Lucy Worsley Investigates: Madness of King George – BBC 2

  This was a very interesting programme, about not only George III’s illness but the treatment of mental illness during the 1780s and how that changed.  However, I wish that they’d given someone a chance to put the case for the porphyria theory, instead of just dismissing it as wrong and focusing entirely on the alternative diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  Yes, the reason that the porphyria theory, put forward by Macalpine and Hunter in the 1960s, is so well-known is the 1991 Alan Bennett play and subsequent 1994 film, rather than the works of any medic or historian, but the 1998 book “Purple Secret” is very convincing, and I do think that Lucy might at least have considered it.

Having said which, the argument for bipolar disorder is probably more convincing, especially now that additional papers giving us more details of George’s condition have been released.  The general opinion does now seem to be that the porphyria theory is wrong … which is quite annoying, because I’ve read so much about porphyria that I diagnosed it immediately when a character in Casualty presented with its symptoms!

George’s symptoms certainly seem to match those of bipolar disorder, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the arguments presented about the triggers.   The tragic loss of three children would certainly cause huge distress to anyone, and the death of his daughter was only a year before the episode which led to the Regency, but his two sons died in 1782 and 1783 respectively, the Gordon Riots were in 1780 and the American colonies were effectively lost by 1781, so I’m not sure how all those link into an episode in 1788, several years later.  The death of Peter III of Russia in 1762 surely didn’t affect him in 1788, and I think we can be pretty certain that the French Revolution didn’t affect him a year before the Storming of the Bastille.

Hmm.

However, what was said about the treatment of mental illness at the time was fascinating, if horrifying.  It was thought to have a physical cause, so poor George was subjected to bleeding, purging and blistering.  I’m not quite sure why Lucy felt it necessary to order some leeches off the internet in order to show them to us, but I Googled it out of interest and found several places offering leeches for sale.   OK, let’s not go there.

If we accept that George was already struggling due to the events of 1780-83, what may well have tipped him over the edge was a knife attack made on him in 1786, by a woman called Margaret Nicholson.  Margaret was certified insane and  committed to Bedlam (the Bethlem Royal Hospital) for life.  She died there 42 years later.   We learnt that the hospital divided people into “ravers” (unfortunate term), “melancholics” and “incurables”.  Margaret was classed as “incurable”, even though she probably wasn’t.  Some people were literally clapped in irons, although others were put into straitjackets, which were quite mild by comparison.   It was a pretty horrific place, and people would come there to view the patients as if they were animals in a zoo.

However, Lucy then explained that, quite possibly because of what had happened with a) George and b) Margaret, a report was commissioned into the goings-on at Bedlam, published in 1791.   It actually said that restraint was OK for the poor but not for the well-to-do!   But it did lead to reforms, and psychiatry began to move away from the idea that mental illness could be treated by purging/bleeding/blistering.   She then finished by saying that George’s illness made him more popular – rather than being horrified by the idea of a “mad” king, the public were sad that he’d been ill and grateful that he’d recovered.

There was a lot to take in in this programme, and it really was interesting.  And, having accepted the porphyria theory after reading the arguments put forward in favour of it, I suppose I do now accept that bipolar disorder is a far more likely diagnosis.  So there, they convinced me!

 

 

 

Advertisement

Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow by Lucy Worsley

 

I’m not sure whether or not the 99p Kindle offer on this book was to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter, but I was very glad of it.  For one thing, I wanted a “royal” book to review, to mark the Jubilee long weekend 🙂 .  For another thing, it makes some very interesting points.  OK, it probably won’t tell you anything major that you haven’t heard before, but the same can be said of most books on history’s best-known figures.  It’s about the angle and the interpretation; and this book, apprising Victoria through 24 significant events or factors in her life, really does do a good job of showing us who Victoria was and what she did.  Lucy Worsley is rather irritating on TV, but she comes across extremely well in writing.

