Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Danish for its One quick note before we begin.
Speaker 1: If you want to support the show, we have a Patreon.
Speaker 1: It's patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tales. I upload
Speaker 1: the episode scripts and a monthly bonus episode where I
Speaker 1: talk about a movie period piece and how historically accurate
Speaker 1: or inaccurate it is. And we also have a seasonal
Speaker 1: sticker club, so every season you get a brand new
Speaker 1: and exclusive sticker to the Patreon. We also have Noble
Speaker 1: Blood merch It's at df t b a dot com,
Speaker 1: but it's linked in the episode description. But as always,
Speaker 1: the best possible support is just you listening to the show.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Oh this was is the
Speaker 1: happiest day of my life. That's a line in the
Speaker 1: diary of Queen Victoria, dated February tenth, eighteen forty. That
Speaker 1: night she recorded in detail the events of that most
Speaker 1: happy day, the day of her wedding to Prince Albert.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be an overstatement to call it the wedding
Speaker 1: of the century. It's remembered as one of the most
Speaker 1: defining events of the Victorian era. Given that Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: and Albert would also go on to have nine children,
Speaker 1: we can assume correctly that Victoria was also thrilled not
Speaker 1: just about the wedding itself, but the events of the
Speaker 1: wedding night. But the wedding itself was a colossal event,
Speaker 1: and it was defining in its own time too, not
Speaker 1: just in retrospect. At the time, Charles Dickens wrote to
Speaker 1: a friend, quote, society is unhinged here by her Majesty's marriage,
Speaker 1: and I am sorry to add the I have fallen
Speaker 1: hopelessly in love with the Queen. Historians often point to
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria's wedding ceremony as having popularized many of the
Speaker 1: wedding traditions were familiar with today. Victoria's innovation of combining
Speaker 1: the luxury that a royal wedding demanded with a number
Speaker 1: of traditional customs from both common and noble people created
Speaker 1: a new ideal for what a wedding quote unquote should be.
Speaker 1: Every subsequent royal wedding and every subsequent royal bride has
Speaker 1: followed in Victoria's footsteps to some degree, but her influence
Speaker 1: went far beyond royalty. On a larger cultural scale, much
Speaker 1: of our modern conception of the white wedding in Western
Speaker 1: culture was shaped by Victoria. It's ironic, then, a little bit,
Speaker 1: that Victoria is perhaps most often associated with wearing black.
Speaker 1: For forty years after the death of Prince Albert, Victoria
Speaker 1: wore her mourning dress. The queen, who was once seen
Speaker 1: as the picture of the angelic, blushing bride, would see
Speaker 1: her later life consumed by mourning, shrouded in its requisite color.
Speaker 1: It was only for her own funeral sixty one years
Speaker 1: after her wedding, that she would allow herself to wear
Speaker 1: white again, And as she did for her wedding, for
Speaker 1: her funeral, Victoria created a list of practices that would
Speaker 1: break royal protocol and align herself with the common people
Speaker 1: in a way that would persist in royal funerals to
Speaker 1: this day. Her subjects did in great numbers fall hopelessly
Speaker 1: in love with Victoria, as Dickens had, in large part
Speaker 1: due to that very ability. She had to frame herself
Speaker 1: as an ordinary wife, mother, and widow while also being
Speaker 1: a queen. For better or for worse, Queen Victoria quite
Speaker 1: literally defined an era. I'm danis Schwartz and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood. Despite the Victorian era being a time that
Speaker 1: we associate with a fixation around modesty and chastity, many
Speaker 1: of us also associate the Victorian era with its literary
Speaker 1: romance heroins and their dark, moody heroes Kathy and Heathcliff,
Speaker 1: Jane and Mr Rochester North and South's Margaret and Thornton.
Speaker 1: There is no doubt, though, that during the actual Victorian period,
Speaker 1: the country's favorite love story was between Victoria and Albert.
