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00:00Others call it love.
00:03For a foresight, it can be both a blessing and a curse.
00:09The Foresights continues Monday at 9.
00:12Watch. Stream. On 5.
00:15The future king, William, is ready to reshape the royal family.
00:20I think it's going to usher in a new golden age for the monarchy.
00:23He's got to make it relevant.
00:25How far will he go?
00:26There's going to be a big shake-up.
00:28William, when he becomes king.
00:30Next Saturday at 5 past 9.
00:32Watch. Stream. On 5.
00:36Both strong, caring, and with an overwhelming sense of duty,
00:40what else did they have in common?
00:42Catherine and Queen Elizabeth, a special relationship is at 5 past 9.
00:46Brand new first, secrets of the royals.
00:49Births, marriages, and deaths.
00:52Greatness is seeing my dad smile again.
00:56Great British Stories on 5. Sponsored by Held for Heroes.
01:05My crown I am.
01:09But still my griefs are mine.
01:13Still am I king of those.
01:15Royal births, marriages, and deaths have determined the course of British history.
01:22Fire! Fire! Fire!
01:26It's about power. It's about position.
01:29Our history! Our history!
01:33And this power is passed down by line of succession.
01:38Henry was absolutely over the moon.
01:47Bonfires were lit.
01:49Celebrations were had across the city.
01:52The birth of Archie was a major international event
01:55because he was in line to the throne.
01:57A royal wedding is a new start.
02:05It's glitz and glamour and optimism.
02:08On the happiest day of his life,
02:10the prince was drunk, crying,
02:13why am I marrying this woman?
02:15Lord Dawson took a syringe
02:22and he injected morphine into the king's neck.
02:26This was regicide.
02:33Here in the archives,
02:35we can hear these voices.
02:38The hopes wrapped up in a longed-for royal baby.
02:41The fairy tale weddings that end in disaster.
02:45This is where we find the grisly deaths.
02:50This blessed plot.
02:53This earth.
02:56This realm.
03:05The final days and hours leading up to a royal death
03:09are usually very private affairs,
03:11family moments shrouded in mystery.
03:14But for Queen Victoria's death,
03:16there are incredible personal diaries
03:18written by those who were there,
03:20which give us an almost hour-by-hour account
03:22of exactly what happened behind palace walls.
03:27James Reed, Victoria's personal physician,
03:30wrote an intimate diary of her last days.
03:32So James Reed was very close to Queen Victoria.
03:37She grumbled to him about everything
03:40that she wanted to grumble about.
03:42Sometimes he would say I was the lightning rod
03:43to absorb all the tension between her family
03:46because she was always in conflict with her family.
03:48Without his diaries,
03:50we would have a rather sanitised account of her dying.
03:56His diaries explain exactly what happens.
03:59We understand the fights between the children
04:01because everybody was in denial about the Queen dying.
04:05And we even have the words of Victoria herself
04:08in the entries she wrote in her own journal,
04:11now part of the Royal Archives,
04:13the papers of the royal family itself.
04:16Queen Victoria began keeping her diaries
04:19when she was 13 years old in 1832,
04:22and she continued writing the diaries
04:24right up until her death in 1901.
04:26She trusted very few people around her,
04:31and it was only really in her diaries
04:33that she could confide the full truth of her life.
04:36These sources allow us to reconstruct Victoria's final days
04:39in unprecedented detail.
04:42And what they reveal is a squabbling household,
04:45a nation in denial,
04:47and a Queen whose servants she trusted
04:49more than her own flesh and blood.
04:53The demise of this great Queen
04:55began in the winter of 1900
04:57at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight,
04:59where she'd gone to spend a quiet Christmas
05:01with two of her daughters.
05:04Victoria is always in Osborne for the winter,
05:06for the Christmas.
05:08Start of the new year, it's bleak weather,
05:10it's snowing, it's cold.
05:12It was fairly quiet.
05:13The Prince of Wales was off shooting in the country.
05:16Most of her children were spread around.
05:18Only her two daughters were there,
05:20so it was a fairly sombre place.
05:22Not too much fun.
05:23And there's an entry in Victoria's journal
05:26written at Osborne House,
05:28which gives us an intriguing glimpse
05:30into her state of mind
05:31just three weeks before her death.
05:34This entry's from the 1st of January,
05:37but far from feeling excited about a new year
05:39and indeed a new century,
05:41she complains that she's feeling
05:43so weak and unwell
05:45that I enter upon it sadly.
05:47She's always been quite resolute,
05:50quite upbeat.
