0:00:05 > 0:00:10Victoria. A Queen in a passionate marriage with Prince Albert.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16Yet behind closed doors, their domestic life was a battlefield.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20Victoria and Albert had terrible rows.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Think of the worst row you've ever had with a partner,
0:00:23 > 0:00:24and then magnify it.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29But it wasn't the only stormy relationship in Victoria's life.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33She had nine children who didn't always do what she wanted.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36He had tantrums, he threw his book on the floor,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39he pulled his brother's hair, he screamed, and he threw his pencil,
0:00:39 > 0:00:45he was rude - I mean, he was really a sort of nightmare of a schoolboy.
0:00:45 > 0:00:46In this series,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49we will explore the turmoil and drama for Queen Victoria's children,
0:00:49 > 0:00:52as they grew up struggling with domineering parents.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57She expected them to be beaten
0:00:57 > 0:00:59and to be made to understand how they should behave.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Victoria and Albert's dream of blissful domesticity
0:01:04 > 0:01:07was vital to the values of the age,
0:01:07 > 0:01:10and to rescuing the monarchy from the threat of revolution.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13But it came at a huge personal cost.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17She wanted to control the children's lives.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19Somebody said, "The Queen is absolutely insane
0:01:19 > 0:01:23"when it comes to asserting her own maternal authority."
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Victoria and Albert wanted their children to strengthen
0:01:28 > 0:01:32and redefine royalty for generations to come.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36But their plan for the family led to a 60-year war...
0:01:36 > 0:01:39between the children and their mother.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52Christmas, Windsor, 1860.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56Queen Victoria, her beloved husband Albert
0:01:56 > 0:01:59and their nine children gathered round.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02They exchanged presents.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Family games and billiards were played.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09One visitor remembered...
0:02:09 > 0:02:14"It was royalty putting aside its state and becoming in words,
0:02:14 > 0:02:17"acts and deeds one of ourselves.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19"I have never seen more real happiness than
0:02:19 > 0:02:22"the scene of the mother and all her children."
0:02:25 > 0:02:27It was a happy family image
0:02:27 > 0:02:30that Victoria and Albert were determined to make popular.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34They knew they had to find a fresh way of relating to their subjects.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40The danger of revolution loomed large.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44Many other European monarchies were threatened.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47The Royal couple needed to save the British monarchy by connecting
0:02:47 > 0:02:51with a middle class expanding with wealth and empire.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Their children were key to this plan.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Albert came up with this idea that
0:02:57 > 0:03:00the Royal Family should be presented as respectable
0:03:00 > 0:03:04and as a close-knit, loving family,
0:03:04 > 0:03:05so from very, very early on,
0:03:05 > 0:03:10you have a very strong image of a close-knit,
0:03:10 > 0:03:11almost middle-class family.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16It's as if Albert and Victoria are trying to reach out to
0:03:16 > 0:03:21their middle-class subjects and say, "Look, we are like you, trust us."
0:03:25 > 0:03:28But behind the facade of this model family
0:03:28 > 0:03:31was a hornet's nest of hostilities.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37The Royal household was not this chocolate box image of gorgeousness
0:03:37 > 0:03:39where everybody loved each other.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42It was a place of simmering tension, huge resentments,
0:03:42 > 0:03:43extraordinary conniving.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47A family life riddled with conflict
0:03:47 > 0:03:51was perhaps inevitable, given the couple's own experiences.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55Prince Albert was born near Coburg, Germany, the son of a duke.
0:03:57 > 0:04:02It was very hard in those days to find suitably upmarket candidates
0:04:02 > 0:04:06to marry someone like Victoria. You know, they had to be without
0:04:06 > 0:04:10stain on their character, they had to have an absolutely exemplary
0:04:10 > 0:04:15background, which Albert fitted because he was very moral and very
0:04:15 > 0:04:19upright and very dutiful, and there was not a stain on his character.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Victoria was probably the best catch in Europe at the time, I mean,
0:04:25 > 0:04:30Queen of a huge and growing empire. She was an extraordinary catch for
0:04:30 > 0:04:34a modest little Prince like Albert from this rather obscure duchy.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41In 1839, the handsome German prince arrived at Windsor Castle
0:04:41 > 0:04:45for an arranged meeting with his first cousin, the Queen.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50From the start, their mutual passion was obsessive.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55VICTORIA: "Oh! How I love him, how intensely, how tenderly,
0:04:55 > 0:04:57"how ardently!"
0:04:59 > 0:05:01- ALBERT:- "Your image fills my whole soul.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04"Even in my dreams, I never imagined that I should find
0:05:04 > 0:05:06"so much love on Earth."
0:05:08 > 0:05:10It wasn't love at first sight,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13the relationship between Queen Victoria and Albert,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15but it was pretty near to it.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18The second time that they met, Queen Victoria rushed back
0:05:18 > 0:05:24and said that she had seen Albert again and he is beautiful.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28I mean, she was full of admiration for him,
0:05:28 > 0:05:34and it was really a love match, I think, or the useful coincidence
0:05:34 > 0:05:36of something that was politically useful.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45But Albert was daunted by his role as a subject to his feisty Queen.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48"My future lot is high and brilliant,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51"but also plentifully strewn with thorns."
0:05:51 > 0:05:53The young couple married the following year.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58They faced a public with both a distrust of the monarchy
0:05:58 > 0:06:01and an intense dislike for Albert,
0:06:01 > 0:06:03who was seen as a humourless German intellectual.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08One of the strange things was that in Victorian England
0:06:08 > 0:06:13there were all sorts of rather obscene lampoons, one of which about
0:06:13 > 0:06:15the wedding night went something like this,
0:06:15 > 0:06:19that Albert entered by Bushey,
0:06:19 > 0:06:25he...advanced through Maidenhead, penetrated Virginia Water,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29and left Staines behind, er, not the sort of thing that
0:06:29 > 0:06:34you'd expect in Victorian England, but it was a reflection,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38I think, of the antipathy that Albert had created.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Here he was, this priggish, pompous foreigner
0:06:41 > 0:06:44who'd arrived in order to exploit
0:06:44 > 0:06:49the wealth and the dignity of Britain by marrying the Queen.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54Victoria and Albert felt the pressures of being anything
0:06:54 > 0:06:55but an ordinary couple.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58They disagreed over the length of their honeymoon -
0:06:58 > 0:07:01Victoria not wanting to be away from Buckingham Palace
0:07:01 > 0:07:02and her Royal duties.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07"Our position is very different from any other married couple.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10"You forget, my dearest love, that I am the sovereign,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14"and that business can stop and wait for nothing."
0:07:17 > 0:07:19Although besotted with Albert,
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Victoria did not concede any political power to him.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24He complained...
0:07:24 > 0:07:27"I am only the husband and not the master in my house."
0:07:29 > 0:07:31And the power play was only just beginning.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36I think she was very stroppy and argumentative,
0:07:36 > 0:07:38and there is a funny comment Albert made not long after
0:07:38 > 0:07:42he was married to her in 1840. He wrote home to his brother and
0:07:42 > 0:07:45he said, "Well, Victoria's shaping up very well,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48"she's only had two tantrums recently,"
0:07:48 > 0:07:51and his attitude with her was sort of knocking her into line,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55making her calm down, and be the dutiful meek little wife.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59Within weeks of their marriage,
0:07:59 > 0:08:02Victoria would give them both a project to work on.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05She was pregnant.
