0:00:02 > 0:00:05Britain's longest-reigning monarch,
0:00:05 > 0:00:08mother of nine, grandmother of Europe and Empress of India,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12Queen Victoria ruled in a century of revolution -
0:00:12 > 0:00:16turbulence that cost other European monarchs their thrones,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19while Victoria reigned supreme.
0:00:19 > 0:00:24Yet Victoria, that great figurehead of the Empire, was at all times
0:00:24 > 0:00:27a woman who formed intimate relationships
0:00:27 > 0:00:31with those around her - some conventional,
0:00:31 > 0:00:33some not so conventional.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39But perhaps the Queen's most enduring relationship was
0:00:39 > 0:00:41that with her pen.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45She was one of the 19th-century's most prolific diarists.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51From childhood to widowhood, she put her thoughts on to paper.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Matters of state, family gossip, current affairs, diplomacy
0:00:55 > 0:00:57and death.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00She recorded her thoughts on everything and everybody.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05She was famously terse, frequently enraged,
0:01:05 > 0:01:11passionately romantic, and she poured her emotions out on to paper.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14Those close to her were afraid her more alarming opinions
0:01:14 > 0:01:17might escape in written form, causing havoc.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23"The poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25"That always sticks in my throat."
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Much of her writing was destroyed after her death
0:01:28 > 0:01:33and a great deal unfortunately "edited" by her daughter Beatrice.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36What survives frequently reveals a woman
0:01:36 > 0:01:39quite different to the one we think we know -
0:01:39 > 0:01:41the solid black-clad matron.
0:01:41 > 0:01:42I've spent the last five years
0:01:42 > 0:01:44reading through Queen Victoria's journals
0:01:44 > 0:01:47and through thousands of her unpublished letters.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50I've almost come to regard her as a friend.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54There are those who would dismiss her as a hysterical egomaniac,
0:01:54 > 0:01:58but for me, she is a human being of passion,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01yes, of enormous eccentricity, but also somebody,
0:02:01 > 0:02:06contrary to what is so often said about her, who was easily amused.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Her writings are the key to understanding factors that
0:02:09 > 0:02:11shaped Victoria's personality.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13The tortured relationship with her mother,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17the dominant men she clung to in search of a father figure,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19the power struggle that made her marriage
0:02:19 > 0:02:21to Prince Albert a battleground.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25I want to use her papers to try to read the mind of the woman
0:02:25 > 0:02:27who ruled the world.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32She was a daughter, a wife, a mother -
0:02:32 > 0:02:34the Queen of a growing Empire.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37Friends and family came and went.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41It was her pen which was her constant companion and friend.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05Despite running the most powerful nation on Earth,
0:03:05 > 0:03:09throughout her reign, Queen Victoria always found time for her journal.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15She used her pen therapeutically,
0:03:15 > 0:03:17to express her innermost thoughts,
0:03:17 > 0:03:20which is why her writings are so much more
0:03:20 > 0:03:22than just a record of events.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25Many of them are kept at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31Oliver Urquhart Irvine is the librarian there.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35It isn't easy to decipher her handwriting,
0:03:35 > 0:03:36but it's worth the effort.
0:03:36 > 0:03:41Here, in widowhood, she recalls happy times with Prince Albert.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45Oh, look here we are, December 27th 1860 at Windsor.
0:03:45 > 0:03:51"My angel always drove me from a seat behind, sitting astride with
0:03:51 > 0:03:55"his feet behind in large boots, and his fur-lined coat, with fur
0:03:55 > 0:03:58"gloves and he enjoyed it so much and it was so pretty."
0:03:58 > 0:04:00Yes, that's a very touching one, that,
0:04:00 > 0:04:03because it's when she's in the first throes of grief,
0:04:03 > 0:04:08writing out happy memories. "The noiseless moving of the sledge..."
0:04:08 > 0:04:11It's almost like a Russian novel, isn't it?
0:04:11 > 0:04:14If Victoria's works were to be bound as a collection,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17there would be some 700 volumes.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20More than 50 million words.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23The volume, I mean, it's colossal, isn't it?
0:04:23 > 0:04:26Er, the volume of correspondence, of writing, of papers,
0:04:26 > 0:04:27is of course colossal.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31One would expect to find Victoria's writings in almost
0:04:31 > 0:04:34every archive in the world, and in many personal and private archives.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37Indeed, yes. I'm specifically thinking of the journal, actually,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40- which is enormous, isn't it? - It is indeed enormous, yes.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44Once she'd begun this habit, perhaps prompted by her mother,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47of keeping a journal, it became a habit for the rest of her life.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50Yes, we're very fortunate that she kept such a journal.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53It provides a fantastic, observational, vivid and honest
0:04:53 > 0:04:56account of her life. It's an extraordinary survival.
0:04:56 > 0:04:57Of course the later volumes,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01Princess Beatrice, are in her hand rather than Queen Victoria's.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Victoria was never afraid to speak her mind,
0:05:04 > 0:05:08and we don't know whether she would have wanted her diaries edited.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Oliver, however, has no doubts.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14Why did Princess Beatrice copy her mother's journals rather than
0:05:14 > 0:05:17leaving her mother's journals as they were?
0:05:17 > 0:05:19- Well, she was asked to.- By whom? - By her mother.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22If you bear in mind that the diaries were written for
0:05:22 > 0:05:26Queen Victoria by herself and not necessarily with posterity in mind,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29there came a realisation towards the end that some exercise in
0:05:29 > 0:05:33editing, perhaps even redaction in some places, to avoid offending
0:05:33 > 0:05:37members of the family, or others indeed, where Queen Victoria had,
0:05:37 > 0:05:41at the moment of writing, felt able to be fully and freely expressive.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48The sweetness - and spiciness - of what survived her edit
0:05:48 > 0:05:52simply stokes our interest in what Beatrice cut out.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54How much more was there, for instance,
0:05:54 > 0:05:58about the fraught relationship between the Queen and her mother?
0:06:00 > 0:06:03The dynamics of the first relationship Victoria ever knew
0:06:03 > 0:06:06deeply affected her whole life.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12It is said that the death of Prince Albert in 1861 was the greatest
0:06:12 > 0:06:16tragedy of Queen Victoria's life, but it wasn't the first.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20The death of her mother, nine months earlier, provoked
0:06:20 > 0:06:24a tsunami of emotions, which stirred up intense inner conflict.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32"It is dreadful, dreadful to think we shall never see
0:06:32 > 0:06:34"that dear, kind, loving face again.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39"The outbursts of grief are fearful and at times unbearable."
0:06:40 > 0:06:43As she wrote these loving words,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46Victoria was rewriting her own history.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49Since her teens, she'd loathed her mother, the Duchess of Kent.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55On becoming Queen, she'd moved her out of her court and shunned her.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57They'd barely spoken properly for years,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01but when her mother died in March 1861,
0:07:01 > 0:07:05Victoria suddenly realised what she had lost.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11As most children do when their parents are dying,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14Victoria sorted through her mother's effects.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18Amongst them, small pink love notes written to Victoria
0:07:18 > 0:07:22when she was a young girl, and placed under her pillow.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26"My dearest beloved Victoria,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29"let me say a few words to you
0:07:29 > 0:07:31"before you shut your dear little eyes.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35"In some hours, this year is closed.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39"Let us thank the great and almighty God for all the many blessings
0:07:39 > 0:07:40"we experienced this year."