05:51But here there's definitely a sense of weariness
05:54of the world closing in upon her.
05:58It's almost as though she's losing her zest for life.
06:01In fact, the previous 12 months
06:03had been tough for the Queen,
06:05who'd been beset by personal tragedy.
06:07She'd had a grim year leading up to the Christmas.
06:12Her daughter had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.
06:16Her daughter was the Dowager Empress of Germany
06:18and mother of the Kaiser.
06:21Her favourite son, Alfred,
06:23had died from throat cancer.
06:26Her grandson, who'd been fighting out in the Bull War,
06:31died on a journey back to England.
06:33And then her closest friend, Lady Jane Churchill,
06:38died on Christmas morning.
06:41And that was her last close friend.
06:45So really, Christmas was a bit grim for the Queen.
06:48Losing so many loved ones had taken its toll.
06:52And a rather mundane detail Victoria also records
06:55gives us a further insight
06:57into not just her melancholy frame of mind,
07:00but her physical frailty.
07:01This entry describes how the Queen spent the day
07:05visiting her local convalescent home.
07:08When she returned to Osborne,
07:10she rested for a while
07:11and was able to take a little more food for her supper
07:14than she had for the last three days.
07:16To be quite frank,
07:17Queen Victoria was notoriously greedy.
07:21So to hear that she didn't have much appetite
07:22is definitely a sign that something was wrong.
07:25And in the last few weeks of her life, in fact,
07:28the Queen was only able to digest baby food.
07:31And as January progressed,
07:35very quickly, Victoria's health started to go downhill.
07:38She has these moments of exhaustion, breathlessness,
07:42and by the 12th of January,
07:45her doctor was getting quite worried.
07:47In an age before the internet,
07:50the palace issued written bulletins
07:52to inform the press of royal news.
07:54And Sir James was convinced
07:56the Queen would want her subjects to know about her health.
07:59He asks the Prince of Wales,
08:01shall I put in something?
08:03And Prince of Wales says, no, definitely not.
08:06So this is going on till the 18th of January.
08:10Reid is getting more and more worried.
08:12And he says, we need to put out something.
08:14So this very bland statement is put out saying,
08:18the Queen is not in her full health.
08:21In fact, we now know Victoria had just four days left to live.
08:26Sir James knew the Queen was dying,
08:29but absolutely everybody refused to acknowledge
08:32that she was not going to recover.
08:34It was a situation that Sir James felt needed to be remedied.
08:38So he began secretly to contact those he felt should be told.
08:42The first person he does want to inform
08:44is actually the Kaiser, the Queen's grandson.
08:49Kaiser Wilhelm II was the emperor of Germany,
08:52and there was no love lost between him and Victoria's children,
08:55his aunts and uncles.
08:57The Kaiser had told Reid,
08:59the family will block me when she dies.
09:02Please let me know when she is poorly.
09:04Kaiser had once called the Prince of Wales an old peacock,
09:07and he had also referred to the Queen's daughters as the petticoats.
09:14They weren't fond of him, he wasn't fond of them.
09:16But such a high profile and unexpected visit
09:19was bound to cause a public stir.
09:22Much excitement in London.
09:23The Kaiser has arrived.
09:25He's quite a figure.
09:26You know, some are fond of him, some don't like him.
09:29Whatever.
09:30But he's excited the press.
09:31But before the Kaiser had even managed to get to Osborne,
09:35unbeknownst to the now curious journalists,
09:38the Queen suffered what was believed to be a series of strokes.
09:42In the face of this new crisis,
09:44Victoria's children began to descend on Osborne House.
09:48The family were all summoned to come to Osborne House,
09:51and following them were a bunch of journalists
09:55who began to camp outside the gates.
09:58And the press bulletins over the next 48 hours
10:01revealed Victoria's final days
10:03were nothing less than a roller coaster.
10:07Initially, Victoria defied expectation.
10:10But within eight hours, it was a very different story.
10:14By midnight that day, her condition was
10:17Reed is convinced that she's not going to make it through the night.
10:21He's now called a team of doctors,
10:23and they're all looking after the Queen,
10:25who was drifting in and out of consciousness.
10:29But as dawn broke, the Queen again defied the odds.
10:32So here we go again.
10:33It's like a constantly swinging pendulum.
10:36But by the evening of Monday, the 21st of January,
10:40it was clear the end was in sight.
10:42It's a very stressful night for Reed,
10:45and finally that bulletin has to go out,
10:47that Queen is deteriorating.
10:49It is actually happening.
