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00:00Victoria.
00:03The royal who invented the modern monarchy.
00:08Queen who made Britain an empire.
00:13Victoria's Britain is ruling the waves, ruling the world.
00:18But who was the real woman beneath the crown?
00:22In this series, we discover Victoria as we've never seen her before.
00:26A sensuous young queen.
00:30He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again.
00:36A reluctant mother of nine.
00:39Victoria definitely didn't like babies.
00:41Almost grosses her out to see her own children.
00:45A devastated widow.
00:48She was suicidal, absolutely.
00:50She was inconsolable.
00:53And a passionate wife.
00:56It's not Victoria the Virgin, it's Victoria the hot mother.
01:01Using remarkable archived treasures and through her own words in journals and diaries,
01:07we tell the story of a complex, very human queen.
01:12Those tiny seconds of moving film, they completely change how we see this monarch.
01:22This is really exciting new evidence about Victoria.
01:26We think we know everything, but we don't.
01:29This time, Victoria is left a widow after the death of her beloved Albert.
01:35She simply didn't want to be sovereign.
01:40She wanted to be alone.
01:41She runs away from public life and leaves Britain without a queen.
01:46MPs are openly saying it's time to wind the monarchy up.
01:51But Victoria fights back to win power and the love of her people.
01:56There's a sense in which the empire comes home and it puts on an amazing show.
02:02She suddenly realised that what she'd missed was huge crowds of people there for her and her alone.
02:08This is the private life of Queen Victoria.
02:13After 60 years on the throne, a regal Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee.
02:29Victoria was now the ruler of an empire that spanned the globe.
02:34She was probably the most famous person on the planet.
02:44A mother to seven grown-up children, many married into Europe's leading royal dynasties.
02:52The 78-year-old monarch, loved by her people, waves at the cheering crowds on this summer day of 1897.
03:01She's smiling at people and she's laughing and she enjoys so much that connection with her public.
03:11Victoria was at the top of her game as both monarch and matriarch.
03:16She defined an era.
03:18She was the only monarch the vast majority of people had ever known on the throne.
03:23So I suppose it's a little bit like Queen Elizabeth today.
03:26Who among us can envisage a time when there isn't a Queen Elizabeth?
03:29Victoria was in a very real sense Britain.
03:32All vied with one another to give me a heartfelt, loyal and affectionate welcome.
03:40I was deeply touched and gratified.
03:45The jubilee had been a moment of triumph.
03:49But after the death of her husband Albert 36 years earlier,
03:53it had seemed unlikely a day like this would ever come.
03:58The death of Albert on the 14th of December 1861 sent shockwaves through the country.
04:13In London, the bells of St. Paul's rang out, signalling a national crisis.
04:20Britain was in mourning for the Prince.
04:28It was an absolute shock.
04:30The man was only 42.
04:35It's a little bit like Princess Diana's funeral.
04:38A sense that there's an absolute sea change,
04:40that something important has happened.
04:44And while the nation mourned, Victoria was tortured by grief.
04:49She had lost the love of her life.
04:51She'd lost her partner, her friend.
04:53In her diary, she wrote,
04:55To lose one's partner in life is like losing half of one's body and soul.
05:02It's like death in life.
05:04She was suicidal.
05:05She was inconsolable.
05:08She couldn't use her legs.
05:10She stopped eating.
05:12The funeral at St. George's Chapel in Windsor was to be attended by dignity.
05:18from around the world.
05:20Kings, lords and politicians were there, paying their respects.
05:25But unbelievably, Queen Victoria herself wouldn't be there.
05:33Women didn't go to funerals because there's a sense in which it's too upsetting for them.
05:40They do morning work, if you like, but they do it at home.
05:47And as a dutiful wife, Victoria followed convention.
05:51Victoria was a woman and she was expected to adhere to the norms of society.
05:56Women were seen as more hysterical.
05:58They were seen as more emotional.
05:59They were seen as much less rational.
06:02So, despite being ruler of the British Empire, doctors told Victoria to stay away from the funeral and go home.
06:11She travelled back to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, 60 miles away from Windsor, and the prying eyes of the public.
06:21But despite her incredible grief, Victoria was expected to show the public it was business as usual.
06:31For the monarchy, it was considered essential to national morale.