0:07:42 > 0:07:46Well, you can imagine with what shock Victoria read these letters
0:07:46 > 0:07:50in grown-up life after her mother had died.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54Since she and her mother had become estranged, Victoria had told herself
0:07:54 > 0:07:57that her mother had been unkind, that she'd had an unhappy childhood,
0:07:57 > 0:08:01and here was visible, tangible evidence that her mother had adored
0:08:01 > 0:08:06her, and that there had been many periods of joy in her childhood.
0:08:06 > 0:08:11She had the letters bound up in this magnificent leather volume,
0:08:11 > 0:08:15and pricked out on the cover the words "From Dear Mama".
0:08:25 > 0:08:30She was born in May 1819 at Kensington Palace,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33but it might as well have been in Germany.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37Her mother was German, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41She barely spoke English.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45She was the widow of Prince Charles of Leiningen.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48Victoria's father was her second husband, the Duke of Kent,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52but he was to die just eight months after Victoria arrived.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58That she never knew her father
0:08:58 > 0:09:03was arguably the single most important factor in Victoria's psychology.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06The Queen would spend her life searching for a father figure.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Widowed a second time, the Duchess of Kent was,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13by Royal standards, impoverished.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Her brother-in-law, King William IV,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20allowed her to carry on roughing it rent-free here at Kensington Palace,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24where she fell prey to the ambitious John Conroy.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33Historian Kate Williams has chronicled events at Kensington Palace.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36She really needed someone to depend on, and Conroy stepped in,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40he saw the vacuum, really, stepped in and made it his own,
0:09:40 > 0:09:43and really pretty much made himself almost king.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47For little Victoria,
0:09:47 > 0:09:53looking for a kindly man to play papa, schemer Conroy was a disaster.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55In diaries written in adulthood, she paints him
0:09:55 > 0:10:01as a sort of pantomime villain, and her childhood as miserable.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05"I led a very unhappy life as a child, had no brothers
0:10:05 > 0:10:10"and sisters, never had a father, was not on comfortable or at all
0:10:10 > 0:10:14"intimate or confidential footing with my mother."
0:10:14 > 0:10:17These words, written when she was a grown-up,
0:10:17 > 0:10:23paint a pretty bleak picture, but the truth was more nuanced.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25Yes, she was a poor fatherless girl,
0:10:25 > 0:10:30who for the rest of her life craved male attention.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34Yes, Sir John Conroy was a bully and a cad.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37Yes, the Duchess of Kent was a silly goose,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40and between them, the Duchess and John Conroy
0:10:40 > 0:10:43devised something they called "the Kensington System".
0:10:43 > 0:10:46It meant total separation from the court,
0:10:46 > 0:10:48and here, in Kensington Palace,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51it meant that the child was never alone.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54She shared a bedroom with her mother.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57She never ate anything which hadn't been tasted first.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02She wasn't allowed on this staircase unless she was accompanied.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05The Kensington system was really a way in which the Duchess of Kent
0:11:05 > 0:11:10and John Conroy, in particular Conroy, wanted to control Victoria.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13This vision that she would come to the throne at 12, 13,
0:11:13 > 0:11:15and they'd be in charge.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19And Conroy, presumably, was the chief agent of this system.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22The Duchess of Kent was a woman who really was out of her depth.
0:11:22 > 0:11:24She was out of her depth in Britain,
0:11:24 > 0:11:27she knew the Royal family hated her, she couldn't really speak English.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31When Conroy came along, he said, you know, I can see an opportunity here.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34And so Victoria, this tiny, plump little child,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37this little toddler, she's everyone's passport to glory,
0:11:37 > 0:11:39to riches, to massive grandeur.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44It was a repressive regime,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48but while Victoria's diaries recall a lonely childhood,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52we must remember she was prone to re-interpreting her own story.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57Deirdre Murphy is curator of the Victoria Revealed
0:11:57 > 0:12:00exhibition at Kensington Palace.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04So this is the room that Victoria was supposedly born in.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07- Oh, she was born here. - Yes, in this room.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10- Oh, this is one of her doll's houses.- Yes, from the late 1820s.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13And she had lots of dolls.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16She had lots of dolls. She made them herself with her governess,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19Baroness Lehzen, and together had lots of fun dressing them.
0:12:19 > 0:12:20There were animals.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24She had a beautiful King Charles Spaniel named Dash.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28And every now and then she'd dress him up in costumes.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31She did have quite a happy childhood.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33When she looked back on it, she saw it as unhappy
0:12:33 > 0:12:36and I wonder whether you think it was the bullying of Conroy
0:12:36 > 0:12:40when she was a teenager that led her to have this view?
0:12:40 > 0:12:42I completely agree with that.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46These memories that she brings back throughout her life, later on, are
0:12:46 > 0:12:51not necessarily reliable because she changes her view from time to time.
0:12:51 > 0:12:57So in 1872, her eldest daughter Vicky is marrying and having children
0:12:57 > 0:13:00and she writes to Vicky about how difficult her childhood was,
0:13:00 > 0:13:04giving her advice about how to treat her own children, and this is
0:13:04 > 0:13:08a theme that marks through her letters and correspondence
0:13:08 > 0:13:11but we clearly can't rely on that completely because she clearly
0:13:11 > 0:13:16had fun here, she was indulged and had a pretty good deal, actually.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25"At half past six we went to the play to Drury Lane.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27"It was Shakespeare's tragedy of King John.
0:13:27 > 0:13:29"The principal characters were King John
0:13:29 > 0:13:32"and Mr Macready, who acted beautifully.
0:13:32 > 0:13:33"We came to the very beginning
0:13:33 > 0:13:37"and stayed to the very end. I was very much amused."
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Her mother, and Lehzen, and Victoria were stage-struck,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46and they often came here to the glitzy London West End.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50The Theatre Royal Drury Lane was one of their favourites,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52to the play, to the opera, to the ballet.
0:13:52 > 0:13:54You and I to give ourselves a treat,
0:13:54 > 0:13:58might go to the opera or the ballet two or three times a year.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02Victoria, as a teenager, went to the opera two or three times a week!
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Victoria's family ruled in turbulent times.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12Her uncle, King William IV,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15was the last monarch to appoint his own Prime Minister
0:14:15 > 0:14:17in defiance of Parliament.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24The people demanded changes to the corrupt electoral system,
0:14:24 > 0:14:28and sweeping reforms in 1832 did little to dispel
0:14:28 > 0:14:30the scent of revolution in the air.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35Trapped in Kensington Palace, Princess Victoria was
0:14:35 > 0:14:37ignorant of it all.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39What Victoria did come to realise, however,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42was the future that awaited her.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45There were no other legitimate heirs to the throne.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48This young girl, three-quarters German, was next in line.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54And didn't Conroy and the court know it.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57They knew that whoever influenced this child
0:14:57 > 0:15:00influenced the future British head of state.
