Why Did The Public Dislike Prince Albert? | Royal Upstairs Downstairs | Real Royalty

just what do you have to do when a queen decides she's going to pop in to see you and not just any old queen victoria like a pair of obsessed victoria groupies we're pursuing her around the country to the posh pads she visited we'll be delving into her personal diaries to reveal what happened behind closed doors today viva castle in rutland and boy what a castle it's stunning as someone who spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques i'll be upstairs discovering what would have titillated her majesty if you were a coach driver you'd want one of these and as a chef who's passionate about great food i'll be getting to grips with a classic victorian dish that would have been cooked for hrh during her visit here i'm covered in beer and seeing if i can beef up tim's taste buds what have you been beavering away at here at bieber victoria and albert traveled to beaver from chatsworth house for a three-day visit in 1843 victoria was 24 had been married for nearly four years and already had three children they were here to try to improve albert's image by showing him off at one of the country's most high-profile hunts a hunt famous for the land it covered and the number of foxes it caught often over 80 a year well rosemary this is a bit different from anything we've seen so far did you know that there's been a castle here since just after the battle of hastings ah 1066 and all that well you can see why it's called bellevue or belvoir as it translates in french which means beautiful view or beautiful to see but all that goes back to its norman root you know and these locals they couldn't pronounce any foreign names so that's why today we call it beaver when victoria and albert came to beaver albert's popularity rating was pretty low although his misses adored him he wasn't really liked by the public or the upper classes so victoria's advisers the spin doctors of the day thought that the sight of a handsome man on horseback hunting heroically might help boost his image they had a bit of a fight on their hands to overcome the public's anti-german feelings and a view amongst the snooty aristocracy that he was too middle class so this notionally private visit was designed to have a public impact i'm heading off to an inventive entrance that gave upstairs beaver a modern twist and i'm going downstairs just to see how the servants coped with the arrival toodaloo bye [Music] beaver stands high on a hill in the middle of rutland in the east midlands it's the ancestral home of the dukes of rutland victoria and albert's host was the fifth duke of rutland john manners is it me or does he look a bit like colin firth anyway he was a man who simply loved to entertain on a lavish scale his castle had been rebuilt some four times over the years and was state of the art when the royal couple visited its modern features are set into an ancient style apparent from the moment you arrive if you were a coach driver and you wanted the ultimate chic way to enter your newly constructed castle then you'd have one of these this is called a port kosher literally from the french meaning carriage gate it's a covered structure enabling the whole carriage to be drawn into the building so that you'd remain nice and dry which is where victoria arrived and was ushered into the castle here [Music] on the other side of beaver the servants had a very different entrance hidden out of sight below the castle this was the discrete way in and it's not for the faint-hearted this is the most unusual service entrance i have been to yet it's like a dungeon down here it's really quite scary actually these are the long corridors in the basement of beaver castle they are known as the dooms what an appropriate name [Music] every day the servants would come in and they'd be given a candle at the other end so they can find their way just like me through to the top end but just imagine a new young housemate coming just from the local village how scary would that be i can't imagine anything worse on your own in a long dark corridor not knowing quite what to expect but you knew this was your destiny that was a long time ago thank goodness they don't have to do it anymore servants would surface near the kitchen and enter a labyrinth tunnels corridors and hidden staircases were all designed to keep the serpents out of sight downstairs but above stairs it was all about being seen particularly for albert who needed to raise his profile victoria was keen to show off her hubby to his best advantage throughout the visit while their host was keen to show off his pad from the moment his royal guests arrived so this is the guard room effectively the grand entrance hall into the castle it was rebuilt in the gothic style we've got these two smashing fireplaces either end and the floor is covered in nottingham stone with this lovely inlay in 3d geometric effect so colin firth i'm sorry the duke of rutland led victoria and albert through this room to meet a few close friends who'd he'd assembled for this private visit well actually the 200 vip mates he'd invited to stay at the castle the guest list was like a page out of who's who with names such as the prime minister robert peel and the military hero the duke of wellington and fittingly here he is represented on the wall i wonder if he noticed [Music] wellington would have been impressed with a military exercise that went on downstairs in order to feed the guests the castle was pretty self-sufficient and it had to be as well as the 200 vips staying the duke invited a whopping 1 000 people for dinner over the course of the three-day royal