Having said all that, I’m going to take issue with her argument that people had a problem with the idea of a female monarch, and that the nineteenth century was a time in which women’s lives became extremely restricted.  She even finishes the book on a rather miserable note within that theme, saying that her main feeling about Victoria is pity, because ideas about the role of women trapped all Victorian females, and Victoria herself most of all.  I know that there’s the “separate spheres” argument, that women became confined to a domestic role in the 19th century, but I don’t buy it.  Look at pictures of textile mills in the 19th century.  Who are most of the workers?  Women!   Look how many people were employed in domestic service in the 19th century.  Who were most of them?  Women!   As for there being a lack of female influence, tell that to Emmeline Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale (one of whose visits to Victoria makes up one of the 24 chapters), Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Fry, and all the other middle class women, and upper class women, involved in charity work or campaigning.

And were people really that bothered about the idea of a female monarch?  Princess Charlotte had been extremely popular, and, whether in 1837 or 2022, most people, when asked to name England’s greatest ever monarch, will say Elizabeth (I).

So I must beg to differ with Lucy in that regard.   But I still really enjoyed her book.  She starts the book by pointing out that, throughout the twentieth century, most people’s image of Victoria was of a large, unsmiling elderly lady dressed in mourning.  And that’s exactly how Victoria’s depicted in the statue of her which stands in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.  Then pointing out that that’s changed in recent years, because of the film with Emily Blunt and the TV series with Jenna Coleman, which [the book was published in 2018, before the third season was broadcast] both show her as a younger woman who liked dancing and parties.  Interesting how it’s been popular culture that’s brought about that change, not academia.  The aim of this book is to look into how she changed from the young dancing princess to the sombre old lady.

There’s an amazing amount of detail.  Some of it really feels quite prurient – things like what Victoria wore on her wedding night, how much she weighed at certain times and how old she was when she went through puberty.  That’s very private stuff.

And it’s all personal.  Would anyone write a book entitled “Edward III: Son, Husband, Father, Widower”?  I don’t think so.  Then again, there are plenty of books about Henry VIII which focus far more on his marriages than on such trivial matters as the Reformation or the Battle of Flodden Field!   And, by Victoria’s time, the life of the monarch and political/economic/social events were no longer as intertwined as they were in the days when the monarch ruled as well as reigned.

It’s very frustrating how Queen Victoria is depicted as being emotionally and politically dependent on Prince Albert, and, equally, how Queen Anne is depicted as being emotionally and politically dependent on her friends.  I once read a book – may have been by J H Plumb, but I’m not sure – which compared Queen Anne’s court to an Angela Brazil novel, with Anne as the new girl and the Duchess of Marlborough as the Head Girl.  Would anyone make similar comments about, say Edward III and Alice Perrers, or Edward II and Hugh Despenser the younger, or James I and the Duke of Buckingham?   No, would they heck as like!

But then a male sovereign is not going to have undergone nine pregnancies, most of them followed by post natal depression.  If we look at our female sovereigns, excluding Lady Jane Grey who only lasted nine days, we’ve had Mary I and her phantom pregnancies, Mary II who had one miscarriage and was unable to conceive again, Anne who (before becoming queen) had seventeen pregnancies but no surviving children (that poor, poor woman), Victoria who had nine pregnancies during the first two decades of her reign, and Elizabeth I who chose not to marry but then had the problem of determining the succession.  Our present queen is the first one whose reign hasn’t been significantly affected by issues relating to childbearing.

Lucy really doesn’t like Prince Albert.  At one point, she describes him as being “pompous and cruel”.  I think that’s a bit much.  OK, he was clearly very insensitive towards his wife and children, but Victoria adored him, he did a lot for the country, and, if he were around now, he’d be in therapy for a long list of issues, most of them probably resulting from what happened with his mother.   She plays down the romantic element of the match between Victoria and Albert, stressing the arranged marriage element instead, and even says that it was Albert who insisted on having so many children.   We’ve all heard the “fun in bed” question, we all know that Victoria didn’t want to breastfeed, and, according to Lucy, Victoria knew about birth control but (presumably for religious reasons?) didn’t approve of it.

