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00:00Some call it a fever. Some call it delirium. Others call it love.
00:08For a foresight, it can be both a blessing and a curse.
00:14The Foresights continues Monday at 9. Watch. Stream. On 5.
00:20The future king, William, is ready to reshape the royal family.
00:24I think it's going to usher in a newer golden age for the monarchy.
00:27He's got to make it relevant.
00:30How far will he go?
00:31There's going to be a big shake-up.
00:33William, when he becomes king.
00:35Next Saturday at 5 past 9. Watch. Stream. On 5.
00:41Both strong, caring and with an overwhelming sense of duty.
00:45What else did they have in common?
00:47Catherine and Queen Elizabeth, a special relationship is at 5 past 9.
00:51Brand new first, Secrets of the Royals. Births, marriages and deaths.
00:57Greatness is seeing my dad smile again.
01:03Great British Stories on 5. Sponsored by Help for Heroes.
01:10My crown I am.
01:14But still my griefs are mine.
01:18Still am I king of those.
01:20Royal births, marriages and deaths have determined the course of British history.
01:31It's about power. It's about position.
01:34Our history! Our history!
01:38And this power is passed down by line of succession.
01:43Henry was absolutely over the moon.
01:52Bonfires were lit.
01:54Celebrations were had across the city.
01:57The birth of Archie was a major international event
02:00because he was in line to the throne.
02:02A royal wedding is a new start.
02:10It's glitz and glamour and optimism.
02:13On the happiest day of his life,
02:15the prince was drunk, crying,
02:18why am I marrying this woman?
02:20Lord Dawson took a syringe
02:27and he injected morphine into the king's neck.
02:31This was regicide.
02:38Here in the archives,
02:40we can hear these voices.
02:43The hopes wrapped up in a longed-for royal baby.
02:46The fairy tale weddings that end in disaster.
02:50This is where we find the grisly deaths.
02:55This blessed plot.
02:58This earth.
03:01This realm.
03:10The final days and hours leading up to a royal death
03:13are usually very private affairs.
03:16Family moments shrouded in mystery.
03:19But for Queen Victoria's death,
03:21there are incredible personal diaries
03:23written by those who were there,
03:25which give us an almost hour-by-hour account
03:27of exactly what happened behind palace walls.
03:32James Reid, Victoria's personal physician,
03:35wrote an intimate diary of her last days.
03:37So James Reid was very close to Queen Victoria.
03:42She grumbled to him about everything
03:45that she wanted to grumble about.
03:46Sometimes he would say I was the lightning rod
03:48to absorb all the tension between her family
03:51because she was always in conflict with her family.
03:54Without his diaries,
03:55we would have a rather sanitized account of her dying.
04:00His diaries explain exactly what happens.
04:04We understand the fights between the children
04:06because everybody was in denial about the Queen dying.
04:10And we even have the words of Victoria herself
04:13in the entries she wrote in her own journal.
04:16Now part of the royal archives,
04:18the papers of the royal family itself.
04:21Queen Victoria began keeping her diaries
04:23when she was 13 years old in 1832.
04:27And she continued writing the diaries
04:29right up until her death in 1901.
04:32She trusted very few people around her.
04:36And it was only really in her diaries
04:37that she could confide the full truth of her life.
04:41These sources allow us to reconstruct Victoria's final days
04:44in unprecedented detail.
04:46And what they reveal is a squabbling household,
04:50a nation in denial,
04:52and a queen whose servants she trusted
04:54more than her own flesh and blood.
04:58The demise of this great queen
05:00began in the winter of 1900
05:02at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight,
05:05where she'd gone to spend a quiet Christmas
05:06with two of her daughters.
05:09Victoria's always in Osborne for the winter,
05:11for the Christmas.
05:13Start of the new year, it's bleak weather,
05:15it's snowing, it's cold,
05:16It was fairly quiet.
05:18The Prince of Wales was off shooting in the country.
05:21Most of her children were spread around.
05:23Only her two daughters were there.
05:25So it was a fairly sombre place.
05:27Not too much fun.
05:29And there's an entry in Victoria's journal,
05:32written at Osborne House,
05:33which gives us an intriguing glimpse into her state of mind,
05:36just three weeks before her death.
05:39This entry is from the first of January,
05:41but far from feeling excited about a new year,
05:45and indeed a new century,
05:46she complains that she's feeling so weak and unwell
05:50that I enter upon it sadly.
05:52She's always been quite resolute, quite upbeat.
05:56But here there's definitely a sense of weariness,
05:59of the world closing in upon her.
06:03It's almost as though she's losing her zest for life.
06:05In fact, the previous 12 months had been tough for the Queen,
06:10who'd been beset by personal tragedy.
06:13She'd had a grim year leading up to the Christmas.
06:17Her daughter had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.
06:20Her daughter was the Dowager Empress of Germany
06:23and mother of the Kaiser.
06:26Her favourite son, Alfred, had died from throat cancer.
06:31Her grandson, who'd been fighting out in the Boer War,
06:36died on a journey back to England.
