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Just as the Victorian era is incorrectly portrayed as a period of demureness, misconceptions about the British monarchy – specifically, Queen Victoria – are equally persistent. In reality, crazy stories about the royal family abound from Victoria's court, the most well-known of which typically have to do with the standards Victoria set for Victorian mourning customs.
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In fiction, the Victorian era is often portrayed as a period of demureness, and Queen Victoria
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herself is usually shown having puritanical tendencies. While Queen Victoria is often thought of as prim and prudish, in reality, she was actually
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quite fond of sex and had a deep appreciation for the naked human form
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Oh my. Today, we're going to take a look at some unusual facts you never knew about Queen Victoria
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Although she was often depicted as uptight, Queen Victoria was reportedly quite comfortable with the human figure
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In fact, an exhibit of the paintings the royal couple gifted to one another revealed that Victoria's tastes were actually more erotic than her husband, Albert's
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While his taste ran closer to the demure, Victoria gave her husband several paintings
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that featured bare flesh, including William Edward Frost's Una Among the Fawns and Wood
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Nymphs at the Disarming of Cupid, as well as Franz Xaver's Winterhalter's Florinda
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She also commissioned an intimate portrait of herself now known as The Secret Picture
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which was made to be seen only by the prince. While it might not look particularly tantalizing
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to us, Victoria's languid pose, her far-off unfocused gaze, and her free-flowing hair would
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have been considered fairly risque at the time. When she had her first child, Vicky, Victoria was
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awestruck by the miracle of birth, telling her ladies-in-waiting, it seems like a dream having a
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child. However, her opinion on babies and children changed as the years passed. And to be fair
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you probably wouldn't be raving about the joys of pregnancy and motherhood either
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if you delivered nine children in under 17 years. Victoria's attitude changed so much
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when a newly married Vicky expressed her joy at the thought of being a mother
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The queen told her daughter, I think much more of our being like a cow or a dog at such moments
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when our poor nature becomes so very animal and un-ecstatic. Points for honesty, at least
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She also expressed her disgust about marriage, saying, the poor woman is bodily and morally the husband's slave
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That always sticks in my throat. Not the rosiest picture of marriage
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but again, you have to respect the honesty. Hemophilia has been referred to as the royal disease
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We have a video on it, and you should check it out, because it was passed down to a number
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of European ruling families through Queen Victoria. It is a rare inherited disease
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that affects blood ability to clot Victoria son Leopold had hemophilia and two of her daughters were carriers Her daughter Beatrice who married into the Spanish ruling family passed the gene to Spain male heir
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One of Victoria's other daughters, Alice, had a daughter who was a carrier of the disease also
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and passed it on to Russia's male heir to the throne. Sometimes in life and love
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you get more than you bargained for. We also did a whole video on this, but just to recap, during the course of her reign
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Queen Victoria was attacked on at least seven separate occasions by madmen
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some of whom may have harbored unhealthy fascinations with the Queen. Many of these attempts happened while she was traveling in her carriage
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and at least four of the attempts involved a gun. Although several shots were fired at Victoria
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she made it through each attempt physically unscathed, with one exception. On the evening of June 27, 1850
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as Victoria and three of her children were on their way back to Buckingham Palace
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a well-dressed man approached the royal carriage and struck Victoria in the head with his cane
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Apparently, the blow was so strong that it crushed the queen's bonnet and drew some blood
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The queen, however, was fine. She even called the attacker out for hitting a woman and implied he
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was a coward compared to the braver would-be assassins who had tried shooting her
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As part of their efforts to control the future royal heir, Victoria's mother and Sir John Conroy
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developed a disciplinary regime called the Kensington System, which limited young Victoria's
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freedom and kept her under constant supervision. It ensured that Victoria would be accompanied by
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someone at all times. And we really mean all times. Her mother slept beside her, and she wasn't even
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permitted to walk down the stairs without someone holding her hand. Absolutely all of her actions
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were controlled and monitored. However, despite always being in the company of others, she led a
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considerably isolated life. Her mother and Conroy limited her interactions with the rest of the royal family and almost
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never allowed her to meet other children. Their hope was that through this strict regimen, the two adults would be able to control and
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manipulate Victoria once she was crowned. Unfortunately for them, they severely underestimated Victoria's resilience and willpower
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The first two things Victoria asked for upon reaching the age of majority were an hour of
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complete solitude and her own bedroom. Since Victoria wasn't allowed to play with other children, she spent much of her time playing with
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her dolls. Nobody knows exactly how many dolls the queen had, but it must have been a lot given that