10:50As the moment of Victoria's death drew nearer,
10:55and whilst the press waited,
10:56we now have astonishing detail about her final hours.
11:01By now, Queen Victoria had been moved to a little divan bed.
11:04She's having trouble breathing.
11:06There's an oxygen mask on her.
11:08The room was packed.
11:09Her daughter, Princess Beatrice,
11:11was telling the Queen who was there.
11:14I mean, they were all devoted to their grandmother or their mother.
11:17I mean, they were really fond of her.
11:19She's a good granny.
11:21There is this din in this room,
11:23because all the household is there.
11:25They are weeping.
11:26Kaiser, he will not move.
11:28He's standing on the right side of the bed.
11:30He says, this is my place.
11:32And he actually props her up so she can breathe.
11:34The Queen remained conscious throughout this,
11:37even though she couldn't speak.
11:40Sir James Reed was feeling her pulse.
11:42She suddenly became alert,
11:43and she stared at a picture on the wall,
11:46which was the entombment of Christ.
11:49And then, a few moments later, she died.
11:58Reed notes the time,
12:00and then the Prince of Wales,
12:02he gets up and he closes her eyes.
12:05Suddenly, it's all quiet.
12:07It's over.
12:09It's the end of an era.
12:10Coming up.
12:18The funeral of a queen that broke royal precedent.
12:22She didn't want to be embalmed.
12:24She didn't want black.
12:26And she didn't want a hearse.
12:28And the storm that threatened to disrupt an autumn wedding.
12:32There's a thunderstorm,
12:33and Her Majesty walks in,
12:34and the tree goes flying.
12:36My head be it.
12:37Every bride and groom
12:49want every aspect of their big day to be perfect,
12:52from the dress to the cake.
12:55But with the entire country tuning in,
12:57royal weddings mean it's not just family and friends who are watching.
13:01And on the 12th of October, 2018,
13:06when Princess Eugenie was due to marry her long-term boyfriend,
13:10Jack Brooksbank,
13:11at St George's Chapel, Windsor,
13:13every detail was under scrutiny.
13:15When the public watch a royal wedding,
13:17they are paying into a fairy tale,
13:21a vision of what life and love should and could be like.
13:25And one of the most important elements is the flowers.
13:30I was very honoured to be asked to be part of Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie
13:34and Jack's wedding ceremony at Windsor Castle.
13:38Both Her Royal Highness and Jack were very involved with the whole look of the whole ceremony.
13:45And with an October date,
13:47the couple chose an autumnal theme.
13:49It was mid-autumn and there was the perfect time to bring in
13:54all these beautiful autumnal British flowers, foliages and trees,
13:58and all in keeping with autumn.
14:00On the day before the wedding,
14:02after months of planning,
14:04Rob and his team were finally allowed inside the castle gates
14:07to turn this royal floral vision into a stunning regal reality.
14:13But such a historic building posed some rather unique challenges.
14:17You're not allowed to put any nails or structures as such
14:21that might damage the building.
14:23We had to come up with using lots of sandbags to secure the trees,
14:28tying them back with ropes, the staircase handrail,
14:30you know, because you can't do any damage to a building like that.
14:34But at the same time, we deal with the royal family.
14:37You don't want anything to start flying on the day and injuring anybody.
14:42So there was quite a stressful period of, yeah, making everything secure.
14:49The result was a stunning array of autumnal blooms, fit for a princess.
14:55And the focal point were full-size liquid amber trees,
14:59framing the entrance to the chapel.
15:01We brought in these massive big trees to place on the staircase,
15:04you know, to get that big impact.
15:06We had oak leaves, we had hydrangeas, lots of dahlias.
15:11So it was a whole abundance of autumnal.
15:14With everything in place,
15:16it seemed as if nothing could possibly go wrong.
15:19But as Rob was doing his final touches,
15:22there was one ominous sign of something he couldn't control.
15:27It was so windy and the weather was, like, dodgy.
15:31Like, was it going to rain?
15:32Was it going to stay dry?
15:33So, sleepless nights.
15:36And later that night, the forecast didn't bode well.
15:42One of the year's biggest storms, Storm Callum,
15:46was about to hit British shores.
15:49An autumn wedding is very romantic in theory,
15:52a little bit risky in practice.
15:54You are battling that great British character,
15:58the weather.
15:59That will rule over everything.
16:01As the day of the wedding dawned and the first guests made their way to the beautifully decorated chapel,
16:08Storm Callum was making his presence felt.
16:11It was extremely grim, very windy, not great if you've got full-sized trees parked outside your wedding party.
