusing nothing in 1827 caroline sheridan destined to be one of the most influential women of the century married george norton a member of the aristocracy well george and caroline norton um were my great great great grandparents and um i suppose that one has to feel quite proud of being descended from caroline norton um but very much not the case uh for for george george norton uh seems to have had almost no redeeming feature at all um from what one can tell he had two particularly outstanding qualities towards caroline one being meanness the other being cruelty he became violent fairly early on in the marriage he put a boiling kettle of water on her hand he pushed her down the stairs when she was seven months pregnant and caused a miscarriage um he apparently uh became so violent on one occasion that the servants protect had felt they had to protect her from them and she spent the night locked in the nursery with the babies it was clearly an appalling situation [Music] it was a very different marriage from the idealized partnership of the royals but there was no escape for caroline a divorce was only possible through an individual act of parliament caroline was trapped [Music] caroline norton was trapped in a violent marriage with no possibility of divorce she yearned for male affection risking scandal by entertaining a visitor while her husband was out the visitor was the prime minister lord melbourne commanding the admiration of their attentive auditors i do she wouldn't say these things to me before i've had my tea are you very hurt they would spend hours sitting on the sofa chatting about politics quite often i think this was unusual of course because gentlemen did not on the whole visit married ladies um except in any company with other people um caroline of course was unchaperoned at this point so they were alone and this obviously raised eyebrows when it became known publicly norton saw the rumors as an opportunity to make money remarkably he accused melbourne of adultery taking him to court under a bizarre law called criminal conversation criminal conversation is an antiquated kind of civil action it isn't a criminal action at all and it's nothing to do with conversation the conversation here refers to sexual intercourse it's a civil action that is brought by a husband against an adulterous wife's lover and what he's suing for is damages damages for the loss of her sexual services in 1836 melbourne was of course prime minister having him sued for effectively for adultery was the scandal of decade there was no no competition it was the monica lewinsky trial of its day the country was gripped by the scandal on the day of the trial the courtroom was besieged have you ever seen lord melbourne kiss gone into the room when lord melbourne seen them at any other time when they were touching but norton's witnesses were laughable there was no real evidence of adultery the jury considered their verdict for one minute before finding melbourne not guilty caroline mistakenly believed this would clear her name personally i think it very unlikely that caroline and melbourne had a sexual affair um but she's an innocent abroad in this front because she doesn't she just hasn't grasped that her own position he is totally reliant on a public perception of sexual virtue as all women's positions were at that point her reputation suffered immensely from it nothing had been proved against her but caroline had been tainted by scandal melbourne would no longer see her society shunned her there was only one way for her to go down and in the 19th century a fallen woman could really plumb the depths as the painting found drowned shows this is the classic story of the fallen woman who in remorse completely outcasts from society throws herself into the river the river seen as the great sewer of london which carries the waste and she is part of it away with her you find this image repeated over and over again not only in portraiture but in stories of the time it's the moral tale it's there as a warning to emphasize the terrible consequences of sexual misconduct [Music] newly wed victoria had no need of moral warnings she was delighted with albert and the legitimate sexual pleasures of marriage they were very young they were 20 years old it was quite young to get involved when they had no knowledge of sex whatever but they certainly managed to find out quickly victoria wrote in her diary that they didn't sleep much that night and it was the most wonderful night in her experience my dearest albert put on my stockings for me he does look so beautiful in his shirt only with his beautiful throat seen oh how i love him how intensely how devotedly how ardently [Music] victoria enjoyed having sex but she didn't enjoy the results within weeks of her wedding victoria found she was pregnant she was furious eight more children followed [Music] couldn't figure out how not to have children and still enjoy albert she asked dr lowcock how can i not have children and he said abstinence he could not tell her that there were other ways not to have children he could not tell her that illegally sold in shops in london were condoms there was just no way she had to keep having children contraception in the form of condoms had been available for some considerable time they were made of sheep's bladder you had to dip them in water they tied on with a ribbon which was rather sweet and they were known as armor and the reason why they were known as armor is that they were there to protect men from venereal disease they weren't primarily about contraception for that reason condoms were probably not widely used by respectable married couples [Music] victoria hated childbearing it interfered with her sexual freedom she called it the shadow side of marriage but her people loved the idea of young children in the palace ironically the reluctant mother became a maternal icon and victoria saw that her growing family was politically useful they say no sovereign was ever more loved than i am i am bold enough to say and this is because of our domestic home the good example it presents victoria's perfect marriage was becoming oppressive to those whose relationships did not