06:39And then her closest friend, Lady Jane Churchill,
06:43died on Christmas morning.
06:46And that was her last close friend.
06:50So really, Christmas was a bit grim for the Queen.
06:52Losing so many loved ones had taken its toll.
06:57And a rather mundane detail Victoria also records
07:00gives us a further insight
07:02into not just her melancholy frame of mind,
07:05but her physical frailty.
07:08This entry describes how the Queen spent the day
07:10visiting her local convalescent home.
07:13When she returned to Osborne, she rested for a while
07:16and was able to take a little more food for her supper
07:19than she had for the last three days.
07:20To be quite frank, Queen Victoria was notoriously greedy.
07:25So to hear that she didn't have much appetite
07:27is definitely a sign that something was wrong.
07:30And in the last few weeks of her life, in fact,
07:33the Queen was only able to digest baby food.
07:36And as January progressed,
07:39very quickly, Victoria's health started to go downhill.
07:43She has these moments of exhaustion, breathlessness,
07:47and by the 12th of January,
07:50her doctor was getting quite worried.
07:52In an age before the internet,
07:55the palace issued written bulletins
07:57to inform the press of royal news.
07:59And Sir James was convinced
08:01the Queen would want her subjects to know about her health.
08:04He asks the Prince of Wales,
08:06shall I put in something?
08:08And Prince of Wales says, no, definitely not.
08:11So this is going on till the 18th of January.
08:15Reid is getting more and more worried.
08:17And he says, we need to put out something.
08:20So this very bland statement is put out,
08:22saying the Queen is not in her full health.
08:26In fact, we now know Victoria had just four days left to live.
08:31Sir James knew the Queen was dying,
08:34but absolutely everybody refused to acknowledge
08:37that she was not going to recover.
08:39It was a situation that Sir James felt needed to be remedied,
08:43so he began secretly to contact those he felt should be told.
08:47The first person he does want to inform
08:49is actually the Kaiser, the Queen's grandson.
08:54Kaiser Wilhelm II was the Emperor of Germany,
08:57and there was no love lost between him and Victoria's children,
09:00his aunts and uncles.
09:02The Kaiser had told Reid,
09:04the family will block me when she dies.
09:07Please let me know when she is poorly.
09:09Kaiser had once called the Prince of Wales an old peacock,
09:13and he had also referred to the Queen's daughters
09:17as the petticoats.
09:18They weren't fond of him, he wasn't fond of them.
09:21But such a high profile and unexpected visit
09:24was bound to cause a public stir.
09:27Much excitement in London, the Kaiser has arrived.
09:30He's quite a figure, you know, some are fond of him,
09:33some don't like him, whatever.
09:35But he's excited the press.
09:37But before the Kaiser had even managed to get to Osborne,
09:40unbeknownst to the now curious journalists,
09:43the Queen suffered what was believed to be a series of strokes.
09:46In the face of this new crisis,
09:49Victoria's children began to descend on Osborne House.
09:53The family were all summoned to come to Osborne House,
09:56and following them were a bunch of journalists
10:00who began to camp outside the gates.
10:03And the press bulletins over the next 48 hours
10:06reveal Victoria's final days were nothing less than a roller coaster.
10:10Initially, Victoria defied expectation.
10:15But within eight hours, it was a very different story.
10:19By midnight that day, her condition worsens.
10:23Reid is convinced that she's not going to make it through the night.
10:26He's now called a team of doctors,
10:28and they're all looking after the Queen,
10:30who is drifting in and out of consciousness.
10:33But as dawn broke, the Queen again defied the odds.
10:37So here we go again.
10:38It's like a constantly swinging pendulum.
10:41But by the evening of Monday the 21st of January,
10:45it was clear the end was in sight.
10:47It's a very stressful night for Reid,
10:50and finally that bulletin has to go out,
10:52that Queen is deteriorating.
10:54It is actually happening.
10:55As the moment of Victoria's death drew nearer,
11:00and whilst the press waited,
11:01we now have astonishing detail about her final hours.
11:06By now, Queen Victoria had been moved to a little divan bed.
11:09She's having trouble breathing.
11:11There's an oxygen mask on her.
11:13The room was packed.
11:14Her daughter, Princess Beatrice,
11:16was telling the Queen who was there.
11:18I mean, they were all devoted to their grandmother or their mother.
11:22I mean, they were really fond of her.
11:24She's a good granny.
11:25There is this din in this room,
11:28because all the household is there.
11:29They are weeping.
11:31Kaiser, he will not move.
11:33He's standing on the right side of the bed.
11:35He says, this is my place.
11:37And he actually props her up so she can breathe.
11:39The Queen remained conscious throughout this,
11:42even though she couldn't speak.
11:45So James Reid was feeling her pulse.
11:47She suddenly became alert,
11:48and she stared at a picture on the wall,
11:51which was the entombment of Christ.
11:55And then, a few moments later, she died.
12:03Reid notes the time,
12:05and then the Prince of Wales,
12:06he gets up and he closes her eyes.