0:08:09 > 0:08:14The Royal couple's own experiences of family life had not been happy.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18Albert's early years in Germany were over shadowed by the dramatic
0:08:18 > 0:08:20collapse of his parents' marriage.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26Well, he comes from a totally dysfunctional family,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30and he had these traumas from childhood onwards
0:08:30 > 0:08:33because his father more or less broke up the family.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35He was cheating on his wife,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38and discarded her when she got too old.
0:08:38 > 0:08:43I mean, his father was having affairs with underage girls
0:08:43 > 0:08:48and when his own wife was over 21, he just, you know, got rid of her.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51And of course to have such a father is pretty awful,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54and Albert wanted to love and respect him,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57but at the same time resented him for all this that had happened.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01So of course Albert wanted to be completely different,
0:09:01 > 0:09:03he rebelled against the bad behaviour,
0:09:03 > 0:09:08he wanted to be the model son, and later, father.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Victoria, too, had much to react against.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14She had grown up secluded at Kensington Palace,
0:09:14 > 0:09:19under the control of her domineering mother, the Duchess of Kent.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22"I had led a very unhappy life as a child -
0:09:22 > 0:09:26"had no scope for my very violent feelings of affection,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29"and did not know what a happy domestic life was!"
0:09:29 > 0:09:32She goes through a period of referring to her mother as
0:09:32 > 0:09:35"the Duchess", which would be rather like us calling our mothers
0:09:35 > 0:09:37"Mrs Smith", I mean, so, so estranged.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39She tells Melbourne in 1838
0:09:39 > 0:09:42that she doesn't think Mama has ever loved her.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46So she's beginning to become a mother herself just at a time
0:09:46 > 0:09:49when her feelings about her mother are still very, very, very frosty.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55With their own sad childhoods still fresh in their minds,
0:09:55 > 0:09:59the couple resolved to create a happy family of their own -
0:09:59 > 0:10:02a model for the dynasty and the nation.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06They're determined, like all conscientious parents, that
0:10:06 > 0:10:09they're going to make it better this time, they're in a sense going
0:10:09 > 0:10:13to cure or heal their own childhoods by doing it right with their own
0:10:13 > 0:10:17children and, you know, everybody, lots of us have been there,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20it's a very, very common impulse to think that you can put right in
0:10:20 > 0:10:24the next generation what went wrong in your own family life.
0:10:33 > 0:10:39The first child, called Victoria but known as Vicky, was born in 1840.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45The young Queen, busy with royal duties,
0:10:45 > 0:10:47only saw her new daughter twice a day.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54She did, however, make time to spend with Albert.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00Queen Victoria was infatuated with Albert,
0:11:00 > 0:11:06on a physical plane - she was excited by his good looks,
0:11:06 > 0:11:11she adored watching him shave and put on his stockings,
0:11:11 > 0:11:14and talked about the excitement of seeing nothing -
0:11:14 > 0:11:16that there was nothing underneath them.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21"He was so cold, dear angel, being in grande tenue with tight
0:11:21 > 0:11:27"white casimere pantaloons, nothing under them, and high boots."
0:11:27 > 0:11:32The unfortunate byproduct of this infatuation was, of course,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36children! She didn't, they didn't, know anything about contraception,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39and the children arrived with monotonous regularity.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46Within a year of Vicky's birth, Albert Edward,
0:11:46 > 0:11:48known as Bertie, was born.
0:11:50 > 0:11:55"Our little boy is a wonderfully strong and large child.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57"I hope and pray he may be like his dearest Papa.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01"Vicky is not at all pleased with her brother."
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Over the next five years, another three children appeared -
0:12:07 > 0:12:09Alice, Alfred and Helena.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20She didn't like babies, she always said they were horrible,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23ugly little things and they were not even acceptable to look at
0:12:23 > 0:12:26or hold till they were about six months old.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Queen Victoria later grumbled...
0:12:31 > 0:12:35"An ugly baby is a very nasty object - the prettiest are frightful
0:12:35 > 0:12:38"when undressed. As long as they have their big body
0:12:38 > 0:12:42"and little limbs, and that terrible frog-like action."
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Victoria not only found her own babies repulsive,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50she also refused to breastfeed them, having a...
0:12:50 > 0:12:54"Totally insurmountable disgust for the process."
0:12:56 > 0:12:59She installed a wet nurse in Buckingham Palace.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06I think the idea of giving over her body for another six months,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09for another 12 months, to these frog-like people is
0:13:09 > 0:13:11absolutely disgusting to her.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14I think the central relationship for her is always the one with
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Albert - we know that they enjoyed a very vigorous sex life,
0:13:18 > 0:13:21and I think she had that feeling that her breasts were,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24as it were, were for Albert, they weren't for the children,
0:13:24 > 0:13:26her breasts were sexual rather than maternal.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32The couple's vigorous sex life brought more children - Louise,
0:13:32 > 0:13:38Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice, making nine born over 17 years.
0:13:40 > 0:13:44Having a large family wasn't just about purging the couple's
0:13:44 > 0:13:45unhappy past.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51For the survival of the monarchy, Victoria and Albert knew it
0:13:51 > 0:13:55was vital to distance themselves from the louche Hanoverians,
0:13:55 > 0:13:58as epitomised by Victoria's notorious uncle, George IV.
0:14:01 > 0:14:02George IV, the Prince Regent,
0:14:02 > 0:14:05has been famous for being fat, unfaithful,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08and spending a very great deal of money, and his other brothers were
0:14:08 > 0:14:14no better, and in fact one of them, Cumberland, was famously involved in
0:14:14 > 0:14:19all sorts of accusations that he'd murdered his valet, so, er, really,
0:14:19 > 0:14:25the Royal Family before Victoria had been extremely publicly unpopular.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30So Albert came up with this idea that the Royal Family should be
0:14:30 > 0:14:35presented as respectable, and as a close-knit, loving family.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43Victoria and Albert needed to create a fresh image that would be approved
0:14:43 > 0:14:46of by their most important audience -
0:14:46 > 0:14:48the expanding middle class.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Family values were key to this new bourgeois ideal,
0:14:52 > 0:14:55as the artist Landseer understood.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Landseer painted a portrait of Victoria and Albert
0:15:01 > 0:15:04and the Princess Royal in 1841,
0:15:04 > 0:15:08and it's called Windsor Castle In Modern Times.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10And that title is really important,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14because it's...it's signalling very clearly that there's been
0:15:14 > 0:15:19a change, that this is about, um, a modern version of the monarchy.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25I think what's the most interesting aspect of that painting is
0:15:25 > 0:15:31the way that the couple, Victoria and Albert themselves, are shown.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36She holds a posy of flowers in her hand, so it clearly
0:15:36 > 0:15:43demarcates that she represents femininity, gentleness, um, purity.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47I think Landseer's painting shows us the way in which
0:15:47 > 0:15:54the Royal Family were using images of the family, intimacy,
0:15:54 > 0:16:02femininity, in order to support and promote a new image of the monarchy.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07VICTORIA: "They say no sovereign was ever more loved than I am,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10"I am bold enough to say, and this is because of our domestic home
0:16:10 > 0:16:12"and the good example it presents."