visit including all his tenants and those who worked for the hunt as well as the local movers and the shakers it also needed a pretty big kitchen and i think chef ivan day our historical food expert has found it well listen tell me look at this kitchen it's incredible it was designed to cook food for the family but on special occasions like victoria's visit it was used to cook sometimes for about a thousand people there were i think 800 in the granary there were another hundred in the stuart's room and nearly as many in the servants hall and the secret for cooking for all those people is over here this is the epicenter of this kitchen these are the two boilers which were used for boiling meat puddings and vegetables all at the same time so half a dozen cabbages thousand turnips could all be put into this great thing and it's what we have in restaurants we have great big cauldrons for stockpots and things like this and if you don't have it you can't cook the food as simple as that next to the boilers is the roasting range it allowed the joints of meat to be cooked at the same time this one at beaver was installed in 1820 and would have therefore cooked hrh's meals for her three-day visit one dish in particular that would have been cooked for victoria and the servants alike would have been a hearty brisket and that's what we'll be cooking today [Music] well here it is fantastic a piece of brisket lovely piece of brisket it really is isn't it what we're going to do with it is prepare something called hunter's beef which was the traditional dish that was often served at a hunt supper salted and spiced cured beef dish absolutely wonderful delicious [Applause] brisket is a cut of beef that needs slow cooking after we've cured it with salt and spices and i've discovered like so many victorian dishes we could be here for some time the duke of rutland had many swedes to host his royal guests in and journalists on the newly created illustrated london news desperate for the inside story were left to guess the details but just like today why let the facts get in the way of a good story eh their report claimed that a state bed had been made for her majesty and she stayed in the state apartments but it hadn't and she didn't this illustration of an apparently specially made bed is totally disputed by the castle curators who believe she actually stayed here in the king's apartments which she described in her diary as very nicely arranged the most resting piece in the room has to be this bed i mean just look at the quality of that mahogany richly encrusted with gilt carved wood absolutely gorgeous and in the empire style this type of bed is called a half tester it's got posts at the back but they're really only for show the canopy or tester is supported from above and there are no posts at the end hence half tester now there's one thing about beaver castle it's the views which are stunning from most of the rooms that's why the choice of this suite of rooms for the important kings and queens staying is so peculiar because if you look out at the window all you see is flat lead roofs but maybe victoria and albert known to be a couple of lovebirds weren't so interested in the views from the window we've had a look at the dates of their visit and their fourth child prince alfred was very probably conceived here perhaps in this very bed [Music] well there's one thing i do know country pursuits that's the hunt they were here to take part in of course really built their appetite the hearty hunter's beef certainly fits the bill and ivan and i have to start the curing process [Music] we've got to salt it and spice it in order to get the salt and the spices penetrating into the meat the first thing we've really got to do is make lots of little holes and a knife in the flesh so there to allow all the flavors to penetrate the salt has to get in too because that is going to cure it ivan you know i do so much curing this is incredible because it's exactly the same it's really amazing to think that we are still using the same techniques today this process will draw the water out of the beef brisket kill the bacteria and preserve the meat i think we can actually put that now into the salting pan fantastic the most vital ingredient in this recipe is this which is salt pita or potassium nitrate it's been used for centuries to prevent bacteria from infecting the meat it kills them off very very quickly and what i'm going to do is according to the recipe i'm told to sprinkle this on first by itself before we put any of the other ingredients on it's very little as you can see you need a tiny amount and the whole secret is is to rub it in all over in fact you can actually see the meat changing color already because the salt pita actually makes it go a much brighter red and sometimes this was called scarlet beef that was another name for it ground pepper mace and allspice are rubbed into the beef followed by salt and brown sugar this as you can see is a coarse salt if you use ordinary table salt it just forms a cake over the meat and the salt doesn't penetrate so with this you get a lovely slow release lovely yes um unfortunately it does dry the meat out because it dehydrates it as you explained draws water out so to counteract that we put in sugar sometimes honey or molasses is used so if you could pop those all in roseman i'll rub the lot in okay and now it's a case of just rubbing everything in so we get the benefit of the salt the spices and the sugar so the last thing we need to do is to get that fresh thyme into here rosemary i'll tell you what i can't stay away i thought you were going to say this off you go you take over then you do that just rub