0:15:02 > 0:15:07Which is why, when she was 13, Conroy and her mother took
0:15:07 > 0:15:11Princess Victoria on a tour across the country.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13They sensed that if the monarchy were to survive,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16it must be more visible.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Free from the claustrophobic atmosphere of Kensington,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22Victoria found herself exposed to the world outside,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25a world of industrial change and burgeoning unrest.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29Instead of the safety of the nursery with her dolls,
0:15:29 > 0:15:34she found herself looking into the faces of the poor,
0:15:34 > 0:15:36grimy with smoke and soot.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39And she wrote about her experiences in her journal,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42given and read by her mother.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46"We have just passed through a town where all coal mines are and you
0:15:46 > 0:15:48"see the fire glimmer at a distance
0:15:48 > 0:15:49"and the engines of many places.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53"The men, women, children, country and houses are all black."
0:15:53 > 0:15:58Professor Jane Ridley has written a life of the Queen.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00It's quite interesting.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04She was sent on those tours that she rather hated around England,
0:16:04 > 0:16:06and the pressure she was under is quite extreme.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09I think it might account for why she hated appearing in public
0:16:09 > 0:16:10later on in life.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12I think her mother saw keeping a journal
0:16:12 > 0:16:14as part of the training of being a monarch.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17Fascinating. So it was in a sense part of the Kensington System.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19I would say it was.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22I saw a diary of somebody who was at one of these things in Plymouth.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25And this person noticed that at dinner the little princess
0:16:25 > 0:16:28didn't say anything, she just looked round the table all the time.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31She kept looking, looking and they asked afterwards what's wrong
0:16:31 > 0:16:33with this child - why was she looking at all the people?
0:16:33 > 0:16:37And Conroy said she's being trained to remember who they are,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40and when she gets back she'll be tested on them by her mother.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43And if you look at the entry in the diary, you see a long,
0:16:43 > 0:16:45long list of names, none of which she could have known,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48none of which could have made any sense to her at all.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52It's hard to say exactly when, but by her early teens,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56the Princess had come to see what her mother and Conroy were up to.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Victoria was coming to realise her position as a pawn
0:17:01 > 0:17:06in the political power game, and she came to feel that her mother
0:17:06 > 0:17:08was siding with Sir John Conroy against her.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16Things came to a head here in the seaside town of Ramsgate
0:17:16 > 0:17:18on a fateful day in autumn 1835,
0:17:18 > 0:17:21when her hatred of Conroy was confirmed
0:17:21 > 0:17:23and she came to loathe her mother.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32It was after a tour of the north.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35Victoria was exhausted and sickly when they arrived here,
0:17:35 > 0:17:37at the Albion Hotel.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42She had a very sore throat and she became iller.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45The doctor came, the doctor went, said she was all right.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Her mother refused to believe her,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49and thought she was just making a fuss.
0:17:49 > 0:17:50Conroy said she was shamming.
0:17:50 > 0:17:51So this goes on for several days,
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Victoria getting quite dangerously ill.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59Where artisans are now creating a new bijou hotel,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Victoria lay in her bed, at a low ebb.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05John Conroy seized his opportunity.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07He clumsily barged into her bedroom
0:18:07 > 0:18:11and tried to make her sign away her future powers as Queen.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16His idea was to have a Regency, with the Duchess of Kent ruling
0:18:16 > 0:18:21in Victoria's stead and of course, John Conroy ruling the Duchess.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27Sick as she was, the 16-year-old,
0:18:27 > 0:18:32backed up by her governess, Louise Lehzen, refused Conroy.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35It would seem that Sir John was all but violent with her.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40"I resisted in spite of my illness,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44"and their harshness, my beloved Lehzen supporting me alone."
0:18:47 > 0:18:52From now on, Victoria was just waiting to be 18
0:18:52 > 0:18:55and rid of the influence of Conroy and her mother.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57She began to forget her happy childhood
0:18:57 > 0:19:00and dwell only on the sad things.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04The experience at Ramsgate had poisoned her childhood memory
0:19:04 > 0:19:07and fuelled her resentment against her mother.
0:19:07 > 0:19:11The myth of the totally unhappy childhood was born.
0:19:12 > 0:19:18But Victoria was also possessed of a sense of destiny.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23She knew that Uncle William wasn't going to be alive for much longer.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30The King had had 12 children, but no living legitimate heir.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35In June 1837, he died in his sleep of a heart attack.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39Her mother woke Victoria.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46"I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room -
0:19:46 > 0:19:50"only in my dressing gown - alone, and saw them."
0:19:50 > 0:19:54Kneeling before her, the Archbishop of Canterbury
0:19:54 > 0:19:58and the Lord Chamberlain were now her subjects.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03Victoria, more German than British, was now Queen.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05She was ready to throw herself into the role.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09The survival of the monarchy itself depended on her success.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13"I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17"inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will
0:20:17 > 0:20:20"and more desire to do what is fit and right than I have."
0:20:23 > 0:20:26Victoria was now free of the Kensington system
0:20:26 > 0:20:31and all it represented, but she was just 18 years old,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34and she needed help to be head of state.
0:20:34 > 0:20:39Luckily, help was at hand in the form of someone who himself
0:20:39 > 0:20:41needed human companionship -
0:20:41 > 0:20:45her aristocratic Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55Cometh the time, cometh the father figure.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58Melbourne was everything that Conroy wasn't.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01He was loving, kind, and emotionally intelligent.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04He saw what she needed and he lavished it on her.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11In her diary, Queen Victoria had described herself as the
0:21:11 > 0:21:13"little fatherless girl".
0:21:13 > 0:21:17Now the 58-year-old Prime Minister made sure she felt in control
0:21:17 > 0:21:19but safe in his care.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22It was he who prepared Victoria
0:21:22 > 0:21:26and stage-managed the momentous coronation
0:21:26 > 0:21:29here at Westminster Abbey in June 1838.
0:21:32 > 0:21:37Since 1066, almost every English monarch has been crowned here.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42Victoria had been raised to be ready for this pivotal moment
0:21:42 > 0:21:45in her own life, and that of the nation, since her birth.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53There was a two-day fair in the park, there were illuminations,
0:21:53 > 0:21:55there was a firework display,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59there were people swarming into Central London
0:21:59 > 0:22:00to see their new Queen.
0:22:00 > 0:22:06She was woken at 4am by the booming of the guns in the park.
0:22:06 > 0:22:09And yet she doesn't mention her mother once
0:22:09 > 0:22:12when she came to write it up in her journal.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16The central figure for Victoria on her coronation day was Lord M.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26"My excellent Lord Melbourne, who stood very close to me throughout
0:22:26 > 0:22:30"the whole ceremony, was completely overcome at this moment,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32"and very much affected.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36"He gave me such a kind, and may I say, fatherly look."
0:22:37 > 0:22:42First things first. Victoria wanted to get rid of Sir John Conroy.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44Conroy realised that his luck had run out.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46He wanted to cash in his chips.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49He claimed that Victoria had privately offered him
0:22:49 > 0:22:54a huge pension of £3,000 a year and an English peerage.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57Well, Melbourne wasn't having any of that,
0:22:57 > 0:23:01though he did offer Conroy an Irish peerage, which was refused.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04The influence of Conroy was now decisively over.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13"There is no end to the amusing anecdotes and stories
0:23:13 > 0:23:15"Lord Melbourne tells,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18"and he tells them all in such an amusing and funny way."
