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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdie and I'm Delina Chalk. Rewarding and to me,

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Speaker 1: it really seems like Queen Victoria is our classic background

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Speaker 1: podcast character. We joked before that she just pops up

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Speaker 1: when you least expect her. She really does. I think

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Speaker 1: somebody even suggested once that we have some stock music

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Speaker 1: noise or whenever Queen Victoria appears, But until recently, she

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Speaker 1: hadn't gotten a podcast to herself. Earlier this spring, we

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Speaker 1: finally did an episode on Victoria focusing on her last

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Speaker 1: great friendship, which was a relationship with her Indian teacher

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Speaker 1: of Dual Kareem, And that was sort of a strange,

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Speaker 1: lesser known side of Victoria's life, and it was also

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Speaker 1: late in her life. By the time Kareem knew Victoria,

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Speaker 1: she was an elderly woman. In the period we focused

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Speaker 1: on was she was in her seventies and her eighties.

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Speaker 1: It was it was late in Victoria's rain. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: listeners are usually more interested in the queen's early years,

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Speaker 1: probably largely because of the recent film Young Victoria, which

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Speaker 1: I'm sure, a lot of listeners have seen it's all

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Speaker 1: about romance, ribbons and no nine kids in the picture

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Speaker 1: yet for Victoria and Albert. So we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about that side of Victoria's life, her romance with her

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Speaker 1: husband specifically, but we'll also revisit one of our common themes,

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Speaker 1: which is that of the sad royal childhood, and to

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Speaker 1: understand that, we have to first look at why Victoria

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Speaker 1: became a queen in the first place. Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: pretty remarkable that the throne went to Victoria because her

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Speaker 1: father was the fourth adult son of George the Third. Usually,

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Speaker 1: if you have that many kids, the throne isn't going

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Speaker 1: to go to the daughter of the fourth son. However,

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Speaker 1: George the third sons weren't that inclined to marry and

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Speaker 1: produce legitimate offspring at least, so consequently, this crisis developed

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventeen. So George the Third and his wife

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Speaker 1: Charlotte had fifteen children, and for many years their eldest

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Speaker 1: son had acted as regent for his insane father. He

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Speaker 1: was known as the Prince Regent and later George the Fourth,

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Speaker 1: So the Prince Regent had a legit air of his

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Speaker 1: own a daughter named Charlotte, and for a long time

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Speaker 1: she was really the darling of the country, and it

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Speaker 1: really seemed like the succession was guaranteed when she married

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Speaker 1: the future King of the Belgians, Leopold. But in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventeen and age twenty one, she died in childbirth and

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Speaker 1: her son was stillborn. So two generations right there wiped

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Speaker 1: out at one time and the country went into a

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Speaker 1: deep morning. Okay, so there's still Airs that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: like they're just are no children around. But the Airs

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Speaker 1: are mostly middle aged princes and they don't have kids,

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Speaker 1: so the race is off. The first prince of the blood,

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Speaker 1: the first son of George, the third um to make

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Speaker 1: an air, gets his debts canceled by the Prince Regent.

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Speaker 1: So a pretty good deal because a lot of these

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Speaker 1: guys are into gambling and that's living anyways. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it's not as easy as it seems, right, No, it's

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Speaker 1: not at all. So the Prince Regent will obviously start

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Speaker 1: with him. He's the eldest son. He was separated from

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Speaker 1: his wife, so there's no chance there of another air.

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Speaker 1: The same went for the next in line, the Duke

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Speaker 1: of York and after him, there's the Duke of Clarence,

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Speaker 1: the third son, so he took took this challenge up,

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Speaker 1: if you guys call it that, and he married a

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Speaker 1: German princess, but unfortunately none of their children survived infancy.

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Speaker 1: So the next son in line, it all came down

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Speaker 1: to the Duke of Kent and he dumped his longtime

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Speaker 1: mistress and married a woman who had already had children,

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Speaker 1: so he knew she was fertile, Victoria Mary Louisa, who

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Speaker 1: was the daughter of the Duke of Saxe Coburg Salfeld,

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Speaker 1: and she was also the widow of German prince So bingo,

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Speaker 1: we have our winners in this couple. Finally. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: sounds so unromantic when you say fertile when you put

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Speaker 1: it that way, but that is what it was all

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Speaker 1: about going for. And once the Duchess became pregnant, the

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Speaker 1: Duke of Kent started making plans for the child to