12:10Suddenly, it's all quiet.
12:12It's over.
12:14It's the end of an era.
12:15Coming up.
12:23The funeral of a queen that broke royal precedent.
12:27She didn't want to be embalmed.
12:29She didn't want black.
12:31And she didn't want a hearse.
12:32And the storm that threatened to disrupt an autumn wedding.
12:37There's a thunderstorm, and Her Majesty walks in,
12:39and the tree goes flying.
12:41My head be it.
12:42Every bride and groom want every aspect of their big day to be perfect,
12:57from the dress to the cake.
12:59But with the entire country tuning in,
13:02royal weddings mean it's not just family and friends who are watching.
13:06And on the 12th of October, 2018,
13:11when Princess Eugenie was due to marry her long-term boyfriend,
13:15Jack Brooksbank, at St George's Chapel, Windsor,
13:18every detail was under scrutiny.
13:20When the public watch a royal wedding,
13:22they are paying into a fairy tale,
13:25a vision of what life and love should and could be like.
13:30And one of the most important elements is the flowers.
13:35I was very honoured to be asked to be part of Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie
13:39and Jack's wedding ceremony at Windsor Castle.
13:43Both Her Royal Highness and Jack were very involved
13:47with the whole look of the whole ceremony.
13:50And with an October date, the couple chose an autumnal theme.
13:54It was mid-autumn, and there was the perfect time, you know,
13:58to bring in all these beautiful autumnal British flowers,
14:01foliages and trees, and all in keeping with autumn.
14:05On the day before the wedding, after months of planning,
14:09Rob and his team were finally allowed inside the castle gates
14:12to turn this royal floral vision into a stunning regal reality.
14:18But such a historic building posed some rather unique challenges.
14:22You're not allowed to put any nails or structures as such
14:26that might damage the building.
14:28We had to come up with using lots of sandbags to secure the trees,
14:33tying them back with ropes to the staircase handrail,
14:35you know, because you can't do any damage to a building like that.
14:39But at the same time, we deal with the royal family.
14:42You know, you don't want anything to start flying on the day
14:45and injuring anybody.
14:47So there was quite a stressful period of, yeah, making everything secure.
14:54The result was a stunning array of autumnal blooms, fit for a princess.
15:00And the focal point were full-size liquid amber trees,
15:04framing the entrance to the chapel.
15:06We brought in these massive big trees to place on the staircase,
15:09you know, to get that big impact.
15:11We had oak leaves, we had hydrangeas, lots of dahlias.
15:16So it was a whole abundance of autumnal.
15:18With everything in place, it seemed as if nothing could possibly go wrong.
15:24But as Rob was doing his final touches,
15:27there was one ominous sign of something he couldn't control.
15:31It was so windy and the weather was, like, dodgy.
15:36Like, was it going to rain?
15:37Was it going to stay dry?
15:39So, sleepless nights.
15:41And later that night, the forecast didn't bode well.
15:47One of the year's biggest storms, Storm Callum,
15:51was about to hit British shores.
15:54An autumn wedding is very romantic in theory,
15:57a little bit risky in practice.
15:59You are battling that great British character,
16:03the weather.
16:04That will rule over everything.
16:07As the day of the wedding dawned
16:09and the first guests made their way
16:11to the beautifully decorated chapel,
16:13Storm Callum was making his presence felt.
16:17It was extremely grim, very windy,
16:20not great if you've got full-size trees
16:24parked outside your wedding party.
16:27As the royal guests finally arrived,
16:30with nearly four million people watching across the UK,
16:33for Rob, it wasn't just his reputation at stake.
16:37One strong gust of wind could spell absolute royal disaster.
16:42My husband and I, we were very lucky enough
16:45to be invited to the export ceremony,
16:47and I was shaking like that,
16:49and said to my husband,
16:50what's wrong with you?
16:51I went, have you seen these doors outside?
16:54It's blowing.
16:55I mean, you've made sure everything is secure,
16:57but you still, if there's a thunderstorm
16:59and Her Majesty walks in
17:01and the tree goes flying,
17:03my head be it.
17:04But as the bride made her way down the aisle,
17:07any major incident seemed to have been averted.
17:11Thank God, too,
17:11and there were guardian angels looking after us.
17:13Everything went very smoothly.
17:16People still say to me,
17:17why don't you get nervous?
17:18You know, you've done this for over 40 years,
17:19and of course you get nervous.
17:21I think that's only normal
17:22when you're dealing with something like this,
17:24you know, where the whole world is watching.
17:26You know, it's a huge privilege.
17:28The bride and groom were over the moon,
17:31and that's what we want.
17:43The British monarchy
17:44isn't usually associated with big surprises.
17:47It stands for tradition, stability,
17:50a tried and trusted port in any storm.
17:55But by the mid-1960s,
17:57as Queen Elizabeth was about to give birth
17:59at Buckingham Palace to her fourth child,
18:01there were surprises in abundance.