So I don’t really see how anyone can claim that Albert was solely responsible for how many children they had.  She also says that, after her marriage, Victoria stops commenting in her diary that she’s worried about her weight, because Albert gave her more self confidence about her appearance.  Give the man a break!

There are a lot of references, tied into the image of family life, to the idea of a middle class monarchy, intended to win the support of the class which held political power from 1832.   Fair point to some extent.  And I think  (apologies for making a sweeping generalisation) that “Good Old Teddy” was far more popular amongst the upper and working classes than Victoria was.  But from 1867, and even more so from 1884, the upper working classes had the vote, even if they weren’t actually becoming Members of Parliament.  And are the middle classes really the only ones with the family values?   I think this gets overstated, especially given the upper middle classes were so keen on sending their kids away to boarding school.   Having nine children was more typing of the working classes than the upper classes, by Victorian times.

She also points out that some people in Ireland referred to Victoria as “the Famine Queen”, and that Duleep Singh allegedly referred to her as “Mrs Fagin” because Britain took the Koh-i-Noor diamond.  It’s something that still happens today, the blaming of senior members of the Royal Family for something that was the fault of politicians or the Armed Forces or business interests.   Prince William has recently been attacked by Caribbean politicians as if he were personally to blame for the slave trade, and booed by Liverpool “fans” as if he were personally to blame for the cover-up over Hillsborough.  It’s not very nice, and it’s certainly not very fair.  But it’s what happens.  As well as the interest in the personality of the monarch, they (and their heirs) become the personification of the nation.  And Victoria in some ways was the personification of an age.  Even books written about the USA ,and other countries which weren’t part of the British Empire, refer to “Victorians”.

Lucy herself is full of praise for Victoria: she acknowledges that she had faults and made mistakes – don’t we all? – but the overall picture she presents is a very positive one.   She gives her a lot of credit for working out a way to reign successfully at a time when a) the political power of the monarch was all but gone and b) many people (so Lucy says) had issues with the idea of a female monarch.   The Crimean War is pinpointed as being a crucial time in the history of the monarchy, with the introduction of the VC, Victoria’s own idea, and Victoria’s letters to wounded soldiers, really making people feel that she cared.  And we do need to know that the monarch cares.   Look at all the calls for the Queen to speak to us after Diana died.  Look at the effect which the Queen’s speech in the early weeks of lockdown had.   And it meant so much to everyone in Manchester when the Queen came in person to visit those injured in the Arena bombing.  The monarch is the head of the nation, and the person to whom people look to lead us in times of trouble, and also in times of celebration.  No politician could ever do that in the same way

The overall message of the book is that Victoria might have seemed like an ordinary woman, but that she was actually an extraordinary woman who led an extraordinary life.  Well, there’s no arguing with that.  Nor is there any arguing with the fact that Elizabeth II is also an extraordinary, ordinary woman leading an extraordinary life.   Great book by Lucy Worsley, and God Save The Queen!

 

Beatrix: The Queen Who Gave Up The Crown – Channel 5

 

This is a very promising move from Channel 5.  We’ve had some excellent programmes on the recent history of the British Royal Family, but, whilst I understand that it was difficult to film new material during lockdown, there really is only so much you can say about the Abdication, the Margaret-Townsend affair and the War of the Waleses.  Some programmes about the Continental royal families would be extremely welcome.  The title of the programme was rather silly, because it made it sound as if Beatrix did something like Edward VIII did, rather than abdicating at the age of 75 after a 33-year reign, but the actual substance of the programme was very interesting.

The Netherlands is a fascinating country, because historically it’s very puritanical but also very liberal, and very tolerant but with strong extremist elements on several different sides, and we saw how Beatrix – and it was lovely to see her looking so well at the memorial service for Prince Philip – had to steer her way through that.  She met with protests on her wedding day, because she was marrying a German, and protests on the day of her investiture, because of concerns over the Dutch Royal Family’s wealth, and she also had to deal with her husband’s long battle with depression and the death of one of her sons.   She was initially seen as being very aloof, but later as being very warm – the ongoing conflict between a royal family retaining its mystique whilst at the same time being seen as relevant and accessible.  And she’s been a lot more outspoken about politics than most royals have been.