live up to the ideal i think queen victoria and albert's happy marriage probably did make it more difficult for women who had unhappy lives or found themselves in more complex emotional situations because her happy marriage was so much publicized and for those decades in the middle of the century was made so much of and accorded so well to the dominant ideals then if your life didn't fit so well it probably was more difficult for you caroline norton was shut out of victoria's paradise her marriage had failed she and her husband now lived apart a woman who's separated from her husband has no rights she has no rights to property she has no rights to her children she would not be received in society at that point she would be outcast caroline refused to accept this abject state she campaigned successfully for separated women to have the right to see their children and she used her artistic talents to earn a living [Music] when the marriage broke down she was very lucky and i think perhaps rather unusual by the standards of her age in being able to support herself from her writings she wrote poetry and stories and they obviously sold quite well [Music] despite her success in building an independent life caroline was still married to norton meanwhile in the midlands another quiet female revolution was stirring marion evans later to become famous as the novelist george eliot began by rejecting her evangelical faith [Music] while i admire and cherish the moral teaching of jesus i consider the system of doctrine built upon the facts of his life to be most pernicious in its influence on individual and social happiness i cannot join in worship which i wholly disapprove simply for the sake of social appearance marion would go on to make a determined attack on the sexual conventions that bound her world in 1851 she moved to london on her own and began a bohemian life mixing with artists and writers her formidable intelligence impressed a publisher john chapman who asked her to co-edit the radical magazine the westminster review there were already women reviewers but to edit a review was extremely unusual and in fact it was kept secret john chapman pretended that he was the editor it suited him because he liked the idea of the kudos it suited her because she didn't want to stand out she was quite happy to do the work anonymously and not get the credit but be paid and get the pleasure she must have been a very sexy woman i think because everybody was mad about her she was always falling in love herself with all those publishers and agents and people and they were all falling in love with her i mean the man woman and dog i think i think that's great because she was very ugly and i mean she was known as the horse-faced queen of the blue stockings and and uh she was but she must have had something must have had pheromones coming out of her ears i think through her work marion met george lewis a self-styled philosopher and poet and one of london's most talked about men this relationship would ruin her reputation marion and louis fell in love but there was a problem lewis already had a wife it was widely known that his marriage was an open one and that his best friend hunt had fathered some of the children he didn't he never blamed his wife but on the other hand he began to become unhappy with the arrangement and so he actually moved out of their family house in kensington and went into lodgings but even a failed marriage was still a bond for life and marion knew she would be blamed if she took the momentous decision to live with lewis as his wife you risked ostracism from society certainly from your family probably maybe disinheritance the end of your social life and it was a very great risk to take what you risked in effect was becoming a fallen woman [Music] for marion love was more important than convention she would live with lewis as his wife but to escape immediate judgment and the suffocating morality that was closing in on them they decided to leave england for germany marion was aware of the enormity of her decision i have counted the cost of the step that i have taken and i'm prepared to bear without irritation or bitterness renunciation by all my friends at home literary society couldn't stop talking about it i can only pray that lewis may prove constant to her is there for her conduct with her brain seems like morbid mental ability she has all the intellectual strength of a man but in feeling all the peculiar weaknesses of a woman marian and lewis were condemned as society continued to idealize victoria and albert the royal couple's private home osborne house on the isle of wight was a temple to the perfect marriage but lurking in the state interiors are some surprising aids to marital bliss she wanted to keep him up to the mark in in sexual interest and so for her wedding anniversaries and for his birthdays she would either commission or buy works of sculpture or paintings that were filled with luscious nudes [Music] the one i think is the most interesting is one i think in the stairwell it shows the god of the sea neptune uh handing his crown to britannia in other words britannia was becoming the mistress of the seas i guess that's supposed to represent victoria the god himself is placed in just such a way that the horse's forelocks look exactly like very luxuriant pubic hair and i think it was done deliberately a fresco in albert's private bathroom shows that he shared victoria's enthusiasm for erotic stimulation on the wall across from the bathtub is a huge picture about seven feet high showing hercules with the queen of lydia awfully on his knee and she is wearing nothing but a headscarf and he is wearing nothing but the queen of lydia but this side of victoria and albert's relationship was confined to their private home in public they remained the model of respectability living proof that marriage was the only legitimate place for a sexual relationship after a year abroad marion evans and george lewis returned to england they both knew that victorian society would judge marion much more harshly than lewis lewis for example continued to be invited to households where he'd been invited before his before he had set