Queen Victoria: A Most Prolific Diarist| Absolute History

[Music] Britain's longest-reigning monarch mother of nine grandmother of Europe and Empress of India Queen Victoria ruled in a century of revolution turbulence that crossed other European monarchs their Thrones while Victoria reigned supreme yet Victoria that great figurehead of empire was at all times a woman who formed intimate relationships with those around her some conventional some not so conventional but perhaps the Queen's most enduring relationship was that with her pen she was one of the 19th century's most prolific diarists from childhood to widowhood she put her thoughts onto paper matters of state family draw s'p current affairs diplomacy and death she recorded her thoughts on everything and everybody she was famous with us frequently enraged passionately romantic and she poured her emotions out onto paper those close to her were afraid her more alarming opinions might escape in written form causing havoc the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave that always sticks in my throat much of her writing was destroyed after her death and a great deal unfortunately edited by her daughter Beatrice what survives frequently reveals a woman quite different to the one we think we know the solid black plaid matron I spent the last five years reading through Queen Victoria's journals and through thousands of her unpublished letters I've almost come to regard her as a friend there are those who would dismiss her as a hysterical egomaniac but for me she is a human being passion yes of enormous eccentricity but also somebody contrary to what so often said about her who was easily amused her writings are the key to understanding factors that shaped Victoria's personality the tortured relationship with her mother the dominant men she plumbed to in search of a father figure the power struggle that made her marriage to Prince Albert a battleground I want to use her papers to try to read the mind of the woman who ruled the world she was a daughter a wife a mother the queen of a growing Empire friends and family came and went it was her pen which was her constant companion and friend [Music] despite running the most powerful nation on earth throughout her reign Queen Victoria always found time for her journal she used her pen therapeutically to express her innermost thoughts which is why her writings are so much more than just a record of events many of them are kept at the Royal archives at Windsor Castle Oliver at Irvine is the librarian there it isn't easy to decipher her handwriting but it's worth the effort here in widowhood she recalls happy times with Prince Albert here we are instead of the 27th 1860 at Windsor my angel always drove me from a seat behind sitting astride with his feet in large boots and his fur line coat with fur gloves and he enjoyed it so much and it was so pretty it's a very touching one it was it's when she's in the first throes of grief and she's writing out two happy memories the noiseless moving of the sledge it's almost like a Russian novel isn't it if Victoria's works were to be bound as a collection there would be some 700 volumes more than 50 million words the volume I mean it wasn't the volume of Correspondence of writing of papers is of course lossless won't expect to find Victoria's writings in almost every archive in the world under many personal and private archives specifically thinking of the journal actually which is enormous it isn't even malicious once she'd begun this habit perhaps prompted by her mother of keeping a journal it became a habit for the rest of her life yes we're very fortunate that indeed that she kept such a German that provides a fantastic observational evidence honest account of her life is an extraordinary survival of course the later volumes interests are in her hand rather than Queen Victoria's Victoria was never afraid to speak her mind and we don't know whether she'd have wanted her Diaries edited Oliver however has no doubts why oh did Princess Beatrice copy her mother's journals rather than just leaving the mother's journals as they were but she's asked him by her by her mother if you've bear in mind that the diaries are written for Queen Victoria by herself and not necessarily with posterity in mind who came a realization towards the end there's some exercise and editing perhaps even reduction in some places to avoid offending members of the family or others indeed workroom Victoria has at the moment of writing felt able to be fully and freely expressive the sweetness and spiciness of what survived her edit simplest Stokes our interest in what Beatrice cut out how much more was there for instance about the fraught relationship between the Queen and her mother the dynamics of the first relationship Victoria ever knew deeply affected her whole life it is said that the death of Prince Albert in 1861 was the greatest tragedy of Queen Victoria's life but it wasn't the first the death of her mother nine months earlier provoked a tsunami of emotions which stirred up intense inner conflicts it is dreadful dreadful to think we shall never see that dear kind loving face again the outbursts of grief are fearful and at times unbearable as she wrote these loving words Victoria was rewriting her own history since her teens she'd loathed her mother the Duchess of Kent on becoming Queen she'd moved her out of her court and shunned her they'd barely spoken properly for years but when her mother died in March 1861 Victoria suddenly realized what she'd lost as most children do when their parents are dying Victoria sorted through her mother's effects amongst some small pink love notes written to Victoria when she was a young