0:23:20 > 0:23:24The passionate friendship which sprang up between them
0:23:24 > 0:23:28gave to the young Queen the security she craved, and to Melbourne,
0:23:28 > 0:23:33reeling from a shattered marriage, someone to care for.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35Really every day he was with her, sometimes for five hours a day,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38they'd ride together, they'd do jigsaws together,
0:23:38 > 0:23:40they played cards together.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43He participated in all of this, and through this
0:23:43 > 0:23:47constant being by the Queen's side, he gained a lot of influence
0:23:47 > 0:23:51and a lot of power, and essentially he could really tell her what
0:23:51 > 0:23:55her role was, so what he had was something people envied incredibly.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59Her education started here.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04The journals bubble with her conversations with Lord M.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08They talked of everything under the sun, from French history to
0:24:08 > 0:24:13Shakespeare, from mixed race marriages to Whig society gossip.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17It wasn't just a political process that Lord M introduced her to,
0:24:17 > 0:24:18it was life itself.
0:24:20 > 0:24:22Her relationship with Melbourne
0:24:22 > 0:24:26was helped along by a charming weakness on the part of the Queen.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30She always fell for men who made her laugh.
0:24:30 > 0:24:35The flirty, fun-loving teenage Queen leaps from her pages.
0:24:35 > 0:24:37"I asked Lord M how he liked my dress.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41"He said he thought it very pretty and that it did very well.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43"Talked of my having taken a bath,
0:24:43 > 0:24:45"his seldom doing so,
0:24:45 > 0:24:47"talked of my having wished to roll in the grass
0:24:47 > 0:24:50"when I was in the garden, which made him laugh."
0:24:50 > 0:24:53As a young man he had been outstandingly good-looking
0:24:53 > 0:24:56and he still is, he was incredibly charming,
0:24:56 > 0:25:00he knew everybody. He takes it upon himself not just to educate
0:25:00 > 0:25:04the young Queen, but also to act, in effect, as her private secretary.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07Her journals during the Melbourne years are fascinating
0:25:07 > 0:25:10because she wrote down absolutely everything that he said.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13Melbourne, more than anybody, is making her a British Queen.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17Politically speaking, the relationship between
0:25:17 > 0:25:21Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne had no significance whatsoever.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26Lord M was absolutely out of sympathy with his own times.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29And while the pair was out together laughing and riding,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32the country was in a state of unease.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38"Great riots had broke out at Birmingham again
0:25:38 > 0:25:40"houses burnt and others plundered,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43"which he, Lord M, feared was to be expected."
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Melbourne protected Victoria,
0:25:47 > 0:25:50but the national movement for working class emancipation
0:25:50 > 0:25:55that produced the People's Charter couldn't be ignored.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59There was trouble with the sugar trade and then, in 1839,
0:25:59 > 0:26:01a Parliamentary defeat over Irish independence
0:26:01 > 0:26:04forced Melbourne to resign.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07She'd felt safe, secure and much-loved.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Now she felt alone, exposed.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12It was almost as though he'd died.
0:26:12 > 0:26:14"All my happiness gone!
0:26:14 > 0:26:17"That happy, peaceful life destroyed,
0:26:17 > 0:26:22"that dearest kind Lord Melbourne, no more my minister."
0:26:23 > 0:26:27The Prime Minister's replacement was the Tory Sir Robert Peel.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31He had no charm, no sense of humour and he couldn't flirt.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36Lord M's charm had given him power over Victoria.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Peel's lack of it almost guaranteed a battle of wills.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44Their first meeting sparked a constitutional crisis.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Peel almost immediately said, you've got to change your ladies.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50The ladies of the robes, the ladies of the bedchamber,
0:26:50 > 0:26:53they once were Whigs, they now have to be Tories.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56And Victoria, she couldn't cope with this.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00She said to Peel, I am not changing my ladies, I am not doing this.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04Peel surprised her by saying in that case,
0:27:04 > 0:27:06he wouldn't be her Prime Minister.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10It became known as the Bedchamber Crisis.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12Robert Peel was a very astute politician.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14By refusing to be Prime Minister,
0:27:14 > 0:27:17he demonstrated quite a lot of things to the world at large.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21He demonstrated that Victoria was a Whig partisan.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25He'd also demonstrated that she was trying to exercise
0:27:25 > 0:27:29the kind of monarchical power which no longer existed in Britain.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32This was the last time that a British monarch ever openly
0:27:32 > 0:27:34defied a representative politician.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38Victoria felt victorious,
0:27:38 > 0:27:41but her intransigence pointed up her immaturity.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46That she'd put her own selfish needs before those of Parliament
0:27:46 > 0:27:48was visible to all.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51The ramifications were immense.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Peel's refusal to serve created a vacuum.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57Melbourne was forced to return as Prime Minister
0:27:57 > 0:28:02of a weak Whig government which lasted just two more years.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07The political system had been shaken by a young girl's tantrum,
0:28:07 > 0:28:09the sort of behaviour a more enlightened mother might have
0:28:09 > 0:28:13influenced if she'd been more present in Victoria's life.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19The Duchess was now very much behind the scenes, but she was,
0:28:19 > 0:28:23nevertheless, quietly engineering her daughter's future - and her own.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27The question on everyone's lips
0:28:27 > 0:28:30was who was the young Queen going to marry,
0:28:30 > 0:28:33and broadly speaking, there were three options.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35She could have married her cousin in England,
0:28:35 > 0:28:39George, Duke of Cambridge, who was a soldier her age.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43They were fast friends throughout their lives but George used to say,
0:28:43 > 0:28:47rather ungallantly, he never wanted to marry "plain little Victoria".
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Old William IV had wanted her to marry into the Dutch royal family,
0:28:51 > 0:28:54but Victoria was having none of that.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57The two eligible Princes of Orange were frightful oafs.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59And then there was the third option,
0:28:59 > 0:29:04favoured by Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, and by her mother.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08And that was that she should forge a political alliance with her
0:29:08 > 0:29:11Coburg cousin Prince Albert.
0:29:12 > 0:29:18Since 1714, the English Hanoverian Royal Family had been German.
0:29:20 > 0:29:24Victoria was by descent a member of this family,
0:29:24 > 0:29:28but her mother was of a different line, the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas,
0:29:28 > 0:29:30and so was Albert.
0:29:30 > 0:29:32They saw in this marriage a chance for the family
0:29:32 > 0:29:36effectively to take over the running of Great Britain.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41They had met before, as teenagers.