16:22As the royal guests finally arrived, with nearly four million people watching across the UK,
16:28they had to say, for Rob, it wasn't just his reputation at stake.
16:32One strong gust of wind could spell absolute royal disaster.
16:37My husband and I, we were very lucky enough to be invited to the export ceremony,
16:42and I was shaking like that, and said to my husband, I went, what's wrong with you?
16:46I went, have you seen these doors outside?
16:49It's blowing.
16:50I went, you've made sure everything is secure, but you still, if there's a thunderstorm and Her Majesty walks in
16:56and the tree goes flying, my head be it.
16:59But as the bride made her way down the aisle, any major incident seemed to have been averted.
17:06Thank God, too, and there were guardian angels looking after us.
17:08Everything went very smoothly.
17:11People still say to me, why don't you get nervous?
17:13You know, you've done this for over 40 years, and of course you get nervous.
17:16I think that's only normal when you're dealing with something like this, you know,
17:19where the whole world is watching.
17:22You know, it's a huge privilege.
17:24The bride and groom were over the moon, and that's what we want.
17:29The British monarchy isn't usually associated with big surprises.
17:42It stands for tradition, stability, a tried and trusted port in any storm.
17:50But by the mid-1960s, as Queen Elizabeth was about to give birth at Buckingham Palace to her fourth child,
17:56there were surprises in abundance.
17:59And the first involved the pioneering monarch throwing off the shackles of royal birthing tradition
18:04and deciding to embrace the changing times.
18:09There was something very unusual and unorthodox about the birth of Prince Edward,
18:14which is that Prince Philip was indeed present.
18:17That's shockingly modern, newfangled behaviour for the royal family.
18:22The Queen had been reading some women's magazines, which were suggesting that, in fact,
18:27it would be a good idea for these ancillary objects called the fathers to be present at the birth of their own children.
18:34So there he was, Prince Philip, in the room.
18:37In the room.
18:39When your husband at your side during labour might not sound like cutting-edge progress,
18:43it was a big shift for this royal couple.
18:46For her fourth son, Edward, this was a complete change.
18:51The first child, Prince Charles, Prince Philip had no interest in staying there.
18:58He went off to play squash and he just said,
19:01let me know when it happens and I'll come back.
19:04I think men, at one point, would be very scared of seeing something like that and still are, perhaps.
19:12But, you know, he'd moved with the times and he held her hand and he talked to her
19:18and he was absolutely amazed by it.
19:21Prince Philip, I suspect, would have been as keen on this.
19:27I don't think he would have needed any encouragement.
19:29He was very much a sort of pioneer.
19:31Yeah, so I suspect that was as much down to him as down to the Queen.
19:35But the decision for Philip to be at the arrival of his son
19:39wasn't the only surprise with this royal birth.
19:41In fact, Prince Edward arrived a week before his due date, on the 10th of March, 1964,
19:47and his parents-to-be had no idea they were even expecting a boy.
19:52Prince Edward, it was thought that he was going to be a girl because he was a very small baby,
20:00so she obviously had a very small bump and the projections that the child was going to be rather small.
20:05I think he was about five or six pounds.
20:06And so there was a sort of surprise that this small bump was actually a boy and not a girl.
20:14The excitement in Buckingham Palace was reflected by the whole nation
20:18that the Queen was safely delivered of a son at 8.20 that evening.
20:21With Edward, Philip and Elizabeth had finally completed their family.
20:27And in another break with the Norm, this happy moment was captured in an extraordinary photo,
20:32taken soon after Edward's birth.
20:34I think it was a great moment to see a queen sitting up in bed,
20:38whether she has or hasn't just given birth, is amazingly intimate and even quite shocking.
20:46Traditionally, we are used to seeing queens and kings in full state regalia, being extremely formal.
20:53Suddenly, we're in their bedroom and they might be wearing pearls and makeup,
20:58but they're also wearing their actual nightie. It's an amazing view into ordinary royal domestic life.
21:08The images after the birth of Edward softens that image of royalty.
21:12And we see the queen as wife and mother.
21:17Of course, that's one of the things that is so striking about the late queen's reign,
21:21that she grew up from being a young married woman right through to being a mother, grandmother,
21:27and great-grandmother during her reign.
21:29And that's a really important means by which I think people are connected with her.