girl and placed under her pillow my dearest beloved Victoria let me say a few words to you before you shut your dear little eyes in some hours this year is closed let us thank that rate and Almighty God for all the many blessings we experienced this year well you can imagine with what shot Victoria read these letters in grown-up life after her mother had died since she and her mother had become estranged Victoria had told herself that her mother had been unkind that she'd had an unhappy childhood and here was visible tangible evidence but her mother had adored her and it had been many periods of joy in her childhood she had the letters bound up in this magnificent leather volume and pricked out on the cover the words from dear mama [Music] she was born in May 18-19 at Kensington Palace but it might as well have been in Germany her mother was German princess victoria of saxe-coburg-saalfeld she barely spoke English she was the widow of Prince Charles of Leiningen Victoria's father was her second husband the Duke of Kent but he was to die just eight months after Victoria arrived that she never knew her father was arguably the single most important factor in Victoria's psychology the Queen would spend her life searching for a father figure without a second time the Duchess of Kent was by Royal standards impoverished her brother-in-law King William the fourth allowed her to carry on roughing it rent-free here at Kensington Palace where she fell prey to the ambitious John Conroy [Music] historian Kate Williams has chronicled events at Kensington Palace she willing needed someone to depend on and Conroy stepped in he saw the vacuum really stepped in and made it his own and really pretty much made himself almost King for little Victoria looking for a kindly man to play papa steamer Conroy was a disaster in Diaries written in adulthood she paints him as a sort of pantomime villain and her childhood as miserable I led a very unhappy life as a child had no brothers and sisters never had a father was not uncomfortable or at all intimate or confidential footing with my mother these words written when she was a grownup paint a pretty bleak picture but the truth was more nuanced yes she was a poor fatherless girl who for the rest of her life craved male attention yes sir John Conroy was a bully and a chaired yes the Duchess of Kent was a silly goose and between them the Duchess and John Conroy devised something they called the Kensington system it meant total separation from the court and here in Kensington Palace it meant that the child was never alone she she had a bedroom with her mother she never ate anything which hadn't been tasted first she wasn't allowed on this staircase unless she was accompanied the Kensington system was really a way in which the Duchess of Kent and John Conroy in particular Conroy wanted to control Victoria this vision that she would come to the throne at twelve thirteen and they'd be in charge and Conroy presumably was the chief agent of this system the Duchess of Kent was a woman who really was out of her depth she was out of her depth in Britain she knew the war family hated her she couldn't really speak English when Conroy came along he said you know I can see an opportunity here and so Victoria this tiny plump little child this really little toddler she's everyone's passport to glory to riches to massive grandeur it was a repressive regime but while Victoria's Diaries recall a lonely childhood we must remember she was prone to reinterpreting her own story Deirdre Murphy is curator of the Victoria revealed exhibition at Kensington Palace so this is the room that Princess Victoria was supposedly born in oh she was born yes she was born in this room one of her dolls houses yes from late 1820s and she had lots of dolls she had lots of dolls she made them herself with her governess Baroness Layton and together had lots of fun dressing them there were animals she had a beautiful-looking charles spaniel named - she would play with him in the gardens and every now and then would dress him up in costumes you did have quite a happy childhood when she looked back on it she saw it as unhappy and I wonder what do you think in fact it was the bullying of cron why when she was a teenager that led her to have this view I completely agree with that these memories that she brings back throughout her life later on are not necessarily reliable because she changes her view from time to time so in in 1872 her eldest daughter Vicki is marrying and having children she writes to Vicki about how difficult her childhood was giving her advice about how did she treat her own children and this is a theme that marks through her letters and correspondence but we clearly can't rely on that completely because she clearly had fun here she was indulged and had a pretty good deal actually at half-past six we went to the play to Drury Lane it was Shakespeare's tragedy of King John the principal characters were King John and mr. McCreadie who acted beautifully we came to the very beginning and stayed to the very end I was very much amused her mother and lady and Victoria were stage struck and they often came here to the glitzy London West End the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is one of their favorites to the play to the Opera to the ballet you and I to give ourselves a treat might go to the Opera the ballet two or three times a year Victoria as a teenager went to the Opera two or three times a week Victoria's family ruled in turbulent times her uncle King William the fourth was the last monarch to appoint his own Prime Minister in defiance of Parliament the people demanded changes to the corrupt electoral system and sweeping reforms