0:29:41 > 0:29:4317-year-old Albert and his brother Ernest had
0:29:43 > 0:29:47encountered Victoria at a family get-together in England.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49Ernest was taller and funnier.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Dr Karina Urbach is a biographer of Queen Victoria.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00The first time he came over was with his brother Ernest.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03And she thought that Ernest was the more interesting one
0:30:03 > 0:30:06because he was the lively one and the fun-loving one, but when
0:30:06 > 0:30:10they met the second time around, then of course he had become quite
0:30:10 > 0:30:13a good-looking man and it was a very hormonal decision
0:30:13 > 0:30:15for her to marry him.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19In October 1839, the bright-eyed prince,
0:30:19 > 0:30:23now 20, came for a visit from Germany.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26Victoria, three months older and nearly a foot shorter,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29was completely smitten by him.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36"Albert really is quite charming, and so excessively handsome,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39"such beautiful blue eyes, an exquisite nose,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43"and such a pretty mouth with delicate moustachios
0:30:43 > 0:30:47"and slight but very slight whiskers. A beautiful figure,
0:30:47 > 0:30:51"broad in the shoulders and a fine waist My heart is quite going."
0:30:54 > 0:30:57Knowing with hindsight how much rested on that meeting,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01it's hard not to feel a little awestruck by the innocence of
0:31:01 > 0:31:06Victoria's emotions when she first set eyes on the youthful Albert.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09They were destined to become the grandparents of Europe
0:31:09 > 0:31:12and one of the most famous couples in history,
0:31:12 > 0:31:15but the path ahead was not going to be an easy one.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21Victoria was extremely vulnerable emotionally.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24She was also the most eligible princess in Europe, or in the world.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28As she swooned,
0:31:28 > 0:31:30she unconsciously fell in with plans
0:31:30 > 0:31:32laid by a grand master of political manoeuvring,
0:31:32 > 0:31:35Prince Albert's equivalent of Lord Melbourne.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40This was never intended to be a love match.
0:31:40 > 0:31:42Of course Albert was going to support his wife
0:31:42 > 0:31:45but he wanted to influence her politically,
0:31:45 > 0:31:48guided himself by his own political mentor,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51Freiherr Doktor Stockmar of Coburg.
0:31:51 > 0:31:52They wanted to establish
0:31:52 > 0:31:55constitutional monarchy as the principal bulwark
0:31:55 > 0:31:57against revolution in Europe.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00And the best way of doing that was to marry the British Queen
0:32:00 > 0:32:02and have a large family.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06So Albert took this marriage on as a challenge.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09And he knew it would be tough because that's what Stockmar
0:32:09 > 0:32:12told him when he was about to go to England the second time.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14He said do you want this?
0:32:14 > 0:32:18This is going to be a hard life, you know, you will have to, um,
0:32:18 > 0:32:20help this woman in distress.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23That's how he sold Victoria.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27Albert was a controller and a cold fish,
0:32:27 > 0:32:32but from the first, they were passionately and physically in love.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37"Dearest Albert took my face in both his hands and kissed me most
0:32:37 > 0:32:44"tenderly and said 'ich habe dich so lieb, ich kann nicht sagen wie!'
0:32:44 > 0:32:47"I love you so much, I cannot say how much."
0:32:50 > 0:32:53She was so besotted by Albert, by his beauty and talent,
0:32:53 > 0:32:55how he could play the piano, dance,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58and talk about her favourite opera,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01that she hardly realised how much of her own freedom
0:33:01 > 0:33:07and personality she was surrendering when she asked him to marry her.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09And marry they did.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16"We both went to bed, of course in one bed,
0:33:16 > 0:33:21"to lie by his side and in his arms, and on his dear bosom,
0:33:21 > 0:33:23"and be called names of tenderness,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26"I have never yet heard used to me before.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29"This was the happiest day of my life!"
0:33:33 > 0:33:36There's no doubt there was a strong sexual attraction.
0:33:36 > 0:33:37I think so, yes. Yes, definitely.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42When one reads her diaries, one is impressed by her openness.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44I mean, she really says how beautiful he was
0:33:44 > 0:33:46and how wonderful it is
0:33:46 > 0:33:48to be touched by him and things like that.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51After they were married, she enjoyed him taking off her stockings,
0:33:51 > 0:33:53putting on her stockings.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55Yes, having intimacy for the first time, yes.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59So she was utterly delighted by him in a physical way.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02- That was lucky! - That was lucky!
0:34:04 > 0:34:07The Duchess of Kent was not so lucky.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Victoria was now no longer a child,
0:34:11 > 0:34:13and felt able to flex her muscles for all to see.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17She shunned her mother.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19The Duchess of Kent was a woman destroyed.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22She couldn't believe Victoria didn't want to see her.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25Victoria wanted to get away from her mother at every opportunity
0:34:25 > 0:34:30and the whole court saw this.
0:34:30 > 0:34:37Victoria confided in her journal her ongoing coldness to her mother.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40"It has been observed that after the marriage, I kissed the
0:34:40 > 0:34:45"Queen Mother and only shook hands with Mama, which I said was true."
0:34:47 > 0:34:50It's heart-rending to read the cry of the rejected mother
0:34:50 > 0:34:54seeking the approval of the callous daughter.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57In the year after Victoria married, her mother wrote to her.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00- GERMAN ACCENT:- O, Victoria, why are you so cold and indifferent
0:35:00 > 0:35:03with your mother, who loves you so dearly?
0:35:10 > 0:35:14But the Queen had eyes for Albert, and Albert alone.
0:35:14 > 0:35:17He appeared to be her dream come true.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20Victoria was in raptures.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24Her mother, who'd planned the whole thing, was sidelined.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28Victoria took a lease of £2,000 a year on this house,
0:35:28 > 0:35:3336 Belgrave Square, and she dumped her mother in it.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35It's handy for the palace.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39I can see the trees of the garden of Buckingham Palace from where
0:35:39 > 0:35:42I'm standing, but the Duchess of Kent was very definitely
0:35:42 > 0:35:44outside the palace - here was her place,
0:35:44 > 0:35:47and her daughter had firmly put her in it.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58What Victoria wanted now was solitude,
0:35:58 > 0:36:05romance and excitement in company of her man and superman, Prince Albert.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08They fled to the most romantic part of the British Isles,
0:36:08 > 0:36:10and furthest from the London court.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15Soulful Albert was already homesick,
0:36:15 > 0:36:18and the landscape and even the people reminded him
0:36:18 > 0:36:21of his German homeland.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23Victoria too loved the Highlanders.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26She enjoyed their lack of deference,
0:36:26 > 0:36:30how they treated her as if she was a human being.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35"There was a quiet, a retirement, a wilderness,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39"a liberty and a solitude that had such a charm for us."
0:36:41 > 0:36:44You can hear the relief in Victoria's words,
0:36:44 > 0:36:49her joy at being out of London and away from state duties.
0:36:49 > 0:36:51They both loved the great outdoors, Victoria and Albert.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55He liked going deer stalking. She was a very good water-colourist
0:36:55 > 0:36:58and liked to take her sketchbook out on to the hills.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08Ghillie Sandy Reid knows the places that made her heart sing.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11So what were her favourite views when she was round here?
0:37:11 > 0:37:15Well, I think at one time she just loved to go on her picnics,
0:37:15 > 0:37:18and Tulloch, the hill over on the right there,
0:37:18 > 0:37:20that was her favourite picnic spot.