Speaker 1: While the marriage between the first cousins had been arranged,
Speaker 1: Victoria was famously infatuated with her husband. She didn't see
Speaker 1: the need for a husband during the first few years
Speaker 1: of her life as queen, but she soon found herself
Speaker 1: feeling somewhat adrift, and she decided that marriage would set
Speaker 1: her life on a new track, especially because she realized
Speaker 1: that marriage would also mean that she would no longer
Speaker 1: need to live in her mother's household. Victoria's father died
Speaker 1: when she was a baby, and her relationship with her
Speaker 1: mother was let's say contentious. The future Queen was raised
Speaker 1: under something called the Kensington system, which refers to the
Speaker 1: incredibly strict set of rules that the young Victoria was
Speaker 1: forced to abide by Victoria was isolated from all other
Speaker 1: children and never permitted to be alone without her mother
Speaker 1: or governess or tutor. Her diet was strictly controlled and
Speaker 1: all of her behavior was recorded, and her lessons would
Speaker 1: occupy most of her time. One of Victoria's first requests
Speaker 1: when she became queen at eighteen years old was that
Speaker 1: she would be allowed to have one hour of time
Speaker 1: to herself a day. Her next request was that her
Speaker 1: bed would be removed from her mother's room. Even once
Speaker 1: their bedrooms were separated, mother and daughter would share a
Speaker 1: household until Victoria was married. Yes, even after Victoria became queen,
Speaker 1: and so that separation between daughter and mother was one
Speaker 1: more reason for Victoria to want to get married sooner
Speaker 1: rather than later. None of that sound particularly romantic, but
Speaker 1: once Victoria and Albert began their courtship, there was no
Speaker 1: going back. On the night of her proposal to him,
Speaker 1: because of course, as queen, she had to propose, Victoria wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: oh to feel I was and am loved by such
Speaker 1: an angel as Albert was too great delight to describe.
Speaker 1: He is perfection, perfection in every way, in beauty, in
Speaker 1: everything I told him I was quite unworthy of him,
Speaker 1: and kissed his dear hand. This quote paints a fair
Speaker 1: portrait of who Victoria was in marriage. She willingly gave
Speaker 1: up her independence in favor of devotion, and she made
Speaker 1: it very clear to all of England that she was
Speaker 1: just as much of a wife as she was a queen. Albert,
Speaker 1: for his part, would rise to the expected role of
Speaker 1: husband as both caretaker and controller, albeit in the slightly
Speaker 1: unusual situation of his wife also being the sovereign. If
Speaker 1: the aforementioned literary couples were all non traditional in a sense,
Speaker 1: Victoria and al Bert represented everything the era idealized, despite
Speaker 1: their unusual power dynamic. A good metaphor for their relationship,
Speaker 1: I think, is the charming, if a little stifling, fact
Speaker 1: that on their retreat at the Isle of Wight they
Speaker 1: had side by side writing desks so they would work
Speaker 1: right next to each other. Their wedding was a chance
Speaker 1: to show the country everything they embodied, everything Victoria wanted
Speaker 1: to represent. To portray the fairy tale love story, she
Speaker 1: would have to deviate from the decidedly unromantic royal weddings
Speaker 1: of the past and implement some new customs. To start with,
Speaker 1: she traded her crown for a wreath of imitation orange blossoms.
Speaker 1: One of the more popular cultural fads of the time
Speaker 1: was the quote unquote language of flowers, the idea that
Speaker 1: flowers were associated with a specific meaning. Orange blossoms symbolized
Speaker 1: fertility and purity, and the message Victoria told with them
Speaker 1: would have been clear to all the ladies who read
Speaker 1: about her wedding attire in the popular women's magazines of
Speaker 1: the day. In most descriptions, her dress was also adorned
Speaker 1: with orange blossoms on the bodice, and the incorporation of
Speaker 1: orange blossoms into the dress itself would become a royal tradition.
Speaker 1: Victoria's daughters had designs of orange blossoms sewn into the
Speaker 1: hems of their gowns. The current Queen Elizabeth the Second,
Speaker 1: would do this later for her own wedding to Prince Philip.