21:42Most royal weddings are times of happy celebration and a reminder to us all
21:47what it feels like to be young and in love. But in the late 18th century, there was one princely
21:54groom who was very definitely not looking forward to getting hitched. The most chaotic and scandalous
22:01royal wedding in history has got to be that of George, Prince of Wales, future George IV,
22:07and his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. It was an arranged marriage and it looked great on paper,
22:15but it was the most disastrous blind date in history. In 1795, the whole country is waiting for a royal
22:24wedding. George has got to get married. He's the heir. George has been given a long list of possible
22:31Protestant princesses to marry. And he rather said, well, any might do. Caroline was said to be
22:39pleasant, attractive, reasonably well-educated, and could speak a little bit of English, so perfect.
22:47Caroline comes over from her German principality, a very tiring trip on rough seas, and they meet for
22:53the first time in the palace. Caroline cuts this, and George receives her, and then he raises her up.
23:03A look of total horror spreads over his face. He immediately dashes away out of the room,
23:13looking for brandy and saying he must go to mother. Princess Caroline, left in the room, says,
23:21by God, is he always so fat? He looks nothing like his portrait. Well, George was a bit large.
23:28From this inauspicious beginning, things just get worse. Three days later,
23:38they are wed at the chapel royal in St. James's palace. It was going to be the great grand royal
23:45wedding of the future king. The great and the good, the aristocrats are there, and yet the wedding is
23:52nothing short of a catastrophe. George staggered up the aisle, totally drunk. When he gets to the
24:01altar, he actually starts crying. He has a look of torment on his face. George was overwhelmed with
24:09misery, and that's because he was already married.
24:14Coming up, the forbidden wedding of England's bigamous king. Poor old Mrs. Fitzherbert. Her marriage
24:27was deemed illegal, and she had to watch her husband marry someone else. And the astonishing final journey
24:34of a beloved queen. It was so impressive because it was 11 miles of battleships and cruisers,
24:42top to toe, lined across the Solon. And as the queen's coffin went past, they were firing their minute guns.
24:57On the 22nd of January, 1901, Queen Victoria's death was announced to a shocked world.
25:03It was a seismic event, not only for the country, but for the empire. It was announced in the theatres,
25:09and all the performance of plays, of musical concerts, all stopped, and the audiences poured out onto the streets.
25:17After a reign that had lasted over 63 years, it was a moment the nation would never forget.
25:24It was the end of an era, and nobody knew what life was like without Queen Victoria sitting on the throne.
25:31In 2022, when another of Britain's longest reigning monarchs, Elizabeth II, passed away,
25:40the preparations for her funeral had been worked out in detail years beforehand. But for Queen Victoria,
25:47it couldn't have been more different. Nobody knows exactly what to do. They are not prepared.
25:54They are not prepared in Windsor. The government is not prepared. It's like the queen would live forever,
25:59was just what everyone felt. The last royal funeral for a monarch had taken place in 1837,
26:05when William IV, Queen Victoria's uncle, died. Up to that time, royal funerals were private affairs.
26:13They took place at night, in the confines of Windsor Castle, and they were lit by candlelight.
26:20There were no public there, no great ceremony, or anything like that.
26:24But Victoria had other ideas. The queen left a detailed note of what she wanted to happen.
26:32She didn't want to be embalmed. There was to be no lying in state. She didn't want black,
26:38and she didn't want a hearse. And far from being the private funeral of her predecessor,
26:44Victoria wanted the whole nation involved. She wanted a full military state funeral,
26:51and she wants it to be a white funeral. There'd never been a full military state funeral for a monarch.
26:58The last military funeral, state funeral, was for the Duke of Wellington nearly 50 years earlier.
27:06Again, there was nobody around who helped organize that. They were all dead.
27:10And they were suddenly faced with this fact that this is what the queen wants.
27:13But with no preparations in place, and only 10 days to organize a grand state funeral with an unprecedented
27:22color scheme, time was tight. I think it took everybody by surprise. It was just utter chaos.
27:30And one of the most pressing tasks was preparing the white funeral pall, needed to lie over Victoria's
27:36coffin. But with no advanced warning, it proved almost impossible to find anyone who they felt could
27:42produce it in time. But Queen Victoria's daughter, Helena, was absolutely convinced that there
27:48was a group of women who would be more than able to rise to the challenge. The ladies of the Royal
27:53School of Needlework, of which she was patron. The story goes that there was no company that would
27:59be able to do the funeral pall in the time frame that there was. Princess Helena said no, her school could
28:06produce it for them. To make the task quicker, the team chose particular techniques to produce a stunning
28:12pall in record time. The design on the funeral pall had coats of arms in each of the four corners.
28:20And then on the top of the funeral pall was a cross. So with a tight deadline, we look at a technique
28:25known as a plique, which is applying fabric to fabric. And then the details are put in with embroidery.