I do love the way that orange is the Dutch national colour,and that that’s because of the House of Orange-Nassau (er, even if Orange itself is actually in France).   I suppose that green’s the colour of the Republic of Ireland, but there isn’t a national colour of England or the UK, and it’d be nice if there was.  But never mind!

All in all, this was very good, and I’m hoping that we might see some more programmes about the Continental royals.   There’s certainly plenty of material to go at.

 

 

A Most English Princess by Clare McHugh

The idea for this was brilliant, the execution rather less so.  It’s the author’s first novel, so maybe allowances should be made, but do editors just not proof-read the books?  Using “England” and “Britain” interchangeably is a common problem in books by American authors, admittedly, but I’m pretty sure that no-one in the 1860s would have used the expression “golden ticket”!   However, the subject matter, the life of Vicky, the Princess Royal, later the Empress Frederick, is fascinating: there’s an excellent biography of her, but she’s been overlooked by novelists.

The style of writing is more suited to a young adult novel than adult historical fiction – don’t be expecting anything of the calibre of Elizabeth Chadwick or Sharon Penman – but the characterisation is accurate and the factual information’s all in there … Vicky’s childhood, her early marriage, her rather unhappy life in Berlin, and the tragic story of how the unification of Germany, which Prince Albert mistakenly thought would be a force for good, turned into a triumph for Prussian militarism.

The book rather strangely stops short in 1871, as the Franco-Prussian war ends and Vicky’s father-in-law is proclaimed Emperor of Germany, with Bismarck as Chancellor.  Maybe the author’s planning a sequel?  At that point, things could still have turned differently, if Vicky and her husband Fritz had had their chance … but they never did.  It’s one of the great “What ifs?” of modern history.

The rather childlike style of writing works quite well in the early chapters, when Vicky’s a young girl. However, it does become rather irritating later on, once she’s married.  The actual content is so interesting, though – the hostility she faced in Berlin, the conflict within the Prussian royal family, her son Willy’s disability and the weird and rather horrific treatments he was subjected to (would he have turned out differently if he’d not been put through all that?), the wars against Denmark, Austria and Prussia, and the triumph of reaction and militarism.

It’s historically accurate, which is always a huge plus point, and the characters do come across well.  It’s very biased towards Vicky, and against the Prussian court, but I’d have found it strange if it hadn’t been.  The name “Prussia” was wiped off the map after the Second World War, and survives only, in is Latinised version, in the names of football teams: that’s how negative the view of Prussia was, especially in Anglophone countries, and I think that that feeling still lingers, one way and another.  When you look at what went on, especially the attitude towards Catholics and Jews, it’s hard to find too much to praise in the regime of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I.  The causes of the Great War are more debatable, but that was after Vicky’s time.

We also see a lot of her family life – and it does give quite a positive portrayal of her relationship with Willy, which became so difficult later on.  Her sister Alice features quite a lot too, although it’s very odd that their brother Leopold’s haemophilia isn’t mentioned.  Again, it’s all very accurate, but the style of writing really doesn’t work that well in what’s meant to be a historical novel for adults, and includes so much about political history.

All in all, not a bad first effort, and a brilliant choice of subject, but the style of writing really could have been a lot better.

 

Queen Victoria: Love, Lust and Leadership – Channel 5

This initially looked as if it were going to be same old, same old.  Yes, we know that Queen Victoria was a bit of a party girl in her younger days, and that it was Albert who wanted everything to be sober, solemn and studious.  Yes, we know that she struggled to cope with having so many pregnancies.  Yes, we know that they enjoyed getting away from it all at Balmoral.  But some of what was said was different to the usual contents of Queen Victoria programmes, and gave the viewer a lot to think about.

