Queen Victoria's Children - Ep 1 - Best Laid Plans

Victoria, a queen in a passionate marriage with Prince Albert. Yet behind closed doors, their domestic life was a battlefield

Victoria and Albert had terrible rows. Think of the worst row you've ever had with a partner and then magnify it

But it wasn't the only stormy relationship in Victoria's life. She had nine children who didn't always do what she wanted

He had tantrums. He threw his book on the floor. He pulled his brother's hair. He screamed

He threw his pencil. He was rude. I mean, he was really a sort of nightmare of a schoolboy

In this series, we will explore the turmoil and drama for Queen Victoria's children

as they grew up struggling with domineering parents. She expected them to be beaten and to be made to understand

how they should behave. Victoria and Albert's dream of blissful domesticity was vital to the values of the age

and to rescuing the monarchy from the threat of revolution. But it came at a huge personal cost

She wanted to control the children's lives. Somebody said the Queen is absolutely insane

when it comes to asserting her own maternal authority. Victoria and Albert wanted their children to strengthen

and redefine royalty for generations to come. But their plan for the family led to a 60-year war

between the children and their mother. Christmas, Windsor, 1860

Queen Victoria, her beloved husband Albert and their nine children gathered round

They exchanged presents. Family games and billiards were played. One visitor remembered..

It was royalty putting aside its state and becoming in words, acts and deeds one of ourselves

I have never seen more real happiness than the scene of the mother and all her children

It was a happy family image that Victoria and Albert were determined to make popular

They knew they had to find a fresh way of relating to their subjects

The danger of revolution loomed large. Many other European monarchies were threatened

The royal couple needed to save the British monarchy by connecting with a middle class expanding with wealth and empire

Their children were key to this plan. Albert came up with this idea

that the royal family should be presented as respectable and as a close-knit, loving family

So from very, very early on, you have a very strong image of a close-knit

almost middle-class family. It's as if Albert and Victoria are trying to reach out

to their middle-class subjects and say, look, we are like you, trust us

But behind the façade of this model family was a hornet's nest of hostilities

The Royal Household was not this chocolate box image of gorgeousness where everybody loved each other

It was a place of simmering tensions, huge resentments, extraordinary conniving. A family life riddled with conflict was perhaps inevitable

given the couple's own experiences. Prince Albert was born near Coburg, Germany, the son of a duke

It was very hard in those days to find suitably upmarket candidates

to marry someone like Victoria. They had to be without stain on their character

They had to have an absolutely exemplary background, which Albert fitted because he was very moral and very upright and very dutiful

and there was not a stain on his character. Victoria was probably the best catch in Europe at the time

I mean, queen of a huge and growing empire. She was an extraordinary catch from modest little prince like Albert

from this rather obscure duchy. In 1839, the handsome German prince arrived at Windsor Castle

for an arranged meeting with his first cousin, the Queen. From the start, their mutual passion was obsessive

Oh, how I love him, how intensely, how tenderly, how ardently. Your image fills my whole soul

Even in my dreams, I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth

It wasn't love at first sight, the relationship between Queen Victoria and Albert

but it was pretty near to it. The second time that they met, Queen Victoria rushed back

and said that she had seen Albert again, and he is beautiful

I mean, she was full of admiration for him. And it was really a love match, I think

or the useful coincidence of something that was politically useful. But Albert was daunted by his role as a subject to his feisty queen

My future lot is high and brilliant, but also plentifully strewn with thorns

The young couple married the following year. They faced a public with both a distrust of the monarchy

and an intense dislike for Albert, who was seen as a humourless German intellectual

One of the strange things was that in Victorian England there were all sorts of rather obscene lamphoons

one of which, about the wedding night, went something like this, this, that Albert entered by Bushy, he advanced through Maidenhead, penetrated Virginia water

and left Staines behind. Not the sort of thing that you'd expect in Victorian England, but it

was a reflection, I think, of the antipathy that Albert had created. Here he was, this priggish

pompous foreigner who'd arrived in order to exploit the wealth and the dignity of Britain by marrying the Queen

Victoria and Albert felt the pressures of being anything but an ordinary couple

They disagreed over the length of their honeymoon, Victoria not wanting to be away from Buckingham Palace

and her royal duties. Our position is very different from any other married couple You forget my dearest love that I am the sovereign and that business can stop and wait for nothing

Although besotted with Albert, Victoria did not concede any political power to him