28:32Records tell us that they had about 48 hours. So they had a team of approximately 45 women
28:39who were brought in and they worked a continuous 21 hours in order to complete in the time.
28:46The finished effect would have been absolutely stunning. It would have just caught any sunlight
28:51and it would have just looked beautiful. With the funeral pall complete, the next challenge was getting
28:58the Queen's coffin from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight to London for her funeral.
29:04The Queen's coffin was taken down on a carriage to a very small yacht called the Alberta, tiny little
29:10thing, and it began a procession across the Solon. As this great monarch's coffin sailed the short
29:17distance to the mainland, Victoria's body was accompanied by a magnificent array of 40 battleships.
29:24It was so impressive because it was 11 miles of battleships and cruisers and they were top to
29:33toe, uh, lined across the Solon. And as the little Alberta went past, uh, they were firing their minute
29:40guns. So it was very moving.
29:41An orchestra was playing Chopin's Funeral March as the Queen slowly made her way to Portsmouth.
29:52The strains of the music could be heard from the South Downs where onlookers gathered to watch this
29:58incredible spectacle. There are lots of descriptions about this, how moving it was.
30:03And they remarked how tiny her coffin looked on the Alberta and, uh, and the boat was tiny with these
30:11huge, great battleships with, uh, all the sailors standing to attention as it went past.
30:17For two hours, the might of the largest navy in the world stood in solemn respect for their commander-in-chief.
30:26It's all very quiet with the sun setting. The rest of the royals are all there and they all kneel
30:30down and there are people on the shore watching. That is very impressive and very sad sight.
30:37Everyone is moved by this farewell that, you know, of the Queen's coffin being carried
30:42from this little island that she loved back to the mainland.
30:48As the day of the funeral dawned, London was alive with visitors from across the country
30:53who'd all flocked to witness their great Queen's final journey.
30:59Anybody who had houses or shops on the route, they began to sell, uh, space on their balconies.
31:05But they were selling them for ridiculous amounts of money. A seat in the corner of a balcony
31:10cost the equivalent today of about £3,000. But perhaps the view was worth the money,
31:17as this was one of the most incredible sights London had ever witnessed.
31:22Despite the bitterly cold weather, it's estimated that a million people lined the streets to watch.
31:28Military bands played and over 40 members of royalty were present from all over Europe.
31:34It was a magnificent royal spectacle and a tribute to a monarch who throughout her lifetime had held a
31:42fragile Europe and world together.
31:45A funeral was described as the epitome of empire. The 40 kings, dukes, princes walking behind her.
31:54You know, Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who within a few years, he's going to be assassinated.
31:59It's going to lead to the First World War. He is there in that procession. Edward VII, the king and
32:04her heir, he's there. Kaiser is there. And within a few years, all going to be at war.
32:10It is incredible when you think of what she held together and how quickly it's all going to fall
32:17apart. The Kaiser, Victoria's grandson who'd held her so gently as she died, would, in just over a
32:24decade, be leading Germany against the nation she'd ruled. The soldiers so proudly pulling their
32:31Empress's coffin would be facing death themselves at the hands of German troops in the trenches of World
32:38War I. It's the height of empire and also, as I see it, the beginning of the end of empire, because
32:45it's going to break apart. Empires are going to fall. Boundaries are going to be changed. The whole
32:49world is going to change. And this woman who, at age 81, was holding things together, her death means
32:56it's the end.
33:08Not every royal marriage is destined for a happy ever after. But usually the wedding, at least, has the air
33:15of a fairy tale. But in 1795, the nuptials of the Prince of Wales, later George IV, to Caroline of Brunswick,
33:22was nothing short of a catastrophe. On the happiest day of his life, the Prince was drunk,
33:30overwhelmed, crying, why am I marrying this woman? And that's because he was already married. So now,
33:38he was getting married again. Which, strictly speaking, is bigamy.
33:44Why did this disastrous marriage go ahead? A decade before the wedding, George had been in
33:51love with Maria Fitzherbert. She was a Catholic widow, and she was very virtuous, and she refused
33:58to marry him. So he tried everything to persuade her she wouldn't have it. In the end, George said he
34:04was on his deathbed, and it was his dying wish that she married him. And there was a clergyman waiting
34:10around just in case. And when poor Mrs. Fitzherbert said, of course, it's your dying wish, of course,
34:15we will marry, George married her, and then said he felt an awful lot better. Mrs. Fitzherbert was
34:21shocked, but she did love George very sincerely. But there was just one problem. It was a totally
34:28illegal marriage. As the heir to the throne, George could not marry a Catholic. But also, there was the
34:35Royal Marriages Act of 1772. And this said that royal marriages had to be approved by the sovereign.
34:42And there's no way that his father, the king, would have approved it. So George had broken the law
34:47in these two respects. And yet, George treated her as a wife. I mean, the royal family knew they were
34:53married, but turned a blind eye. And George adored her. Yet, as he grew older, he needed a legitimate
35:01heir to carry on the monarchy. And he had gigantic debts. And the king and the government said to him,
35:08if you want those paid off, you have to get married. There's a wonderful cartoon by James
35:13Gilroy called Lover's Dream. And George, he's lying in bed imagining Princess Caroline. And behind him
35:20is everything he's leaving, gambling, the women, and he is dreaming of his future. It's all very romantic.
35:27But really, his dream is of bags of gold. So George was marrying Princess Caroline for money.
35:35Poor old Mrs. Fitzherbert. Her marriage was deemed illegal, and she had to watch her husband
35:40marry someone else. Well, perhaps it was some consolation that he cried all the way through the
35:46ceremony.
35:46George died in 1830, 35 years after his disastrous marriage.
35:54He had a miniature of Mrs. Fitzherbert around his neck, the only woman he ever truly loved.
36:06Coming up, the intimate photo capturing a queen after death.
36:11The Victorians had a completely different relationship with death than we do. And death
36:16photography was a hugely popular tradition at the time.
36:28As Victoria's body made its way to St. George's Chapel at Windsor,
36:33what mourners weren't aware of was that within her coffin were precious objects she'd left precise
36:39instructions to be buried with. Objects that she was determined to keep secret, even from her own
36:45children.
36:47If this coffin had fallen, heaven forbid, and the contents spilled out, there would have been so much
36:54shock and horror in her family and the court, because nobody had any idea what Victoria was smuggling in
37:01with her. It was her secret.
37:08In the week before her funeral, an astonishing photo of the dead queen was taken,
37:13showing her lying in her open coffin.
37:17The Victorians had a completely different relationship with death than we do, and death
37:22photography was a hugely popular tradition at the time. This is an image that is not necessarily
37:29meant to be distributed publicly. The person who supposedly took this was an artist who often
37:35worked from photography to then transpose that to paint. So this is almost a preparatory sketch,
37:41in a way. But of course what it gives us now is a remarkable record of that moment.
37:47And the photo gives a fascinating insight into how Victoria wanted to be dressed for burial.
37:53Rather than wearing the sombre mourning clothes she'd favoured since the death of her beloved husband,
37:58Albert, her choice of coffin attire was quite a surprise.
38:04This queen, who had worn black, you know, for half her life, wanted now to be in white,
38:11with her wedding veil on her face. She says that she is now going to meet Albert in heaven,
38:16so she is going as a bride to him. And so they put on a white gown for her,
38:22and her wedding veil covers her face. But it wasn't just what Victoria wanted to wear
38:28that gives us such an intimate glimpse into the woman behind the crown,
38:32but the objects she'd asked to be buried with. After her death, she had given her personal
38:38instructions to Mrs. Stark, who was her dresser. And these were about what was going to be with her
38:44in her coffin. And there's a long list. As well as trinkets from her daughters and family photos,
38:52she also requested that a rather curious physical reminder of the man she'd spent the past 40 years
38:58mourning accompany her to her grave. She had numerous objects relating to Albert,
39:03but most significant was a plaster cast of his hand. This was not a new item. She'd had it made
39:08during his lifetime and had reportedly taken it to bed with her every evening. This was a way for
39:15the queen to stay close to her husband. She missed his touch and it would slip under her pillow at night
39:21and she would sleep alongside it. And here it was entering the coffin with her, even following her to
39:26the grave. This evocation of the man who'd been missing from her life for so many decades.
39:31As far as the world knew, Queen Victoria's entire life had been defined by her love of Prince Albert
39:38and her intense grief after his premature death aged only 42. But in fact, as well as the request she
39:47left with her dresser, Mrs. Tuck, Victoria also left secret instructions her family knew absolutely
39:53nothing about, which reveal a rather different love story. Victoria leaves a secret will and it goes to
40:01James Reed who's her physician and he is the person who then receives these instructions. And it makes
40:06total sense that she would select Reed for this. He's someone who's very close to the royal body in the
40:11run-up to the death and in the immediate days afterwards. He has access to the coffin and he can enact
40:17these last requirements of hers. And the highly confidential items Victoria asked Reed to place with
40:24her for all eternity had to be included in strictest confidence because of who they once belonged to.