We know that Queen Victoria suffered from what would now be diagnosed as post-natal depression, but, from medical papers discussed here, it sounds as if she also suffered from post-partum psychosis: she was having hallucinations.  That would have been terrifying for anyone, and perhaps especially for Victoria, who’d always feared that she’d “lose her mind” as her grandfather George III had done.  And it sounds as if Albert, as with so many people when faced by mental illness, didn’t really appreciate that she couldn’t just pull herself together, because it doesn’t work like that.

We also know that she talked about Albert as being a “perfect angel” – but the programme talked about how she kept records of her own behaviour, and kept writing that she had to try to improve and be a better person, whereas Albert had no faults – and that she showed these notes to Albert, who went along with them and even made comments on her “improvement” or otherwise.  Even bearing in mind the different views of gender roles at the time, that is extremely creepy.  It sounded like some of those awful 19th century religious novels; and even those usually involve a controlling parent rather than a controlling partner, so you can hope that the child will get out of there when they grow up.

The programme then came up with the interesting hypothesis that it was the Crimean War which saved Queen Victoria – that, due to the crises of wartime, and in particular due to the introduction of the Victorian Cross, she became seen as the mother of the nation, and thus regained her confidence.

I’m not sure that I’d really agree with that.  The Crimean War was horrendous.  So many people dead, and for what?  Having said which, there was enthusiasm for the war at the time.  And look at all the Balaclava Terraces, Inkerman Streets and Crimea Streets (if anyone’s reading this and doesn’t get the reference, those are the names of streets close to Coronation Street!) around.  Even with the Charge of the Light Brigade poem, there was a definite sense of heroism.  Those poor men were heroes.  But did the war give Queen Victoria her confidence back?  Or was that more to do with the fact that Britain was largely unaffected by the 1848 Revolutions?  Or was it just that people change as their lives move on?

Did she get her confidence back in the 1850s?  She pretty much withdrew from public life after Albert’s death in late 1860.  Was it Disraeli who helped her to get her confidence back?  Or John Brown?   Whatever happened, something did, and I’m very glad about that.  The thought of those notebooks and all those comments about needing to “improve” … yes, the Victorians were very into self-improvement, and that was an extremely positive thing in terms of reading, evening classes, discussions at Athenaeums, and all that sort of thing, but, in the context of writing that your partner is perfect and you need to change … that is worrying.

The programme ended by going on about how important the partnership between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was.  And, yes, they improved the image of the monarchy, and remade it, and Prince Albert did a lot of good in many aspects of his work.  But the thought of that notebook, and Albert reading it  … ugh.  That’s really quite upsetting.  Interesting programme.

Princess Alice: the Royals’ Greatest Secret – Channel 5

I do wish that Channel 5 wouldn’t use such silly titles for their programmes.  Princess Alice isn’t a secret at all!  There’s been at least one previous documentary about her; there’s an excellent biography of her; she’s featured in dozens of other books and documentaries; and there was a lot of talk about her just two and a half years ago, when Prince William visited her grave during his trip to Jerusalem.

I always find her fascinating – partly because of her bravery in sheltering a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece, partly because of her Romanov connections, and partly because of the way she overcame severe mental illness and the really horrific “treatment” she was given for it, as well as coping with congenital deafness.  I always find the slightly mystical streak running through several members of the Hesse-Darmstadt branch of the family intriguing, as well.  I suspect that Prince Charles does too.

This didn’t say anything new, but it was all very interesting.  The combination of comments from “experts” and video footage from the time worked very well, although I could have lived without the references to “The Crown”.  Channel 5 have shown an awful lot of documentaries about the Windsors this year, and, whilst very watchable, they’ve got a bit samey.  This was something different.  What a fascinating woman!

As I said, it was nothing new to anyone who’s familiar with Princess Alice’s story, but what an amazing story it was!  Her birth in Windsor Castle, and her early years in Britain and Germany … although it didn’t mention her father’s naval career, for some reason.  Her marriage to Prince Andrea of Greece, adapting to a new country, her charitable and nursing work in Greece, and all the complexities of the Great War, the murders of her close relatives during the Russian Revolution, the political chopping and changing, the royal family being exiled and then returning, the Greco-Turkish War, and the military disaster which saw Andrea almost executed, and forced into exile.