He complained, I am only the husband and not the master in my house

And the power play was only just beginning. I think she was very stroppy and argumentative

and there's a funny comment Albert made not long after he was married to her in 1840

He wrote home to his brother and he said, well, Victoria's shaping up very well

She's only had two tantrums recently. And his attitude was her, was sort of knocking her into line

making her calm down and be the dutiful, meek little wife. Within weeks of their marriage

Victoria would give them both a project to work on. She was pregnant

The royal couple's own experiences of family life had not been happy

Albert's early years in Germany were overshadowed by the dramatic collapse of his parents' marriage

Well, he comes from a totally dysfunctional family family and he had these traumas from childhood onwards because his father more or less broke up

the family. He was cheating on his wife and discarded her when she got too old. I mean

his father was having affairs with underage girls and when his own wife was over 21, he just

you know, got rid of her. And of course, to have such a father is pretty awful and Albert

Albert wanted to love him, respect him, but at the same time resented him for all this that had happened

So, of course, Albert wanted to be completely different. He rebelled against the bad behaviour

He wanted to be the model son and later father. Victoria, too, had much to react against

She had grown up secluded at Kensington Palace under the control of her domineering mother, the Duchess of Kent

I had led a very unhappy life as a child had no scope for my very violent feelings of affection

and did not know what a happy domestic life was She goes through a period of referring to her mother as the Duchess

which would be rather like us calling our mother's Mrs Smith I mean, so, so estranged

She tells Melbourne in 1838 that she doesn't think Mama has ever loved her

So she's beginning to become a mother herself just at the time when her feelings about her mother

are still very, very, very frosty. With their own sad childhood still fresh in their minds

the couple were resolved to create a happy family of their own, a model for the dynasty and the nation

They're determined, like all conscientious parents, that they're going to make it better this time

They are, in a sense, going to cure or heal their own childhoods

by doing it right with their own children. Lots of us have been there

It's a very, very common impulse to think that you can put right

in the next generation what went wrong in your own family life

The first child, called Victoria, but known as Vicky, was born in 1840

The young Queen, busy with royal duties, only saw her new daughter twice a day

She did, however, make time to spend with Albert. Queen Victoria was infatuated with Albert on a physical plane

She was excited by his good looks. His good looks, she adored watching him shave and put on his stockings

and talked about the excitement of seeing nothing, that there was nothing underneath them

He was so cold, dear angel, being in grande tenue with tight white Casimir pantaloons, nothing under them and high boots

The unfortunate by-product of this infatuation was, of course, children. and they didn't know anything about contraception

and the children arrived with monotonous regularity. Within a year of Vicky's birth, Albert Edward, known as Bertie, was born

Our little boy is a wonderfully strong and large child. I help and pray he may be like his dearest papa

Vicky is not at all pleased with her brother. Over the next five years, another three children appeared

Alice, Alfred and Helena. She didn't like babies

She always said they were horrible, ugly little things and they were not even acceptable to look at or hold

till they were about six months old. Queen Victoria later grumbled An ugly baby is a very nasty object

The prettiest are frightful when undressed As long as they have their big body and little limbs

And that terrible frog-like action Victoria not only found her own babies repulsive

She also refused to breastfeed them Having a Totally insurmountable disgust for the process

She installed a wet nurse in Buckingham Palace. I think the idea of giving over her body

for another six months, for another 12 months to these frog-like people is absolutely disgusting to her

I think the central relationship for her is always the one with Albert. We know that they enjoyed a very vigorous sex life

and I think she had that feeling that her breasts were for Albert's

They weren't for the children. Her breasts were sexual rather than maternal

The couple's vigorous sex life brought more children, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice

making nine born over 17 years. Having a large family wasn't just about purging the couple's unhappy past

For the survival of the monarchy, Victoria and Albert knew it was vital to distance themselves

from the louche Hanoverians, as epitomised by Victoria's notorious uncle, George IV

George IV, the Prince Regent, had been famous for being fat, unfaithful and spending a very great deal of money

and his other brothers were no better. In fact, one of them, Cumberland

was famously involved in all sorts of accusations that he murdered his valet So really the royal family before Victoria had been extremely publicly unpopular

So Albert came up with this idea that the royal family should be presented as respectable

and as a close-knit, loving family. Victoria and Albert needed to create a fresh image

that would be approved of by their most important audience, the expanding middle class