in 1832 did little to dispel the scent of revolution in the air trapped in Kensington Palace Princess Victoria was ignorant of it all was the future that awaited there were no other legitimate heirs to the throne this young girl three-quarters German was next in line and didn't Conroy and the court knew it they knew that whoever influenced this child influenced the future British head of state which is why when she was 13 Conroy and her mother took Princess Victoria on a tour across the country they sensed but if the monarchy were to survive it must be more visible free from the claustrophobic atmosphere of Kensington Victoria found herself exposed to the world outside a world of industrial change and burgeoning unrest instead of the safety of the nursery with her dolls she found herself looking into the faces of the poor grimy with smoke and soot and she wrote about her experiences in her journal given and read by her mother we have just passed through a town where all coal mines are and you see the fire dam at a distance in the engines in many places the men women children country and houses are all black professor Jane Ridley has written a life of the Queen it's quite interesting she was sent on those tours which she rather heated around England and the pressure she was under I think he's quite extreme I think it might count for why she actually hated appearing in public later on in life I think her mother saw keeping a journal as part of the training of being a monic fascinating so it was in a sense part of the transient system that yeah I would say it was I saw diary of summer he was at one of these things in Plymouth and this person notices at dinner the little princess didn't say anything she just looked round the table all the time she kept looking looking and they asked afterwards you know what's wrong with this child why did you why was she looking at all the people and Conroy's said she's being trained to remember who they are and when she gets back she'll be tested on them by her mother and if you look at the entry in the dairy you see a long long list of names none of whom she could have men none of which couldn't make any sense to her at all it's hard to say exactly when but by her early teens the princess had come to see what her mother and Conroy were up to Victoria was coming to realize her position as a pawn in the political power game but she came to feel that her mother was siding mr. John Conroy against things came to a head here in the seaside town of Ramsgate on a fateful day in awesome 1835 when her hatred of Conroy was confirmed and she came to live as her mother it was after a tour of the North Victoria was exhausted and sickly when they arrived here at the Albion hotel she had a very sore throat and she became ill ER the doctor came the doctor went said she was alright her mother refused to believe her so just making a fuss Conroy said she was Shannon so this goes on for several days Victoria gave him quite dangerous view where artisans are now creating a new Bijou Hotel Victoria lay in her bed at a low ebb John Conroy seized his opportunity he clumsily barged into her bedroom and tried to make her sign away her future powers as Queen his idea was to have a Regency with the Duchess of Kent ruling in Victoria's stead and of course John Conroy ruling the Duchess sicker she was the 16 year old backed up by her governess Louise litsen refused Solomon it would seem that Sir John was all but violent with her I resisted in spite of my illness and their harshness my beloved late since supporting me alone from now on Victoria was just waiting to be 18 and rid of the influence of Conroy and her mother she began to forget her happy childhood and will only on the sad things the experience at Ramsgate had poisoned her childhood memory and fueled her resentment against her mother the myth of the totally unhappy childhood was born but Victoria was also possessed of a sense of destiny she knew that uncle William wasn't going to be alive for much longer the king had fathered 12 children but no living legitimate heir in June 1837 he died in his sleep of a heart attack her mother woke Victoria I got out of bed and went into my sitting room only in my dressing gown alone and saw them kneeling before her the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain when now has subjects Victoria more German than British was now Queen she was ready to throw herself into the role the survival of the monarchy itself depended on her success I am very young and perhaps in many though not in all things inexperienced but I am sure that very few had more real goodwill and more desire to do what is fit and right than I have Victoria was now free of the Kensington system and all it represented but she was just 18 years old and she needed help to be head of state luckily help was at hand in the form of somebody who himself needed human companionship her aristocratic wait prime minister Lord Melbourne [Music] Cometh the time cometh the father figure Melbourne was everything that Tron Roy wasn't he was loving kind and emotionally intelligent he saw what she needed and he lavished it on him in her diary Queen Victoria had described herself as the little fatherless girl now the 58 year old Prime Minister made sure she felt in control but safe in his care it was he who prepared Victoria and whose states managed the momentous coronation here at Westminster Abbey in June 1838 since 1066 almost every English monarch has been crowned here Victoria had been raised to be ready for this pivotal moment in her own life and that of the nation since her birth there was a two-day fair in the park that were illuminations there was a foul-up display there were