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Speaker 1: be born on English soil. They'd been living in Bavaria

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Speaker 1: at the time, and he wrote that they need to

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Speaker 1: get back in order to quote render the child. My

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Speaker 1: wife bears virtually as well as legally English, but the

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Speaker 1: regent hadn't exactly followed through on that whole cancel your

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Speaker 1: debt steal, and the Duke couldn't find the funds to

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Speaker 1: move his entourage until March of eighteen nineteen, and so

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Speaker 1: by the time the Duchess actually got back on English soil,

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Speaker 1: she was already eight months along. Yeah, they had trouble

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Speaker 1: getting lodgings too, because these brothers, the Prince Regent and

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Speaker 1: the Duke of Kent, really didn't get along very well.

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Speaker 1: But the Prince Regent does grant them apartments in Kensington Palace.

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Speaker 1: And on May eighteen nineteen, Alexandrina Victoria was born, and

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Speaker 1: she was this big, healthy baby and things looked promising.

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Speaker 1: She got her name though the Alexandrina, apart from her godfather,

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Speaker 1: who was the Russians, are Alexander the first and the

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Speaker 1: story behind that is is kind of strange and also

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Speaker 1: further speaks to this feud between the brothers. Regent had

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Speaker 1: forbidden Victoria's parents to use any of the standard names

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Speaker 1: that royal baby girls were being called. Charlotte Elizabeth Georgina

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Speaker 1: can kind of see his rationale behind Charlotte not having

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Speaker 1: the new heir named the same thing as his deceased daughter,

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Speaker 1: but still a weird stipulation, and as a result, the

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Speaker 1: people of England still weren't entirely sure what her name

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Speaker 1: was even up to the morning of her accession at

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Speaker 1: age eighteen. Yeah, Alexandrina or Victoria, even though she had

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Speaker 1: actually always gone by Victoria as a girl in her home.

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Speaker 1: But the little Princess was really born just in the

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Speaker 1: nick of time though for this family, because only eight

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Speaker 1: months after her birth, her father, the Duke of Kent, died,

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Speaker 1: and so six days after that, George the Third died,

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Speaker 1: and that made the Prince Regent finally George the Fourth,

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Speaker 1: and that made Victoria third in line to the throne,

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Speaker 1: after her two uncles. But she gets even closer as

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Speaker 1: the years go by and these uncles to to die off.

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Speaker 1: When the eldest of the two uncles died in she

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Speaker 1: was obviously one step closer, and eventually, when George the

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Speaker 1: Fourth died and her uncle, the Duke of Clarence, became

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Speaker 1: William the Fourth, Victoria was next in line from the throne.

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Speaker 1: So from birth she was raised to be a likely queen,

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Speaker 1: although not a guaranteed queen. It it you still didn't

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Speaker 1: know if somebody might have a kid between her birth

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Speaker 1: and when she came to the throne. Yeah, but it's

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Speaker 1: interesting even though she was raised as a queen the

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Speaker 1: whole time, nobody really told her of her position until

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Speaker 1: she was about ten years old. Though. There's that classic

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Speaker 1: story where she had a family tree inserted into a

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Speaker 1: history book and studied it and suddenly pronounced I will

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Speaker 1: be good, And so that's probably likely untrue. Yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: two competing versions if that story's a pretty good story,

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Speaker 1: but it's a little hard to back up. And Victoria

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Speaker 1: herself remembered the realization as being a lot more dramatic,

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Speaker 1: and and that makes sense to me for this girl

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Speaker 1: who was not raised to to know she was going

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Speaker 1: to be queen. She said, I cried much on learning

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Speaker 1: it and even deplored this contingency. Yeah, but it seems

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Speaker 1: like a really natural reaction, as you pointed out, because

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Speaker 1: her life turned out to be pretty rigid because of

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Speaker 1: this future of hers um. She had lots of lessons,

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Speaker 1: languages like Italian and Latin, writing, history, music, drawing, arithmetic, geography, religion.