0:37:20 > 0:37:23She would get on a pony, ride side-saddle up the hill
0:37:23 > 0:37:27and Albert, he would go off stalking
0:37:27 > 0:37:32and she would just wait for him with a picnic coming back again.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36Have you heard if Prince Albert was a good shot or not?
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Er, well, I don't think he was a good shot, like, you know.
0:37:40 > 0:37:42Was he not?
0:37:42 > 0:37:45He always seemed to have what you would call hard luck.
0:37:47 > 0:37:48In the evenings,
0:37:48 > 0:37:53they would retire to the homes of the Scottish nobility,
0:37:53 > 0:37:54for whisky and flings.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59"I danced several Quadrilles and Valses,
0:37:59 > 0:38:01"finishing up with a Galop with Albert."
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Ah, the innocence of young love.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09But they were in for an extraordinary journey together.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Neither of them wanted to surrender their independence.
0:38:13 > 0:38:18Both wanted power and more than is the case in most marriages,
0:38:18 > 0:38:21there were to be some furious clashes of wills.
0:38:24 > 0:38:26Initially Albert thought he'd won
0:38:26 > 0:38:29because Victoria said she'd obey him in the marriage ceremony.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32But that was just for show. Victoria saw Albert as a helper.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34Nothing better, in her vision.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37She was writing letters and Albert was getting the blotting paper.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39That was his role.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42He wanted to be king. He wanted to have power.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Albert wanted control,
0:38:45 > 0:38:48and all he had to do was let nature take its course.
0:38:48 > 0:38:52Within a month of the wedding, Victoria was pregnant.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54When she first fell pregnant, she was pretty miserable,
0:38:54 > 0:38:57she just thought, this has happened so quickly!
0:38:57 > 0:39:00And she wrote to Uncle Leopold, who was thrilled, so excited and said,
0:39:00 > 0:39:05"If I have a nasty girl, at the end of all my trials, I'll drown it."
0:39:06 > 0:39:07Victoria was conflicted.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10She adored Albert and he wanted more children,
0:39:10 > 0:39:15but with every pregnancy, she had to give him more executive power
0:39:15 > 0:39:18and he hadn't reckoned on her fury.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22After she gave birth to the Princess Royal, Vicky,
0:39:22 > 0:39:24she suffered from terrible post-natal depression
0:39:24 > 0:39:27and there was the most awful row with Prince Albert.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32"There is often an irritability in me," she wrote,
0:39:32 > 0:39:34"which makes me say cross and odious things,
0:39:34 > 0:39:38"which I don't myself believe and which I fear hurt Albert."
0:39:38 > 0:39:40Albert just couldn't cope
0:39:40 > 0:39:43with the swings of emotion and with the rows.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47And he wrote in despair to old Doctor Stockmar,
0:39:47 > 0:39:50who was both a medical doctor as well as his political advisor,
0:39:50 > 0:39:52for advice.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55- GERMAN ACCENT - "Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me
0:39:55 > 0:39:57"to be able often to speak of my difficulties.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59"She will not hear me out,
0:39:59 > 0:40:02"but flies into a rage and overwhelms me
0:40:02 > 0:40:05"with reproaches and suspiciousness, want of trust,
0:40:05 > 0:40:07"ambition, envy."
0:40:10 > 0:40:13She was at once furious and adoring.
0:40:13 > 0:40:17She missed the brief but golden period when Albert was hers alone.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21She was jealous of the children on whom he lavished his attention.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25She hated being pregnant and she hated,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28she wasn't enjoying any of the children.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32That's really sad, I mean, in his letters he keeps saying,
0:40:32 > 0:40:36why do you always nag them, why can't you be kind to them?
0:40:36 > 0:40:38And she didn't have many motherly feelings
0:40:38 > 0:40:41because she was so obsessed with her husband.
0:40:44 > 0:40:47Victoria was in a very difficult position.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49On the one hand she was the Queen of England,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52on the other she was a young married woman
0:40:52 > 0:40:54who simply couldn't stop losing her temper
0:40:54 > 0:40:58and sometimes the rages amounted to almost madness.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02She was married to a cold-hearted control freak,
0:41:02 > 0:41:06who punished her when she lost her temper.
0:41:06 > 0:41:09This made her feel even more inadequate,
0:41:09 > 0:41:12but how she strove to improve herself.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19Locked away in Windsor Castle
0:41:19 > 0:41:21are the most fascinating of the Queen's diaries,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24written later in her marriage.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26They were Victoria's secret,
0:41:26 > 0:41:30and they demonstrate how Albert had her in an emotional flux,
0:41:30 > 0:41:34by turns angry, elated, even self-flagellating.
0:41:36 > 0:41:41This volume is called Remarks Conversations Reflections,
0:41:41 > 0:41:42and here's what she writes
0:41:42 > 0:41:46on her wedding anniversary, February the 10th.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50"What cause have I ever for gratitude?
0:41:50 > 0:41:52"And yet alas, how often,
0:41:52 > 0:41:56"and even to my distress on this holy day,
0:41:56 > 0:42:00"does my foolish susceptibility and irritability
0:42:00 > 0:42:04"cause me misery for moments and annoyance
0:42:04 > 0:42:07"to that most perfect and unselfish of human beings,
0:42:07 > 0:42:09"my adored husband?"
0:42:14 > 0:42:18She confides all these pathetic feelings about how unworthy she is
0:42:18 > 0:42:21and how she can't control herself
0:42:21 > 0:42:23and you get the feeling that this woman
0:42:23 > 0:42:26has been made to feel that she is, sort of inadequate
0:42:26 > 0:42:28in this relationship.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32How much do you think Albert controlled her?
0:42:32 > 0:42:34I think it was a controlling relationship.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37Victoria endlessly trying to improve herself
0:42:37 > 0:42:43and impress Albert with her success in making herself a better person.
0:42:43 > 0:42:45You get the impression that at the end of every year,
0:42:45 > 0:42:49Victoria has a sort of moral accounts system, if you like.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52We do our accounts, Victoria did her moral accounts.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57Albert was succeeding where Sir John Conroy had failed,
0:42:57 > 0:43:01acquiring executive power by stealth.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06His design was grand. He wanted to change the course of history
0:43:06 > 0:43:08and the children were his weapons.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11Creating more and more of them was part of a master plan,
0:43:11 > 0:43:16devised with Baron Stockmar, for the security of England and Europe.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Albert knew that for a ruling monarch
0:43:19 > 0:43:22there was no such thing as a private life.
0:43:22 > 0:43:24The birth of each and every one of his children
0:43:24 > 0:43:27made a political statement.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30Europe was moving in a republican direction.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34Albert was determined to reverse this trend
0:43:34 > 0:43:39by making those children European kings and queens.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47Albert didn't want to be thought of as the young man from Coburg,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51meekly fitting into the traditions of the English Royal house.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56He needed to be seen as a political force
0:43:56 > 0:43:58and he looked for a powerful,
0:43:58 > 0:44:00physical manifestation of his presence.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08Which is why in 1845 he acquired this estate, Osborne,
0:44:08 > 0:44:11on the Isle of Wight, overlooking the Solent,
0:44:11 > 0:44:14in one of the most idyllic spots in southern England.