18:04And the first involved the pioneering monarch
18:06throwing off the shackles of royal birthing tradition
18:09and deciding to embrace the changing times.
18:14There was something very unusual and unorthodox
18:18about the birth of Prince Edward,
18:19which is that Prince Philip was indeed present.
18:22That's shockingly modern, newfangled behavior
18:25for the royal family.
18:27The Queen had been reading some women's magazines,
18:30which were suggesting that, in fact,
18:32it would be a good idea
18:33for these ancillary objects called the fathers
18:36to be present at the birth of their own children.
18:39So there he was, Prince Philip, in the room.
18:43Worst having your husband at your side during labor
18:46might not sound like cutting-edge progress,
18:48it was a big shift for this royal couple.
18:51For her fourth son, Edward, this was a complete change.
18:56The first child, Prince Charles,
19:00Prince Philip had no interest in staying there.
19:04He went off to play squash,
19:05and he just said,
19:06let me know when it happens and I'll come back.
19:10I think men, at one point,
19:12would be very scared of seeing something like that,
19:15and still are, perhaps.
19:17But, you know, he'd moved with the times,
19:20and he held her hand and he talked to her,
19:23and he was absolutely amazed by it.
19:27Prince Philip, I suspect,
19:29would have been as keen on this.
19:32I don't think he would have needed any encouragement.
19:34He was very much a sort of pioneer,
19:36so I suspect that was as much down to him
19:39as down to the Queen.
19:40But the decision for Philip to be at the arrival of his son
19:44wasn't the only surprise with this royal birth.
19:47In fact, Prince Edward arrived a week before his due date,
19:50on 10th March 1964,
19:52and his parents-to-be had no idea
19:55they were even expecting a boy.
19:58Prince Edward, it was thought that he was going to be a girl
20:01because he was a very small baby,
20:05so she obviously had a very small bump,
20:07and the projections that the child was going to be rather small,
20:10I think he was about five or six pounds,
20:11and so there was a sort of surprise
20:13that this small bump was actually a boy and not a girl.
20:19The excitement in Buckingham Palace
20:21was reflected by the whole nation
20:23that the Queen was safely delivered of a son
20:25at 8.20 that evening.
20:27With Edward, Philip and Elizabeth
20:29had finally completed their family.
20:32And in another break with the Norm,
20:34this happy moment was captured in an extraordinary photo
20:37taken soon after Edward's birth.
20:39To see a queen sitting up in bed whether she has or hasn't just given birth
20:46is amazingly intimate and even quite shocking.
20:52Traditionally, we are used to seeing queens and kings
20:54in full state regalia being extremely formal.
20:58Suddenly, we're in their bedroom,
21:00and they might be wearing pearls and makeup,
21:03but they're also wearing their actual nightie.
21:06It's an amazing view into ordinary royal domestic life.
21:12The images after the birth of Edward softens that image of royalty,
21:16and we see the queen as wife and mother.
21:22Of course, that's one of the things
21:23that is so striking about the late queen's reign,
21:26that she grew up from being a young married woman
21:30right through to being a mother, grandmother,
21:32and great-grandmother during her reign,
21:34and that's a really important means
21:36by which I think people are connected with her.
21:47Most royal weddings are times of happy celebration
21:50and a reminder to us all
21:52what it feels like to be young and in love.
21:56But in the late 18th century,
21:58there was one princely groom
21:59who was very definitely not looking forward to getting itched.
22:03The most chaotic and scandalous royal wedding in history
22:07has got to be that of George, Prince of Wales,
22:11future George IV,
22:12and his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick.
22:15It was an arranged marriage,
22:18and it looked great on paper,
22:20but it was the most disastrous blind date in history.
22:25In 1795, the whole country is waiting for a royal wedding.
22:30George has got to get married.
22:31He's the heir.
22:33George has been given a long list
22:35of possible Protestant princesses to marry,
22:38and he rather said,
22:40well, any might do.
22:42Caroline was said to be pleasant, attractive,
22:46reasonably well-educated,
22:48and could speak a little bit of English,
22:49so perfect.
22:52Caroline comes over from her German principality,
22:55a very tiring trip on rough seas,
22:57and they meet for the first time in the palace.
23:00Caroline cuts this,
23:04and George receives her,
23:06and then he raises her up.
23:08A look of total horror spreads over his face.
23:15He immediately dashes away out of the room,
23:18looking for brandy and saying he must go to mother.
23:21Princess Caroline left in the room says,
23:26by God, is he always so fat?
23:29He looks nothing like his portrait.
23:31Well, George was a bit large.
23:33From this inauspicious beginning,
23:38things just get worse.
23:42Three days later,
23:43they are wed at the Chapel Royal in St. James's Palace.
23:47It was going to be the great,
23:49grand royal wedding of the future king.
23:52The great and the good,
23:54the aristocrats are there,
23:55and yet the wedding is nothing short of a catastrophe.
24:00George staggered up the aisle,
24:03totally drunk.
24:05When he gets to the altar,
24:07he actually starts crying.
