Episode 26 - Queen Victoria's Children - Part III - Princes Will Be Princes - Britain Royal Family
Queen V: The Life of Queen VictoriaShow Notes
In a 60-year family saga this three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother. The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life. It focuses on Victoria's relationship with her sons and how, after Albert's death, they struggled to live up to his model of purity. It explores Victoria's difficult relationship with her eldest son Bertie, whom she blamed for Albert's death, believing his sexual indiscretions to have fatally weakened her husband. It also examines her relationship with her son Leopold, the physically weak but spirited hemophiliac who put up the most determined effort to break free from his mother's control. Ultimately, the idea of monarchy based on purity is put to the test as the philandering Bertie comes to the throne.
More from Queen V: The Life of Queen Victoria
Letters 34 through 43 - Elizabeth Bancroft went to England with her husband, historian George Bancroft, for three of the most dynamicy years in European history. As Ambassador to England from the United States, George moved in the highest circles. In his wife's letters to their sons, her uncle, her brother, and Mrs. Polk (the President's wife), we see glimpses not only of early Victorian English life, but also of Queen Victoria herself! Mrs. Bancroft speaks of dinners with Benjamin Disraeli, visits to Wordsworth, weekends in the country with Louis Napolean and Sir Robert Peel with such matter of fact aplomb that one cannot help being impressed.
Letters 24 through 33 - Elizabeth Bancroft went to England with her husband, historian George Bancroft, for three of the most dynamicy years in European history. As Ambassador to England from the United States, George moved in the highest circles. In his wife's letters to their sons, her uncle, her brother, and Mrs. Polk (the President's wife), we see glimpses not only of early Victorian English life, but also of Queen Victoria herself! Mrs. Bancroft speaks of dinners with Benjamin Disraeli, visits to Wordsworth, weekends in the country with Louis Napolean and Sir Robert Peel with such matter of fact aplomb that one cannot help being impressed.
Letters 19 through 23 - Elizabeth Bancroft went to England with her husband, historian George Bancroft, for three of the most dynamicy years in European history. As Ambassador to England from the United States, George moved in the highest circles. In his wife's letters to their sons, her uncle, her brother, and Mrs. Polk (the President's wife), we see glimpses not only of early Victorian English life, but also of Queen Victoria herself! Mrs. Bancroft speaks of dinners with Benjamin Disraeli, visits to Wordsworth, weekends in the country with Louis Napolean and Sir Robert Peel with such matter of fact aplomb that one cannot help being impressed.
Letters 12 through 18 - Elizabeth Bancroft went to England with her husband, historian George Bancroft, for three of the most dynamicy years in European history. As Ambassador to England from the United States, George moved in the highest circles. In his wife's letters to their sons, her uncle, her brother, and Mrs. Polk (the President's wife), we see glimpses not only of early Victorian English life, but also of Queen Victoria herself! Mrs. Bancroft speaks of dinners with Benjamin Disraeli, visits to Wordsworth, weekends in the country with Louis Napolean and Sir Robert Peel with such matter of fact aplomb that one cannot help being impressed.
Letters 8 through 11 - Elizabeth Bancroft went to England with her husband, historian George Bancroft, for three of the most dynamicy years in European history. As Ambassador to England from the United States, George moved in the highest circles. In his wife's letters to their sons, her uncle, her brother, and Mrs. Polk (the President's wife), we see glimpses not only of early Victorian English life, but also of Queen Victoria herself! Mrs. Bancroft speaks of dinners with Benjamin Disraeli, visits to Wordsworth, weekends in the country with Louis Napolean and Sir Robert Peel with such matter of fact aplomb that one cannot help being impressed.