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132 of them have been preserved and she played with them until she was 14 years old The dolls themselves were plain but the highly imaginative young Victoria dressed them in exquisitely crafted costumes
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that she made herself. The dolls' wardrobes were made of high-quality silk
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expensive lace, and even small jewels. The young princess would dress the dolls as members of court
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characters from plays and operas, and ballet dancers. One doll was even made to look like Queen Elizabeth I
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There is a tradition of British monarchs taking a new name once they ascend the throne
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For example, King George VI was born Albert Frederick Arthur George, but he chose to reign
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as King George. Queen Victoria's first name was actually Alexandrina, but she chose to reign as
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Victoria. It is said that she chose Victoria as her regal name as a sign of strength and a means
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of asserting her independence from her mother and Sir John Conroy. Growing up in a highly controlled environment didn't make Victoria herself any less controlling
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In fact, quite the opposite. When it came to controlling her own children
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Victoria pulled out all the stops, even going as far as to hire spies to watch over them and
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report back on their activities. She also wanted her youngest child, Beatrice, to remain unmarried
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and by her side for the remainder of her life. When Beatrice married, Victoria was seriously pissed off
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and refused to speak to her for nearly six months. While it would be pretty cool if Victoria proposed to Albert
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because she had a super progressive streak in her, the real reason she did had nothing to do with feminism
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or women's rights. It was because, as a sovereign, she had to
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She warmly described the moment in her journal, at about half past 12, I sent for Albert
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She goes on to describe how Albert arrived and after a few presumably awkward minutes
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she said that it would make her too happy if he would consent to marry her. To quote the queen herself
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we embraced each other over and over again and he was so kind, so affectionate
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I really felt it was the happiest, brightest moment in my life. While Victoria wasn't the first royal
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to wear a white dress to her wedding, that honor goes to Queen Philippa
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she was the royal who popularized it. Prior to Victoria, most wedding dresses were colorful
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with red being a favorite at the time she married. Historically, women who chose to wear white
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on their wedding day did so not because it was a symbol of a woman's purity, which is a widely held misconception
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but because it was a sign of one's wealth. During Victoria's time, ornate white fabric
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was highly valuable and it was difficult and expensive to keep white garments clean This is why many women wore colored gowns for their wedding It was easier to hide the stains
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However, that Victoria chose to wear white to show off her wealth isn't a foregone conclusion
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Some scholars argue that the queen actually wore white as a sign of support for the working class
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lace workers. Handmade lace was swiftly becoming replaced with factory-produced lace, and many textile workers found themselves unemployed. By choosing a white dress
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Victoria was able to more prominently showcase the intricate lace of her dress and make a statement
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There is some debate about the life expectancy during the Victorian period
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but most studies place the average death age between the late 30s and the late 50s
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Queen Victoria, stubborn as she was, lived until the age of 81, reigning for an astounding 63 years
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In addition to outliving her husband, Albert, she outlived three of her children. The first of her children to die was Princess Alice, who passed away after she caught diphtheria
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from her son. It's said that she caught the infection after she kissed her son, Ernest, who had the disease
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She was consoling him after the death of one of her daughters, who had died of the illness
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weeks before. Victoria's son, Leopold, died when he suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage after he slipped
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and fell. He was in Cannes, France at the time, sent there by his doctor because the warm weather was better for his joint pain, which was caused by his hemophilia
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The last of Victoria's children to die before her was Prince Alfred, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
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He died of throat cancer at the age of 55. It's always sad when a child dies before their parent, but given the life expectancy at the time, he didn't do so bad
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Queen Victoria outlived her husband, Albert, who died at the age of 42 after a two-year-long
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illness. At the time, doctors diagnosed him with a violent case of typhoid fever
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but modern doctors disagree. Today's science points to the conclusion that he actually may
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have been suffering from Crohn's disease. Whatever the cause, Albert's death took its
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toll on Victoria, who fell into a deep depression. She was so sad about it that she even refused to
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make a public appearance for nearly three years. The expected period of mourning during the Victorian
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era was a year, but Victoria, as usual, pushed the limits. She mourned the loss of her husband
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for the rest of her life, wearing black for her remaining 40 years. She also ordered that Albert's
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room stay exactly as he had left them, instructing her servants to lay out fresh clothes for her
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husband every day, in addition to replacing the water in his basin for washing. Given how lonely
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her childhood was, it's not too hard to understand why
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