24:09He has a look of torment on his face.
24:13George was overwhelmed with misery,
24:15and that's because he was already married.
24:19Coming up,
24:27the forbidden wedding of England's bigamous king.
24:30Poor old Mrs Fitzherbert.
24:32Her marriage was deemed illegal,
24:34and she had to watch her husband marry someone else.
24:37And the astonishing final journey of a beloved queen.
24:41It was so impressive,
24:42because it was 11 miles of battleships and cruisers,
24:47top to toe, lined across the Solon.
24:49And as the queen's coffin went past,
24:52they were firing their minute guns.
25:01On the 22nd of January, 1901,
25:05Queen Victoria's death was announced to a shocked world.
25:09It was a seismic event,
25:10not only for the country,
25:11but for the empire.
25:12It was announced in the theatres,
25:14and all the performance of plays,
25:17of musical concerts,
25:18all stopped,
25:19and the audiences poured out onto the street.
25:23After a reign that had lasted over 63 years,
25:26it was a moment the nation would never forget.
25:29It was the end of an era,
25:31and nobody knew what life was like
25:34without Queen Victoria sitting on the throne.
25:37In 2022,
25:39when another of Britain's longest reigning monarchs,
25:42Elizabeth II,
25:43passed away,
25:45the preparations for her funeral
25:46had been worked out in detail years beforehand.
25:50But for Queen Victoria,
25:52it couldn't have been more different.
25:54Nobody knows exactly what to do.
25:57They are not prepared.
25:59They are not prepared in Windsor.
26:01The government is not prepared.
26:02It's like the Queen would live forever.
26:04It was just what everyone felt.
26:06The last royal funeral for a monarch
26:08had taken place in 1837,
26:10when William IV,
26:12Queen Victoria's uncle, died.
26:14Up to that time,
26:16royal funerals were private affairs.
26:18They took place at night
26:19in the confines of Windsor Castle,
26:23and they were lit by candlelight.
26:25There were no public there,
26:26no great ceremony,
26:28or anything like that.
26:29But Victoria had other ideas.
26:31The Queen left a detailed note
26:34of what she wanted to happen.
26:37She didn't want to be embalmed.
26:39There was to be no lying in state.
26:41She didn't want black,
26:43and she didn't want a hearse.
26:46And far from being the private funeral
26:48of her predecessor,
26:49Victoria wanted the whole nation involved.
26:52She wanted a full military state funeral,
26:56and she wants it to be a white funeral.
26:59There'd never been a full military state funeral
27:01for a monarch.
27:03The last military funeral,
27:05state funeral,
27:06was for the Duke of Wellington,
27:08nearly 50 years earlier.
27:11Again, there was nobody around
27:12who helped organise that.
27:13They were all dead.
27:14And they were suddenly faced with this fact
27:17that this is what the Queen wants.
27:19But with no preparations in place,
27:22and only 10 days to organise a grand state funeral
27:25with an unprecedented colour scheme,
27:28time was tight.
27:30I think it took everybody by surprise.
27:32It was just utter chaos.
27:33And one of the most pressing tasks
27:37was preparing the white funeral pall,
27:39needed to lie over Victoria's coffin.
27:42But with no advanced warning,
27:43it proved almost impossible to find anyone
27:46who they felt could produce it in time.
27:49But Queen Victoria's daughter, Helena,
27:51was absolutely convinced
27:52that there was a group of women
27:54who would be more than able to rise to the challenge.
27:57The ladies of the Royal School of Needlework,
28:00of which she was patron.
28:01The story goes that there was no company
28:04that would be able to do the funeral pall
28:06in the time frame that there was.
28:08Princess Helena said no,
28:10her school could produce it for them.
28:12To make the task quicker,
28:15the team chose particular techniques
28:16to produce a stunning pall in record time.
28:20The design on the funeral pall
28:22had coats of arms in each of the four corners,
28:25and then on the top of the funeral pall
28:27was a cross.
28:28So with a tight deadline,
28:29we look at a technique known as a pliquet,
28:31which is applying fabric to fabric,
28:34and then the details are put in with embroidery.
28:37Records tell us that they had about 48 hours,
28:40so they had a team of approximately 45 women
28:43who were brought in,
28:45and they worked a continuous 21 hours
28:47in order to complete in the time.
28:51The finished effect would have been absolutely stunning.
28:53It would have just caught any sunlight,
28:56and it would have just looked beautiful.
28:59With the funeral pall complete,
29:02the next challenge was getting the Queen's coffin
29:04from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight
29:06to London for her funeral.
29:09The Queen's coffin was taken down on a carriage
29:11to a very small yacht called the Alberta,
29:14a tiny little thing,
29:15and it began a procession across the Solon.
29:19As this great monarch's coffin sailed the short distance
29:22to the mainland,
29:24Victoria's body was accompanied
29:25by a magnificent array of 40 battleships.
29:30It was so impressive
29:31because it was 11 miles of battleships and cruisers,
29:36and they were top-to-toe lined across the Solon.