people swarming into central London to see their new queen she was working at 4:00 a.m. by the booming of the guns in the park and yet she doesn't mention her mother once when she came to write it up in her journal the central figure for Victoria on her coronation day was Lord M my excellent Lord Melbourne who stood very close to me throughout the whole ceremony was completely overcome at this moment and very much affected he gave me such a kind and may I say fatherly look first things first Victoria wanted to get rid of Sir John Conroy Conroy realized that his luck had run out he wanted to cash in his chips he claimed that Victoria had privately offered him a huge pension of three thousand pounds a year and an English peerage well Melbourne wasn't having any of that though he did offer Conroy an Irish peerage which was refused the influence of Conroy was now decisively over there is no end to the amusing anecdotes and stories lore Melbourne tells and he tells them all in such an amusing and funny way the passionate friendship which sprang up between them gave to the young tween the security she craved and to melt them reeling from a shattered marriage someone to care for really every day he was with us sometimes a five hours a day they'd ride together they do jigsaws together they play cards together he participated in all of this and through this constant being by the queenside he gained a lot of influence a lot of power and essentially he could really tell her what her war was so what he had was something people envied incredibly her education started here the journals bubbled with her conversations with Lord M they talked of everything under the Sun from French history to Shakespeare from mixed-race marriages to Whig society gossip it wasn't just a political process that Lord M introduced her to it was life itself her relationship with Melbourne was helped along by a charming weakness on the part of the Queen she always fell for men who made her love the flirty fun-loving teenage Queen leaps from her pages I asked Lord M how he liked my dress he said he thought it very pretty in that it did very well talk to my having taken a bath his seldom doing sir talk to my having wished to roll in the grass when I was in the garden which made him laugh as a young man he had been outstandingly good-looking and he still is he was incredibly charming he knew everybody he takes upon himself not just to sort of educate the young queen but also to act in effect as her private secretary her journals during the Melbourne years are fascinating because she wrote down absolutely everything that he said melbourne more than anybody is making her a british queen politically speaking the relationship between Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne had no significance whatsoever Lord em was absolutely out of sympathy with his own times and while the pair were out together laughing and writing the country was in a state of unease great riots had broke out at Birmingham again houses burnt and others plundered which he lured em feared was to be expected Melbourne protected Victoria but the national movement for working-class emancipation that produced the people's charter couldn't be ignored there was trouble with the sugar trade and then in 1839 a parliamentary defeat over Irish independence forced Melbourne to resign she felt safe secure and much-loved now she felt alone exposed it was almost as though he died all my happiness gone that happy peaceful life destroyed that dearest kind Lord Melbourne no more my Minister the Prime Minister's replacement was the Tory Sir Robert Peel he had no charm no sense of humor and he couldn't flirt lord m/z arm had given him power over Victorian peels lack of it almost guaranteed a battle of wills their first meeting sparked a constitutional crisis peel almost immediately said you've got to change your ladies the ladies of the Voges ladies of the bedchamber they wants a wicks they now have to be Tories and Victoria she couldn't cope with this you said to peel out I'm not changing my ladies I am NOT doing this peal surprised her by saying in that case he wouldn't be her Prime Minister it became known as the bedchamber crisis Robert Peel was a very astute politician by refusing to be Prime Minister he demonstrated quite a lot of things to the world at large he demonstrated that Victoria was a weed partisan he'd also demonstrated that she was trying to exercise the kind of man article power which no longer existed in Britain this was the last time the British monarchy ever openly defied a representative politician Victoria felt victorious but her intransigence pointed up her immaturity that she put her own selfish needs before those of Parliament was visible to all and the ramifications were immense peels refusal to serve created a vacuum Melbourne was forced to return as Prime Minister of a weak weak government which lasted just two more years the political system had been shaken by young girls tension the sort of behavior a more enlightened mother might have influenced if she'd been more present in Victoria's life the Duchess was now very much behind the scenes but she was nevertheless quietly engineering her daughter's future and her own the question on everybody's lips was who was the young Queen going to marry and broadly speaking there were three options she could have married her cousin in England George Duke of Cambridge was a soldier her age they were fast friends throughout their lives but George used to say rather and gallantly he never wanted to marry plain little Victoria old William the fourth had wanted her to marry into the Dutch royal family but Victoria was having none of that the to eligible princes