Queen Victoria's Children

Nelliem

You little minx , CSL

I think Victoria had spent holidays on the I of W as a child and loved it. She certainly never wanted to leave it.

I was trying to think of the name of Osborne House as I was going to mention it. Can't help but feel that was Albert's influence/idea.

I think most historians now agree that Albert didn't die of typhoid fever. Some think he had stomach cancer and some Crohn's disease.
Not suggesting it was anything to do with his death, but has anyone else read the book about how many Victorians were killed quickly or slowly by arsenic poisoning in green pigment in wallpapers, paint etc?
I often wonder how much illness and debilitation was down to contaminated foods and poor diet.
I think one thing that was good about V and A's treatment of their children was how they had a lot of freedom at Osborne with outdoor games, vegetable plots to tend etc. Quite unusual I think. They were certainly unusual in rearing nine live children.

He actually sound like quite a dear person.

There was a comment somewhere that Albert suffered already from stomach troubles well before he got the typhoid which killed him. It sounds too as though he was a perfectionist, so he would have worried about details and produced a lot of stomach acid. Keeping up with Victoria in the bedroom as well as in daily decisions, and combatting the politicians who resented his influence would not have helped. The poor man was worn out.

crimson do you think it was her constant demands that finished him off, rather than Bertie's misdemeanours. I think John Brown died relatively young as well

, crimson!

Wonder if her constant physical demands were a bit too much for him and, with her being the Queen and all that he couldn't say he 'had a headache' ...

I watched all of the episodes one after the other on i-Player last night. It was mentioned that Victoria and Albert were so passionate about each other and enjoyed their sexual relationship immensely. It was said that neither had any idea about how to prevent children being conceived, so their babies were born in quick succession. Victoria seemed to see her children as a rather irritating nuisance, and something that was more an inconvenience to her relationship with Albert. She really did seem to be 'not a very nice woman', and very emotionally needy. If Albert had lived to be an older man things with the family may have been very different, perhaps.
Isn't it strange that she resented her children, rather than he did? Is it not often more the case that the father sees the children as the barrier between he and his wife?

nonu The idea of a picture of her "hanging" on your landing is interesting!
You must have really disliked her!

The thread on Mumsnet is in AIBU and is entitled "To think Queen Victoria was a nutter". It is very interesting with some particularly informed comment particularly towards the end.

There has been a parallel thread on Mumsnet, where people have quoted from letters which show a completely different side to the relationships, especially with her daughters. Also, someone on there pointed out that the death of Alice was hardly mentioned in the programme, probably because Victoria was distraught with grief for her for ages and that didn't fit the hypothesis. I still think it was a biased and incomplete picture, distorted through a modern lens. I don't doubt the views of the individual experts and I admire Juliet Gardiner and Miranda Carter particularly, but I think the programme was edited to be sensationalist and fit a particular, extreme viewpoint, when the truth (whatever historical truth means) is always much more complex and nuanced. (And as I said before, I am no fan of Victoria).

Having seen that documentary Queen Vic seems to have been a dreadfully dysfunctional mother. Emotional abuse comes to mind.

I don't think that's the reason young mothers don't bottlefeed now, Deedaa! I think it's partly that it went out of fashion, and also that a lot of women have to go back to work so quickly after having a baby. I've never heard any woman say they regard their breasts as exclusively for the pleasure of their partner!

I was rather struck by the idea of her daughter reading Darwin and Karl Marx - didn't really fit in with Victoria's Camelot ideals did it? The suggestion that she didn't breastfeed because her breasts were for Albert's pleasure surprised me. I thought that was quite a recent concept, hence all the young girls who bottle feed now. What a nightmare to live with though!

I've just watched the programme about the daughters. The way she tried to stop Vicky and Alice breastfeeding was appalling. She was really horrid about babies too. However, the princesses became strong and influential women in their own right, in spite of - or was it because of?- her attempts to control them. Did her behaviour make them stronger?

It is so hard to make a judgement as clearly the choice of extracts from V's letters was intended to reflect her troubled relationship with her children. For all I know there may have been other affectionate entries. However - to write some of the things that she did about her children is mind-boggling and deeply unmaternal! No wonder the poor royal family has troubles with history like that.

I know it's sort of obvious but sometimes I have to remind myself that people in the past were actually in 'their' present and that things were happening around them that must have made them marvel; discoveries and theories and dinosaur bones and stuff.

I know, crimson isn't it such a shame that it was destroyed - it must have been out of this world!

I watched all three and found it fascinating yet cruel, especially the treatment of poor Leopold.

I so wanted to see the series but couldn't watch it for three nights running. Hope it's repeated. It's reminded me that there's a new Stephen Poliakof starting soon. I did enjoy The Lost Prince, but thought he lost his way after that [no pun intended].I am fascinated by that time, though. If I could go back in time it would be to go to The Great Exhibition.

Merlot , I like it , LOL

Or if she liked a little something with it she could ask for water on the knee!

nonu Apparently she thought it was the only way to achieve good health. Goodness knows how she managed to do it. but after Albert's death she could have invented 'Knees Up Mother Brown'