Then their years in Paris, and Alice’s “religious crisis” and mental ill-health, and being bundled off by force to two sanatoria, where she underwent some really horrific treatment, at the behest of Sigmund Freud.  It’s like something from some horrible dystopian film, the idea of exposing someone’s ovaries to strong X-rays.  It’s a miracle that she ever recovered mentally from the treatment, never mind her initial illness.  And then one of her daughters was killed in a plane crash.

Then, after all that, she refused to leave Occupied Greece for safety in Britain or Sweden or anywhere else, and not only worked with the Red Cross but sheltered three members of a Jewish family in her home, saving their lives. She seemed to be being absorbed back into the British Royal Family at the time of Prince Philip’s wedding to the then Princess Elizabeth, but no, she went back to Greece, founded a nursing order of nuns, turned up at the Queen’s coronation in a nun’s habit, and then stayed on in Greece, despite financial problems, until the monarchy was overthrown again.  Then she lived out the rest of her life in Buckingham Palace … and was, eventually, buried on the Mount of Olives.

It’s an incredible story, and this documentary told it very well.  Thoroughly enjoyable watching.

And, going back to the irritating references to “The Crown”, maybe documentaries like this will remind people that royal families are actually real people, not soap opera characters.  How must Princess Alice have felt when that ridiculous 1950s Hollywood film was made about someone claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, her teenage cousin who’d been brutally murdered?  Even the film version of Downton Abbey gave a very inaccurate impression of the relationship between Princess Mary and the future Earl of Harewood, which I don’t suppose their family were very pleased about.  Less soapy stuff, where real people are concerned, and more programmes like this one, please!

The Queen and the Coup (Channel 4) and King George VI: The Accidental King (Channel 5)

The Queen and the Coup was very exciting in that it featured several interviews with my university personal tutor, whom I’m glad to see appears to have got over his penchant for wearing red and purple braces.  Lovely man.  It was very nice to see him on screen.   Other than that, the main point of the programme was to claim that the entire recent history of Iran, and of poor relations between Iran and the West, is down to American diplomats getting the Queen, our beloved monarch, mixed up with a luxury Cunard liner.  Right.  King George VI: The Accidental King was same old, same old – strict dad, stammer, Navy, supportive wife, wonderful dad, abdication of brother, war, death – but it was very watchable, and it’s so good to see George VI getting the credit he deserves.  It tends to be the flamboyant monarchs who get the attention, and they’re not always the ones who most deserve it.

The Queen and the Coup, then.  In the early 1950s, the Iranian government led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was planning to nationalise the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.  This was not good.  Not as bad as Nasser planning to nationalise the Suez Canal, but still not good.  The Anglo-Persian bigwigs were very cross.  So was Clement Atlee, who claimed to oppose British involvement abroad but was more interested in the oil money than his supposed policies/principles. The US also got involved, and it was decided to chuck out Mosaddegh and boost the power of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

However, there was a snag.  The Shah, being a bit of a wuss, wasn’t really up for this, and planned to scarper.  But then the Americans got a message to say that Queen Elizabeth thought the Shah was a jolly nice chap, and wanted him to stay.  This message was passed on to the Shah, who was so chuffed that he did, indeed, decide to stay.  Unfortunately, it turned out the Americans had got the wrong end of the stick.  The message was not from Her Majesty.  It was from RMS Queen Elizabeth, the Cunard liner, on which Anthony Eden (Attlee’s government having been ousted) was sailing to a conference in Canada.  They decided not to tell the Shah about this.  So he stayed.  And there was a coup.  And everything going on in Iran now, and indeed everything that’s gone on in Iran since 1953, is because of this.

Er, what about the 1979 coup?  And, seriously, the Shah stayed because he thought the Queen wanted him to?  I love the Queen, but that’s pushing it!  Was he after tickets for Ascot or the Royal Box at Wimbledon, or an invitation to a Buckingham Palace garden party, or something, and changed his mind about his own future and his entire country’s future because of it?   Come on!  But it was very nice to see my old personal tutor interviewed.

King George VI: The Accidental King was same old, same old, as I said, with the same team of gossips who’ve been around for all the new royal programmes which have been on Channel 5 recently.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It’s so sad that he died so young, but it’s such an inspirational story – the big shot, glamorous, popular brother totally mucks up, and the shy, nervous brother, lacking in confidence but boosted by the love of his wife and children, takes over, and helps to lead the nation, the Empire and the Commonwealth through the darkest period in history.   Lovely, lovely programme.

I really am enjoying all these royal programmes.  Keep them coming!

Queen Mary: How She Saved The Royals – Channel 5

I’m loving Channel 5’s royal season.  However, they will go for these rather sensationalist programme titles!   But, whilst I wouldn’t say that Queen Mary “saved” the Royals, she certainly played a very important role, especially at two very difficult times.  And she’s such a fascinating person – I sometimes wonder what such an intelligent, cultured woman really thought about all the huntin’, shootin’ fishin’, goings-on at Sandringham!   As the programme pointed out, she was also a very significant influence on our current Queen, making sure that she and Princess Margaret got a better and wider education that they might have done otherwise, and showing her the importance of duty.

Channel 5 tends to go for gossipy biographers rather than historians, I wasn’t impressed by all the references to “Mary” when she was always known as “May” – either say “Queen Mary” or “May”, but not just “Mary”! – and I dread to imagine where they found that American newsreel which got Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s name wrong, but this was generally a very enjoyable programme.  OK, it didn’t say anything new, but it was good to see a very under-rated Queen getting the attention she deserves.  It was also quite poignant to be reminded that her first fiancé, Prince Eddy, whose life and death tend to be overshadowed by all the gossip and speculation about him (the programme did resist the temptation to trot out the Jack The Ripper rumour!), died during the Russian/Asiatic flu pandemic of the early 1890s, which killed over a million people.  But back to Queen Mary …

We heard a bit about her early life.  It didn’t say much about her time in Florence, which was a shame, and I could have lived with fewer comments about her mother being embarrassing, but we did hear about her family’s financial problems and the dignified way in which she coped with them.  Then on to her engagement to Prince Eddy, and her eventual marriage to his brother, Prince George, and how well their marriage turned out.

They were criticised for being bad parents, and it’s hard to argue with that. To some extent they were products of their class and times, but not all parents were like that: we’re always told what a happy childhood their future daughter-in-law Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had.  Having said which, I do think the programme was a bit hard on her in that respect.  But most of it was about her public role rather than her personal life.  It’s easy to underestimate what a precarious position the British Royals were in during and immediately after the First World War.  Thrones were toppling everywhere.  In fact, that started even earlier, if you look at Portugal.   There was also the issue of the Royals’ German links.

But they came through it so well.  The programme paid particular attention to Queen Mary’s work with women, and talked a lot about how hard she and King George worked to build ties with working-class communities.  As it said, they were both very conservative people, and it can’t have been easy for them to do things in such a different way, going on walkabouts, visiting coal mines, and so on.  It also made the point that she was quite a shy person, and so much going about in public and meeting different people must have been hard for her.  The same with her second son, George VI, and maybe even to some extent with our present Queen.  But they all did it, because of their sense of duty.

The one who didn’t share that, of course, was Queen Mary’s eldest son.  You can argue the rights and wrongs of the Abdication until the cows come home, but, in the world of 1936, it was not possible for the King to be married to a divorced woman.  It was another very dangerous time for the monarchy, and Queen Mary helped to pull it through.  Some very good points were made about how previous Dowager Queens had faded into the background (although I think that was rather simplifying things) but she kept on going, and broke precedents in doing so.