0:16:14 > 0:16:17One place more than any other gave them
0:16:17 > 0:16:20a stage on which to play out their domestic ideal.
0:16:21 > 0:16:27Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria enthused...
0:16:27 > 0:16:31"We are more and more delighted with this lovely spot.
0:16:31 > 0:16:33"The combination of sea, trees,
0:16:33 > 0:16:37"the purest air, make it a perfect paradise."
0:16:40 > 0:16:43During these holidays, the children absorbed some of the most cherished
0:16:43 > 0:16:49values of the middle classes - on their vast Royal estate.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56Enjoying modest pleasures, they hunted butterflies
0:16:56 > 0:16:59and played on Osborne's beach.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09They learnt to be self-sufficient in a specially built Swiss cottage,
0:17:09 > 0:17:12where they were taught to cook, and where Albert helped them
0:17:12 > 0:17:14grow fruit and vegetables.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19He and Queen Victoria were very keen that they should learn real skills -
0:17:19 > 0:17:23all the princesses could cook and bake beautifully,
0:17:23 > 0:17:24which astounded people, in later life.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27They just assumed they would have always had cooks, they would
0:17:27 > 0:17:31never have had to do this kind of, you know, servants' work themselves.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34They all learned to tend gardens, to grow vegetables and flowers.
0:17:34 > 0:17:36They learned about the natural world,
0:17:36 > 0:17:40they learned all sorts of really important life lessons as well.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45This was, I think, a way of trying to genuinely engage with
0:17:45 > 0:17:48the business of everyday life and acquire skills,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51domestic skills. I mean, even if they weren't really going to use
0:17:51 > 0:17:55them very much in later life, Albert certainly thought it was important
0:17:55 > 0:17:59that those children knew what to do in a kitchen, you know, knew
0:17:59 > 0:18:03how to grow a carrot, these sort of things, they were important to him.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10Celebrations of the family ideal were created throughout
0:18:10 > 0:18:12the house and gardens at Osborne.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Victoria and Albert's initials are intertwined.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22The children, cherub-like, adorn furniture,
0:18:22 > 0:18:25as characters in a new kind of Royal drama.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32Albert, the patriarch, was crucial to the design of this utopia.
0:18:34 > 0:18:39It was meant to be a stark contrast to society life in London.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44Albert hated the loose morals of lavish dinners, cards and parties.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47He was described at a London ball as looking, "Like a cowed
0:18:47 > 0:18:52"and kept pet, frightened to sit, frightened to stand."
0:18:55 > 0:18:59Despite cultivating an ordinary domestic image, the Royal Family
0:18:59 > 0:19:03was in a class of its own, living in splendid isolation.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08Really, when one contemplates the life of the Royal Family
0:19:08 > 0:19:11in the Victorian era, it's more and more bizarre.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18Bertie, for example, could only have an even number of asparagus
0:19:18 > 0:19:22stalks on his plate, because an odd number would bring him bad luck.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Princess Louise thought that, er,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31the only way that you could achieve good health
0:19:31 > 0:19:33was to boil your knees in whisky every evening.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38I mean, it was quite extraordinary. They lived in this strange,
0:19:38 > 0:19:44regal bubble, in which the only conversation
0:19:44 > 0:19:47was something that they themselves created so, so they couldn't
0:19:47 > 0:19:51really relate to other people, other people had to relate to them.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57Morally upright in the extreme,
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Albert was everything his amoral father hadn't been.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06He became emblematic of a new kind of fatherhood - totally loyal
0:20:06 > 0:20:09to his wife, with a hands-on approach to his children.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13Albert adored the eldest, Vicky.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Lady Lyttelton remembered him playing with his daughter. Albert...
0:20:18 > 0:20:22"Tossed and romped with her, making her laugh and crow
0:20:22 > 0:20:24"and kick heartily."
0:20:24 > 0:20:28- The Queen, however, didn't join in, saying...- "He is so kind to them
0:20:28 > 0:20:31"and romps with them so delightfully,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33"and manages them so beautifully and firmly."
0:20:34 > 0:20:39Albert is not an absent aristocratic dad wandering over the grouse moor
0:20:39 > 0:20:41and seeing his children,
0:20:41 > 0:20:42you know, once a year
0:20:42 > 0:20:45and not even remembering their names.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47Prince Albert is this new kind of man, this new
0:20:47 > 0:20:52kind of bourgeois father who gets most of his pleasure and definition
0:20:52 > 0:20:55from what goes on at home, who's intimately involved in the nursery,
0:20:55 > 0:20:58who comes home after a hard day at the office
0:20:58 > 0:21:00or, in the case of Prince Albert,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03hard day signing papers, and plays and romps with the children.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10Albert, considering himself an expert on human behaviour,
0:21:10 > 0:21:13was fascinated by the progress of his brood.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17"There is certainly a great charm, as well as interest in watching
0:21:17 > 0:21:21"the development of feelings and faculties in a little child."
0:21:22 > 0:21:25Albert wasn't just curious about the children.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29He organised a fastidious plan for moulding his offspring
0:21:29 > 0:21:32into role models for the nation, and for Europe.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36Prince Albert observed...
0:21:36 > 0:21:38"Upon the good education of princes,
0:21:38 > 0:21:41"and especially those who are destined to govern,
0:21:41 > 0:21:45"the welfare of the world in these days greatly depends."
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Prince Albert himself was the product of an efficient
0:21:50 > 0:21:52German education. He developed
0:21:52 > 0:21:55a kind of educational programme
0:21:55 > 0:21:58which his advisor, Baron Stockmar,
0:21:58 > 0:21:59said, anybody who carried
0:21:59 > 0:22:04this out would develop brain fever immediately,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08that it was too much for them to have to undergo.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14Albert's plan for the children began when they were infants.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18"The chief objects here are their physical development,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21"the actual rearing up, the training to obedience."
0:22:23 > 0:22:26The young Alice received a real punishment by whipping
0:22:26 > 0:22:28for telling a lie.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32She wasn't the only one subject to Albert's harsh discipline.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37When Vicky misbehaved, he was perfectly prepared to have
0:22:37 > 0:22:42her hands tied behind her back, and she was whipped and, er, Bertie was
0:22:42 > 0:22:47whipped and when Louise played the piano, for example, and
0:22:47 > 0:22:52she hit a wrong note, Albert would, would hit her fingers, and she
0:22:52 > 0:22:54hit quite a lot of wrong notes.
0:22:56 > 0:23:02So, Albert was not, by any means, an enlightened, modern father,
0:23:02 > 0:23:04but he wasn't an ogre either.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17As part of his plan,
0:23:17 > 0:23:21Albert trained the children relentlessly in social graces.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25They practised at what he called "circling" - to enter a room
0:23:25 > 0:23:27and make one's way around it,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30speaking to each of the assembled company in turn.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37Victoria and Albert's children were educated at their station in life,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41I mean, obviously only one of them was going to accede to the throne.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43But they had to all take part,
0:23:43 > 0:23:45as it were, in Royal life, so they had to
0:23:45 > 0:23:50learn how to make conversation, how to circulate at levees and parties.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53All the sort of politesses that were necessary
0:23:53 > 0:23:56for a Royal education.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59And also things like languages - I mean, after all,
0:23:59 > 0:24:02they knew they were going to meet other royal households,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05so the education in language was very important too.