29:41And as the little Alberta went past,
29:43they were firing their minute guns,
29:45so it was very moving.
29:49An orchestra was playing Chopin's Funeral March
29:52as the Queen slowly made her way to Portsmouth.
29:57The strains of the music could be heard from the South Downs,
30:00where onlookers gathered to watch this incredible spectacle.
30:04There were lots of descriptions about this,
30:07about how moving it was.
30:09And they remarked how tiny her coffin looked on the Alberta,
30:13and the boat was tiny,
30:15with these huge, great battleships,
30:18with all the sailors standing to attention as it went past.
30:22For two hours,
30:23the might of the largest navy in the world
30:26stood in solemn respect for their commander-in-chief.
30:30It's all very quiet, with the sun setting.
30:33The rest of the royals are all there,
30:35and they all kneel down,
30:36and there are people on the shore watching.
30:38That is very impressive and very sad sight.
30:42Everyone is moved by this farewell that, you know,
30:45the Queen's coffin being carried
30:47from this little island that she loved
30:49back to the mainland.
30:52As the day of the funeral dawned,
30:55London was alive with visitors from across the country
30:58who'd all flocked to witness their great Queen's final journey.
31:04Anybody who had houses or shops on the route,
31:07they began to sell space on their balconies,
31:10but they were selling them for ridiculous amounts of money.
31:13A seat in the corner of a balcony
31:15cost the equivalent today of about £3,000.
31:18But perhaps the view was worth the money,
31:22as this was one of the most incredible sights
31:24London had ever witnessed.
31:27Despite the bitterly cold weather,
31:29it's estimated that a million people lined the streets to watch.
31:34Military bands played,
31:35and over 40 members of royalty were present
31:37from all over Europe.
31:40It was a magnificent royal spectacle,
31:43and a tribute to a monarch
31:44who throughout her lifetime
31:46had held a fragile Europe and world together.
31:51Her funeral was described as the epitome of empire.
31:55The 40 kings, dukes, princes walking behind her.
31:59You know, Franz Ferdinand of Austria,
32:01who within a few years, he's going to be assassinated.
32:04It's going to lead to the First World War.
32:06He is there in that procession.
32:08Edward VII, the king, and her heir, he's there.
32:10Kaiser is there, and within a few years,
32:14all going to be at war.
32:15It is incredible when you think of what she held together
32:19and how quickly it's all going to fall apart.
32:23The Kaiser, Victoria's grandson
32:25who'd held her so gently as she died,
32:28would, in just over a decade,
32:30be leading Germany against the nation she'd ruled.
32:34The soldiers so proudly pulling their empress's coffin
32:37would be facing death themselves
32:39at the hands of German troops
32:41in the trenches of World War I.
32:44It's the height of empire,
32:46and also, as I see it,
32:47the beginning of the end of empire,
32:49because it's going to break apart,
32:51empires are going to fall,
32:53boundaries are going to be changed.
32:54The whole world is going to change,
32:56and this woman who, at age 81,
32:59was holding things together,
33:00her death means it's the end.
33:02Not every royal marriage is destined for a happy ever after,
33:17but usually the wedding, at least,
33:19has the air of a fairy tale.
33:21But in 1795,
33:23the nuptials of the Prince of Wales,
33:25later George IV,
33:26to Caroline of Brunswick,
33:28were nothing short of a catastrophe.
33:30On the happiest day of his life,
33:33the Prince was drunk, overwhelmed,
33:36crying,
33:37why am I marrying this woman?
33:39And that's because he was already married.
33:43So now he was getting married again,
33:46which, strictly speaking, is bigamy.
33:51Why did this disastrous marriage go ahead?
33:54A decade before the wedding,
33:56George had been in love with Maria Fitzherbert.
33:58She was a Catholic widow,
34:00and she was very virtuous,
34:01and she refused to marry him.
34:04So he tried everything to persuade her.
34:06She wouldn't have it.
34:08In the end,
34:08George said he was on his deathbed,
34:10and it was his dying wish that she married him,
34:13and there was a clergyman waiting around just in case.
34:16And when poor Mrs. Fitzherbert said,
34:18of course, it's your dying wish,
34:19of course we will marry,
34:21George married her,
34:22and then said he felt an awful lot better.
34:25Mrs. Fitzherbert was shocked,
34:27but she did love George very sincerely.
34:30But there was just one problem.
34:32It was a totally illegal marriage.
34:35As the heir to the throne,
34:36George could not marry a Catholic,
34:38but also there was the Royal Marriages Act of 1772,
34:42and this said that Royal Marriages
34:44had to be approved by the sovereign,
34:47and there's no way that his father,
34:48the king, would have approved it.
34:50So George had broken the law in these two respects,
34:54and yet George treated her as a wife.
34:57I mean, the Royal Family knew they were married,
34:58but turned a blind eye,
35:00and George adored her.
35:02Yet as he grew older,
35:04he needed a legitimate heir to carry on the monarchy,
35:07and he had gigantic debts.