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Speaker 1: She learned all kinds of things. Yes, maybe that wasn't

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Speaker 1: so bad, but it did make her life pretty busy,

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Speaker 1: but she also didn't get a lot to eat. She

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Speaker 1: had bread and milk served to her in a silver bowl,

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Speaker 1: and she had a really early bedtime, lots of exercise,

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Speaker 1: and most notably strict isolation. Yeah, so we could we

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Speaker 1: could add the lessons and the not much food in

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Speaker 1: the early bedtime and the exercise into the that's kind

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Speaker 1: of standard for the lives of many British aristocratic children

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Speaker 1: at this time. But this strict isolation was something unique,

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Speaker 1: and it was the design of her mother's companion and adviser,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Sir John con Roy, and the Duchess herself,

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Speaker 1: and they called it the Kensington system, and it was

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Speaker 1: the way Victoria was brought up. It was a course

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Speaker 1: of rigorous private studies and isolation from her peers. And consequently,

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Speaker 1: Victoria's main companion during her early years was her elder

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Speaker 1: half sister, Fyodora, her her mother's daughter by her first marriage.

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Speaker 1: And after Fyodora left to Mary, so she was quite

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Speaker 1: a few years older than Victoria. Uh, Victoria was pretty

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Speaker 1: distraught and turned to her governess, a woman named Louise Latezon,

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Speaker 1: and she really became her her main companion and just

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Speaker 1: sort of heard her defense against her this conniving Conroy

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Speaker 1: character who was such a strong influence in her household. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she really needed it because Conra even kept her

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Speaker 1: away from her own family. He encouraged the Duchess to

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Speaker 1: keep Victoria away from her quote wicked uncles, and by

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Speaker 1: isolating Victoria from her paternal family, the royal family, right,

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Speaker 1: Conroy hoped to create a better position for himself should

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Speaker 1: William the fourth die before Victoria's majority, And that was

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Speaker 1: really the plan because hopefully, if hopefully her Conroy, if

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Speaker 1: William the fourth died, then the Duchess of Kent would

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Speaker 1: become regent, and because Conroy controlled the Duchess of Kent,

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Speaker 1: he would essentially rule England. So it was all a

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Speaker 1: play for power, definitely, And at one point, when Victoria

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Speaker 1: was sick with the serious illness, Conroy and the Duchess

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Speaker 1: even tried to pressure the sixteen year old princess into

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Speaker 1: extending her minority from aged eighteen to age twenty one.

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Speaker 1: She refused, though, yeah, with the help of her governess.

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Speaker 1: Actually that was something that really endeared the woman to her.

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Speaker 1: But the Kensington system obviously couldn't maintain this strict privacy

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Speaker 1: constantly I mean, she was a queen to be and

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Speaker 1: so in eighteen thirty the Duchess of Kent decided that

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Speaker 1: she wanted to sort of validate her own education system

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Speaker 1: but also show off her daughter to Victoria's future people.

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Speaker 1: So she set up this series of examinations by three clerics,

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Speaker 1: and Victoria performed really well. The Duchess was valid validated

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Speaker 1: because I think the cleric said, yeah, we we couldn't.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't do anything better. She's being educated just as

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Speaker 1: she should be. But the Duchess also arranged for Victoria

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Speaker 1: to travel some and see her country, and that was

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Speaker 1: pretty a pretty major event in young Victoria's life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And in eighteen thirty two, before Victoria toward the Midlands

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Speaker 1: and North Wales, she was given a journal by her

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Speaker 1: mother and she kept a journal for the rest of

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Speaker 1: her life. I think we talked about that a lot

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Speaker 1: in the Victoria a Dual Caream episode, so we know

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Speaker 1: that she eventually even starts die like journaling in Hindustani,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive. Yeah. But what's interesting is when

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Speaker 1: you look at these early journals, sometimes the politely restrained

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Speaker 1: entries in Victoria's her journals of that time period contrast

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Speaker 1: with the quote behavior books that she kept from eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty and on for her governess. And these books basically,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you told me a little bit about them, Sarah.

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Speaker 1: It's basically like her governess wanted her to judge herself

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Speaker 1: so right down on her her opinion, on her conduct,

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Speaker 1: on her how she performed in her studies for the day,

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Speaker 1: and do that every single day, So a real self judgment.

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Speaker 1: So just to illustrate some of the differences you'd see

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Speaker 1: between the two. Sometimes um in one behavior book entry

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Speaker 1: from September thirty two, she wrote that she had been

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Speaker 1: very very, very very horribly naughty with many exclamation points,

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Speaker 1: all caps to all caps. But on the same day

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Speaker 1: as the horribly naughty entry, all she wrote in her

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Speaker 1: own journal is that the heat was intolerable. Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think this gives you sort of a

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Speaker 1: sense of victoria as a young girl. She's she's sort

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Speaker 1: of dramatic. She has this dramatic flare to her, maybe melodramatics,

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Speaker 1: and would say, but she's also good at at either

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Speaker 1: concealing things or or just sort of sort of playing

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Speaker 1: it cool, you know, not divulging everything in her journals,

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Speaker 1: maybe because I don't know, afraid a parent might read it,

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Speaker 1: or just practicing for the restraint she would need as queen.