0:24:07 > 0:24:08It was a strict regime.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Fortunately, the eldest child, Vicky, was extremely bright.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17Under Albert's regime, she was first taught French
0:24:17 > 0:24:19when she was just 18 months old.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Albert, right from the time when she's a tiny baby, dotes on Vicky.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26And, you know, the arrival of more children doesn't
0:24:26 > 0:24:28shake his absolute devotion to Vicky.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Vicky is an almost an infant prodigy - she's speaking Latin,
0:24:31 > 0:24:32she's speaking French,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35she's reading Shakespeare, all at a very early age.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Lady Lyttelton, a governess, noted that the Princess,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42before her seventh birthday...
0:24:42 > 0:24:47"Might pass for a lady of 17 in whichever of her three languages
0:24:47 > 0:24:49"she chooses to entertain the company."
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Vicky, like all her siblings, could speak German.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00In private, Victoria and Albert didn't hide their German roots,
0:25:00 > 0:25:01but to the public,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04the Queen was anxious to appear completely British.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09"The Prince and Queen speak English quite as much as German."
0:25:11 > 0:25:15One of the things that's most surprising about Queen Victoria
0:25:15 > 0:25:18is how much she preferred Germany to England,
0:25:18 > 0:25:20although she was Queen of England.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22She obviously was half German herself, and she married
0:25:22 > 0:25:26a German, and in private, the family conversation was in German.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30All of the Royal children were commented on as having quite
0:25:30 > 0:25:32prominent German accents.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34Even in old age, their friends would comment on them
0:25:34 > 0:25:37as speaking with a German accent.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39And there's a lovely letter that
0:25:39 > 0:25:42remains from one of Princess Louise's ladies-in-waiting, who
0:25:42 > 0:25:46said that when Prince Arthur came to visit Princess Louise, when they
0:25:46 > 0:25:49were quite elderly, and they were reminiscing about their childhood
0:25:49 > 0:25:54in the nursery, their accents became incredibly Germanic, and she said
0:25:54 > 0:25:57it was as if they'd started speaking in a completely different language.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59They were still speaking English,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02but their accents sounded as though they were Germans,
0:26:02 > 0:26:06newly arrived in England, because they went back to their childhood.
0:26:06 > 0:26:11Victoria and Albert had a clear mission for their children.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14But the couple's obsessive relationship would threaten
0:26:14 > 0:26:17to derail it.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20Victoria was distracted from her role as mother
0:26:20 > 0:26:22by her intense passion for Albert.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27Even after the exhaustion of having many children,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29the Queen was still longing for sensual pleasure.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35It was clearly a very passionate relationship, physically, too.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38Queen Victoria hated being pregnant,
0:26:38 > 0:26:42but she loved the process by which she got pregnant.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47I think that she may have been a little bit more passionate
0:26:47 > 0:26:51than him, partly because she was a slightly more physical person.
0:26:52 > 0:26:58You can imagine him in bed still thinking about guttering
0:26:58 > 0:27:03and city planning, and a statistical conference he might have been
0:27:03 > 0:27:06wanting to organise some time in the near future.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11Besotted with Albert, Victoria idolised him
0:27:11 > 0:27:13in front of the children.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16"None of you can ever be proud enough of being
0:27:16 > 0:27:20"the child of SUCH a father who has not his equal in the world,
0:27:20 > 0:27:23"so great, so good, so faultless."
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Victoria worshipped Albert
0:27:26 > 0:27:30so ardently, she wanted her children to be made in his image.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34When pregnant with Bertie, the heir to the throne, she remarked...
0:27:34 > 0:27:37"I wonder very much who our little boy will be like.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39"You will understand how fervent my prayers,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43"and I am sure everybody's must be, to see him resemble his angelic
0:27:43 > 0:27:49"dearest father in every, every respect, both in body and in mind."
0:27:49 > 0:27:53I think Victoria was more interested in recreating Albert in her
0:27:53 > 0:27:55children than she was in actually seeing what
0:27:55 > 0:27:57kind of personalities they had themselves.
0:27:57 > 0:28:02She is really heir to a much older tradition of thinking
0:28:02 > 0:28:05of children as blank slates, in a sense,
0:28:05 > 0:28:08whatever you put into them they will become, so
0:28:08 > 0:28:12if she puts into them the qualities of Albert, the best qualities - his
0:28:12 > 0:28:18rationality, his good sense, his, you know, prudence - you will get,
0:28:18 > 0:28:21you will get it back, you will, you will produce lots of little Alberts,
0:28:21 > 0:28:23some of them will wear breeches, some of them skirts.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26But, basically, they're all little Alberts.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28She treats them like a particularly tricky engineering
0:28:28 > 0:28:33project, and if you get the mechanics right, you will get a nice
0:28:33 > 0:28:38sturdy result that will go forth in the image of their father.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42Victoria, like Albert,
0:28:42 > 0:28:46believed that she could shape her children's character and destiny.
0:28:46 > 0:28:52But this master plan for saving the monarchy was creating a battlefield.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56The problem is that Victoria is Queen as well as wife, and so
0:28:56 > 0:29:00when she says cross words to Albert, you know, what is he to do?
0:29:00 > 0:29:04Is he to sort of say, "Shut up!" or is he to treat them
0:29:04 > 0:29:06as though they're Royal commands?
0:29:06 > 0:29:11And Albert dislikes confrontation, I think,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14a very reasonable, very rational man.
0:29:14 > 0:29:16Victoria is not really into rational debate.
0:29:18 > 0:29:22And so, yes, you get this extraordinary picture of Albert
0:29:22 > 0:29:26chasing Victoria round from room to room, or sometimes Albert shutting
0:29:26 > 0:29:30himself in his room, and writing her rather pathetic notes, scolding her.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35It is a very tempestuous marriage and there are all
0:29:35 > 0:29:38sorts of conflicts in that marriage that are not fully resolved.
0:29:38 > 0:29:40Victoria and Albert had terrible rows.
0:29:40 > 0:29:44I mean, think of the worst row you've ever had with a partner
0:29:44 > 0:29:49and then magnify it. It involves lots of slamming doors, people
0:29:49 > 0:29:53sort of locking themselves into rooms, lots of shouting.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56ARGUING ECHOES
0:29:56 > 0:29:58Victoria saying, you know, "I never realised I'd be
0:29:58 > 0:30:00"so miserable being married,"
0:30:00 > 0:30:02I mean, absolutely appalling.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08The first huge row came two years into their marriage.