35:11And the king and the government said to him,
35:13if you want those paid off,
35:15you have to get married.
35:17There's a wonderful cartoon by James Gilray
35:19called Lover's Dream,
35:20and George, he's lying in bed,
35:22imagining Princess Caroline,
35:24and behind him is everything he's leaving,
35:27gambling, the women,
35:28and he is dreaming of his future.
35:30It's all very romantic,
35:32but really his dream is of bags of gold.
35:34So George was marrying Princess Caroline for money.
35:40Poor old Mrs Fitzherbert.
35:41Her marriage was deemed illegal,
35:43and she had to watch her husband marry someone else.
35:47Well, perhaps it was some consolation
35:49that he cried all the way through the ceremony.
35:53George died in 1830,
35:5535 years after his disastrous marriage.
35:59He had a miniature of Mrs Fitzherbert around his neck,
36:04the only woman he ever truly loved.
36:11Coming up,
36:12the intimate photo capturing a queen after death.
36:17The Victorians had a completely different relationship
36:19with death than we do,
36:21and death photography was a hugely popular tradition at the time.
36:25As Victoria's body made its way to St George's Chapel at Windsor,
36:38what mourners weren't aware of
36:39was that within her coffin
36:41were precious objects
36:43she'd left precise instructions to be buried with,
36:46objects that she was determined to keep secret,
36:49even from her own children.
36:51If this coffin had fallen, heaven forbid,
36:54and the contents spilled out,
36:57there would have been so much shock and horror
36:59in her family and the court
37:01because nobody had any idea
37:04what Victoria was smuggling in with her.
37:07It was her secret.
37:08In the week before her funeral,
37:15an astonishing photo of the dead queen was taken,
37:18showing her lying in her open coffin.
37:22The Victorians had a completely different relationship
37:24with death than we do,
37:26and death photography
37:27was a hugely popular tradition at the time.
37:31This is an image
37:32that is not necessarily meant to be distributed publicly.
37:35The person who supposedly took this
37:38was an artist
37:39who often worked from photography
37:41to then transpose that to paint.
37:43So this is almost a preparatory sketch in a way.
37:47But of course what it gives us now
37:48is a remarkable record of that moment.
37:52And the photo gives a fascinating insight
37:55into how Victoria wanted to be dressed for burial.
37:58Rather than wearing the somber mourning clothes
38:01she'd favoured since the death of her beloved husband, Albert,
38:04her choice of coffin attire was quite a surprise.
38:09This queen who had worn black, you know,
38:12for half her life
38:13wanted now to be in white
38:15with her wedding veil on her face.
38:18She says that she is now going to meet Albert in heaven,
38:21so she is going as a bride to him.
38:24And so they put on a white gown for her
38:27and her wedding veil covers her face.
38:30But it wasn't just what Victoria wanted to wear
38:33that gives us such an intimate glimpse
38:35into the woman behind the crown,
38:37but the objects she'd asked to be buried with.
38:41After her death,
38:42she had given her personal instructions
38:44to Mrs. Tuck, who was her dresser,
38:46and these were about what was going to be with her in her coffin.
38:51And there's a long list.
38:53As well as trinkets from her daughters
38:55and family photos,
38:57she also requested that a rather curious physical reminder
39:00of the man she'd spent the past 40 years mourning
39:04accompany her to her grave.
39:06She had numerous objects relating to Albert,
39:08but most significant was a plaster cast of his hand.
39:11This was not a new item.
39:13She'd had it made during his lifetime
39:14and had reportedly taken it to bed with her every evening.
39:19This was a way for the queen to stay close to her husband.
39:22She missed his touch,
39:24and it would slip under her pillow at night
39:26and she would sleep alongside it.
39:28And here it was entering the coffin with her,
39:30even following her to the grave,
39:32this evocation of the man who'd been missing from her life
39:35for so many decades.
39:37As far as the world knew,
39:38Queen Victoria's entire life
39:40had been defined by her love of Prince Albert
39:43and her intense grief after his premature death,
39:47aged only 42.
39:49But in fact,
39:51as well as the requests she left with her dresser, Mrs. Tuck,
39:54Victoria also left secret instructions
39:57her family knew absolutely nothing about,
40:00which reveal a rather different love story.
40:03Victoria leaves a secret will.
40:05And it goes to James Reed, who's her physician,
40:07and he is the person who then receives these instructions.
40:10And it makes total sense that she would select Reed for this.
40:14He's someone who's very close to the royal body
40:15in the run-up to the death
40:17and in the immediate days afterwards.
40:19He has access to the coffin
40:20and he can enact these last requirements of hers.
40:24And the highly confidential items Victoria asked Reed to place with her for all eternity
40:30had to be included in strictest confidence
40:33because of who they once belonged to.
40:36There are other items in there that you might not expect
40:39and a lot of these relate to John Brown.
40:42John Brown had been Queen Victoria's devoted servant
40:46who looked after her horses at Balmoral for over 30 years
40:49before his death in 1883.