0:44:14 > 0:44:16It was to be his project.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18He designed it, he made it.
0:44:18 > 0:44:23Osborne was to be the embodiment of Prince Albert's ideals of family life,
0:44:23 > 0:44:28ideals which Queen Victoria herself enthusiastically endorsed.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36"It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39"We have a charming beach quite to ourselves.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42"We can walk anywhere without being followed or mobbed."
0:44:47 > 0:44:49You might think you were entering
0:44:49 > 0:44:52the palace of an Italian Renaissance prince,
0:44:52 > 0:44:57of the kind that Prince Albert visited when he was a teenager.
0:44:57 > 0:44:59And in a way, you are.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03Only it's the palace of a modern Renaissance Prince.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10'The architectural design was Albert's,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13'as was the original interior decor,
0:45:13 > 0:45:17'every artwork and sculpture steeped in enlightenment ideals.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20'It was originally minimalist.'
0:45:20 > 0:45:24The later knick-knackery and clutter is all Victoria.
0:45:24 > 0:45:25When they first came here,
0:45:25 > 0:45:27she already had three small children,
0:45:27 > 0:45:31so she happily let him take a lead in matters aesthetic.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34But as the family grew, so did his ambition.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39These desks in Queen Victoria's sitting room
0:45:39 > 0:45:44are a symbolic reminder of how much she came to depend upon her husband.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47One for Albert, one for her.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51Actually it was Albert who did most of the day-to-day work of the head of state,
0:45:51 > 0:45:54signing documents, reading cabinet papers and so forth.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58While Victoria gave birth to nine babies,
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Albert drew more and more political power to himself.
0:46:06 > 0:46:11For a decade, Victoria saw Albert through a thick, hormonal fog.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Sometimes her resolve slipped.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17"I am every day more convinced that we women,
0:46:17 > 0:46:19"if we are to be good women,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22"feminine and amiable, and domestic,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24"are not fitted to reign."
0:46:27 > 0:46:30The other great Victorian diarist, Charles Greville,
0:46:30 > 0:46:33noted that whilst Victoria had the title,
0:46:33 > 0:46:35after a few years of marriage,
0:46:35 > 0:46:39Albert was, "King to all intents and purposes."
0:46:39 > 0:46:42The Royal Family life was tellingly immortalised in oils
0:46:42 > 0:46:45by the German artist, Winterhalter.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53When this picture was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847,
0:46:53 > 0:46:55it was very much criticised.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58They thought the Queen of England lacked decorum,
0:46:58 > 0:47:01she was showing so much bare flesh.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06Her husband is extending a sexy finger into wifey's moist little palm.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09But what I think's so interesting about this picture
0:47:09 > 0:47:12is that although Queen Victoria is wearing her coronet,
0:47:12 > 0:47:16it is Albert who is centre stage.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24It's a picture of familial contentment,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27but also of Albert's success.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31By now he'd achieved what he left Germany to do.
0:47:34 > 0:47:38Perhaps his greatest success was Princess Vicky.
0:47:38 > 0:47:40Whatever happened to Albert in the future,
0:47:40 > 0:47:45she would carry on his work, perhaps even control her mother.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57The Princess Royal was every inch Prince Albert's daughter.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01There was a tremendous kinship between Vicky and Albert
0:48:01 > 0:48:05and obviously the Queen felt a little bit envious of this.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07But there was pride too.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10The family had visited Blair Castle back in 1844,
0:48:10 > 0:48:15when they had first set eyes on an estate up in the north, at Balmoral.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18Her mother wrote of her happiness at the toddler's maturity.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21"Albert walked up the steps with me,
0:48:21 > 0:48:23"I holding his arm and Vicky his hand,
0:48:23 > 0:48:27"amid the loud cheers of the people, all the way to the carriage,
0:48:27 > 0:48:30"our dear Vicky behaving like a grown-up person,
0:48:30 > 0:48:33"not put out, nor frightened, nor nervous."
0:48:37 > 0:48:4011 years later, now aged 14,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43Vicky was back here with the family
0:48:43 > 0:48:45in the landscape of the Highlands
0:48:45 > 0:48:48that so reminded her father, the Prince Consort,
0:48:48 > 0:48:49of the dear German heimat.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54But this was to be no ordinary family holiday
0:48:54 > 0:48:56of sketching and stalking.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59Victoria and Albert had long planned to marry
0:48:59 > 0:49:03each of their children off to different European royal houses
0:49:03 > 0:49:05in a series of political alliances
0:49:05 > 0:49:08and this, the first such political scheme,
0:49:08 > 0:49:10was much the most significant.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16The Queen had vilified her manipulating mother,
0:49:16 > 0:49:19but the master plan she and Albert had for Vicky's
0:49:19 > 0:49:21was every bit as Machiavellian.
0:49:21 > 0:49:23She and Friedrich Wilhelm,
0:49:23 > 0:49:27Crown Prince of Prussia, known as Fritz, were mere pawns.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34Victoria put the would-be lovers in the most romantic of settings,
0:49:34 > 0:49:37a place she and Albert loved.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42The Queen knew the effect these surroundings
0:49:42 > 0:49:44could have on sensitive youth.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46The possibilities had her all a-flutter.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55"Fritz looks very well, altogether looking more manly
0:49:55 > 0:49:57"and his moustache becomes him.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00"The visit makes my heart beat as it may
0:50:00 > 0:50:05"and probably will decide the fate of our dear eldest child."
0:50:07 > 0:50:09He was 23,
0:50:09 > 0:50:11she was 14,
0:50:11 > 0:50:15little more than a child in her sprig-white muslin dress
0:50:15 > 0:50:17trimmed with red ribbons.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21But it was the start of a romance.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24They walked on the slopes of Craig-Na-Ban.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27He picked her a sprig of white heather
0:50:27 > 0:50:30and there they had their first kiss.
0:50:33 > 0:50:35The plan had worked.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37Vicky loved Fritz
0:50:37 > 0:50:40and that night ran into her mother's room to tell her.
0:50:40 > 0:50:42Having engineered the whole thing,
0:50:42 > 0:50:46Victoria, conflicted as ever, now tried to take control,
0:50:46 > 0:50:51insisting Vicky delay marriage until she was 17.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53Queen Victoria felt the classic envy that mothers
0:50:53 > 0:50:55so often feel for daughters
0:50:55 > 0:50:57when they emerge from childhood into womanhood,
0:50:57 > 0:51:01especially if the daughters have been very close to the father.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05She complained of Vicky's waywardness of temper,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07sharp answers and lack of self-control.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10A pretty ripe case, you might imagine,
0:51:10 > 0:51:12of the pot calling the kettle black.
0:51:12 > 0:51:14And as the wedding day approached,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17Queen Victoria felt all the usual cluster of emotions.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23"She will no longer be an innocent girl,
0:51:23 > 0:51:28"but a wife and perhaps, this time next year already a mother."
0:51:32 > 0:51:35They were married in January 1858.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38Then the newly-weds left for Prussia.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42Thus began was one of the most remarkable correspondences in history,
0:51:42 > 0:51:44in which a monarch of one country
0:51:44 > 0:51:50tried to control the behaviour of a Crown Princess of another, by post.