0:30:08 > 0:30:09An argument developed
0:30:09 > 0:30:13over who else should have a say in the children's upbringing.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19Victoria's closest and most powerful confidante, Baroness Lehzen,
0:30:19 > 0:30:24looked after the nursery. But Albert hated the German governess.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29It's a position of great power. Now, when Victoria marries Albert,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Albert clearly realises that Lehzen is the one he's going to
0:30:33 > 0:30:37have to watch, but he's prepared to play a softly, softly game at first.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40And so when the first baby comes along, Vicky,
0:30:40 > 0:30:44the Princess Royal, Victoria puts Lehzen in charge of the nursery
0:30:44 > 0:30:47and Albert is prepared to go along with it for a while.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50But he clearly, clearly has problems with Lehzen
0:30:50 > 0:30:53and what he does is, I mean everybody in this psychic
0:30:53 > 0:30:56drama does very complicated manoeuvrings, they shuffle off the
0:30:56 > 0:30:59bits they don't like about somebody and put them on to somebody else.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02So, what Albert does is he blames Lehzen for everything
0:31:02 > 0:31:04he doesn't like about Victoria.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11A heated quarrel broke out over Lehzen's treatment of baby Vicky,
0:31:11 > 0:31:13who was losing weight.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17Albert wrote to advisor Baron Stockmar.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21"Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me
0:31:21 > 0:31:24"to be able often to speak of my difficulties.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28"She will not hear me out but flies into a rage and overwhelms me
0:31:28 > 0:31:33"with reproaches of suspiciousness, want of trust, ambition, envy."
0:31:35 > 0:31:39Queen Victoria herself wrote to Stockmar.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42"There is often an irritability in me which makes me say cross
0:31:42 > 0:31:45"and odious things."
0:31:45 > 0:31:48Of the family row, Stockmar despaired.
0:31:48 > 0:31:53"The nursery gives me more trouble than the government of a kingdom."
0:31:54 > 0:31:58Albert, vying for control, described Lehzen as...
0:31:58 > 0:32:00"The hag,
0:32:00 > 0:32:02"obsessed with the lust of power,
0:32:02 > 0:32:08"a crazy, stupid intriguer who regards herself as a demi-god."
0:32:08 > 0:32:10So, in a sense, they are on a collision course,
0:32:10 > 0:32:15one of them has got to go, they are two very, very tough Germans,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18and you know, there isn't really room for two tough Germans in the
0:32:18 > 0:32:22Royal nursery, one of them has got to go and in the end it's Lehzen.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Albert was also deeply troubled by Victoria's fierce temper.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34It was a reminder of a particular Royal Family legacy - insanity.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Albert scolded Victoria, particularly when she lost her temper
0:32:39 > 0:32:42and there was a whole sort of atmosphere around Victoria
0:32:42 > 0:32:44losing her temper, I mean, not,
0:32:44 > 0:32:46it wasn't just that she had a filthy temper, which she did, but there
0:32:46 > 0:32:50was also this sort of fear that, you know, if the Queen loses her temper
0:32:50 > 0:32:53this is the sign of the beginning of the madness of George III.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57They were all very conscious of the idea that Victoria might have
0:32:57 > 0:33:00inherited this awful Hanoverian malady - of course, she hadn't,
0:33:00 > 0:33:04she was incredibly sane - but it means that Albert tiptoes
0:33:04 > 0:33:07around Victoria and the doctor says you mustn't confront her when she
0:33:07 > 0:33:11has a temper because it will make it much worse, you must just walk away.
0:33:11 > 0:33:14Sir James Clerk, the Royal doctor, advised...
0:33:14 > 0:33:19"Regarding the Queen's mind - unless she is kept quiet,
0:33:19 > 0:33:23"the time will come when she will be in danger.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26"Much depends upon the Prince's management."
0:33:26 > 0:33:32Increasingly, the Prince Consort treated Victoria like his children -
0:33:32 > 0:33:35he sought control over his Queen,
0:33:35 > 0:33:38and began to re-mould her character.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42He made her his own creature, and I think in a way it's rather sad
0:33:42 > 0:33:46because the one thing I like about Victoria was her wonderful
0:33:46 > 0:33:48spontaneity, her honesty,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52and in a way her impetuosity was very charming.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54Before she married Albert she loved to stay out late and dance till
0:33:54 > 0:33:59two in the morning and gossip with her ladies, and he knocked all that
0:33:59 > 0:34:03out of her, you know, they went to bed at ten, he didn't like staying
0:34:03 > 0:34:08up late because he'd fall asleep, he didn't like dancing late and he kind
0:34:08 > 0:34:12of knocked that wonderful, rounded,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15vibrant personality down into
0:34:15 > 0:34:19the kind of mould of this rather dutiful and dowdy little hausfrau.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23Victoria, still obsessional and insecure,
0:34:23 > 0:34:27would seek Albert's approval after an outburst.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31"How sadly deficient I am and how over-sensitive and irritable,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34"and how uncontrollable my temper is when annoyed and hurt.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36"Have I improved as I ought?"
0:34:36 > 0:34:39I think she was difficult to live with and I think Albert
0:34:39 > 0:34:42actually in his way was a little bit difficult, he was rather
0:34:42 > 0:34:47school-masterly, he treated Victoria rather like an errant child,
0:34:47 > 0:34:50which of course in a sense she was, you know, he was all for improving
0:34:50 > 0:34:54her and he would congratulate her if he felt she had improved.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59Albert praised her for what he called...
0:34:59 > 0:35:03"Unbroken success in the hard struggle for self-control."
0:35:04 > 0:35:07Unlike their father, the children had no escape
0:35:07 > 0:35:11from their mother's unpredictable and stormy temper.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15Victoria would consent to her children being beaten.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17She expected them to be beaten
0:35:17 > 0:35:20and to be made to understand how they should behave.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24There's famously a comment in one of the ladies-in-waiting's diaries
0:35:24 > 0:35:27about when Prince Leopold was being naughty as a little boy
0:35:27 > 0:35:30and Queen Victoria wanted to beat him.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32And we must remember that Leopold was haemophiliac.
0:35:32 > 0:35:34And Queen Victoria's mother, you know, said,
0:35:34 > 0:35:37"Oh, no, please don't beat him, he's just being a little boy.
0:35:37 > 0:35:39"How can you bear to hear him crying?"
0:35:39 > 0:35:43And she says, "Once you've had nine, Mother, you don't notice it."
0:35:45 > 0:35:49Unsurprisingly, the children would always be scared of Victoria.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52The Queen's private secretary once recalled
0:35:52 > 0:35:55seeing the children flee their mother.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59"We were suddenly nearly carried away by a stampede of royalties,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02"headed by the Duke of Cambridge and brought up by Leopold,
0:36:02 > 0:36:06"going as fast as they could. We thought it was a mad bull.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09"But they cried out, 'The Queen! The Queen!'"
0:36:11 > 0:36:15I imagine the children were fairly, um, certainly in awe of Victoria.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18You know, as more...I mean, Vicky certainly wasn't.
0:36:18 > 0:36:20Vicky would give as good as she got.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23Edward, I think, largely, Bertie largely ignored her.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27But I'm sure the younger children would have been, you know,
0:36:27 > 0:36:28been pretty much in awe of her.
0:36:28 > 0:36:30Of course, scared of her tempers.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36Victoria's harsh parenting frustrated Albert.
0:36:36 > 0:36:40"It is indeed a pity that you find no consolation
0:36:40 > 0:36:43"in the company of your children.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46"The root of the trouble lies in the mistaken notion
0:36:46 > 0:36:50"that the function of a mother is to be always correcting,
0:36:50 > 0:36:54"scolding, ordering them about."