Speaker 1: More recently, Kate Middleton reportedly or Joe Malone's orange blossom
Speaker 1: perfume for her wedding to Prince William. Orange blossoms didn't
Speaker 1: just become a symbol in royal weddings. The famous first
Speaker 1: wedding dress of socialite and Noble Blood alumna Margaret Wigham,
Speaker 1: the future Mrs Sweeney and Duchess of Argyle, was embroidered
Speaker 1: with orange blossoms. That dress was designed by Norman Hartnell,
Speaker 1: who would later go on to design Queen Elizabeth the
Speaker 1: second wedding dress years later. Arguably, Queen Victoria's greatest impact
Speaker 1: on weddings wasn't what was embroidered onto her dress, but
Speaker 1: the color of the dress itself. Her gown was not
Speaker 1: a true white, but a cream. It's wide neckline and
Speaker 1: puffed sleeves trimmed with cream lace from Haunting, a manufacturer
Speaker 1: based in Devon. Victoria's dress was entirely composed of British
Speaker 1: textiles in an effort to give a much needed boost
Speaker 1: to her country's industry, a tradition we still see today,
Speaker 1: with Cape Middleton and Megan Markle strategically highlighting British designers
Speaker 1: at key public events. Satin was used for Victoria's bodice,
Speaker 1: which was fitted around the waist in a deep V
Speaker 1: shape before it opened into a full skirt. Lace would
Speaker 1: also be used for her veil, which represented modesty. The Torria,
Speaker 1: perhaps an early pioneer in the slow fashion movement, rewore
Speaker 1: her wedding veil on several important occasions throughout her life.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen pictures of an older Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: with a crown that seems a little too small for
Speaker 1: her head, she might actually be wearing a lace veil
Speaker 1: under the crown. Can you sort of picture that the
Speaker 1: veil and then the little crown on top. That's her
Speaker 1: wedding veil up cycled. At her wedding ceremony, she wore
Speaker 1: a dress with a six yard long satin train, which
Speaker 1: took twelve attendants to carry down the aisle. Victoria was
Speaker 1: the vision of femininity and romance, but that wasn't what
Speaker 1: a royal wedding had previously represented. Traditionally, royal brides wore
Speaker 1: colorful velvet capes and brocaded gowns. Victoria would not be
Speaker 1: the first bride to wear all white or cream and
Speaker 1: embody all that that color symbolized, but she would be
Speaker 1: the first royal bride to do so, and first to
Speaker 1: do so on such a massively public scale. Her wedding
Speaker 1: would be broadcast around the world, with paintings of it
Speaker 1: printed in newspapers and on souvenirs for sale. There aren't
Speaker 1: any photographs of the wedding, we would be about a
Speaker 1: decade out from that technology being available. But there are
Speaker 1: actually photographs of Victoria and Albert in their wedding clothes.
Speaker 1: Albert would have them re enact their wedding for photographs
Speaker 1: fourteen years later after the fact, maybe inadvertently starting a
Speaker 1: trend of valle renewals for the sake of Instagram likes.
Speaker 1: But about the color choice Victoria had made, What was
Speaker 1: the purpose of the choice to wear white. According to
Speaker 1: biographer Julia Baird Quote, Victoria had chosen to wear white
Speaker 1: mostly because it was the perfect color to highlight her
Speaker 1: gowns delicate lace. But even if the decision was stylistic
Speaker 1: or practical, at least in my mind, it's impossible to
Speaker 1: separate the ideas of Victorian purity and religious morality from
Speaker 1: one of the period's most defining social events, the wedding.