up home with marian but she would not be invited with him so many a time lewis would go off to dinner with the dickens's or with thackery or the trollops or other figures that he knew and marion would not be invited light and easily broken ties are what i neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as i have done they obtain what they desire and are still invited to dinner in her solitude marion started to write she would become one of the most famous authors of the century her books would always question the unforgiving harshness of victorian morality [Music] in 1855 the controversial caroline norton launched a bold attack on the law which still decreed that marriage must be for life and women were the property of their husbands parliament was debating a contentious divorce bill caroline wrote an open letter to the queen calling for equal rights for women in divorce cases she wrote to queen victoria woman to woman and appealed to her sovereign as a female subject who had no rights effectively um whether it's extremely unlikely that queen victoria ever caught sight of this document um but as a publicity stunt it it it's quite effective and obviously it still catches the eye today two years later the divorce law was finally passed [Music] the 1857 divorce law was an extremely significant moment it was the first time that in this country you could get a divorce that was absolute and final without going through the procedure of a separate act of parliament the divorce court was in london and people could file separately and so for the middle classes it was their first opportunity for people with really miserable marriages to end them officially the new law offered a real chance of escape from impossible relationships the ideal of victorian marriage was beginning to crack [Music] even victoria and albert's domestic harmony was under threat by 1861 they were hoping that their eldest son bertie would follow their example by marrying a suitable princess but while bertie was away from home serving in the army he was led astray the gentleman officers who were with him decided they had to initiate him they realized that he was a very naive and innocent young man he came back to his bed one night and found a woman in it it was a woman they called an actress but the actress was a euphemism for other pursuits he took the lady back with them to london he enjoyed what he had discovered soon it was the talk of the gentleman's clubs and the word got back to albert and albert was terribly distressed by it said it was the most painful thing that had ever happened to him this was a direct challenge to albert's sober loyal and sexually continent morality it seemed as if bertie might be demonstrating the same traits as victoria's wicked uncles ten days after learning of bertie's affair prince albert fell ill on the 14th of december he died in windsor castle victoria believed that bertie's sexual exploits had broken albert's heart and lowered his resistance the queen plunged into an ecstasy of grief [Music] how am i alive after witnessing what i have done oh i who prayed daily that we might die together and i never survive him i who felt when in those blessed arms clasped and held tight in the sacred hours at night when the world seemed only to be ourselves and nothing could part us i felt so very secure i always repeated and god will protect us i never dreamt of the physical possibility of such a calamity such an awful catastrophe [Music] victoria was determined albert's memory would live on she insisted on reminders of him in all their homes though she now had to learn to work alone she kept their desks side by side as they had always been the queen had albert's heated shaving water brought in every day she slept with his night shirt in her arms and she had a picture of her dead prince hung on his side of their bed she could not bear to let her lover go [Music] prince albert was dead but his moral legacy lived on marion evans was one of its victims marion was living openly with george lewis lewis didn't qualify for divorce under the 1857 act so she was still beyond the pale of respectability fearful of her reputation tainting her work she wrote her first major novel adam bead under the pseudonym george eliot but she couldn't keep the secret long once the book was a runaway success but by this time people had already praised adam beed to the skies it had been a tremendous success and it had been praised as a moral novel a novel with a moral tendency not moralizing but a moral tendency and therefore it was rather difficult for these same critics when the next novel mill on the floss came out to turn around and change their view completely and start talking about an immoral woman writing these novels but there is evidence that a lot of critics and readers puzzled with themselves in their letters and diaries how could a woman who on the face of it seems to be both an agnostic or an atheist and a loose woman living with a man who's not a husband how could she write these novels her new celebrity status ensured some men were now prepared to visit marion but they did not bring their wives nor did her fame bring any word from her estranged brother isaac he had disowned her because of her relationship with lewis she was very very fond of her brother and she adored him and i think that that when isaac cut her off i think it was a real a real blow in her next novel the mill on the floss marion wrote about a brother and sister tom and maggie taliva clearly based on herself and isaac george in the book maggie returns from an innocent night away with a man and approaches tom he assumes she has fallen tom presently turned and lifting up his eyes saw her figure whose worn look and loneliness seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures he paused trembling and white with disgust and indignation you will find no home with me he said with tremulous rage you have disgraced my father's name i wash my hands of you forever you don't belong to me when george eliot spoke out against her judgmental society the intensity of evangelical christianity was fading the strict rules that governed relationships had begun to relax a little