0:36:54 > 0:36:57She wanted to control the children's lives,
0:36:57 > 0:36:59absolutely, right down to the last T.
0:36:59 > 0:37:03And she went on doing that into their adulthood.
0:37:03 > 0:37:04It was most extraordinary.
0:37:04 > 0:37:08Somebody said, "The Queen is, is absolutely insane
0:37:08 > 0:37:12"when it comes to asserting her own maternal authority."
0:37:17 > 0:37:20The rows and Victoria's temper
0:37:20 > 0:37:23were not the only cause of problems for the family.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28Albert's heavy workload also created tensions.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32Being trapped in the perpetual cycle of pregnancy and childbirth
0:37:32 > 0:37:34forced Victoria to allow Albert
0:37:34 > 0:37:37to take on some of her political duties,
0:37:37 > 0:37:40on top of his own ambitious projects.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45Albert, attempting to be the role model father,
0:37:45 > 0:37:48struggled to balance work and family.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53He loved his children when he had time for them.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57But Albert was on this self-created treadmill
0:37:57 > 0:38:01of work, work, duty, endlessly wearing himself out
0:38:01 > 0:38:04on 101 committees doing this, that and the other.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13The more Albert worked, the more he was away
0:38:13 > 0:38:17not just from the children, but his needy wife.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20"You cannot think how much it costs me
0:38:20 > 0:38:24"or how completely upset I am and feel when Albert is away.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29"All the numerous children are as nothing to me when he is away."
0:38:29 > 0:38:31BABY WAILS
0:38:33 > 0:38:35In the absence of her husband,
0:38:35 > 0:38:37Victoria came to resent the children.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43"No-one recognises more than I do the blessings of having children,
0:38:43 > 0:38:46"but the anxieties and trouble, not to say sorrows,
0:38:46 > 0:38:48"are quite as great as the blessings."
0:38:53 > 0:38:58Despite the tensions between parents and children behind closed doors,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01the public face of the plan was a great success.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Victoria and Albert were setting the moral tone for a new age.
0:39:07 > 0:39:12Helped by a fledgling technology in the 1850s - photography.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19This is the first publicly-shown photograph of the Royal Family,
0:39:19 > 0:39:22taken at Osborne in 1857,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26of Victoria, Albert and all nine children.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31They have their official portraits, they have their family album,
0:39:31 > 0:39:36but they also become a kind of surrogate family
0:39:36 > 0:39:39or an extra family for the rest of the country.
0:39:39 > 0:39:43Because you can collect pictures of the Royal household.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56It was a hugely successful rebranding exercise.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59Because for the first time, the monarchy,
0:39:59 > 0:40:06instead of being seen as a kind of abstract form of power
0:40:06 > 0:40:09that people couldn't relate to,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14instead they started to see as a distorted reflection
0:40:14 > 0:40:17of their own families, of their own lives.
0:40:17 > 0:40:18The Queen became a person.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21The children became real people.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24You could understand them, you could sympathise with them,
0:40:24 > 0:40:25you could gossip about them.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32The Royal couple learned to turn lack of privacy into an advantage.
0:40:32 > 0:40:36The public lapped up these nuggets of Royal intimacy.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44But behind the media image, the plan for the family
0:40:44 > 0:40:47was not going as smoothly as it could have been.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51It soon became apparent that personalities might get in the way
0:40:51 > 0:40:55of Victoria and Albert's desire for princes and princesses
0:40:55 > 0:40:58to be made in the image of their father.
0:41:00 > 0:41:02It was Bertie, the heir to the throne,
0:41:02 > 0:41:04who presented the biggest problem.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08From an early age, he refused to conform to Albert's plan
0:41:08 > 0:41:10for the children's education.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12Unlike his sister Vicky,
0:41:12 > 0:41:15he found learning difficult and couldn't concentrate.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19Bertie was...
0:41:19 > 0:41:24I think...abnormally backward.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28He just couldn't focus his mind.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32Perhaps he really didn't have much of a mind to focus.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38His tutor Frederick Gibbs remarked...
0:41:38 > 0:41:42"I had to do some arithmetic with the Prince of Wales.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44"Immediately, he became passionate.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48"The pencil was flung to the end of the room,
0:41:48 > 0:41:50"the stool was kicked away
0:41:50 > 0:41:53"and he was hardly able to apply himself at all."
0:41:56 > 0:41:58With him, it was a complete and utter failure.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01Right from a very early age.
0:42:01 > 0:42:02He acted out.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05He had tantrums.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08He threw his book on the floor, he pulled his brother's hair,
0:42:08 > 0:42:11he screamed, he threw his pencil, he was rude.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15I mean, he was really a sort of nightmare of a schoolboy.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20Bertie was forever chastised by Victoria for his...
0:42:20 > 0:42:22"Systematic idleness,
0:42:22 > 0:42:25"laziness, disregard of everything."
0:42:27 > 0:42:31His ever-anxious parents even consulted a so-called expert,
0:42:31 > 0:42:34a phrenologist, on the nature of Bertie's brain.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37The verdict did little to allay their fears.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39"The feeble quality of the brain
0:42:39 > 0:42:42"will render the Prince highly excitable.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46"Intellectual organs are only moderately well developed.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50"The result will be strong self-will. At times, obstinacy."
0:42:52 > 0:42:55And Albert, rather sort of typically, says, um,
0:42:55 > 0:42:58"I wonder where that Anglo-Saxon brain of his has come from?
0:42:58 > 0:43:00"It certainly wasn't in the German family.
0:43:00 > 0:43:02"It must have come from the Stewarts."
0:43:02 > 0:43:03SHE LAUGHS
0:43:03 > 0:43:09Other Royal offspring also rebelled against their domineering parents.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13Leopold was known for telling lies.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16"I heard your musical box playing most clearly this afternoon..."
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Victoria complained to her son.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23"Impossible! My musical box never plays!"
0:43:23 > 0:43:26Later in life, Victoria would recognise
0:43:26 > 0:43:31a fundamental shortcoming in the grand plan.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33"You will find as your children grow up
0:43:33 > 0:43:35"that as a rule, children are a bitter disappointment.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37"Their greatest object being to do
0:43:37 > 0:43:40"precisely what their parents do not wish
0:43:40 > 0:43:41"and have anxiously tried to prevent,
0:43:41 > 0:43:45"and often when children have been less watched and less taken care of,
0:43:45 > 0:43:47"the better they turn out.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50"This is inexplicable and very annoying."
0:43:50 > 0:43:53We all, as parents, would like our children
0:43:53 > 0:43:54to turn out exactly as we want.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57And one of the things you have to accept is that children,
0:43:57 > 0:43:59you know, are not little mini-me's
0:43:59 > 0:44:01and they are not going to do exactly what you want.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04And you have to accept that and build that into your plan.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07And if you don't, you're going to be disappointed.
0:44:08 > 0:44:10Victoria and Albert weren't just hoping
0:44:10 > 0:44:13to gain public approval through their children.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16They had aspirations for the dynasty.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20The Royal couple had a vision of a harmonious Europe
0:44:20 > 0:44:23with an Anglo-German dynasty at its heart.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27They believed a marriage between daughter Vicky and Fritz,
0:44:27 > 0:44:29heir to the Prussian throne,
0:44:29 > 0:44:31could create a pro-English Germany.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33A meeting was arranged at Balmoral.
0:44:34 > 0:44:36The meeting at Balmoral,
0:44:36 > 0:44:40a very erotically-charged meeting between Fritz and Vicky
0:44:40 > 0:44:41in Scotland,
0:44:41 > 0:44:45was supposed to be entirely secret.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47Immense efforts were made to keep it secret.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50Of course, these efforts were completely in vain.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54And no sooner had the meeting occurred than the news leaked out.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56The leading papers had people at court
0:44:56 > 0:44:59who were listening, picking up titbits for them.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06When the arrangement was announced in the press,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10far from celebrating, the British public were horrified.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13Prussia had refused to unite with Britain in the Crimean War
0:45:13 > 0:45:18just a few years earlier, intensifying anti-German feelings.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20One newspaper commented...
0:45:20 > 0:45:23"The supposed political character of the match
0:45:23 > 0:45:26"and the distrust of a policy for Germanising England
0:45:26 > 0:45:29"have been the real causes of the general disfavour
0:45:29 > 0:45:33"with which the proposed marriage has been regarded."
0:45:33 > 0:45:37Prince Albert knew he had to spin the marriage as a love match,
0:45:37 > 0:45:40despite his political ambition for a re-drawn Europe.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44"The more it is made clear that our children's marriage
0:45:44 > 0:45:47"is the outcome of mutual attraction,
0:45:47 > 0:45:49"rather than of political motives,
0:45:49 > 0:45:53"the more certain it is that any storm which might arise
0:45:53 > 0:45:57"between now and the date of the wedding will pass by."
0:45:57 > 0:46:01Albert was very aware of how the Royal Family were written up,
0:46:01 > 0:46:03how they were perceived.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06He was quite interested in managing that process.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10And the marriage of his eldest daughter was something that, er...
0:46:10 > 0:46:14He wasn't going to be asleep about the implications of this.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17It was, in effect, a kind of political match.
0:46:17 > 0:46:23Unity between England and Germany was something that everybody wanted.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29Despite being part of the plan,
0:46:29 > 0:46:32both Victoria and Albert were devastated
0:46:32 > 0:46:35at losing their totally inexperienced 17-year-old daughter
0:46:35 > 0:46:37in this child marriage.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40Days before the wedding, Victoria wrote...
0:46:40 > 0:46:45"After all, it is like taking a lamb to be sacrificed."
0:46:46 > 0:46:49"The pang of parting was great on all sides.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53"And the void which Vicky has left in our household and family circle
0:46:53 > 0:46:56"will stand gaping for many a day."
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Yet the Queen characteristically
0:46:59 > 0:47:02seemed even more concerned with her own feelings.
0:47:05 > 0:47:08One of the stories that I found very poignant and sad -
0:47:08 > 0:47:10this is during Albert's lifetime -
0:47:10 > 0:47:14when her daughter Vicky gets married and she moves to Prussia,
0:47:14 > 0:47:17she's been married for a few weeks, maybe five or six weeks,
0:47:17 > 0:47:19and she writes to her mother saying
0:47:19 > 0:47:21how difficult she's finding life in Prussia.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23There's always other people around,
0:47:23 > 0:47:25she's constantly having to go to official functions
0:47:25 > 0:47:27and she longs for the times
0:47:27 > 0:47:30when it's just her and Fritz, her husband,
0:47:30 > 0:47:33who she loves very much and she wants to be on her own with.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38And her mother responds, to a woman who's just married, and says,
0:47:38 > 0:47:41"Oh, darling, at last you understand
0:47:41 > 0:47:44"why I always resented you children being around.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47"I only ever wanted it to be me and Papa."
0:47:57 > 0:48:01Their first child was out of the nest as part of the plan.
0:48:01 > 0:48:04But there were further strains on the family.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07Albert found his enormous workload exhausting.
0:48:09 > 0:48:15By May 1860, he compared himself to a donkey on a treadmill.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20"He, too, would rather munch thistles in the castle moat.
0:48:20 > 0:48:24"Small are the thanks he gets for his labour."
0:48:26 > 0:48:29He had a tremendously, um...
0:48:31 > 0:48:34..toilsome approach to life.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36And, ultimately,
0:48:36 > 0:48:38I think you might well say
0:48:38 > 0:48:42that this, this exhausted him and perhaps killed him.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47Albert's health was declining.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51By this point, he was pained with neuralgia and toothache,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53insomnia and fits of shivering.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56But Victoria had little room for sympathy.
0:49:00 > 0:49:02Having given birth to nine children,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06she thought Albert was weak in his inability to endure pain
0:49:06 > 0:49:09and found it most trying.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15The attitude to Albert's illness that you see in Victoria often is,
0:49:15 > 0:49:17"Oh, it's man flu, you know,
0:49:17 > 0:49:20"he's putting on a big act about how ill he is
0:49:20 > 0:49:25"and we women are sterner stuff. We women have to endure childbirth."
0:49:25 > 0:49:29So she always felt Albert was rather putting on the agony
0:49:29 > 0:49:30and didn't take it very seriously.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34Victoria was a very selfish, egocentric person.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36She had a place for Albert, she needed Albert,
0:49:36 > 0:49:38she needed Albert to be a rock.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41She needed him to be somebody SHE could rely on.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45Of course, if he was weak and ailing, she couldn't rely on him.
0:49:45 > 0:49:47She had to care for him.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49And I think, obviously, she then got scared.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52I mean, the possibility of losing Albert seemed to her quite dreadful.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55How on earth would she carry on her life without him?
0:50:01 > 0:50:04To add to the strains on the family,
0:50:04 > 0:50:07in early 1861, Victoria's mother died.
0:50:07 > 0:50:13Although they had never been close, the Queen was devastated.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17Prince Albert wrote...
0:50:17 > 0:50:19"She is greatly upset
0:50:19 > 0:50:23"and feels her whole childhood rush back once more upon her memory
0:50:23 > 0:50:27"with the most vivid force. And with those recollections
0:50:27 > 0:50:29"come back the thought of many a sad hour."
0:50:31 > 0:50:33"I do not want to feel better.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38"I love to dwell on her and not to be roused out of my grief."
0:50:38 > 0:50:40In an orgy of despair,
0:50:40 > 0:50:44Victoria was reluctant to acknowledge Albert's ill health.
0:50:44 > 0:50:49Writing to daughter Vicky, Victoria spelt out her frustration.
0:50:49 > 0:50:53"Dear Papa never allows he is any better or will try to get over it,
0:50:53 > 0:50:55"but makes such a miserable face
0:50:55 > 0:50:57"that people always think he's very ill."
0:51:00 > 0:51:03Despite his wife's criticisms and feeling desperately sick,
0:51:03 > 0:51:07Albert was determined to realise his vision for the children,
0:51:07 > 0:51:10and arranged another dynastic marriage
0:51:10 > 0:51:13between Bertie, the first in line to the throne,
0:51:13 > 0:51:15and Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20Once again, a wholesome public image mattered.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24It was crucial the marriage was passed off as a love match,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26not a political alliance.
0:51:28 > 0:51:32The heir to the throne had to appear to have a chaste life.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34But in the summer of 1861,
0:51:34 > 0:51:39Bertie started training with the Grenadier Guards in Dublin.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47His fellow officers, with whom he became very chummy,
0:51:47 > 0:51:50managed or arranged one night
0:51:50 > 0:51:54for a sort of camp follower of the regiment,
0:51:54 > 0:51:58a lady called Nellie Clifton, to join Bertie in his bed.
0:51:58 > 0:52:03And so on three occasions, Bertie slept with,
0:52:03 > 0:52:05lost his virginity, with Nellie Clifton.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08And then of course, eventually, the story started to trickle out.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12And Albert heard about it.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15And he wrote Bertie the most terrible letter -
0:52:15 > 0:52:19sort of hysterical, completely overwrought -
0:52:19 > 0:52:22in which he says that he foresees for his son
0:52:22 > 0:52:25this future of kind of paternity suits
0:52:25 > 0:52:31and, you know, the terrible slide into total evil
0:52:31 > 0:52:34and, you know, low moral character.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39"To thrust yourself into the hands
0:52:39 > 0:52:42"of one of the most abject of the human species,
0:52:42 > 0:52:47"to be by her initiated in the sacred mysteries of creation,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50"which ought to remain shrouded in holy awe
0:52:50 > 0:52:53"until touched by pure and undefiled hands."
0:52:55 > 0:52:58He was terrified that she might go to the papers, to the courts,
0:52:58 > 0:53:01that she might end up pregnant
0:53:01 > 0:53:04and make all kinds of financial and other demands.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06But I think this was an extreme reaction
0:53:06 > 0:53:09to what he'd seen with his own father and brother's behaviour.
0:53:09 > 0:53:11So it was tough on Bertie
0:53:11 > 0:53:15because what should have been pretty much brushed under the carpet
0:53:15 > 0:53:18turned into this enormous issue.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21And Albert, the minute he heard,
0:53:21 > 0:53:24was pacing up and down night after night,
0:53:24 > 0:53:26not sleeping, worrying.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28And he literally wore himself into a frazzle
0:53:28 > 0:53:33about this one transgression of Bertie's.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38To Albert, Bertie's fall
0:53:38 > 0:53:41was not only a threat to his dynastic marriage,
0:53:41 > 0:53:43but to the monarchy itself.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48"You must not, you dare not be lost.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50"The consequences for this country
0:53:50 > 0:53:53"and for the world at large would be too dreadful."
0:53:57 > 0:54:00What I think we can say for certain is that...
0:54:01 > 0:54:03..Bertie's misdemeanour
0:54:03 > 0:54:08upset Albert in an utterly visceral way.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10It really got in among him.
0:54:10 > 0:54:12And he was deeply, deeply upset.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15And you can tell this
0:54:15 > 0:54:18by the anguished letter that he wrote to Bertie
0:54:18 > 0:54:21more or less saying, you know,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25this isn't, this isn't just a, a little...sin,
0:54:25 > 0:54:29it's something which could shake the throne.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35The plan for perfect children had failed.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38And the dynastic dream was at stake.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41Victoria went on the defensive.
0:54:41 > 0:54:46"Wicked wretches had led our poor, innocent boy into a scrape."
0:54:47 > 0:54:50The sickly Albert travelled to Cambridge to meet his son
0:54:50 > 0:54:53and make him understand the disgrace
0:54:53 > 0:54:55he had brought on himself and his family
0:54:55 > 0:54:58and also the urgent need to get married.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03Albert went to Cambridge to have it out with Bertie about his fall.
0:55:03 > 0:55:06And they went for a long private walk in the rain
0:55:06 > 0:55:10and they had this long conversation, we don't know what they said,
0:55:10 > 0:55:13but we do know that Albert came back absolutely wet through
0:55:13 > 0:55:15and that Bertie thought that he'd been forgiven.
0:55:15 > 0:55:20So in a way, it sort of...you know, it's a resolution of the conflict.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26But it was a cold and wet winter day.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28After the long walk with his son,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31Albert was wracked with pain in his legs.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35Over the next few weeks, his symptoms worsened.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38Albert wrote to his daughter Vicky...
0:55:38 > 0:55:40"I am at a very low ebb.
0:55:40 > 0:55:43"Much worry and great sorrow,
0:55:43 > 0:55:46"about which I beg you not to ask questions,
0:55:46 > 0:55:50"have robbed me of sleep during the past fortnight."
0:55:50 > 0:55:53Now, I personally believe, having done the research,
0:55:53 > 0:55:55that Albert did have a longstanding gastric problem
0:55:55 > 0:55:59that was wrongly diagnosed as typhoid fever.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01I don't believe he died of typhoid fever.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05I believe he died of a flare-up of probably Crohn's disease,
0:56:05 > 0:56:08which goes into periods of remission
0:56:08 > 0:56:11and then flares up during times of extreme stress.
0:56:11 > 0:56:14And in 1861, he'd had to deal with
0:56:14 > 0:56:17a whole chain of stressful things happening,
0:56:17 > 0:56:20which precipitated a final decline,
0:56:20 > 0:56:25aggravated then by contracting a chill and a fever.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28And his body just packed up on him.
0:56:28 > 0:56:29He wore himself out.
0:56:32 > 0:56:34In mid-December, when Albert grew worse,
0:56:34 > 0:56:38Bertie was ordered home to see his ailing father.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43Albert died the following day, aged only 42.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48For Victoria, the loss of the man on whom she had come to utterly depend,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51could not have been more devastating.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53"He was my father, my protector,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56"my guide and adviser in all and everything.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59"My mother, I might say, as well as my husband.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02"I suppose no-one ever was so completely altered
0:57:02 > 0:57:04"and changed in every way
0:57:04 > 0:57:07"as I was by dearest Papa's blessed influence."
0:57:08 > 0:57:11Queen Victoria's overbearing grief
0:57:11 > 0:57:15would dominate the Royal household and the nation for decades.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27In life, Prince Albert was the central figure within the family.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30He had engineered the upbringing of his children,
0:57:30 > 0:57:32and it hadn't gone to plan.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34But he had also been the visionary
0:57:34 > 0:57:38behind a very modern image of the Royal Family.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41The monarchy was not a greatly popular institution
0:57:41 > 0:57:44at the beginning of the 19th century.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47And actually, I think we can, we can thank Albert
0:57:47 > 0:57:50for stabilising it as a concept.
0:57:50 > 0:57:53The fact that we still have the monarchy today,
0:57:53 > 0:57:57I think is quite a lot to do with the way that Albert and Victoria
0:57:57 > 0:58:01quite consciously presented themselves to the public
0:58:01 > 0:58:05as some version of an ordinary, middle-class family.
0:58:07 > 0:58:09Following Albert's death,
0:58:09 > 0:58:14the plan to mould perfect princes and princesses had to go on.
0:58:14 > 0:58:16But in the process, the children
0:58:16 > 0:58:20would become locked in decades of warfare with their mother.
0:58:22 > 0:58:25Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd