00:00Queen Victoria may have had a deeply intimate bond with her servant,
00:03but the truth about their relationship has remained debated for generations.
00:08After Prince Albert died in 1861, Victoria was 42 years old and left to raise their nine children.
00:16She entered a period of intense mourning and wore black for much of the rest of her life.
00:21Then there was John Brown.
00:22A Scottish ghillie at Balmoral, Brown was blunt, confident, and famously unimpressed by royal
00:30formality. He spoke to Victoria differently from most people around her, and over time,
00:35the two became exceptionally close. For years, Brown served as her trusted companion and remained
00:42constantly near her. Their unusual closeness sparked rumors at court, with some even referring to
00:49Victoria privately as Mrs. Brown. When John Brown died in 1883, Victoria was devastated.
00:56She described his loss in terms similar to the grief she had experienced after Albert's death.
01:02But claims that Victoria was romantically in love with Brown remained disputed by historians.
01:08What is clear is that their relationship was extraordinarily close. Victoria died in 1901,
01:15and her son Edward VII became king. Later stories claimed that Edward disliked Brown and tried to
01:22remove reminders of him from royal life. According to one enduring account, however,
01:28Victoria had already made arrangements for Brown to remain with her after death. A photograph of Brown,
01:35a lock of his hair, and his mother's wedding ring were reportedly placed with Victoria inside her
01:40coffin. Whether every detail of that story is true or not, the legend captures just how powerful the bond
01:47between Queen Victoria and John Brown had become.