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Speaker 1: So she had a only childhood, but not a completely

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Speaker 1: miserable one. She had a ton of pets. She liked

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Speaker 1: plain dress up, she liked writing. She wrote compositions inspired

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Speaker 1: by popular novels, and she also watercolored and would paint

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Speaker 1: costumes and poses after attending the theater or concerts. And

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Speaker 1: she was also strongly attached to her uncle Leopold, her

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Speaker 1: mother's brother and the one time husband of the Charlotte

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Speaker 1: who had died in childbirth, the one we mentioned earlier

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Speaker 1: in this episode. He lived in Surrey until becoming King

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Speaker 1: of the Belgians in eighteen thirty one. And it's through

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Speaker 1: Leopold's work that she meets her future match. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: only three months after Victoria's birth, her mother and Leopold's

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Speaker 1: other brother, the Duke of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, also had

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Speaker 1: a child named Albert, and it's it's really kind of cute.

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Speaker 1: Victoria is born at the beginning of the summer and

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Speaker 1: Albert's born at the end of the summer. But Albert

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Speaker 1: was the second son with no fortune coming his way,

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Speaker 1: so all along from his birth, his family kind of

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Speaker 1: hoped for this match with cousin Victoria since she clearly

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Speaker 1: had some good things coming to her. So for Victoria's

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Speaker 1: seventeenth birthday, the plans there. The family starts to try

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Speaker 1: to put this plan into action, and Albert and his

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Speaker 1: brother Ernest and his father all visited England. But Albert

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Speaker 1: was kind of an awkward teen at this point. He

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Speaker 1: sounds really awkward. Actually, he had fainting spells, um, he

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Speaker 1: didn't really like dancing. And Victoria was was sort of

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Speaker 1: a vivacious young girl even though she was raised in

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Speaker 1: such strict isolation, and she really had more of a

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Speaker 1: crush on these three visiting Persian princes anyway, So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna put Albert on the back burner. He didn't make

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Speaker 1: a great first impression, but apparently she put him on

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Speaker 1: the back burner as well. She did too, but um,

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Speaker 1: we need to move on anyways, because Victoria had some

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Speaker 1: pretty big changes coming her way. Yes Early on June

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Speaker 1: twentie eight thirty seven, King William the Fourth died. He

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Speaker 1: had managed to stay alive just long enough for his

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Speaker 1: niece to reach majority. She was barely eighteen when he

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Speaker 1: passed away, and after being told of her new position,

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Speaker 1: Victoria met with the Privy Council and they were really

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Speaker 1: impressed with her. She carried herself well, she spoke well.

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Speaker 1: Plus it was sort of romantic to have this teenage

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Speaker 1: queen well. And she's really an unknown quantity at this

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Speaker 1: point because of the Kensington system and the way she's

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Speaker 1: been raised. But for Victoria it was just a total relief.

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Speaker 1: She was free at last, and she moved to Buckingham

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Speaker 1: Palace and for the first time she had a room

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Speaker 1: to herself, and she's sort of on bad terms with

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Speaker 1: her mother because of the way she had brought John

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Speaker 1: Conroy into her life and all of that, and pushed

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Speaker 1: her mother away into far away apartments in Buckingham Palace

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Speaker 1: and sent Conroy off entirely and really enjoyed her independence

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Speaker 1: and sort of lived it up as you might expect

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Speaker 1: a teenager too, but later said it was the least

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Speaker 1: sensible and satisfactory time in her whole life. So she

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Speaker 1: she clearly realized that she overindulged a little bit in

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Speaker 1: her newfound freedom, didn't maybe take her role as seriously

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Speaker 1: as as she wished. She had. Later and there were

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Speaker 1: some errors that she made. In that early period. She

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Speaker 1: started a close relationship, for example, with Lord Melbourne, then

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister. He boosted herself confidence but also shaped her politics.