of orange were frightful oaths and then there was the third option favored by uncle Leopold king of the Belgians and by her mother and that was that she should forge a political alliance with her Cobourg cousin Prince Albert since 1714 the English Hanoverian royal family had been German Victoria was by descent a member of this family but her mother was of a different line the saxe-coburg-gotha s' as there was Albert they saw in this marriage a chance for the family effectively to take over the running of Great Britain they had met before as teenagers 17-year old Albert and his brother Ernest had encountered Victoria as a family get-together in England Ernest was taller and funnier [Music] doctor Karina Roebuck is a biographer of Queen Victoria the first time he came over vis-a-vis his brother Ernest she saw that Ernest was the more interesting one because that was lively one and if the fun-loving one but when they met the second time round then of course he had become a quite good-looking man and it was a very hormonal decision for her to marry him in autumn 1839 the bright eyed Prince now 20 came for a visit from Germany and Victoria three months older nearly a foot shorter was completely smitten by him Albert really is quite charming and so excessively handsome such beautiful blue eyes and exquisite nose and such a pretty mouth with delicate moustaches and slight but very slight whiskers a beautiful figure broad in the shoulders and a fine waist my heart is quite going knowing with hindsight how much rested on that meeting it's hard not to feel a little awestruck by the innocence of Victoria's emotions when she first set eyes on the youthful Albert they were destined to become the grandparents of Europe one of the most famous couples in history but the path ahead was not going to be an easy one Victoria was extremely vulnerable emotionally she was also the most eligible princess in Europe where in the world as she swooned she unconsciously fell in with plans laid by a grand master of political manoeuvring Prince Albert's equivalent of Lord Melbourne [Music] this was never intended to be a love match of course Albert was going to support his wife but he wanted to influence her politically guided himself by his own political mentor try her dr. Stockmann of tow board they wanted to establish constitutional monarchy as the principle bullock against revolution in europe and the best way of doing that was to marry the british queen and have a large family so Albert took this marriage on as a challenge and he knew it would be tough because that's what Stockmar told him when he was about to go to England the second time he said do you want to do this this is going to be a hard life you know you will have to help is this woman in distress that's how he sold Victoria Albert was a controller and a cold fish but from the first they were passionately and physically in love darris Albert took my face in both his hands and kissed me most tenderly and said each harbour daeso liebe ich kann nicht Sargon vie I love you so much I cannot say how much she was so besotted by Albert but his beauty and talent how he could play the piano dance and talked about her favorite opera that she hardly realized how much of her own freedom and personality she was surrendering when she asked him to marry her and marry they did we both went to bed of course in one bed to lie by his side and in his arms and on his dear bosom and be called names of tenderness I have never yet heard used me before this was the happiest day of my life was a strong sexual attraction I think so yes yes definitely when one reads her Diaries one is impressed by her openness I mean she is she really says how beautiful he was and how wonderful is to be touched by him many things right after she enjoyed him taking off her stockings putting on her stone yes having intimacy for the first time so she was utterly delighted by him in a physical way that was lucky that was the Duchess of Kent was not so lucky Victoria was now no longer a child and felt able to flex her muscles for all to see she shunned her mother the Duchess of Kent was a woman destroyed she couldn't believe that Victoria didn't want to see how Victoria wanted to get away from her mother at every opportunity and the whole court saw disc Victoria confided in her journal her enduring coldness to her mother it has been observed that after the marriage I kissed the Queen Mother and only shook hands with muammar which I said was true it's heart-rending to read the cry of the rejected mother seeking the approval of the callous daughter in the year after Victoria married her mother wrote to her or Victoria sigh I also pointed in different with your mother who loves your son dearly but the Queen had eyes for Albert and Albert alone he appeared to be her dream come true Victoria was in raptures her mother who planned the whole thing was sidelined Victoria took a lease of two thousand pounds a year on this house thirty-six Belgrave square and she dumped her mother in it it's handy for the palace I can see the trees that the gardener back in Paris from where I'm standing but the Duchess of Kent was very definitely outside the palace here was her place and her daughter had firmly put her in it [Music] what Victoria wanted now was solitude romance and excitement in company of her man and Superman Prince Albert they fled to the most romantic part of the British Isles and furthest from the London Court soulful Albert was already home soon and the landscape and even the people reminded him of his German homeland Victoria too loved the Highlanders she enjoyed their lack of deference how they treated her as if she was a human being there was a quiet