40:31There are other items in there that you might not expect and a lot of these relate to John Brown.
40:37John Brown had been Queen Victoria's devoted servant who looked after her horses at Balmoral
40:43for over 30 years before his death in 1883. John Brown was a ghillie and became the Queen's constant companion and
40:53he was elevated to a status that no one quite understood and eased her out of her mourning for
41:01Prince Albert. In the wake of Albert's death, Victoria had withdrawn from the world to the Scottish
41:08Highlands to mourn. And it was there at Balmoral that Brown lifted her out of her sadness.
41:15In the decades in which Victoria withdrew from society, she became incredibly close to Brown.
41:21There were rumors that their relationship transcended the usual servant-mistress relationship and
41:27her children in particular found this incredibly difficult. They found him to be uncouth and to behave
41:32in a way that really overstepped the boundaries of the place that he held in society. But Victoria
41:38didn't see it like that. She had great affection for him. After Victoria's death, had her children
41:43known of their mother's secret instructions to read relating to the man they so disliked,
41:49they would have been horrified. They loathed John Brown and the Prince of Wales in particular
41:55went round and destroyed anything connected with John Brown after the Queen died. He would have
42:01nothing to do with John Brown. In fact, there was a statue, I think it was in Osborne, which he had
42:06smashed down. It was one of the first acts he did. Little did the Prince know that as he was trying
42:12to obliterate all traces of one of his mother's closest confidants, John Reed was discreetly placing
42:19some of Brown's most treasured possessions in Victoria's coffin itself on her secret instruction.
42:26She wanted a photograph of John Brown placed in her left hand and she wanted a lock of John Brown's
42:34head and she would like to have his handkerchief in the coffin. She requested that her wedding and
42:41engagement ring from Albert to be moved from her left hand to her right and instead on her wedding
42:47finger, her ring finger, she had John Brown's mother's wedding ring placed there. He always wore
42:53his mother's wedding ring. It was the dearest thing he possessed. All of these items in the coffin were
42:59kept secret by a blanket of flowers that were placed on top so anyone coming to see the body,
43:03including her children of course, would not have seen this secret arrangement of memorabilia that
43:08Victoria had so desperately wanted in there. So the royal family had no idea
43:13of what she was carrying with her when she died. So that is Victoria's little secret.
43:19Read had faithfully carried out the instructions his queen had left him
43:23and it was only with the publication of his diaries in 1986, 85 years after Victoria's death,
43:30that what he and Mrs. Tuck had done for her finally came to light.
43:34She had a realistic view about how difficult her family were and her children and their bickering
43:40and their arguing and I think she trusted them. I think she trusted them completely,
43:46more than she trusted her family. Victoria's final wishes and death shed a whole new light
43:51on the royal love story that appeared to define her life. It's remarkable because we have this narrative
43:59of Victoria and Albert, this golden couple. They're the ultimate Victorian love story and they were
44:05the aspiration for so many other couples in this period and yet we have this whole other version of
44:10Victoria, years after Albert's died, finding love again potentially and making a life for herself,
44:17a life of which those around her did not approve. Clearly she held John Brown in enormous affection
44:26and to even take the risk of asking for these intimate items to be buried with her without her
44:33children's knowledge shows how much affection she had for John Brown.
44:39Worst Queen Victoria is remembered as one of Britain's most powerful and influential monarchs
44:45who presided over the empire at its height. Her coffin reveals what to her had mattered most.
44:52Throughout history there's always that difficult tension between the monarch and the person,
44:59who they are in public and who they are in private. But in Victoria's case the list of items and the
45:04fact that they make their way into the coffin is an autobiography of her own making.
45:12Royal births, marriages and deaths remind us that behind the pomp and ceremony lies a family just
45:18like any other with tensions, secret passions and simple human love. From Victoria's final wishes to
45:25be buried with memories of those she cared for to George IV's disastrous public marriage. Under the
45:32immutable golden crown there always lies a fallible human heart. Births, marriages and deaths are so
45:40important because the royals are our soap opera. We want to see love, we want to see funerals, all the finery,
45:47with a little bit of passion and scandal thrown in.
45:54And Secrets of the Royals continues next Saturday at five past eight. If Royal Walls could talk,
46:00what would they say? Discover Secrets of the Royal Palaces, stream now on five. Coming up,
46:06their bond was about more than just passing down the baton. Catherine and Queen Elizabeth,
46:11a special relationship is next.
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