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Speaker 1: She became a Whig at this time and taught her

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Speaker 1: to partly ignore social problems or write them off as

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Speaker 1: the issues of agitators. Yeah, and that partisanship, which of

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Speaker 1: course the Queen was not supposed to be overtly partisan

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Speaker 1: like that really led to trouble. And two crises broke

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Speaker 1: out in eighteen thirty nine, And the first was the

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Speaker 1: Hastings affair. And this is just sort of a scandals

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Speaker 1: would be pregnancy story, but basically Victoria forced Lady Flora Hastings,

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Speaker 1: who was a maid of honor with Tory connection so

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Speaker 1: divergent from Victoria's own politics, to undergo a pregnancy examination

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Speaker 1: and it turned out that Hastings was not pregnant. That

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Speaker 1: was sort of scandal number one. Then within a year

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Speaker 1: Hastings died of a tumor that hadn't been diagnosed by

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Speaker 1: Victoria's physician, scandal number two. While that's going on, though,

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Speaker 1: there's another another issue brewing. Yeah, the bed chamber crisis,

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Speaker 1: which occurred when Melbourne resigned in eighteen thirty nine and

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Speaker 1: was replaced by Conservative Sir Robert Peel, but Victoria wanted

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Speaker 1: to keep her old wig Ladies of the bed Chamber,

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Speaker 1: so Peel wouldn't take office, and this caused a huge scandal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Victoria's desire to be independent, that's probably kind of

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Speaker 1: at root of the two scandals we just mentioned, but

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Speaker 1: independent as in single too, and that desire did not

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Speaker 1: go over well with Parliament. With her people, she needed

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Speaker 1: an air so Victoria reluctantly started to interview eligible Protestant

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Speaker 1: princes and it was kind of slim pickings. So in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine she invited cousin Albert back to England

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Speaker 1: from his studies at the University of Bonn. And he's

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Speaker 1: not an awkward teenagerney more. Victoria's smitten. She wrote in

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Speaker 1: her journal, Albert really is quite charming and so extremely handsome,

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Speaker 1: a beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waste.

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Speaker 1: My heart is quite going. Yeah, he was the one

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Speaker 1: and she liked what she saw, and since he was

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Speaker 1: not allowed to, Victoria proposed marriage just a few days later,

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Speaker 1: and the couple were married that February February tenth, eighteen forty,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't the most popular marriage match that could

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Speaker 1: have been. At least at first. Parliament wasn't pleased that

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Speaker 1: the Crown was about to get even more German. That's

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Speaker 1: how they saw it. The couple even spoke German at home,

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Speaker 1: so that was a big deal. And also the British

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Speaker 1: aristocracy found Albert to be overly moral, to academic and

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Speaker 1: to artistic. But the marriage also ironed out some of

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Speaker 1: Victoria's controversy before. We're happy at least that she was

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Speaker 1: married and there would be an heir in the future. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's certainly changed the way Victoria planned to rule,

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Speaker 1: which we're going to look at as well. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: this is about where the movie Young Victoria leaves off.

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Speaker 1: I think they have the conjoined desks and it's super cute,

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Speaker 1: but that's not exactly how things were going. So the

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Speaker 1: desks did exist, though I was pleased to want to that.

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Speaker 1: So for the first few months, Victoria was really determined

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Speaker 1: to stay independent. She she liked ruling on her own,

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Speaker 1: and so they did work at those conjoined tandem desks,

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Speaker 1: but Albert only got to block her signature, which for

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Speaker 1: a very ambitious and talented and educated man. This was

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Speaker 1: pretty frustrating, but of course we all know Victoria starts

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Speaker 1: to have lots of kids and biology really changed the

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Speaker 1: course of things for her. She got pregnant within weeks

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Speaker 1: of the wedding, and bit by bit, Albert started to

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Speaker 1: take on more important tasks. He would send dispatches, he'd

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Speaker 1: attend meetings with ministers, he even got the key to

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Speaker 1: the secret boxes. And over time he also started to

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Speaker 1: change the way Victoria thought about things and affect her politics.

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Speaker 1: Even her governess was dismissed, who had been the former

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Speaker 1: may influence in her life. And in eighteen forty two

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Speaker 1: there was an attempt on her life, and and the

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Speaker 1: kids just kept on coming too, right, well, there were

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Speaker 1: so many of them. Were just going to list off

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Speaker 1: their names really quickly. Princess Royal Victoria also known as Vicky,

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Speaker 1: Prince of Wales, um the later Edward, the Seventh, Princess Alice,

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Speaker 1: Prince Alfred, Princess Helena, Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold,

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Speaker 1: and Princess Beatrice, and the grandchildren started arriving only two

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Speaker 1: years after her last child was born, so she did

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Speaker 1: not have a gap in mothering so to speak. No,

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Speaker 1: she really didn't, And because she was out of commission

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Speaker 1: so much of every year, every single year, Albert really

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Speaker 1: took on an almost regent like role, and he did

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Speaker 1: in fact get a regency bill that allowed him to

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Speaker 1: act in the event of Victoria's death. Are in capacity.

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Speaker 1: But by eighty five, an observer named Charles Greville wrote, quote,

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Speaker 1: it is obvious that while she has the title, he

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Speaker 1: is really discharging the functions of the sovereign. He is

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Speaker 1: the king to all intents and purposes. And Albert saw

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Speaker 1: his role though as adviser to the Queen. As he

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Speaker 1: later told the Duke of Wellington, his goal was to

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Speaker 1: quote to be the natural head of the family, superintendent

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Speaker 1: of her household, manager of her private affairs, her sole

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Speaker 1: confidential adviser in politics, and only assist in her communications

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Speaker 1: with the officers of the government, her private secretary and

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Speaker 1: permanent minister. But he do all that at the expense

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Speaker 1: of his own identity, and pretty much working himself to

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Speaker 1: death in the process. YEA. So he wasn't going after

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Speaker 1: titles or or public recognition. He just wanted to play

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Speaker 1: this role and do it for Victoria and to to

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Speaker 1: hopefully do good at least that's that's how he saw it.

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Speaker 1: So their marriage, though, was generally considered to be a

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Speaker 1: happy one and something that really set a model for

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Speaker 1: people in the Victorian era. They focused heavily on educating

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Speaker 1: their children. They had these sort of middle class tastes,

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Speaker 1: especially if it Torria, because Albert did, after all, really

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Speaker 1: like science and technology and art and that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But Victoria liked reading Dickens novels and going to circuses

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Speaker 1: and seeing wax works that sort of thing. And the

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Speaker 1: couple also liked their privacy, and they're really famous for that.

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Speaker 1: Albert built residences at Osborne and Balmoral Castle for them

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Speaker 1: to escape too, and and as we I think we

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the Cream Abduel episode, those retreats really become

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Speaker 1: even more important maybe to Victoria in her in her

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Speaker 1: later life right. But Victoria also shouldn't be thought of

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Speaker 1: as a model Victorian wife and mother figure. She had

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Speaker 1: serious postpartum depression at times, and she did not like

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Speaker 1: being pregnant, and she really didn't like babies that much

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Speaker 1: in general. She didn't even really like kids. She called

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Speaker 1: pregnancy the quote shadow side of marriage and compared herself

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Speaker 1: to a cow or dog while she was pregnant. So

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Speaker 1: so that's kind of shocking, i'd say, coming from someone

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Speaker 1: who her identity is all hied. With these family portraits

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Speaker 1: of her and Albert and all of their little tiny

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Speaker 1: kids sitting around the Christmas tree or sitting around at

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Speaker 1: home relaxing, it does seem different. But I mean it's

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Speaker 1: just to show that this couple had an effect on

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Speaker 1: on their country, for sure, but they also led a

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Speaker 1: private personal life too. Yeah, but part of her dislike

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Speaker 1: of childbirth was that she wished she had gotten more

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Speaker 1: time with Albert alone. In late eighteen sixty one, Albert,

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Speaker 1: who was forty two years old at the time but

401
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Speaker 1: much older looking, raced off to Cambridge to chastise his

402
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Speaker 1: eldest son over an affair he'd had with a prostitute.

403
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Speaker 1: And after that, Albert pneumonia and took to bed. Doctors

404
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Speaker 1: diagnosed what he had as typhoid fever. But that was

405
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Speaker 1: probably a mistake, um modern analysis shows, and there hadn't

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Speaker 1: been typhoid fever in the area at all, right, and

407
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Speaker 1: so but at the time that's what they thought it was,

408
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Speaker 1: and they dosed him with Brandy until he died, and

409
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Speaker 1: though Victoria always blamed the death on their son, Albert

410
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Speaker 1: had known for some time that he wasn't feeling very well.

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Speaker 1: So it was probably stomach cancer, I think, is what

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Speaker 1: we now think he had. He had definitely been sick

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Speaker 1: with something. But Victoria, as as we talked about in

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Speaker 1: the last episode, and as most people know, went into

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Speaker 1: deep mourning after Albert's death, and she she said of him.