Family values were key to this new bourgeois ideal, as the artist Lancia understood

Lancia painted a portrait of Victoria and Albert and the Princess Royal in 1841

and it's called Windsor Castle in Modern Times, and that title is really important

because it's signalling very clearly that there's been a change, that this is about a modern version of the monarchy

I think what's the most interesting aspect of that painting is the way that the couple, Victoria and Albert themselves, are shown

She holds a posy of flowers in her hands, So it clearly demarcates that she represents femininity, gentleness, purity

I think Landseer's painting shows us the way in which the royal family were using images of the family, intimacy, femininity

in order to support and promote a new image of the monarchy

They say no sovereign was ever more loved than I am. I am bold enough to say, and this is because of our domestic home and the good example it presents

One place more than any other gave them a stage on which to play out their domestic ideal

Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria enthused. We are more and more delighted with this lovely spot

The combination of sea, trees, the purest air, make it a perfect paradise

During these holidays, the children absorbed some of the most cherished values of the middle classes

on their vast royal estate. enjoying modest pleasures they hunted butterflies and played on Osborne's Beach

they learned to be self-sufficient in a specially built Swiss cottage

where they were taught to cook and where Albert helped them grow fruit and vegetables

he and queen victoria were very keen that they should learn real skills all the princesses

could cook and bake beautifully which astounded people in later life they just assumed they would

have always had cooks they would never have had to do this kind of you know servants work themselves

they all learned to tend gardens to grow vegetables and flowers they learned about the natural world

they learned all sorts of really important life lessons as well this was i think a way

of trying to genuinely engage with the business of everyday life and acquire skills, domestic skills

even if they weren't really going to use them very much in later life. Albert certainly thought it was important

that those children knew what to do in a kitchen, knew how to grow a carrot, these sort of things

They were important to him. Celebrations of the family ideal were created throughout the house and gardens at Osborne

Victoria and Albert's initials are intertwined. The children, cherub-like, adorn furniture as characters in a new kind of royal drama

Albert, the patriarch, was crucial to the design of this utopia. It was meant to be a stark contrast to society life in London

Albert hated the loose morals of lavish dinners, cards and parties. He was described at a London ball as looking like a cowed and kept pet

frightened to sit, frightened to stand. Despite cultivating an ordinary domestic image

the royal family was in a class of its own, living in splendid isolation

Really, when one contemplates the life of the royal family in the Victorian era, it's more and more bizarre

Bertie, for example, could only have an even number of asparagus stalks on his plate

because an odd number was bringing bad luck. Princess Louise thought that the only way you could achieve good health was to boil your knees in whiskey every evening

I mean, it was quite extraordinary. They lived in this strange, regal bubble in which the only conversation was something that they themselves created

So they couldn't really relate to other people. Other people had to relate to them

Morally upright in the extreme, Albert was everything his amoral father hadn't been

He became emblematic of a new kind of fatherhood, totally loyal to his wife

with a hands-on approach to his children. Albert adored the eldest, Vicky

Lady Littleton remembered him playing with his daughter. Albert... Tussed and romped with her, making her laugh and crow and kick heartily

The Queen, however, didn't join in, saying... He is so kind to them and romps with them so delightfully

and manages them so beautifully and firmly. Albert is not an absent, aristocratic dad

wandering over the grouse moor and seeing his children, you know, once a year

and not even remembering their names. Prince Albert is this new kind of man, this new kind of bourgeois father

who gets most of his pleasure and definition from what goes on at home

who's intimately involved in the nursery, who comes home after a hard day at the office

or in the case of Prince Albert, a hard day signing papers, and plays and romps with the children

Albert, considering himself an expert on human behaviour, was fascinated by the progress of his brood

There is certainly a great charm as well as interest in watching the development of feelings and faculties in a little child

Albert wasn't just curious about the children. He organised a fastidious plan for moulding his offspring into role models for the nation and for Europe Prince Albert observed Upon the good education of princes and especially those who are destined to govern

the welfare of the world in these days greatly depends. Prince Albert himself was the product of an efficient German education

He developed a kind of educational programme which his advisor, Baron Stockmar, said anybody who carried this out

would develop brain fever immediately, that it was too much for them to have to undergo

Albert's plan for the children began when they were infants. The chief objects here are their physical development

the actual rearing up, the training to obedience. The young Alice received a real punishment by whipping for telling a lie

She wasn't the only one subject to Albert's harsh discipline. When Vicky misbehaved

he was perfectly prepared to have her hands tied behind her back

and she was whipped and Bertie was whipped. And when Louise played the piano, for example

and she hit a wrong note, Albert would hit her fingers and she hit quite a lot of wrong notes

So Albert was not by any means an enlightened modern father, but he wasn't an ogre either

As part of his plan, Albert trained the children relentlessly in social graces

They practised at what he called circling, to enter a room and make one's way around it

speaking to each of the assembled company in turn. Victoria and Albert's children were educated at their station in life

I mean, obviously only one of them was going to accede to the throne

but they had to all take part, as it were, in royal life

So they had to learn how to make conversation, how to circulate at levies and parties

all the sort of politesses that were necessary for a royal education

and also things like languages. I mean, after all, they knew they were going to meet other royal households

so the education in language is very important too. It was a strict regime

Fortunately, the eldest child, Vicky, was extremely bright. Under Albert's regime, she was first taught French

when she was just 18 months old. Albert, right from the time when she's a tiny baby, dotes on Vicky

And, you know, the arrival of more children doesn't shake his absolute devotion to Vicky

Vicky's almost an infant prodigy. She's speaking Latin, she's speaking French, she's reading Shakespeare, all at a very early age

Lady Littleton, a governess, noted that the princess, before her seventh birthday

might pass for a lady of 17 in whichever of her three languages she chooses to entertain the company

Vicky, like all her siblings, could speak German. In private, Victoria and Albert didn't hide their German roots

but to the public, the Queen was anxious to appear completely British

The Prince and Queen speak English quite as much as German. One of the things that's most surprising about Queen Victoria

is how much she preferred Germany to England, although she was Queen of England

She obviously was half German herself and she married a German and in private, the family conversation was in German

All of the royal children were commented on as having quite prominent German accents

Even in old age, their friends would comment on them as speaking with a German accent

And there's a lovely letter that remains from one of Princess Louise's ladies-in-waiting

who said that when Prince Arthur came to visit Princess Louise, when they were quite elderly

and they were reminiscing about their childhood in the nursery, their accents became incredibly Germanic

and she said it was as if they'd started speaking in a completely different language

They were still speaking English, but their accent sounded as though they were Germans

newly arrived in England because they went back to their childhood. Victoria and Albert had a clear mission for their children

but the couple's obsessive relationship would threaten to derail it. Victoria was distracted from her role as mother

by her intense passion for Albert. Even after the exhaustion of having many children

the Queen was still longing for sensual pleasure. It was clearly a very passionate relationship physically too

Queen Victoria hated being pregnant, but she loved the process by which she got pregnant

I think that she may have been a little bit more passionate than him

partly because she was a slightly more physical person, person. You can imagine him in bed, sort of still thinking about guttering and city planning

and a statistical conference he might have been wanting to organise sometime in the near future

Besotted with Albert, Victoria idolised him in front of the children. None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of such a father who has not as

equal in the world, so great, so good, so faultless. Victoria worshipped Albert so ardently

she wanted her children to be made in his image. When pregnant with Bertie, the heir to the throne

she remarked, I wonder very much who our little boy will be like. You will understand how fervent

my prayers, and I am sure everybody's must be, to see him resemble his angelic, dearest father in

every, every respect, both in body and in mind. I think Victoria was more interested in recreating Albert in her children than she wasn't actually

seeing what kind of personalities they had themselves. She is really heir to a much older tradition of thinking of children as blank slates

In a sense, whatever you put into them, they will become. So if she puts into them the qualities of Albert, the best qualities

his rationality, his good sense, his prudence, you will get it back

You will produce lots of little Alberts. Some of them will wear breeches, some of them wear skirts

but basically they're all little Alberts. She treats them as if they were a particularly tricky engineering project

And if you get the mechanics right, you will get a nice, sturdy result that will go forth

in the image of their father. Victoria, like Albert, believed that she could shape her children

children's character and destiny. But this master plan for saving the monarchy was creating a battlefield

The problem is that Victoria is queen as well as wife. And so when she says sort of crosswords to Albert, you know, what is he to do

Is he to sort of say, shut up? Is he to treat them as though they're their royal commands

And Albert is... dislikes confrontation, I think. A very reasonable, very rational man

Victoria's not really into rational debate. And so, yes, you get this extraordinary picture

of Albert chasing Victoria around from room to room, or sometimes Albert shutting himself in his room

and writing her rather pathetic notes, scolding her. It is a very tempestuous marriage

and there are all sorts of conflicts in that marriage that are not fully resolved

Victoria and Albert had terrible rows. I mean, think of the worst row you've ever had with a partner

and then magnify it. It involves lots of slamming doors, people being sort of locking themselves into rooms

lots of shouting. Come on! Come on! Come on! Up at the door

Victoria's saying, you know, I never realised I'd be so miserable being married

I mean, absolutely appalling. The first huge row came two years into their marriage

an argument developed over who else should have a say in the children's upbringing

Victoria's closest and most powerful confidante, Baroness Leysen, looked after the nursery

but Albert hated the German governess. It's a position of great power

Now, when Victoria marries Albert, Albert clearly realises that Leysen is the one

he's going to have to watch, but he's prepared to play a softly, softly game at first

And so when the first baby comes along, Vicky, the Princess Royal

Victoria puts Lazen in charge of the nursery, and Albert's prepared to go along with it for a while

But he clearly, clearly has problems with Lazen. What he does is..

I mean, everybody in this psychic drama does very complicated manoeuvrings. They shuffle off the bits they don't like about somebody

and put them on to somebody else. So what Albert does is he blames Leysen for everything he doesn't like about Victoria

A heated quarrel broke out over Leysen's treatment of baby Vicky, who was losing weight

Albert wrote to advisor Baron Stockmar. Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me to be able often to speak of my difficulties

She will not hear me out but flies into a rage and overwhelms me with reproaches of suspiciousness, want of trust, ambition, envy

Queen Victoria herself wrote to Stockmar. There is often an irritability in me which makes me say cross and odious things

Of the family row, Stockmar despaired. The nursery gives me more trouble than the government of a kingdom

Albert, vying for control, described Leysen as... The hag, obsessed with the lust of power

a crazy, stupid intriguer who regards herself as a demigod. So, in a sense, they are on a collision course

One of them has got to go. They are two very, very tough Germans

and there isn't really room for two tough Germans in the royal nursery

One of them's got to go, and in the end it's laden. Albert was also deeply troubled by Victoria's fierce temper

It was a reminder of a particular royal family legacy, insanity. Albert scolded Victoria, particularly when she lost her temper

and there was a whole sort of atmosphere around Victoria losing her temper

I mean, it wasn't just that she had a filthy temper, which she did, but there was also this sort of fear that, you know

if the Queen loses her temper, this is the sign of the beginning of the madness of George III

They were all very conscious of the idea that Victoria might have inherited this awful Hanoverian malady

Of course she hadn't, she was incredibly sane. But it means that Albert tiptoes around Victoria

and the Doctor says you mustn't confront her when she has a temper because it'll make it much worse, you must just walk away

Sir James Clarke, the royal doctor, advised, Regarding the Queen's mind, unless she is kept quiet

the time will come when she will be in danger. Much depends upon the Prince's management

Increasingly, the Prince consort treated Victoria as he did his children. He sought control over his Queen and began to remould her character

He made her his own creature. And I think in a way it's rather sad because the one thing I like about Victoria

was her wonderful spontaneity, her honesty, and in a way her impetuosity was very charming

Before she married Albert, she loved to stay up late and dance till two in the morning and gossip with her ladies

And he knocked all that out of her. You know, they went to bed at ten

He didn't like staying up late because he'd fall asleep. He didn't like dancing late

And he kind of knocked that wonderful, rounded, vibrant personality down into the kind of mould of this rather dutiful and dowdy little housefrau

Victoria, still obsessional and insecure, would seek Albert's approval after an outburst

How sadly deficient I am and how oversensitive and irritable and how uncontrollable my temper is when annoyed and hurt

Have I improved as I ought? I think she was difficult to wear a bit

and I think Albert, actually, in his way, was a little bit difficult. He was rather schoolmasterly

He sort of treated Victoria rather like an errant child, which, of course, in a sense, she was

You know, he was all for improving her, and he would congratulate her if he felt she had improved

Albert praised her for what he called unbroken success in the hard struggle for self-control

Unlike their father, the children had no escape from their mother's unpredictable and stormy temper

Victoria would consent to her children being beaten. She expected them to be beaten

and to be made to understand how they should behave. There's famously a comment in one of the ladies-in-waiting's diaries

about when Prince Leopold was being naughty as a little boy and Queen Victoria wanted to beat him

and we must remember that Leopold was haemophiliac and Queen Victoria's mother said

"'Please don't beat him. He's just a little boy. "'He's just being a little boy

"'How can you bear to hear him crying?' And she says, "'Once you've had nine, mother

"'you don't notice it anymore.'" Unsurprisingly the children would always be scared of Victoria The Queen private secretary once recalled seeing the children flee their mother We were suddenly nearly carried away by a stampede of royalties

headed by the Duke of Cambridge and brought up by Leopold, going as fast as they could

We thought it was a mad bull, but they cried out, The Queen! The Queen

I imagine the children were fairly, certainly in awe of Victoria, I mean, Vicky certainly wasn't. Vicky would give as good as she got

Edward, I think, largely, Bertie, largely ignored her. But I'm sure the younger children would have been, you know

been pretty much in awe of her, and, of course, scared of her tempers. Victoria's harsh parenting frustrated Albert

It is indeed a pity that you find no consolation in the company of your children

The root of the trouble lies in the mistaken notion that the function of a mother is to be always correcting, scolding, ordering them about

She wanted to control the children's lives, absolutely, right down to the last T

And she went on doing that into their adulthood. It was most extraordinary

Somebody said the Queen is absolutely insane when it comes to asserting her own maternal authority

The rows and Victoria's temper were not the only cause of problems for the family

Albert's heavy workload also created tensions. Being trapped in the perpetual cycle of pregnancy and childbirth

forced Victoria to allow Albert to take on some of her political duties

on top of his own ambitious projects. Albert, attempting to be the role model father

struggled to balance work and family. He loved his children when he had time for them

but Albert was on this self-created treadmill of work, work, duty, endlessly wearing himself out on 101 committees

doing this, that and the other. The more Albert worked, the more he was away

not just from the children, but his needy wife. You cannot think how much it costs me

or how completely upset I am and feel when Albert is away

All the numerous children are as nothing to me when he is away

In the absence of her husband, Victoria came to resent the children

No one recognises more than I do the blessings of having children

but the anxieties and trouble, not to say sorrows, are quite as great as the blessings

Despite the tensions between parents and children behind closed doors, the public face of the plan was a great success

Victoria and Albert were setting the moral tone for a new age

helped by a fledgling technology in the 1850s, photography. This is the first publicly shown photograph of the royal family

taken at Osborne in 1857 of Victoria, Albert and all nine children

They have their official portraits, they have their family album, but they also become a kind of surrogate family

or an extra family for the rest of the country because you can collect pictures of the royal household

It was a hugely successful rebranding exercise because for the first time, the monarchy

instead of being seen as a kind of abstract form of power

that people couldn't relate to, instead, they started to see as a distorted reflection

of their own families, of their own lives. The Queen became a person

The children became real people. You could understand them, you could sympathise with them

you could gossip about them. The royal couple learned to turn lack of privacy into an advantage

The public lapped up these nuggets of royal intimacy. But behind the media image, the plan for the family was not going as smoothly as it could have been

It soon became apparent that personalities might get in the way of Victoria and Albert's desire for princes and princesses to be made in the image of their father

It was Bertie, the heir to the throne, who presented the biggest problem

From an early age, he refused to conform to Albert's plan for the children's education

Unlike his sister Vicky, he found learning difficult and couldn't concentrate. Bertie was, I think, abnormally backward

He just couldn't focus his mind. Perhaps he really didn't have much of a mind to focus

His tutor, Frederick Gibbs, remarked... I had to do some arithmetic with the Prince of Wales

Immediately he became passionate. The pencil was flung to the end of the room

the stool was kicked away, and he was hardly able to apply himself at all

With him it was a complete and utter failure, right from a very early age

He acted out. He had tantrums. He threw his book on the floor

He pulled his brother's hair. He screamed. He threw his pencil. He was rude. I mean, he was really a sort of nightmare of a schoolboy

Bertie was forever chastised by Victoria for his... Systematic idleness, laziness, disregard of everything

His ever-anxious parents even consulted a so-called expert, a phrenologist, on the nature of Bertie's brain

The verdict did little to allay their fears. The feeble quality of the brain will render the prince highly excitable

Intellectual organs are only moderately well-developed. The result will be strong self-will, at times obstinacy

And Albert rather sort of typically says, I wonder where that Anglo brain of his has come from It certainly wasn in the German family It must have come from the Stuarts Other royal offspring also rebelled against their domineering parents

Leopold was known for telling lies. I heard your musical box playing most clearly this afternoon

Victoria complained to her son. Impossible! My musical box never plays! Later in life, Victoria would recognise a fundamental shortcoming in the grand plan

You will find as your children grow up that as a rule children are a bitter disappointment

their greatest object being to do precisely what their parents do not wish

and have anxiously tried to prevent. And often when children have been less watched and less taken care of

the better they turn out. This is inexplicable and very annoying. We all as parents would like our children to tell it exactly as we want

and one of the things you have to accept is that children, you know

are not little mini-me's and they are not going to do exactly what you want and you have to accept that and build that into your plan

and if you don't, you're going to be disappointed. Victoria and Albert weren't just hoping to gain public approval

through their children. They had aspirations for the dynasty. The royal couple had a vision of a harmonious Europe

with an Anglo-German dynasty at its heart. They believed a marriage between daughter Vicky and Fritz

heir to the Prussian throne, could create a pro-English Germany. A meeting was arranged at Balmoral

The meeting at Balmoral, this very erotically charged meeting between Fritz and Vicky in Scotland

was supposed to be entirely secret, and immense efforts were made to keep it secret

Of course, these efforts were completely in vain, and no sooner had the meeting occurred than the news leaked out

The leading papers had people at court who were listening, picking up tidbits for them

When the arrangement was announced in the press, far from celebrating, the British public were horrified

Prussia had refused to unite with Britain in the Crimean War just a few years earlier

intensifying anti-German feelings. One newspaper commented, The supposed political character of the match and the distrust of a policy for Germanising England

have been the real causes of the general disfavour with which the proposed marriage has been regarded

Prince Albert knew he had to spin the marriage as a love match

despite his political ambition for a redrawn Europe. The more it is made clear that our children's marriage

is the outcome of mutual attraction rather than of political motives, the more certain it is that any storm which might rise

between now and the date of the wedding will pass by. Albert was very aware of how the royal family were written up

how they were perceived He was quite interested in managing that process

and the marriage of his eldest daughter was something that he wasn't going to be asleep about the implications of this

It was in effect a kind of political match Unity between England and Germany was something that everybody wanted

Despite being part of the plan, both Victoria and Albert were devastated

at losing their totally inexperienced 17-year-old daughter in this child marriage. Days before the wedding, Victoria wrote..

After all, it is like taking a lamb to be sacrificed. The pang of parting was great on all sides

and the void which Vicky has left in our household and family circle

will stand gaping for many a day. Yet the Queen characteristically seemed even more concerned

with her own feelings. One of the stories that I found very poignant and sad

is that this is during Albert's lifetime. When her daughter Vicky gets married and she moves to Prussia

she's been married for a few weeks, maybe five or six weeks, And she writes to her mother saying how difficult she's finding life in Prussia

There's always other people around. She's constantly having to go to official functions

And she longs for the times when it's just her and Fritz, her husband

who she loves very much and she wants to be on her own with. And her mother responds to a woman who's just married and says

oh, darling, at last you understand why I always resented you children being around

I only ever wanted it to be me and Papa. Their first child was out of the nest as part of the plan

but there were further strains on the family. Albert found his enormous workload exhausting

By May 1860, he compared himself to a donkey on a treadmill

He, too, would rather munch thistles in the castle moat. Small are the thanks he gets for his labour

He had a tremendously... ..toilsome approach to life

and ultimately, I think you might well say, that this exhausted him and perhaps killed him

Albert's health was declining. By this point, he was pained with neuralgia and toothache

insomnia and fits of shivering. But Victoria had little room for sympathy

and she had no sympathy. Having given birth to nine children, she thought Albert was weak in his inability to endure pain

and found it most trying. The attitude to Albert's illness that you see in Victoria often is

oh, it's man flu, you know, he's putting on a big act about how ill he is

sterner stuff. We women have to endure childbirth. So she always felt Albert was rather putting

on the agony and didn't take it very seriously. Victoria was a very selfish, egocentric person. She had a place for Albert. She needed Albert

She needed Albert to be a rock. She needed him to be somebody she could rely on. And

of course, if he was weak and ailing, she couldn't rely on him. She had to care for

And I think, obviously, she then got scared. I mean, the possibility of losing Albert seemed to her quite dreadful

How on earth would she carry on her life without him? To add to the strains on the family

in early 1861 Victoria mother died Although they had never been close the Queen was devastated Prince Albert wrote She is greatly upset and feels her whole childhood rush back once more upon her memory with the most vivid force

And with those recollections come back the thought of many a sad hour

I do not want to feel better. To feel better, I love to dwell on her and not to be roused out of my grief

In an orgy of despair, Victoria was reluctant to acknowledge Albert's ill health

Writing to daughter Vicky, Victoria spelt out her frustration. Dear Papa never allows he is any better or will try to get over it

but makes such a miserable face that people always think he's very ill

Despite his wife's criticisms and feeling desperately sick, Albert was determined to realise his vision for the children

and arranged another dynastic marriage between Bertie, the first in line to the throne

and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Once again, a wholesome public image mattered

It was crucial the marriage was passed off as a love match, not a political alliance

The heir to the throne had to appear to have a chaste life

But in the summer of 1861, Bertie started training with the Grenadier Guards in Dublin

His fellow officers, with whom he became very chummy, managed or arranged one night

for a sort of camp follower of the regiment, a lady called Nellie Clifton, to join Bertie in his bed

And so, on three occasions, Bertie slept with, um, lost his virginity with Nellie Clifton

And then, of course, eventually, the story started to trickle out, and Albert heard about it

And he wrote Bertie the most terrible letter, sort of hysterical, completely overwrought

in which he says that he foresees for his son this future of kind of paternity suits

and, you know, the terrible slide into total evil and, you know, low moral character

To thrust yourself into the hands of one of the most abject

of the human species, to be by her initiated in the sacred mysteries of creation

which ought to remain shrouded in holy awe until touched by pure and undefiled hands

He was terrified that she might go to the papers, to the courts

that she might end up pregnant and make all kinds of financial and other demands

but I think this was an extreme reaction to what he'd seen with his own father and brother's behaviour

So it was tough on Bertie because what should have been pretty much brushed under the carpet

turned into this enormous issue, and Albert, the minute he heard, was pacing up and down night after night

not sleeping, worrying, and he literally wore himself into a frazzle about this one transgression of Bertie's

To Albert, Bertie's fall was not only a threat to his dynastic marriage

but to the monarchy itself. You must not, you dare not be lost

The consequences for this country and for the world at large would be too dreadful

What I think we can say for certain is that Bertie's misdemeanour upset Albert in an utterly visceral way

It really got in among him and he was deeply, deeply upset

and you can tell this by the anguished letter that he wrote to Bertie

more or less saying, you know, this isn't just a little sin

it's something which could shake the throne. The plan for perfect children had failed

and the dynastic dream was at stake. Victoria went on the defensive

Wicked wretches had led our poor innocent boy into a scrape. The sickly Albert travelled to Cambridge to meet his son

and make him understand the disgrace he had brought on himself and his family

and also the urgent need to get married. Albert went down to Cambridge to have it out with Bertie about his fall

and they went for a long private walk in the rain and they had this long conversation

We don't know what they said, but we do know that Albert came back absolutely wet through

and that Bertie thought that he had been forgiven. So, in a way, it's sort of a, you know

it's a resolution of the conflict. But it was a cold and wet winter day

After the long walk with his son, Albert was racked with pain in his legs

Over the next few weeks, his symptoms worsened. Albert wrote to his daughter, Vicky

I am at a very low ebb. Much worry and great sorrow, about which I beg you not to ask questions

have robbed me of sleep during the past fortnight. I personally believe, having done the research

that Albert did have a long-standing gastric problem that was wrongly diagnosed as typhoid fever

I don't believe he died of typhoid fever. I believe he died of a flare-up of probably Crohn's disease

which goes into periods of remission and then flares up during times of extreme stress

And in 1861, he'd had to deal with a whole chain of stressful things happening

which precipitated a final decline, aggravated then by contracting a chill and a fever

and his body just packed up on him. He wore himself out

In mid-December, when Albert grew worse, Bertie was ordered home to see his ailing father

Albert died the following day, aged only 42. For Victoria, the loss of the man on whom she had come to utterly depend

could not have been more devastating. He was my father, my protector, my guide and advisor in all and everything

My mother, I might say, as well as my husband. I suppose no one ever was so completely altered and changed in every way as I was by dearest Papa's blessed influence

Queen Victoria's overbearing grief would dominate the royal household and the nation for decades