retirement a wilderness a Liberty and a solitude that had such a charm for us you can hear the relief in Victoria's words her joy at being out of London and away from state's duties they both love the great outdoors Victoria and Albert he liked doing deer stalking she was a very good water colorist a night to see her sketchbook out onto the hills Keeley Sandy Reed knows the places that made her heart sing so what were her favorite views when she was around here well I think one Dame should this month ago in our picnics and tell us the hill over on our right there that was our favorite picnic spot she would get on the pony ride sidesaddle up the hill and now but when he would go off stockin and she would just wait and they would have a picnic waiting for him coming back again have you heard whether Prince Albert was a good shot or not well I don't think he was really a good shot like you know but they always seem to have what you a cold hard luck in the evenings they would retire to the homes of the strata Sh nobility for whiskey and flings I danced several quadrilles and vollis's finishing up with a gallop without but they were in for an extraordinary journey together neither of them wanted to surrender their independence both wanted power and more than is the case in most marriages there were to be some furious clashes of wills initially Albert thought he'd won because Victoria said she'd obey him in the marriage ceremony but that was just for show Victoria saw Albert as a helper nothing better in her vision she was writing letters and Albert was getting the blotting paper that was his role he wants to be king he wants to have power Albert wanted control it all he had to do was to let nature take its course within a month of the wedding Victoria was pregnant and when she first felt pregnant she was pretty miserable she just thought suppleness said quickly and she wrote uncle Leopold who was the warden so excited that I if I have a nasty girl at the end of all my trials I'll drown it Victoria was translated she adored Albert and he wanted more children but with every pregnancy she had to give him more executive power and he hadn't reckoned on her fury after she gave birth to the princess royal Vicky she suffered from terrible postnatal depression and there was the most awful row with Prince Albert there is often an irritability in me she wrote which makes me say cross and odious things which I don't myself believe and which I fear hurt Albert Albert just couldn't cope with the swings of emotion and with the rouse and he wrote in despair to old dr. Stockman who was both a medical doctor as well as his political adviser for advice Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me to be able often to speak of my difficulties she feel not hear me out but flies into a way overwhelms me with Capote's of suspiciousness vaunteth past ambition NZ she was at once furious and adoring she missed the brief but golden period when Albert was hers alone she was jealous of the children on whom he lavished his attention she hated being pregnant and she hated that she was free she wasn't enjoying any of the children that that's really sad I mean in his letters he keeps saying why do you always nectar and why the can't you be kind to them and she had she didn't have many motherly feelings because she was so obsessed with her husband [Music] Victoria was in a very difficult position on the one hand she was the queen of England on the other she was a young married woman who simply couldn't stop losing her temper and sometimes the rage is amounted to almost madness she was married to a cold-hearted control freak who punished her when she lost her temper this made her feel even more inadequate but how she strove to improve herself locked away in Windsor Castle are the most fascinating of the Queen's Diaries written later in her marriage they were Victoria's Secret and they demonstrate how Albert had her in an emotional flux by turns angry related even self-flagellating this volume is called remarks conversations reflections and here's what she writes on her wedding anniversary February the 10th what cause have I ever for gratitude and yet alas how often and even to my distress on this holy day does my foolish susceptibility and irritability towards me misery for moments and annoyance to that most perfect and unselfish of human beings my adored husband [Music] she confides all these pathetic feelings about how unworthy she is and how she can't control herself and and and and you get the feeling that this woman has been made to feel that she is sort of inadequate in this relationship how much do you think out that's controlled her I think it was a controlling relationship Victoria endlessly trying to improve herself and to impress Albert Albert with her success in in making herself a better person you get the impression at the end of every year Victoria has a sort of a moral account system if you like doesn't you know we do our cats Victoria did her moral against Albert was succeeding where Sir John Conroy had failed acquiring executive power by stealth' his design was grand he wanted to change the course of history and the children were his weapons creating more and more of them was part of a master plan devised with Baron stroke plan for the security of England and Europe Albert knew that for a ruling monarch there was no such thing as a private life the birth of each and every one of his children made a political statement Europe was moving in a Republican direction Albert was determined to reverse this trend by making those children European kings and queens Albert didn't want to be thought of as the young man from Coe board meet Lee fitting into the traditions