06:36So, this is from the Dundee Advertiser, Friday the 20th of December, 1861.
06:43That the shock has not seriously affected the Queen's health will rejoice the heart of all her loving subjects.
06:49Indeed, so favourable is the state of her health considered to be, that no further bulletins are to be issued.
06:57So, basically, what this is saying is, don't panic, Britain.
07:00The Queen is absolutely fine.
07:04Except we know she really, really wasn't.
07:10While she mourned on the Isle of Wight, the state funeral to bury her husband began at the chapel in Windsor.
07:22Desperate to be close to the great love of her life, Victoria had placed a last memento with his body.
07:29She had it done for Albert, and it was always his favourite portrait of her.
07:34I don't think there's any other way to put it.
07:36It's an incredibly erotic picture of Victoria.
07:40She's got her beautiful hair is hanging right the way down to her bust.
07:46It's not Victoria the Virgin, it's Victoria the Hot Mama.
07:54When the time finally came to bury Albert, Victoria confessed to her oldest daughter, Vicky, how pointless her life now felt.
08:03It is one o'clock, and all, all is over.
08:12But, oh, only to have feelings of utter brokenheartedness, utter despair of the life I am to lead.
08:20After Albert's death, Victoria stopped writing in the diary she'd kept since a child.
08:38Now, nearly three weeks later, she began writing again.
08:44But only to say how desperate she felt.
08:50I have been unable to write my journal since the day my beloved one left us.
08:55And with what a heavy, broken heart, I enter on a new year without him.
09:01Victoria hadn't only lost her soul mate, but her great support, and now she'd have to manage alone.
09:10A widow queen without Albert by her side.
09:14She kept his room exactly as it was when he died.
09:18Right down to the little glass that he'd used to take his medicine from, that remained in the room.
09:23The servants would come in every morning to lay out fresh towels, fresh clothes, and the hot water for him to shave with.
09:30The children were not expected to be merry and to do the sorts of things that children did.
09:38Because Albert's death ought to be preoccupying them as much as it was preoccupying her.
09:47Victoria and her family began an established phase of mourning.
09:51As a new widow, she'd follow an elaborate set of social rituals.
09:56There are prescribed periods of time for people to mourn.
10:02For widows, it's two years.
10:05If you have a lesser relation, then it's six months or it's a year.
10:09Everything becomes very, very set down.
10:12Funeral rites become a kind of performance.
10:15For this period of mourning, widow women were expected to only leave the house when they absolutely had to and stay out of kind of social events.
10:25So the dress had to be black, but also accessories, the handkerchief, the lace, the stockings, shoes, belt buckles.
10:34Everything had to be black.
10:40Victoria's mourning wear became her signature look, like a uniform for facing her public without Albert.
10:47Victoria, although she initially announced she would wear mourning for at least two years,
10:53very quickly decided that she was going to wear deepest mourning for Albert for the rest of her life.
11:00She didn't want to surrender her grief because her grief became an expression of her love for Albert.
11:08It's how she defined herself.
11:11Grieving for Albert was now all Victoria cared about, despite her public duties.
11:18But his death meant that she was now left alone to rule.
11:23When Albert was around, she was eclipsed in terms of the position that she held
11:28because he took over much of the direction of the monarchy.
11:33She'd effectively been indoctrinated, and so suddenly to be without this man who had persuaded her that she needed him,
11:42it was actually terrifying for Victoria.
11:45The amount of work which comes upon me is more than I can bear.
11:50I, who always hated business, have now nothing but that.
11:54Public and private, it falls upon me.
11:57Soon, the pressure to be monarch and widow was too much.
12:04Victoria fled from Buckingham Palace and the scrutiny of public life.
12:11To the remote Scottish Highlands, her special place to rest and retreat.
12:17But by doing it, she left Britain without a queen.
12:21Overwhelmed by the death of her beloved husband Albert, Victoria had abandoned her duties as queen to grieve in private.
12:34She escaped to her highland retreat, Balmoral, the castle they built together.
12:39It's a big statement of withdrawal to go so far away from London.
12:45You know, this is a long way away.
12:47It was like escaping to a kind of fairyland.
12:50She simply didn't want to be sovereign.
12:56She wanted to be alone.
12:57Balmoral gave Victoria the privacy she wanted, but it came at a cost.
13:14It was filled with memories of Albert.
13:16Everything, even down to the smallest detail, is somehow associated with him and his memory.
13:23Eventually, the castle became too much and she built a private cottage just for her and called it her widow's house.
13:32She really did use that as a way of retreating from Balmoral, which was itself a retreat from London life.
13:40Reach the glass out she at half past six.
13:43It looks so cheerful and comfortable, all lit up, and the little rooms are so cosy and nice.
13:52She would go with very select groups, so one lady, maybe just a couple of servants and one chef.
13:57And there they would eat very, very simply.
13:59She would, for example, go fishing and then they would eat their catch by the side of the river.
14:06Victoria also found comfort in nearby Blair Castle, home to Anne Murray, the Duchess of Athol.
14:16Rarely seen correspondence between the two women reveals an intimate friendship that was vital to Victoria's recovery.
14:23This is 50 years of letters between Queen Victoria to Duchess Anne, so they're quite an undiscovered treasure trove.
14:34This book was given to the Duchess by Victoria to commemorate a year after Albert's death.
14:43Along with that was sent this amazing little envelope.
14:49And it says the precious hair of my beloved and adored husband, December 14, 1861.
14:59I'll open it up and still inside is a lock of Albert's hair.
15:07Not something I would send to my friend, but I think it highlights how close they were.
15:18Victoria stayed in the Highlands well beyond her official two-year period of mourning, returning only occasionally to Osborne House or Windsor to see the family.
15:28The magic of the Highlands and the escape from her public life and duty suited the Queen.
15:35Our beloved Balmoral, with its glorious scenery and heavenly air, its solitude and absence of all contact with the mere miserable frivolities and worldliness of this wicked world.
15:50But after more than 20 years of marriage, Victoria felt increasingly alone and she began to crave male companionship.
16:04There's a desire for a strong manly presence who will look after her as if she is the delicate creature that she feels herself to be.
16:22And one man was spending an increasing amount of time with the Queen. He was a Balmoral servant called John Browne.
16:37He was tall, curly blonde hair and good looking broad shoulders and Victoria was a sucker for someone that looked a bit like that. He looked a real Highlander.
16:47John Browne took Victoria fishing and riding. He even carried her to and from her horse.
16:56And as they grew closer and closer, she decided to promote him.
17:02I have now appointed that excellent Highland servant of mine to attend me always and everywhere out of doors.
17:10But not everyone shared Victoria's enthusiasm for her Scottish servant.
17:15John Browne is not a likeable man. Clearly, Victoria thought he was absolutely fantastic.
17:22But as far as everybody else was concerned, he was a drunken bore.
17:28It was very much based on class.
17:34I mean, let's face it, if an outsider comes in and starts to get the Queen's ear, I mean, goodness me.
17:39Victoria ignored the gossip and the tittle tattle and stuck by John Browne.
17:49He is so devoted and attached and clever and so wonderfully able to interpret one's wishes.
17:56He is a real treasure to me now.
18:03They would go out sitting on hillsides in the rain drinking whiskey together.
18:08They would also have an awful lot of private time together.
18:12You know, the little cottage that she built for herself.
18:14Whiskey toddy was brought round for everyone and Browne begged I would drink to the fire kindling.
18:24I mean, John Browne clearly feels that he has a license to say anything to the Queen.
18:29At one point, he tells her that she's putting on too much weight.
18:32And instead of being completely offended, she takes that on board.
18:38He gave her something nobody else was giving her, which was an honest view.
18:41I think he sort of shocked her out of herself in some ways.
18:45She could be who she wanted to be with him.
18:48Albert's death had left a huge hole in her life and John Browne filled it.
18:54Often I told him, no one loved him more than I did or had a better friend than me.
19:02And he answered, nor you than me. No one loves you more.
19:09But questions persisted about the close nature of their relationship.
19:14The rumour mill went into overdrive.
19:17And there was only one thing on everyone's mind.
19:20When people talk about the John Browne thing, the thing they always fixate on is, is sex.
19:29They really feel that she is probably shacked up with John Browne, having delicious Highland sex.
19:36I mean, people's fantasies run riot.
19:39We thought she was in mourning. We thought she did nothing but weep over Prince Albert.
19:44It turns out that she's been having a very nice life, thank you very much, in secret.
19:51Victoria's retreat from public view lasted for much longer than the two years people were expecting.
19:58And her constant refusal to take part in public ceremonies was causing concern.
20:02As if to reassure the nation that she was a dutiful Queen, she commissioned Sir Edward Landseer to paint a portrait of her as a widow.
20:14But the painting didn't have the desired effect.
20:18In fact, it backfired.
20:20And when it was shown, her popularity took another dive.
20:23So this painting fails because it's trying to say so much, but it isn't answering the question that's being asked.
20:32She's trying to use this image to respond to mounting criticism against her seclusion and her abandonment of duty.
20:40She tries to signal her continuing work in a series of ways in this painting.
20:44She's working on matters of state. She has her letter in her hand.
20:50She has stopped to deal with this rather urgent matter mid pony rides because it's so important, the work that she is getting on with.
20:59She also suggests that she's keeping up with her motherly work.
21:03We have an image of two of her daughters very content in the background.
21:08But the public didn't want a painting. They wanted to see their Queen in person.
21:14By the mid 1860s, her ministers and even her own family were becoming frantic about her absence.
21:22And people started to ask, was she even fit to rule?
21:31The death of Prince Albert devastated Victoria.
21:35Consumed by grief, she locked herself away in Balmoral, far away from her subjects and her royal engagements.
21:42But after five years of mourning, the country had had enough.
21:47Basically what's happening here is that Victoria is doing what she wants to do.
22:00And she's using her grief as a weapon.
22:03Because when people say you ought to spend more time in London and you ought to be seen, she says, I can't possibly do it.
22:09You know, my nerves are so awful.
22:11It's something that she could put up as a defence when she doesn't want to do something.
22:15And it's difficult to challenge a widow, isn't it really?
22:20The goodwill that she and Albert had built up was fading fast.
22:25And her demand for isolation was making her seem out of touch.
22:30Or even worse, as if she didn't care about the nation and her people.
22:34There was increasing criticism of Victoria.
22:38So it became very apparent that it was Victoria who didn't want to fulfil the public role of sovereign.
22:44Victoria's refusal to engage in her public duties was helping to fuel a new and energised clamour to get rid of the monarch.
22:53There are radical politicians, MPs in Parliament, who are openly saying that perhaps it's time to wind the monarchy up.
23:04Yet Victoria remained hidden away in Balmoral, dressed in her black dresses, stubbornly refusing to carry out the duties of state.
23:16After almost six years trying to avoid the public and her official duties, the Queen relented.
23:23and agreed to open Parliament in 1867.
23:28And the weather that day seemed to reflect her mood.
23:33It poured.
23:35And the poor people, of whom there were great members out, must have got very wet.
23:41But when she came face to face with her people, she didn't get the reception she'd hoped for.
23:47She probably expected that the crowds would be glad to see her, but she was very, very shocked that she was hissed by the crowds.
23:57She'd never had that before.
23:59All together, I regret I went. There were many nasty faces and I felt it painfully. At such times, the sovereign should not be there.
24:10The incident made Victoria realise that her relationship with the public was broken.
24:18And that she had to find a way to reconnect with her subjects.
24:23She decided against giving a speech or organising a public event.
24:31Instead, she made an unusual decision.
24:35She published a book.
24:37Leaves from the Journal of Our Lives in the Highlands.
24:40It was a series of extracts from her diaries covering the time she spent hidden away in Scotland.
24:48The idea was that this would explain her absence, give the public the chance to understand why she needed to get away.
24:57And hopefully encourage them to forgive her.
24:59It's so extraordinary. I mean, if you think about it, this is the first time a monarch has written a book about their life.
25:08I mean, we tend to think that this all started with Princess Diana and writing those books in which we got an insight into what was going on in her marriage.
25:17But no, Queen Victoria actually writes a book about her. It's extraordinary.
25:21It is very gratifying to see how people appreciate what is simple and right, and how especially my truest friends, the people, feel it.
25:38Victoria was really proud of her book and wanted to show it off to those she admired, particularly her favourite writer, Charles Dickens.
25:48He agrees to meet her and she very coyly gives him a copy of her book and says something along the lines of,
25:56Mr. Dickens, I know I'm not really patron you, but, you know, please accept this.
26:01And he has to do a sort of smirk through gritted teeth.
26:05But he thinks the book is, he calls it preposterous.
26:08Although Dickens was not a fan of the book, the public snapped it up and it sold more than 18,000 copies.
26:19The letters flow in saying how much more than ever I shall be loved now that I'm understood.
26:25Her book had achieved its objective. Victoria was back and she intended to seize this new goodwill and run with it.
26:38At the age of 68, the Queen was about to celebrate her 50th anniversary on the throne.
26:54London was transformed.
26:56The crowds from the palace gates up to the abbey were enormous and there was such an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm.
27:05It's typical of Victoria that she thinks she doesn't want public adoration and actually the one thing she really does want is public adoration.
27:13So when the crowds came out, she suddenly realised that what she'd missed was huge crowds of people there for her and her alone.
27:20The decorations along Piccadilly were quite beautiful and they were most touching inscriptions.
27:29Victoria is always a sucker for love.
27:32That sense of, they like me, no they love me, was absolutely intoxicating to her.
27:39This never to be forgotten day will always leave the most gratifying and heart-stirring memories.
27:47The Queen had fought back. Once again she had power and popularity.
28:00Following the glorious Golden Jubilee celebrations in the summer of 1887, Queen Victoria was overwhelmed with gifts from all over the world.
28:09And something unexpected came from India, two young men to serve at Her Majesty's pleasure.
28:19They are dressed to the nines, have these grand turbans and their sole purpose is to stand behind her and sort of represent the Indian Empire.
28:28The two new servants, Abdul Karim and Mohammed Baksh arrived at Windsor Castle.
28:39Before they serve, they come and they kiss her feet.
28:44And Abdul Karim, he's been told that you have to walk backwards, you must not look at the Queen.
28:49And of course, what do you do when you're told don't look up? He looks up.
28:56The one, Mohammed Baksh, very dark, with a very smiling expression, has been a servant before.
29:04And the other, much younger, called Abdul Karim, much lighter, tall and with a fine, serious countenance.
29:11She dismisses Baksh in one sentence and writes a lot more about Karim.
29:18So we know right from the start, he's got her eye.
29:28By the time Abdul Karim came on the scene, Victoria was almost 70.
29:34But despite her age, she was longing for someone to love.
29:38When Abdul Karim comes into Victoria's life, she's experiencing quite a dramatic loss from John Brown,
29:46the loss of an intimate confidant and friend.
29:50Quite quickly, as he and Victoria begin to communicate,
29:53and she sees that he is somebody who's clever and educated and talented and skilled,
29:59but also becomes quite attracted to his personality.
30:01It looked as if Abdul could become the latest in line of Victoria's male companions.
30:11To keep him close to her, she decided to take Urdu lessons from him,
30:16and she promoted him to be her personal secretary, or Munshi, in Urdu.
30:22I particularly wish to retain his services, as he helps me in studying Hindustani,
30:30which interests me very much, and he's very intelligent and useful.
30:34She took great pleasure in learning and writing this new language from her ever-expanding empire.
30:42Learning to say things like,
30:43The tea is always bad at Osborne House.
30:47The egg is not boiled enough.
30:49She got off on the fact that she could learn something new, even at a relatively advanced age.
30:56And he was someone who thrilled her with his exoticism, with his words, with his personality.
31:03He tells her about, you know, the heat and dust, the colour, the festivals, the spices.
31:09Suddenly she's transported into a different world.
31:13She lets Abdul have more and more influence over her.
31:24Following Abdul's advice, she built a grand entertainment room at Osborne House,
31:30in the style of the Indian emperors, known as the Durba Room.
31:36A sort of mini India on the Isle of Wight.
31:40This room reflects this exuberance she was feeling.
31:44Her spirits had really revived.
31:46And I think this relation with Abdul Karim added a lease to her life.
31:51And this is where she held audience.
31:53She invited guests.
31:54She showed off her mini India to the world.
32:00So every detail from here was actually planned in India.
32:05Every object in this room, the lamps, the curtains, the carpet, they were all brought from India.
32:17The room looked very fine, with the chimney piece finished and surrounded by a beautiful peacock with a spread tail.
32:25Victoria used the room to entertain guests from all over the world and remind them of her status as Empress of India.
32:36So this beautiful book is the ledger of all the menus of the lunches that were done in Osborne House.
32:43So let's open it up a bit.
32:47There we go. Wow.
32:48It's heavy.
32:50So this is the lunch menu from Sunday the 13th of February.
32:54And it's got lots of items listed on it. Some are in French.
32:58But here we have the very special item that was one of Queen Victoria's favourites.
33:02And it's Indian chicken curry.
33:05And this was served nearly every day.
33:08The other favourite was Dal, which was also served.
33:11So she was the original curry fan.
33:15Dal show her interest in food, her adventurousness and her open mindedness as well when it came both to food and to cultures which were not her own.
33:24Victoria loved her food.
33:27And her new fondness for curry became a national obsession.
33:30We do see that real curries, that real taste, real spice, how to cook them, starts to make its way from Victoria's court out into the general public.
33:42And people like Eliza Acton, who publishes a very famous cookbook for housewives, especially for middle class housewives, starts to include recipes for how to make your own curry.
33:52While Victoria was enjoying eating curries and spending time with Abdul, their friendship didn't go down well with the rest of the court.
34:06It crosses so many taboos. He's much younger than her. He's very lowly born. And of course, he's of a different ethnic background. I mean, that is so shocking to people.
34:17He was hated by the court, both because of racism, but also because of classism. He was seen as having undue influence on the Queen. In many ways, these were all the arguments that have been rehearsed with John Brown.
34:31But now added into that was this real nasty element of racism as well.
34:40Once again, Victoria's personal life threatened her position as Queen.
34:43Soon, even her own children joined the conspiracy and turned against her.
34:50Bertie in particular.
34:54She is treating Abdul as the son, and the real son is sort of being sidelined.
35:00And there is this letter, and it shows how she is dictating to Bertie.
35:05She literally tells him, you will be courteous to the Munshi. You will do this. You will do that.
35:11And at the end of it, it's Cece the Munshi.
35:16So he's copied in on this letter.
35:20Bertie is so furious with their relationship, he does something incredible.
35:24He sends a letter to the Queen's doctor and asks him to write a report suggesting that she should step down on grounds of insanity.
35:33Well, Queen Victoria is Queen Victoria.
35:40She is not going to be bullied by her doctor or her son or the households.
35:47So she gives it right back to them.
35:49Victoria was ahead of her time when it came to racial justice.
35:52In anger, she wrote a cutting letter to the court, accusing them of snobbery and racism.
36:00The Queen would wish to observe that to make out the poor, good Munshi is so low, is really outrageous.
36:09And in a country like England, quite out of place.
36:12Victoria, even in her old age, is a feisty woman.
36:18I think she is enjoying this, you know, this clash she's having with her son, with the household.
36:25It's giving her a lot of energy.
36:27Victoria won the fight and kept Abdul by her side for the rest of her life.
36:32To her family and her nation, the feisty Queen seemed tireless and eternal.
36:43But her energy couldn't last forever.
36:51At the turn of the 20th century, Queen Victoria became the longest serving monarch Britain had ever seen,
36:57as she celebrated over 60 years on the throne.
37:01Now approaching 80, she had an astonishing 42 grandchildren.
37:08She was fully embracing the image of grandmother to her family and her nation.
37:16And she was enjoying unprecedented popularity.
37:19No one ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation as was given to me.
37:40Finally, she was successfully combining her roles as monarch and matriarch.
37:49There's a new way of being Queen.
37:52She's freer now as an elderly woman.
37:54There's nothing is expected of her.
37:57All the early battles are won.
37:59And there's a sense in which all she has to do now is relax and claim that popularity.
38:07Some remarkable footage taken during a visit to Dublin in 1900
38:12showed just how much she loved the connection with her public.
38:15What we have here is truly amazing.
38:21She's an old woman, but she's still engaging with the crowd.
38:24She's seen so many crowds during her lifetime.
38:27But their love continues to please her.
38:31I can never forget the really wild enthusiasm and affectionate loyalty displayed by all.
38:38Those tiny seconds of moving film, they completely change how we see this monarch.
38:47She's not dull and boring and a woman trapped in grief who has no joy in life.
38:52She's someone who loves the people that are around her and connects to them in a very human way.
39:04By this point in Victoria's life, she has already defined an era.
39:10She has spanned a century almost.
39:15Even by this stage, people know it as the Victorian era.
39:20She's an icon.
39:22Victoria is so fascinating because her life was so long and so much happened within it.
39:27It was a very influential era, the Victorian era.
39:29I mean, we went from essentially an agrarian economy with limited industrialisation to something very much more akin to the modern world we see today.
39:40Britain found it impossible to imagine a world without Victoria because she had always been there.
39:47So in a sense, it's not just that she becomes part of the furniture.
39:52She kind of is the world.
39:53But the world was about to crumble.
40:00As the winter of 1900 approached, only a few months after her Dublin visit, Victoria started to feel ill.
40:17I have not been feeling very well these last days and can eat very little.
40:24She was starting to lose her appetite and that was a really big sign.
40:29Even she recognised that something was wrong.
40:32This was a Queen who had always eaten and eaten well.
40:37The sitting through meals unable to eat anything is most trying.
40:45The Queen was exhausted.
40:47She left Windsor and went to rest at Osborne House.
40:51She continued keeping her diary until she physically couldn't.
40:59On the 13th of January 1901, after 69 years of almost uninterrupted journaling, a diminished Victoria dictated her last diary entry to her daughter.
41:11Had a fair night, but was a little wakeful.
41:16Got up earlier and had some milk.
41:19At 5.30 went down to the drawing room, where a short service was held.
41:24It was a great comfort to me.
41:30A week later, on the 22nd of January 1901, Victoria was lying in bed.
41:37She couldn't believe the end was coming.
41:39I don't want to die yet.
41:44There are several things I want to arrange.
41:48She died a lot and kept coming back to life.
41:51So in the morning they thought they were going to lose her.
41:53As she slipped slowly to what looked like a final coma.
41:58But no, she fought her way back again.
42:01She even signed some letters and had something to eat.
42:05You really do get a sense of a Queen who still sees that there is life to be lived and isn't willing to stop living it yet.
42:12But that same day, at 6.30pm, Victoria whispered her final words.
42:24Interestingly, her last words are supposed to be Bertie.
42:30We don't know if that was said in sorrow, anger.
42:34I think it's very, very telling because she knows now this young man, now actually 59, is the way forward.
42:48There were reporters hanging around outside the gates of Osborne House shouting that the Queen is dead.
42:54The news of the Queen's death shook the world.
43:07I think people feel that something of their own lives has gone.
43:10There's a sense in which they have lost a family member.
43:17The nation isn't sure that it can cope without its grandmother.
43:21The nation is asking itself, what will become of us?
43:31It was a great break in history.
43:34People were aware of it, just as they were aware when 9-11 took place.
43:39This was, I think, visible in the tributes that were paid to her.
43:46Everybody wearing black.
43:47Even the prostitutes wore black.
43:53The world was in mourning.
43:57Just as Queen Victoria had been for half of her life.
44:06Victoria was the Queen who defined herself by her widowhood.
44:10When we think about Victoria, or the British Empire, or the country that she ruled over, we're thinking about this period in her life.
44:20When we picture Victoria, we're thinking about the widowed Victoria ruling alone.
44:26The birth of this new Victoria was a difficult birth.
44:31It took her a decade from Prince Albert's death to understand that she could separate the Queen from the woman.
44:38But after that, she didn't really look back.
44:40She became a powerful and important Queen in her own right.
44:43But Victoria's own words revealed she was always more than just a Queen.
44:50She was a princess.
44:52A wife.
44:54A mother.
44:56And a widow.
44:58A ruler.
45:00And an empress.
45:01One of the most iconic monarchs Britain has ever seen.
45:14Coming up, ancient Egyptian codes are cracked in the pyramids solving the mystery.
45:20And tomorrow, train your brain to ascertain instead of strain in Celebrity Letters and Numbers.
45:31A mother.
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45:34A mother.
45:35A mother.
45:36A mother.
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45:39A mother.
45:40A mother.
45:41A mother.
45:42A mother.
45:43A mother.
45:44A mother.
45:45A mother.
45:46A mother.
45:47A mother.
45:48A mother.
45:49A mother.
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45:51A mother.
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45:55A mother.
45:56A mother.
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45:58A mother.
45:59A mother.