Speaker 1: Victorian's obsession with white and whiteness was not born from
Speaker 1: Victoria or her wedding, but her choice further the connection
Speaker 1: between these ideals and the domestic sphere. And her contemporary biography,
Speaker 1: published in eighteen forty, the historian Agnes Strickland described Victoria
Speaker 1: the bride as dressed quote, not as a queen in
Speaker 1: her glittering trappings, but in spotless white, like a pure virgin,
Speaker 1: to meet her bridegroom. Ever since the Hanovers had come
Speaker 1: to the British throne, the image of the monarchy in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the British people was a little fragile,
Speaker 1: so many were ready to accept a version of a
Speaker 1: queen who appeared to be more like them than what
Speaker 1: a monarch had previously represented. Thousands showed up to watch
Speaker 1: the wedding procession, hoping to get a glimpse of the
Speaker 1: adoring couple. There were, of course, those who were wary
Speaker 1: of the change. Victoria's bridesmaids in white dresses designed by
Speaker 1: Victoria herself, were adorned with white roses, and the dresses
Speaker 1: apparently courted the opinion from onlookers that they quote looked
Speaker 1: like village girls. To most, though that wasn't such a
Speaker 1: bad thing. It certainly wasn't. To the women's magazines at
Speaker 1: the time, targeting a middle class audience, who provided their
Speaker 1: readers with detailed reports on the queen's bridal fashion, Victoria
Speaker 1: was seen as a symbol of the modest, the tasteful,
Speaker 1: and readers were advised to follow in her footsteps and
Speaker 1: avoid the vulgar. Around this time, romance novels were becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly popular with this middle class audience. There was a
Speaker 1: clear market for what Victoria was selling, in other words,
Speaker 1: and the people were ready to buy. As noted in
Speaker 1: the book Cinderella Dreams, Victoria did not invent the romantic
Speaker 1: consumer culture, but rather provided several of its customs with
Speaker 1: a new level of desirability. As we would come to
Speaker 1: see time and time again from a wide range of
Speaker 1: public figures, Victoria was simply selling them something they already had.
Speaker 1: Of course, for the majority of brides, white dresses were impractical,
Speaker 1: they got dirty easily, and they were difficult to rewear.
Speaker 1: If you were wearing a white dress for your wedding
Speaker 1: day at the time, you were showing off the fact
Speaker 1: that you were rich enough to have it cleaned. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, most women would just have warned the
Speaker 1: nicest dress they already owned, in a bright, often vibrant color.
Speaker 1: But that was the power of Victoria's symbolism. She was
Speaker 1: somehow both down to earth and aspirational. She was the
Speaker 1: sovereign leader of the country and an obedient wife Beyond
Speaker 1: the white wedding dress, there's another domestic tradition that Victoria
Speaker 1: and Albert popularized together, the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree
Speaker 1: was originally a Germanic tradition, and German Albert gifted decorated
Speaker 1: trees to schools and barracks around Windsor Castle during the holidays,
Speaker 1: but in eighteen forty eight, the idea of an evergreen
Speaker 1: tree in one's home for the holidays became an indelible
Speaker 1: part of English culture when there was an engraving published
Speaker 1: of Victoria, Albert and their children surrounding a Christmas tree
Speaker 1: alight with candles toys glittering below. It was this engraving
Speaker 1: that tattooed itself on the popular West Stern imagination Christmas
Speaker 1: trees a symbol of the domestic order, as ushered in
Speaker 1: by a white wedding. In her diary, Victoria later recounted
Speaker 1: of her wedding quote, the ceremony was very imposing and
Speaker 1: fine and simple, and I think ought to make an
Speaker 1: everlasting impression on that. She was correct. In all of
Speaker 1: those romance novels alluded to before, there is perhaps an
Speaker 1: equal fascination with death as there is with love and life.
Speaker 1: The Victorian era is arguably as equally remembered now for
Speaker 1: its morbidity as for its ideas of romance. Think of
Speaker 1: portraits that were taken of corpses upright after their deaths,
Speaker 1: as if they were still alive, so that their loved
Speaker 1: ones would be able to remember them. Hair was given
Speaker 1: as a token of love. It's those sort of maccabb
Speaker 1: Victorian gestures that now as modern audiences we come to
Speaker 1: associate with the victory Orian period. Weddings and funerals are
Speaker 1: perhaps the two biggest bullet points in any monarch's life,
Speaker 1: but for Queen Victoria, her spiritual death was perhaps more
Speaker 1: prominent in pages of history than her physical one. Death
Speaker 1: had essentially become her for the last forty years of
Speaker 1: her life after losing her husband Albert in eighteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: My husband won't die, she had said to Albert's doctor
Speaker 1: when he had taken ale, for that would kill me.