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Speaker 1: Without Albert, everything loses its interest. But we need to

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Speaker 1: talk about their legacy too, because the idea of the

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Speaker 1: happy couple of Victoria and Albert almost emerges more after

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Speaker 1: the fact because well alive, Albert had been often unpopular

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Speaker 1: and sometimes even used as a scapegoat because he was foreign.

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Speaker 1: Victoria's decision to name him as Prince Consort, for instance,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty seven, had been terribly mocked. She tried

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Speaker 1: to justify it by saying, well, our adult children are

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Speaker 1: going to start to outrank him because he's a foreign prince.

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Speaker 1: But people just thought it was a ridiculous decision. But

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Speaker 1: over time it became clear that he had greatly assisted

427
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: Victoria and helped shape her monarchy, and that they're happy

428
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Speaker 1: and strong marriage had influenced the country's tastes and morals,

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Speaker 1: so people started to think on a couple fondly, especially

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00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:08,480
Speaker 1: by the queen's old age and by the height of

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00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 1: her popularity, So the perception of them together definitely changed

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00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: over the years, and and looking back to they left

433
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: quite a legacy. Albert's grand achievement was, of course, the

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00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, and

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00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,719
Speaker 1: even over the years that people looking back on that

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00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: realized what a high point it had been for England.

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00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 1: And another great legacy of theirs is the Victoria and

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00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: Albert Museum, which sort of originally came out of the

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00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 1: Great Exhibition, but was was named the Victoria and Albert

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00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: Museum really really late in Victoria's life, clearly a sort

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00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: of touching tribute for her. I'm sure. Yeah. I have

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00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: to say, I personally love this story. I think it's

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00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,640
Speaker 1: a cool love story. It is. It is a nice

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00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: love story, and I mean, I feel like so many

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00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 1: of the royal couples we talked about just have kind

446
00:24:56,359 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: of miserable lives, so it's nice to find one that, um,

447
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: they really seemed happy together and they stayed together, talking

448
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: about love and relationships is actually a great way to

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00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: ease on into listener mail. We actually picked today's listener

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00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 1: mail because it goes along with our topic today and

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00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: also because it's kind of a first for us, don't

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00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: you think, Sarah, it's definite. It's a letter from Jim

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00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: in Akron, Ohio, and he writes, dear to Blein and Sarah.

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00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: I grew up on a romantic story of President McKinley's

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00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: proposal to his future wife Ida. They often took kara

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00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: drides together during their courtship, and after one such ride,

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00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 1: McKinley lamented how every one of these outings ended with

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00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: them leaving in opposite directions. When she shared the sentiment,

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00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: he said, quote, so what do you say we go

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00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: the same way from now on? And they were happily

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00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: married thereafter. I haven't been able to find any confirming

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00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 1: source for this story, so it may just be cherry

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00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 1: tree folklore. But I was wondering if you might be

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00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: able to let us know while you're at it, could

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00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,439
Speaker 1: you please announced that I love Julie very much and

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00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: I want to go the same way with her for

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00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. She's my best friend and

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00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: true soul mate, as proven by the fact that she'll

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00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,119
Speaker 1: be impressed that I proposed to her via stuff you

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00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: missed in history class. Julie, will you marry me? So

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00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: a podcast proposal, and we are now all eagerly awaiting

472
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 1: a response. Find out what happened from Jim and Julie.

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00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 1: Definitely let us know, guys, and I guess, but I

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00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: mean that's all we have to say. That's the way

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00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: to end the podcast. I don't think anything we could

476
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 1: say would be cooler than that, so we might as

477
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: well just get out of here. Um, if you would

478
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: like to write us, um and tell us anymore about Victoria,

479
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 1: any questions that you have. If you have the answer

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00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: to the McKinley story, I was not able to find it, Jim,

481
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but if anyone else knows about McKinley's proposal

482
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: to Ida, please write in Where History Podcast at how

483
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can look us up

484
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: on Facebook or on Twitter at Misston History. Yeah, and

485
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,880
Speaker 1: if you want to see pictures and learn a little

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00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:03,439
Speaker 1: bit more about other nice historical couples, we have a

487
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: great slide show on our home page. You can find

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00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: it by searching for historical couples At www dot how

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00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our

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00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how st

491
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing

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00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow. The houst Works iPhone app has a rise.

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00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes