During and after her long reign, plenty of very persistent gossip stuck to Queen Victoria’s name!
“WE ARE NOT AMUSED”
The quote most attributed to Queen Victoria supposedly happened when the famously dour monarch withered a merry courtier by telling him, “we are not amused.” In fact, there’s no evidence that she ever said any such thing and with dozens of eyewitness accounts each giving a different version of events, it seems that Queen Victoria never uttered the words and “we are not amused” is, in fact, her version of Marie Antoinette’s famously fictional “let them eat cake.” Since the quote has also been attributed to Queen Elizabeth I, the truth behind this most famous of sovereign putdowns is likely to remain unknown.
“With dozens of eyewitness accounts each giving a different version of events, it seems that Queen Victoria never uttered the words”
SHE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN LESBIANISM
Legend has it that when a law was passed in 1885 to make homosexuality illegal, the law didn’t criminalise lesbianism because Queen Victoria thought that intercourse between two women was physically impossible, so asked for such measures to be removed from the papers before she signed them. Another version of the story claims that all references to lesbianism were deleted before the law was given royal assent, because the politicians were too embarrassed at the thought of having to explain what the term meant to the aging monarch. In fact these stories are both untrue and Victoria had no power to overrule Parliament nor demand that laws be rewritten to suit her personal opinions. This myth actually began in 1977 in Wellington, New Zealand, when demonstrators asking for equality for lesbians gathered at a statue of Victoria and draped it with protest banners.
“LIE BACK AND THINK OF ENGLAND”
This line, or the similar “close your eyes and think of England”, was supposedly the advice given by Queen Victoria to her daughter when she admitted that she was worried about her wedding night. In other versions of the myth, the queen gave the advice when her daughter spoke to her about her fears of childbirth. The phrase was later attributed to a middle-aged noblewoman named Lady Alice Hillingdon, who wrote in her diary, “When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England.” In fact, that supposed diary has never been found and it’s more likely that the expression is simply one that was used to poke fun at the prudish Victorian attitude to sex. With the queen’s reputation, it’s little wonder that it eventually attached itself to her.
AFTER ALBERT’S DEATH SHE ONLY WORE BLACK
The image of Queen Victoria, with a poker-straight face and an ever-expanding frame swathed in deep mourning black, is one that has endured over the decades. Victoria’s lifelong dedication to mourning the death of Prince Albert has defined her in the public consciousness ever since. She outlived him by 40 years and every morning until her own death, had clothes for her deceased husband laid out and water put out for him to shave with, as though he might still walk through the door. She slept next to a picture of Albert and never wore anything but black from that day forward. Yet when Victoria died, she wanted her mourning to end. She left instructions that she was to be buried in white, wearing her wedding veil, ready to be reunited with her love in the hereafter.
SHE HAD AN AFFAIR WITH JOHN BROWN
After she was widowed, Queen Victoria enjoyed an exceptionally close friendship with John Brown, her Scottish personal servant, and some believed they were lovers or even secret spouses. When Brown died she was devastated, and a portrait of Brown was buried with the queen at her death. But there is little evidence to suggest that the couple were anything more than dear friends.
SHE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF A SOLDIER
Queen Victoria’s childhood was blighted by the oppressive domestic regime of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duchess’ friend and alleged lover, John Conroy, who was also rumoured to be Victoria’s father. The rumours were so widespread that even Wellington believed them, though the queen never acknowledged them.
SHE OFFERED A KNIGHTHOOD FOR FRUIT
In the mid 20th century, a fruit importer selling mangosteens claimed that the fruit was so tasty and rare that Queen Victoria had offered a knighthood to anyone that could provide them. Sadly this fruity rumour was nothing but a very canny sales tactic!
SHE WASN’T A POLITICAL QUEEN
During her early reign and marriage, Queen Victoria was a keenly political monarch, tutored by Lord Melbourne in the arts of Westminster. After Albert’s death the queen seemed to lose interest in politics but in fact she was as involved as ever, continually fascinated by political manoeuvres.
“After Albert’s death the queen seemed to lose interest in politics but she was as involved as ever, fascinated by political manoeuvres”
SHE HAD AN AFFAIR WITH THE PRIME MINISTER
Thanks to modern retellings of the queen’s life, early rumours that she was the lover of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne have resurfaced. In fact Victoria’s relationship with Melbourne began as pupil and mentor and evolved into something more resembling a daughter and father, filling a need for both of them.
SHE WAS ESTRANGED FROM HER MOTHER
After she was kept in lonely seclusion during childhood by the Duchess of Kent, mother and daughter did become estranged. However, after the birth of Victoria’s first child the duchess was moved out of her isolated palace apartments and welcomed back into the bosom of the royal family.
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