it in really well it's absolutely fabulous right well the good news is you'll be able to do that once a day for the next 16 days well i'm not sure i've got 16 days to spare let's hope that ivan has something up his sleeve for later [Music] on day two of the royal couple's visit to the castle the famous beaver hunt was swinging into action and a lot was riding on albert's performance the main purpose of the visit was about to begin he'd brought six horses with him and chose to ride his favorite called emancipation the times newspaper described how victoria proceeded litha by carriage to witness the start of the meet which was being held five miles from the castle numerous horsemen rode alongside at least 300 and a further 500 joined them on the way victoria notes in her diary that much like her beloved albert the hands were very handsome and i'm heading off to see the direct descendants of those good looking mats and to meet author michael clayton who knows just how important the hunt was oh michael oh very nice to see you and you most appropriately with some of your gorgeous girlie hello girls how are you oh you're a grain chiller oh look at that you're a chatter they are magnificent fantastic one of the great packs of england they are [Music] the kennels were built in the early 19th century and nothing much has changed since victoria and albert were here although of course they no longer hunt foxes what was it like when victoria and albert were here it was absolutely central to rural life as it has remained in many ways since but at that time particularly so because there weren't any competing things like premiership football so ortelli and so it was terribly popular and it wasn't just a class thing there were people right across the rural community who would come and you can hunt enjoy hunting on foot just as much as on a horse so your normal field would be how many that mounted well in those days they would have had up to 200 on a good day with the beaver although many days they'd have less but when albert came well they had to and 800 people came back yes because people came from all over leicestershire the corner the cotswold people couldn't resist it they came in as well yeah and several thousand perhaps three or four thousand people on foot really well what to do and do you think they all came to watch albert fall off i think that's always the back of hunting people's mind when visitors come to their country they say afterwards well he may be good but he couldn't ride our country no [Music] imagine the adrenaline coursing through albert's veins as the master of the hunt sounded the horn a report in the times said it was impossible to describe the animated scene such were the crowds of horsemen so numerous the vehicles from every part of the country and so gaily were the red coats mingling with the immense moving mass of several thousand persons present and so with the weight of expectation on his shoulders just how well did albert do [Music] albert passed flying colors his aides fell off which probably pleased local sentiment a bit both of them he recorded later fell to the right and the left of me yeah but albert did jolly well phew thank goodness for that the royal advisors could sleep easy knowing that their man had pulled it off victoria was proud of albert but like any loyal wife she was also a bit put out at the stir it caused she never doubted his prowess writing to king leopold of belgium she said albert's riding has made such a sensation it's been written about all over the country they make more of it than if he had done some great act it rather disgusts one but still it does good for he put an end to the impertinent sneering about albert's riding while the weight of responsibility sat on royal shoulders above stairs below stairs it sat most heavily on one particular member of staff as betty elmer one of the castle guys explains well dressed like this i am the victorian housekeeper mrs hill from victorian times here at the castle so when queen victoria visited in 1843 what was expected of the housekeeper well the housekeeper was the most important female servant in any great establishment the responsibilities which sat on her shoulders were immense so would the housekeeper be as important as the butler well i think so certainly she hired and fired the female servants she did the accounts for the duke and duchess her watch words were thrift and no pilfering when you think about it rosemary items like pepper and tea cost almost as much as gold so it was very very important on the housekeeper's part to keep a good strong grip on the effects under her control how long would a housekeeper stay with a big house on average possibly until she retired really because i believe that most housekeepers were single ladies so really they had no life their owners were their family that is very true and of course her work schedule was so full to capacity and when she wasn't supervising the servants or liaising with the cook about which provisions to buy she would be in a little room in the castle called the still room show from from the word distillation and in there she made all the lotions and potions that were necessary to keep the stuff healthy and the castle clean she would distill essential oils such as lavender from lavender flowers and other oils from other leaves and roots and she would use them in making medicines medications soaps polishes whatever how she found time to go to sleep she led a very full life well i tell you what it sounds to me as if her work was never ending much like ivan in the kitchen he's preparing the rest of the ingredients for our hunter's beef having cured the brisket as if by magic [Music] now i know this is not the piece that we actually did earlier because as you said it would take 16 days to actually cure so you've had this going for 16 days every single day i've rubbed the salt and spices in and turned it over that's what you do 16 days is up that's now ready to cook what do you like me to do now pop it in the braising let me just finish okay all right there we go and then straight into the pan some very roughly chopped onions and roughly chopped carrot now of course this doesn't need any seasoning because all of the salt and pepper is in there already yes so now that all the vegetables are in the last thing we have to do is just top this up with a very large amount of beer and beaver was very famous for its ales and beer which were brewed in the village brought up to the castle and stored in huge barrels down in the cellar so this dish is absolutely perfect for this place and for this occasion fantastic so here we have some it's a good old english sale there must be two gallons in we there want to make sure that it's pretty well i'll put it all in it's almost covered that's absolutely fantastic oh look at that so before you cook this i really want to get my hands in there i can't help it you're what i call a touchy feely please oh i covered in beer you're really enjoying yourself i love it right well we've got to cook it okay now this pan is very very special because it's what's called a braising pan oh right we now think of brazing as being a type of slow stewing but it was something quite different at this time and this is this wonderful piece of equipment which we're going to braise in oh i've never seen anything like it the lid fits on very very tightly yes and sometimes it was even sealed with a mixture of flour and water so it was complete nothing could get it yeah it's totally sealed now what we're going to do is we're going to put it over onto the stove over here so it's very heavy so no i'll help you we can get it into the middle yep really is a two-person job this extraordinary pan will first of all warm up from the stove below and it will start to simmer very very gently we want to cook it gently for a long time after about an hour i'm actually going to put a couple of shovels of charcoal on the lid really that's what it's designed for but why well because you're going to get heat above and heat below it and you get this very slow process of the meat cooking and gradually changing its character and ending up really tender and beautiful and we stopped doing it we now think of brazing as just being slow stewie absolutely but this is what it was originally once cured this meat would keep for months really handy if a couple of hundred guests suddenly popped in it's not like today when you could get something out of the freezer [Music] while albert had proved himself to the doubters out on the field one person he never had to prove himself to was victoria her love for him is clear having stayed at the hunt until a fox broke cover she returned to the castle and waited perhaps wandering these very rooms [Music] as the hours passed she grew worried hunting is and was a dangerous sport she writes i waited very anxiously for my beloved albert's return which was not till near five when it was already quite dark [Music] well tim has been waiting anxiously for his supper too i hope he likes it so rosie what have you been beavering away at here at beaver well well as we know that victorian albert came here for the hunt hunter's beef and that's what this is and this is exactly what this is so hunters victoria and albert would they have had their beef like this now let me just explain this was actually cooked for the tenants and the servants but they would have beaten the same thing but then it would have been dressed up with a lot of garnish so we've got the basic model here we have totally the basic model so can i give you some oh yes please now it looks a little bit like pastrami in color well i have to say that a bit of brisket like this is my favorite if it's done beautifully as this is and there's something as my mother used to say about the constituency of it stitch you know where the where the fibers of the meat stay together yes um but yet you know that this is going to be tender before it disappears down your cake most definitely so here goes mmm in a way it's a sort of beefy ham isn't it it is and you know what i think queen victoria would actually love sandwiches made of this wouldn't that be wonderful absolutely and it takes you exactly exactly to the quality fodder um put these chaps enjoyed exactly i can have a sip of beer now should we have a sip of beer well i think cherry hoe to you even certainly beavered to great effect [Music] the royal couple's time at beaver castle seems to have achieved its aim of boosting albert's popularity at least in the eyes of victoria who sums up the visit in her dairy this journey has done great good and my beloved angel in particular had the greatest success join us on our next visit to blair castle in scotland my gosh you can tell you're in the highlands here can't you where victoria was recuperating from the birth of prince alfred the baby who just might have been conceived a beaver and albert was back out in the field this time begging stags i think he must have been pretty good at this [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 112,271

Rating: 4.8253722 out of 5

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, prince albert, german prince, queen victoria, victorian royalty, albert, prince consort, disliked british figures, windsor family

Id: c7JWuu-2Nig

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020