40:52John Brown was a ghillie
40:54and became the Queen's constant companion
40:57and he was elevated to a status that no one quite understood
41:03and eased her out of her mourning for Prince Albert.
41:08In the wake of Albert's death,
41:10Victoria had withdrawn from the world
41:12to the Scottish Highlands to mourn
41:14and it was there at Balmoral
41:16that Brown lifted her out of her sadness.
41:20In the decades in which Victoria withdrew from society,
41:23she became incredibly close to Brown.
41:26There were rumours that their relationship
41:28transcended the usual servant-mistress relationship
41:31and her children in particular found this incredibly difficult.
41:35They found him to be uncouth
41:36and to behave in a way that really overstepped
41:39the boundaries of the place that he held in society
41:42but Victoria didn't see it like that.
41:44She had great affection for him.
41:46After Victoria's death,
41:48had her children known of their mother's secret instructions
41:50to read relating to the man they so disliked,
41:54they would have been horrified.
41:56They loathed John Brown
41:57and the Prince of Wales in particular
42:00went round and destroyed anything connected with John Brown
42:04after the Queen died.
42:05He would have nothing to do with John Brown.
42:07In fact, there was a statue,
42:09I think it was in Osborne,
42:10which he had smashed down.
42:12It was one of the first acts he did.
42:15Little did the Prince know
42:16that as he was trying to obliterate all traces
42:19of one of his mother's closest confidants,
42:23John Reed was discreetly placing
42:24some of Brown's most treasured possessions
42:26in Victoria's coffin itself,
42:29on her secret instruction.
42:31She wanted a photograph of John Brown placed in her left hand
42:36and she wanted a lock of John Brown's head
42:40and she would like to have his handkerchief in the coffin.
42:44She requested that her wedding engagement ring from Albert
42:48be moved from her left hand to her right
42:50and instead on her wedding finger, her ring finger,
42:53she had John Brown's mother's wedding ring placed there.
42:56He always wore his mother's wedding ring.
42:59It was the dearest thing he possessed.
43:02All of these items in the coffin were kept secret
43:04by a blanket of flowers that were placed on top
43:07so anyone coming to see the body,
43:08including her children, of course,
43:10would not have seen this secret arrangement of memorabilia
43:13that Victoria had so desperately wanted in there.
43:15So the royal family had no idea
43:18of what she was carrying with her when she died.
43:22So that was Victoria's little secret.
43:24Reed had faithfully carried out the instructions
43:27his queen had left him
43:28and it was only with the publication of his diaries
43:31in 1986, 85 years after Victoria's death,
43:35that what he and Mrs. Tuck had done for her
43:38finally came to light.
43:39She had a realistic view about how difficult
43:43her family were and her children
43:44and their bickering and their arguing
43:46and I think she trusted them.
43:49I think she trusted them completely,
43:51more than she trusted her family.
43:53Victoria's final wishes and death
43:55shed a whole new light on the royal love story
43:58that appeared to define her life.
44:00It's remarkable because we have this narrative
44:04of Victoria and Albert, this golden couple.
44:07They're the ultimate Victorian love story
44:09and they were the aspiration
44:10for so many other couples in this period
44:12and yet we have this whole other version of Victoria
44:16years after Albert's died,
44:18finding love again potentially
44:20and making a life for herself,
44:22a life of which those around her did not approve.
44:27Clearly she held John Brown in enormous affection
44:30and to even take the risk of asking
44:34for these intimate items to be buried with her
44:38without her children's knowledge
44:40shows how much affection she had for John Brown.
44:44Worst Queen Victoria is remembered
44:46as one of Britain's most powerful
44:48and influential monarchs
44:50who presided over the empire at its height.
44:53Her coffin reveals what to her had mattered most.
44:57Throughout history there's always that difficult tension
45:01between the monarch and the person,
45:04who they are in public and who they are in private.
45:06But in Victoria's case, the list of items
45:09and the fact that they make their way into the coffin
45:11is an autobiography of her own making.
45:17Royal births, marriages and deaths
45:19remind us that behind the pomp and ceremony
45:22lies a family just like any other,
45:25with tensions, secret passions and simple human love.
45:29From Victoria's final wishes to be buried
45:31with memories of those she cared for
45:33to George IV's disastrous public marriage.
45:36Under the immutable golden crown
45:38there always lies a fallible human heart.
45:42Births, marriages and deaths are so important
45:45because the royals are our soap opera.
45:48We want to see love, we want to see funerals,
45:51all the finery, with a little bit of passion
45:54and scandal thrown in.
45:59And Secrets of the Royals continues
46:01next Saturday at five past eight.
46:04If royal walls could talk, what would they say?
46:07Discover Secrets of the Royal Palaces,
46:09stream now on five.
46:11Coming up, their bond was about
46:12more than just passing down the baton.
46:15Catherine and Queen Elizabeth,
46:16a special relationship, is next.
46:21Is Steelers?
46:21Coming up, their bond as theңa
46:24konst' fund which isn't so important
46:25as the존에 had ever been
46:25�andar.
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