Speaker 1: Those who were present at the time of his passing
Speaker 1: recalled Victoria throwing herself onto his lifeless body, sobbing and
Speaker 1: calling him every endearing name shared between them. Quote, this
Speaker 1: is death, they heard her say. I know it. I
Speaker 1: have seen this before. Victoria had lost her mother in
Speaker 1: March of that very same year. Of course, she and
Speaker 1: her mother had had a strained relationship, but the sense
Speaker 1: of a loneness the death of a mother and then
Speaker 1: a spouse must have been profound. Victoria knew just as
Speaker 1: well as those around her, how heavily she relied on Albert,
Speaker 1: from her personal life to her duties as queen, how
Speaker 1: she had kept her vow to obey him, and how
Speaker 1: without him she was left flailing. For the next decade,
Speaker 1: Victoria withdrew from public life. She had earned the nickname
Speaker 1: the Widow of Windsor isolated in her castle. Until that point,
Speaker 1: she had always managed to be everything at once a wife,
Speaker 1: a mother, and a queen. Now she was simply a widow.
Speaker 1: Doctors worried about the weight she had lost and what
Speaker 1: they described as a quote madness that had overtaken her.
Speaker 1: A widow of the time was expected to wear black
Speaker 1: for one to two years after the death of her husband,
Speaker 1: but Victoria chose to wear it for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life. Mourning was quote the dress which I have
Speaker 1: adopted forever for mine. As she told her daughter to
Speaker 1: another daughter, she admitted she was quote afraid of getting
Speaker 1: too well. Because death was so common in the era,
Speaker 1: the culture and conversation surrounding it became open and deeply ritualistic.
Speaker 1: The anecdote of Victoria collapsing onto Albert's deathbed is known
Speaker 1: because of the Victorian custom to surround the deathbed with
Speaker 1: loved ones, hoping to hear the last words of the dying.
Speaker 1: It was also popular to keep a lock of the
Speaker 1: dead's hair in jewelry, along with producing portraits and death masks,
Speaker 1: anything to memorialize the deceased. There were, also, of course,
Speaker 1: the intricacies of mourning dress. Typically, widows were expect did
Speaker 1: to mourn their husbands for around two years, which meant
Speaker 1: donning black dresses made of crape and isolating themselves from society.
Speaker 1: For the most part, While it represented the emotional state
Speaker 1: of the family, mourning dress was also meant to signify
Speaker 1: to others that one needed special consideration because they were grieving.
Speaker 1: In choosing to mourn for the rest of her life,
Speaker 1: Victoria was communicating to her subjects a certain level of helplessness.
Speaker 1: This was a double sided coin. On one side, this
Speaker 1: open doors for anti monarchs to rally around the uselessness
Speaker 1: of the queen. But on the other side, she was
Speaker 1: able to evoke a Christian sympathy from the nation that
Speaker 1: her advisers encouraged in calculating her wedding image. Victoria was
Speaker 1: an active player in mourning. She allowed those around her
Speaker 1: to craft a narrative where the design of her wedding dress,
Speaker 1: with its romantic sleeves and billowing skirt, represented romance and youthfulness.
Speaker 1: The design of Victoria's mourning clothes represented a sensibility and practicality.
Speaker 1: She asked for the bodice to include only light boning
Speaker 1: and for pockets to be added to the skirts. The
Speaker 1: black morning dress, in a style of her own, had
Speaker 1: become her defining image in the public, even when she
Speaker 1: was still alive. Thanks to the commercialization of photography. Later
Speaker 1: in her life, Victoria was beginning to have more portraits taken,
Speaker 1: of course, this being towards the end of her life,
Speaker 1: in her mourning dress. In one of her most famous photos,
Speaker 1: her Diamond Jubilee portrait, she wears a black gown and
Speaker 1: her wedding veil, bridging the past and the present. By
Speaker 1: this point she had re emerged in society, albeit not
Speaker 1: to the extent that she had been with Albert by
Speaker 1: her side. One of the occasions Victoria would regularly show
Speaker 1: up for was a funeral, which, though surrounding her noted,
Speaker 1: was a source of great interest for her. One of
Speaker 1: her ladies, Mary Mallett, once noted, quote, it is very
Speaker 1: curious to see how the Queen takes the keenest interest
Speaker 1: in death and all its horrors, and specifically commented that quote,
Speaker 1: it is certainly strange that she should take such deep
Speaker 1: interest in the merest details of these functions end quote.
Speaker 1: It is no surprise, then, that Victoria made elaborate plans
Speaker 1: for her own funeral. She listed each item that she
Speaker 1: wanted buried with her jewelry, photographs, Albert's dressing gown, and
Speaker 1: her wedding veil. She also insisted on a military procession
Speaker 1: to honor her status as a soldier's daughter and head
Speaker 1: of the army. Her coffin was to be carried by
Speaker 1: a gun carriage, the first time this was ever to
Speaker 1: be done. The innovation of a military funeral for a
Speaker 1: monarch led to perhaps the most impactful shift in future
Speaker 1: state funerals, once again firmly identifying the crown with a
Speaker 1: larger or middle class oriented organization. She also insisted that
Speaker 1: there should be no public lying in state, meaning her
Speaker 1: coffin would be transported straight to Windsor, where she would
Speaker 1: be buried after the procession through London. Most of note,
Speaker 1: she wanted everything to be white, from her gown to
Speaker 1: the pall to the horses. Victoria's returned to white brought
Speaker 1: with it a new symbolic meaning. Years earlier, she had
Speaker 1: visited a mausoleum with the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, whom
Speaker 1: the Queen Greatly in my acared. There she had commented
Speaker 1: on the bright light that cast through the windows and
Speaker 1: covered the room. Tennyson told her he liked that point
Speaker 1: and wished funerals could be in white. Twenty years later,
Speaker 1: when he died, he was buried in a coffin covered
Speaker 1: in a white pall. Upon Victoria's death, another eight or
Speaker 1: so years after Alfred Lord Tennyson's, she would choose to
Speaker 1: do the same. Perhaps, after long years of mourning, Victoria
Speaker 1: had seen death as a rebirth, letting the light back in.
Speaker 1: Or perhaps she wanted to wear white, as she had
Speaker 1: for her wedding, because she knew she would be seeing
Speaker 1: her Albert one more time that's the story of the
Speaker 1: wedding and funeral of Queen Victoria, but stick around to
Speaker 1: hear about another process. In her casket, Queen Victoria was
Speaker 1: buried with her beloved Albert's dressing gown, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: the only man. She would take a memento up to
Speaker 1: the grave. In her instructions, she asked for two things
Speaker 1: to be placed in her left hand, a photograph of
Speaker 1: a man called John Brown and a lock of his hair.
Speaker 1: A bunch of flowers was then placed over her hand
Speaker 1: to conceal what she held. John Brown was a Scottish man,
Speaker 1: a personal attendant to Victoria and a former gilly or
Speaker 1: hunting attendant for Albert. While the suspected nature of his
Speaker 1: relationship with Victoria cannot be confirmed, we know that there
Speaker 1: was a great friendship and intimacy between the two. When
Speaker 1: Brown passed a letter Victoria sent read quote, perhaps never
Speaker 1: in history was there so strong and true, an attachment
Speaker 1: so warm and loving, a friendship between the sovereign and servant.
Speaker 1: Strength of character as well as power of frame, the
Speaker 1: most fearless uprightness, kindness, sense of justice, honesty, independence, and unselfishness,
Speaker 1: combined with a tender, warm heart made him one of
Speaker 1: the most remarkable men. The Queen feels that life, for
Speaker 1: the second time, is becoming most trying and sad to bear,
Speaker 1: deprived of all she needs. The blow has fallen too heavily,
Speaker 1: not to be very heavily felt. This was the second blow,
Speaker 1: she said. The first, of course, was the death of
Speaker 1: her husband, Prince Albert. Noble Blood is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is hosted by me Danishwartz. Additional writing and
Speaker 1: researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder,
Speaker 1: and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kali,
Speaker 1: with supervising producer Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.