of the English royal house he needed to be seen as a political force and he looked for a powerful physical manifestation of his presence which is why in 1845 he acquired this estate husband on the Isle of Wight overlooking the Solent in one of them as Dilek spots in southern England it was to be his project he designed it he made it husband was to be the embodiment of prince albert's ideals of family life ideals which Queen Victoria herself enthusiastically endorsed it is impossible to imagine a prettier spot we have a charming beach quite to ourselves we can walk anywhere without being followed or mobbed you might think you are entering the palace of an Italian Renaissance prince of the chine that Prince Albert visited when he was a teenager it in a way Wow only it's the palace of a modern renaissance prince the architectural design was Albert's as well as the original interior decor every artwork and sculpture steeped in enlightenment ideals it was originally minimalist the later knick-knacker II and clutter is all Victoria when they first came here she already had three small children so she happily let him take a lead in matters aesthetic but as the family grew so did his ambition these desks in Queen Victoria's sitting room are a symbolic reminder of how much she came to depend upon her husband while for Albert won for her actually it was Albert who did most of the day-to-day work of the head of state signing documents reading cabinet papers and so forth while Victoria gave birth to nine babies Albert drew more and more political power to himself for a decade Victoria saw Albert through a thick hormonal fog sometimes her resolve slipped I am every day more convinced that we women if we are to be good women feminine and amiable and domestic are not fitted to rain the other great Victorian dearest Charles Greville noted that whilst Victoria had the title after a few years of marriage albert was king to all intents and purposes the royal family life was tellingly immortalized in oils by the german artist vinta hunter [Music] when this picture was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847 it was very much criticized they thought the Queen of England lacked decorum she was showing so much bare flesh her husband's extending sexy finger into wife his moist little palm but what I think so interesting about this picture is that although Queen Victoria is wearing her coronet it is Albert who is center stage it's a picture of familial contentment but also of Albert's success by now he'd achieved what he left Germany to do perhaps his greatest success was princess Vicky whatever happened to Albert in the future she would carry on his work perhaps even control her mother [Music] the Princess Royal was every inch prince albert's daughter there was a tremendous kinship between Vicki and Albert and obviously the Queen felt a little bit envious but there was pride to the family had visited Blair castle back in 1844 when they first set eyes on an estate up in the north at Balmoral her mother wrote of her happiness of the toddler's maturity Albert walked up the steps with me I holding his arm and Vicki his hand amid the loud cheers of the people all the way to the carriage our dear Vicki behaving like a grown-up person not put out nor frightened nor nervous [Music] eleven years later now aged 14 vicki was back here with the family in the landscape of the highlands that so reminded her father the Prince Consort of the dear German heimet but this was to be no ordinary family holiday of sketching and stalking Victoria and Albert had long planned to marry each of their children off to different European royal houses in a series of political alliances and this the first such political scheme was much them as significant the Queen had vilified her manipulating mother but the master plan she and Albert had for Vickie's was every bit as Machiavellian she and three - Wilhelm Crown Prince of Prussia known as Fritz were mere pawns Victoria put the would-be lovers in the most romantic of settings a place she and Albert loved the Queen near the effect these surroundings could have on sensitive youth the possibilities had her all aflutter [Music] fritzsche looks very well all together looking more manly and his moustache becomes him the visit makes my heart beat as it may and probably will decide the fate of our dear eldest child he was 23 she was 14 little more than a child in her sprig white muslin dress trimmed with red ribbons but it was the start of a romance they walked on the slopes of Craig Anna bond he picked her a sprig of white Heather and there they had their first kiss the plan had worked Vicki loved Fritz and that night ran into her mother's room to tell her having engineered the whole thing Victoria conflicted as ever now tried to take control insisting Vicki delay marriage until she was 17 Queen Victoria felt the classic Envy that mothers so often feel for daughters when they emerge from childhood into womanhood especially if the daughters have been very close to the father she complained of Vicky's waywardness of temper sharp answers and lack of self-control a pretty ripe case you might imagine of the pot calling the kettle black and as the wedding day approached Queen Victoria felt all the usual cluster of emotions she will no longer be an innocent girl but a wife and perhaps this time next year already a mother they were married in January 1858 then the newlyweds left for Prussia thus began one of the most remarkable correspondences in history in which a monitor of one country tried to control the behavior the Crown Princess of another by post Victorine Victoria that's right lots of admonishing letters you know she doesn't want to