0:51:50 > 0:51:55Queen Victoria does write lots of admonishing letters, you know.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57She doesn't want to let go.
0:51:57 > 0:51:58ANDREW LAUGHS
0:51:58 > 0:52:01It's very funny in some ways that Victoria thought
0:52:01 > 0:52:04she could still control the way she behaved at court,
0:52:04 > 0:52:06whether she was sitting down, standing up.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09- I mean, even the tiniest details... - It's ridiculous, yeah.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12..to the point where the German authorities actually wrote back
0:52:12 > 0:52:16to London saying, can the Queen please stop bombarding
0:52:16 > 0:52:18the Crown Princess with all these terrible letters.
0:52:18 > 0:52:23When Vicky wrote that Fritz was to be a father, things came to a head.
0:52:23 > 0:52:27Most mothers at least pretend to be pleased
0:52:27 > 0:52:29at the prospect of becoming a grandmother.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33But when Vicky became pregnant, this was NOT the case.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37Having her nine children had placed great psychological strain,
0:52:37 > 0:52:41both on Queen Victoria herself and on her marriage.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45So in her letters to Vicky, we find that she does not hold back.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51"What you say of the pride of giving life to an immortal soul
0:52:51 > 0:52:54"is very fine, dear, but I cannot enter into that.
0:52:54 > 0:52:58"I think much more of our being like a cow or dog at such moments,
0:52:58 > 0:53:03"when our poor nature becomes so very animal and un-ecstatic
0:53:03 > 0:53:05"but for you, dear, if you are sensible, and reasonable,
0:53:05 > 0:53:09"not in ecstasy, nor spending your days with nurses and wet-nurses,
0:53:09 > 0:53:13"which is the ruin of many a refined and intellectual young lady."
0:53:13 > 0:53:17The Queen was half of the most famous couple of the age.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21In her letters to Vicky, she reveals her ambivalence about marriage,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25tells truths that Princess Beatrice would surely have redacted
0:53:25 > 0:53:27had she got her hands on them.
0:53:27 > 0:53:29But she didn't.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33They stayed behind in Germany and they are the business,
0:53:33 > 0:53:36because with these letters you see her unmasked.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38They are a stream of consciousness,
0:53:38 > 0:53:40pouring out of her two or three times a week,
0:53:40 > 0:53:43to her daughter in Germany about everything under the sun.
0:53:43 > 0:53:48About the unsatisfactory-ness of men, and of marriage.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51"All marriage is such a lottery.
0:53:51 > 0:53:53"the happiness is always an exchange,
0:53:53 > 0:53:55"though it may be a very happy one.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59"Still, the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01"That always sticks in my throat."
0:54:03 > 0:54:07She must have found writing in this way so very cathartic.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12The Queen's relationships with all her children,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14the jealousies, the criticism,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18show how pivotally she was affected by the tensions and pressures
0:54:18 > 0:54:21of her first formative years with her own mother.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24She had never addressed that relationship,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27and in 1861, she ran out of time.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29Ever since Victoria married and had babies,
0:54:29 > 0:54:32her own mother had been an exemplary grandmother.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35Not a child's birthday got forgotten,
0:54:35 > 0:54:37not an anniversary overlooked.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41But since Conroy had been totally banished at the beginning of the reign,
0:54:41 > 0:54:45the poor Duchess of Kent lived in everlasting dread
0:54:45 > 0:54:48that she herself would one day be spurned.
0:54:52 > 0:54:54Victoria had convinced herself
0:54:54 > 0:54:57that it was her mother's heavy-handed parenting
0:54:57 > 0:55:00that had sundered the bond between them.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02But she was devastated
0:55:02 > 0:55:06when she learned that her mother was dying of cancer.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09"I think it came like a thunderbolt upon us
0:55:09 > 0:55:10"and I think I never suffered
0:55:10 > 0:55:13"as I did during those four dreadful hours
0:55:13 > 0:55:15"till we heard she was better.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17"I hardly myself knew how I loved her,
0:55:17 > 0:55:21"or how my whole existence seems bound up with her."
0:55:23 > 0:55:27For decades, they'd barely spoken.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30Victoria had written the story of her terrible parenting,
0:55:30 > 0:55:34and now she was rewriting it all, in despair.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38"I can't bear to think of all you have to go through.
0:55:38 > 0:55:40"If only I could be near you
0:55:40 > 0:55:42"and see you very often
0:55:42 > 0:55:44"and long to beguile away the dull hours
0:55:44 > 0:55:46"when you can't amuse yourself!"
0:55:49 > 0:55:52But it was too little, too late.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55The Duchess didn't live to see Easter.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58Victoria threw herself on Albert,
0:55:58 > 0:56:00little knowing that this terrible year
0:56:00 > 0:56:02would be their last together.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07Albert himself was a sick man.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10They now seem to think he had Crohn's disease,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14or possibly abdominal cancer, or possibly both.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18And he died that same year, 1861, in December.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22Victoria was just 42 years old.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25She'd spent her life struggling against an oppressive childhood
0:56:25 > 0:56:27and against the tedium of motherhood.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30But however difficult her marriage had been,
0:56:30 > 0:56:34she had now grown totally dependent upon Albert.
0:56:39 > 0:56:43Writing to her Uncle Leopold, she cried out...
0:56:43 > 0:56:48"The poor fatherless baby is now the utterly broken-hearted
0:56:48 > 0:56:51"and crushed widow of 42."
0:56:51 > 0:56:54Victoria was often on the brink of instability.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57Now, grief precipitated a mental crisis
0:56:57 > 0:56:59that had some advisors wondering
0:56:59 > 0:57:03if she'd inherited the famous Hanoverian madness.
0:57:03 > 0:57:06It must be said that mourning became her,
0:57:06 > 0:57:08drama queen that she was.
0:57:10 > 0:57:151861 was her annus horribilis, her darkest hour.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19She ended it as an orphan and a widow.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22And it would be the making of her.
0:57:25 > 0:57:30The Widow of Windsor, as she would come to be known,
0:57:30 > 0:57:35was no longer in the shadow of her brilliant puritanical angel, Albert.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39So there will be another story to be told,
0:57:39 > 0:57:42and it's a story of liberation from him,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45in which Victoria found herself alone,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47able, along the journey,
0:57:47 > 0:57:49to make some most unlikely friendships
0:57:49 > 0:57:52as she became her own woman.
0:57:53 > 0:57:55Next time.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57His life was over, but her life wasn't over.
0:57:57 > 0:58:02In widow's weeds, Victoria is anything but retiring.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05Her writings reveal a Queen quite different
0:58:05 > 0:58:08to the icon we thought we knew.
0:58:08 > 0:58:10Freed from Albert,
0:58:10 > 0:58:11she becomes a politician,
0:58:11 > 0:58:14a diplomat and perhaps, a lover.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17- SCOTTISH ACCENT - Woman! What are ye doing?
0:58:17 > 0:58:20The most powerful monarch on Earth is a woman unchained...
0:58:20 > 0:58:25- Is there a feeling Dr Reid knew the nature of the relationship?- Yes.
0:58:25 > 0:58:27..and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.