amazingly queen victoria was herself part of the thor she was bending the rules she had helped to create following albert's death she too sought solace outside marriage my poor heart seems transfixed with agonies of longing am alas not old and my feelings are strong and warm my love is ardent [Music] long before his death prince albert had picked out john brown to be victoria's particular servant he became a controversial choice he smelled bad he didn't wash he smoked heavily he drank so much that he was often found insensible on the corridors this was somebody who had access to her and yet was the opposite of every other kind of male that she had contact with [Music] victoria was devoted to him combining the offices of groom footman page and maid i might almost say as he is so handy about cloaks and shawls brown would call her woman not ma'am or your majesty but woman and he would throw her children out the prince of wales the heir to the throne would come to see her and he would say your mother doesn't want to see you now he was dominating in strange ways but i think she enjoyed that kind of domination he comes to my room after breakfast and luncheon to get his orders and everything is always right he is so quiet has such an excellent head and memory is besides so devoted and attached and clever it is an excellent arrangement and i feel i have here always in the house a good devoted soul whose only object and interest is my service and god knows how much i want to be taken care of [Music] brown the queen was surrounded by scandalous rumors there were reports that they had married and even that victoria had borne his child but she would not give brown up she needed him [Music] brown would lift her onto her horse he would lift her off the horse and this brawny scott therefore held victoria in his arms and that i think was the only physical sexual or near sexual relationship between them and she must have enjoyed it just as victoria allowed herself to become the subject of gossip so marian evans was on the road to respectability marion and george lewis bought a house in surrey marion's novels had made them rich and they spared no expense on their new home but lewis did not enjoy it for long he was already ill and in november he died marion was devastated she was lonely she was utterly alone and in her case all the in spite of being george eliot and famous and having written middlemarch the greatest novel of the century it was agreed on all hands in spite of all this she felt unconfident and she felt resentful of her single status she had to go and prove the will and she had to go and prove the will as miss marion evans marion found it difficult to cope alone and she relied increasingly on her young friend john cross in time cross proposed and in the spring of 1880 they were married the woman who had lived out of wedlock for 20 years became a wife [Music] the infamous agnostic was married in a traditional anglican church [Music] many of her friends who had accepted the relationship with lewis were in a strange way it's like a kind of upturning or looking through the other end of the telescope they then felt that there was something really unconventional and all was wrong and unorthodox about her marrying although the one thing that did happen which i think is also possibly part of her calculation in marrying john cross was that she wrote to her brother isaac from whom she had been estranged for 25 years to say i have married mr john crossings and george's hanover square church and on such and such a date and isaac wrote three lines of congratulations my dear sister i have much pleasure in availing myself of the present opportunity to break the long silence which has existed between us by offering our united and sincere congratulations to you and mr cross believe me your affectionate brother isaac p evans and then she answers him my dear brother your letter was forwarded to be here and it was a great joy to me to have your kind words of sympathy for our long silence has never broken the affection for you which began when we were little ones and she finishes it always always your affectionate sister mary anne cross i mean when i first heard about it i thought that she should tell isaac to take a running jump yeah i thought he was behaved extremely badly but but she was very fond of her family i think and went and didn't and missed the whole family the respectable family atmos i think she missed respectability funnily enough although she walked away from it i think she would have liked to have been respectable three years earlier another celebrated woman also made her peace with victorian society after 45 years in a sham marriage george norton died and caroline was free in 1877 she married sir william sterling maxwell i think in the end maxwell was offering her the shelter of his name it was it's a very victorian idea but the name meant so much by then because as caroline norton she was so notorious there's the old victorian saying that a woman's name should only appear in the paper twice on her marriage and her death and caroline's name was in the paper an awful lot more often than that and i think maxwell was offering her that kind of anonymity to right at the end of her life that she i think she'd come to crave but this respectability was short-lived both marion and caroline died within months of their weddings [Music] for victoria another marriage was impossible she was a widow for 40 years and after john brown's death she was more alone than ever [Music] but she'd been luckier than most at a time when the rules of sexual conduct had been rigidly enforced she had found a perfectly proper outlet for her passionate nature [Music] the image of a solitary victoria that endures today belies her 20 years of marriage the perfect marriage which set an almost impossible standard for her subjects [Music]

Channel: Real Royalty

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Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, queen victoria, prince albert, victorian, victorian life, odd victorian stories, womens rights

Id: 6v1wmTdRG9A

Length: 48min 11sec (2891 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021