let go it's a funny in some ways better that's Victoria thought she could still control the way she behaved it taught whether she was sitting down standing up I mean even the tiniest details it's ridiculous yes the point whether that the German authorities actually wrote back to London seeing him latrine pills please stop I'm boarding crown princess's all these terrible letters when Vicki wrote that Fritz was to be a father things came to a head most mothers at least pretends to be pleased at the prospect of becoming a grandmother but when Vicki became pregnant this was not the case having her nine children a place great psychological strain both on Queen Victoria herself and on her marriage so in her letters to Vicki we find that she does not hold back what you say of the pride of giving life to an immortal soul is very fine dear but I cannot enter into that I think much more of our being like a cow or a dog at such moments when our poor nature becomes so very animal and unex tatak but for you dear if you're sensible and reasonable not in ecstasy nor spending your day with nurses and wet nurses which is the ruin of many a refined and intellectual young lady but Queen was half of the most famous Chapel of the age in her letters to Vicki she reveals her ambivalence about marriage tells truths the Princess Beatrice would surely have redacted had she got her hands on them but she didn't they stayed behind in Germany and they are the business which was with these letters you see her unmasked there a stream of consciousness pouring out of her two or three times a week to her daughter in Germany about everything under the Sun about the unsatisfactoriness of men and of marriage Oh marriage is such a lottery the happiness is always in exchange though it may be a very happy one still the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave that always sticks in my throat she must have found writing in this way so very cathartic the Queen's relationships with all her children the jealousies that criticism show how pivotal issue was affected by the tensions and pressures of her first formative years with her own mother she'd never addressed that relationship and in 1861 she ran out of time ever since Victoria married and had babies her own mother had been an exemplary grandmother not a child's birthday got forgotten not an anniversary overlooked but since Conroy had been totally banished at the beginning of the reign the poor Duchess of Kent lived in everlasting dread but she herself would one day be spurned Victoria had convinced herself that it was her mother's heavy-handed parenting that had sundered the bond between them but she was devastated when she learned that her mother was dying of cancer I think it came like a thunderbolt upon us and I think I never suffered as I did during those four dreadful hours till we heard she was better I hardly knew myself how I loved her or how my whole existence seemed bound up with her for decades they'd barely spoken Victoria had written the story of her terrible parenting and now she was rewriting it all in despair I can't bear to think of all you have to go through if only I could be near you and see you very often and long to beguile away the dark hours when you can't amuse yourself but it was too little too late the Duchess didn't live to see Easter Victoria threw herself on Albert little knowing that this terrible year would be their last together Albert himself was a sick man they now seemed to think he had Crohn's disease or possibly abdominal cancer or possibly both and he died that same year 1861 in December Victoria was just 42 years old she'd spent her life struggling against an oppressive childhood and against the tedium of motherhood but however difficult her marriage had been she had now grown totally dependent upon Albert writing to her uncle Leopold she cried out the poor fatherless baby is now utterly brokenhearted and crushed widow of 42 Victoria was often on the brink of instability now grief precipitated a mental crisis that had some advisers wondering if she'd inherited the famous Hanoverian madness it must be said that mourning became her drama queen that she was 1861 was her annus horribilis her darkest hour she ended it as an orphan and the widow and it would be the making of her the widow of windsor as she would come to be known was no longer in the shadow of her brilliant puritanical angel Albert so there will be another story to be told and it's a story of liberation from in which Victoria found herself alone Abel along the journey to make some most unlikely friendships as she became her own woman next time his life was over but her life wasn't over in widow's weeds Victoria is anything but retiring her writings reveal at Queen quite different to the icon we thought we knew freed from Albert she becomes a politician a diplomat and perhaps a lover woman what are you doing the most powerful monitor on earth is a woman Unchained as their Ofili don't read Newland dick nature of the relationships and on the verge of a nervous breakdown [Music] you

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 64,998

Rating: 4.8526912 out of 5

Keywords: history history documentary funny history fun history school, timeline, queen victoria, prince albert, british monarchy, full documentary, full length documentaries, absolute history, a n wilson documentary, queen victorias letters, queen victorias letters a monarch unveiled episode 1, the crown, the crown season 3, the crown trailer, the british royal family, the british royal family documentary, the british royal family tree, anna chancellor

Id: IxerQw9g4kE

Length: 58min 52sec (3532 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019