And then it talked about her influence on her granddaughter, our present Queen.  I think she’d be incredibly proud of her, and also of what a good job many other senior members of the Royal Family, especially William and Kate, are doing a this very difficult time.  As it said, in times of trouble, the Royal Family provide unity and stability.  Queen Mary was a part of that during the Great War, and behaved with such dignity during the Abdication Crisis which must have been so difficult for her personally.  She was a naturally conservative person who adapted successfully to changing times, and I find her particularly interesting as someone who was so well-read and cultured at a time when education for girls was not prioritised and in some circles was even frowned on.

Thanks again to Channel 5 for this series of royal documentaries.  They aren’t saying anything new, but they’re interesting, and they’re comfortable, and really we need that at the moment!  And they’re nice.  There’s way too much nastiness around at the moment, now that the “Spirit of the Blitz” of the early days of lockdown has faded.  This was nice.  Hooray for being nice!

 

 

 

Three Royal documentaries – Our Queen At War (ITV), Prince Philip (Channel 5), Princess Anne (Channel 5)

Three Royal documentaries – Our Queen At War (ITV), Philip: the King without a Crown (Channel 5) and Anne: the Daughter who should be Queen (Channel 5).  None of them said anything we haven’t heard umpteen times before, but they were all quite interesting, especially so as I think they must have been filmed after lockdown – the first “lockdown era” documentaries I’ve seen which haven’t actually been about coronavirus issues.  The opinions of the “experts” were either just given by voiceover or else given over video links from their homes.  I think ITV had tarted theirs up a bit, but the Channel 5 ones were clearly home videos made on Zoom or Tik Tok or something similar.  And the ITV one used animated graphics, which was something different.   I’m not sure how the Queen’d feel about her teenage self being shown as an animated graphic, but I’d like to think she’d be quite amused by it!

With no live sport, soaps on ration, and no way of filming new episodes of most programmes until the end of lockdown, TV channels couldn’t be blamed too much if they just showed a lot of repeats – but they’d gone to the trouble of making these new programmes, and they deserve some kudos for that.

The one about Prince Philip was on first, and this really was largely just recycling old stuff.  Out came the video clips of Charles and Diana’s wedding, Diana’s funeral, etc etc, for the umpteenth time!  I’d really have liked to hear more about Philip’s early years, which aren’t discussed nearly as much – but, to be fair, the title of the programme made clear that it was about his role as consort.  The family stuff, whilst interesting, had been said a million times before, as had the sorry tale of his having to give up his naval career, but I enjoyed the discussions about his work, especially the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.  It was an hour’s decent watching, anyway.

The one about the Queen’s wartime experiences followed a few days later.  Again, a lot of this was, whilst interesting, same old same old – the speech that she made from Windsor in 1940, and the bombing of Buckingham Palace, and she and Princess Margaret mingling with the crowds on VE Day.  I rather enjoyed all the romantic bits, though.  One of these days, history will see the Queen and Prince Philip’s relationship as one of the greatest royal romances of all time.  Walking round the grounds at Windsor hand-in-hand when he was on leave from the Navy.  Bless!   And, as the programme said, having a boyfriend (for lack of a better word) who was on active service gave the then Princess Elizabeth a greater understanding of what so many other women at the time were going through.

The general point of the programme was to emphasise the fact that the Queen, despite her privileged position, shared many of the wartime experiences that other people did, and how the war years shaped her; and it did a good job of that.  For one thing, we were reminded that she and Princess Margaret actually saw a flying bomb going overhead, before it landed very close by, at Windsor Racecourse. There were even some bits I don’t think I’d ever seen before, such as shots of evacuees from Glasgow on the Balmoral estate.  And I loved seeing the film clips of the Queen driving a truck whilst she was in the ATS!   Those clips aren’t often seen.  This was a very good hour’s TV, especially at the moment with the wartime generation proving such an inspiration during the coronavirus crisis.

Just as a slight aside, though, the fact that they’re now the oldest members of society means that the wartime generation have been hit very hard by this horrible virus.  It’s very sad to read about war veterans or Holocaust survivors, who’d come through so much, having their lives finally ended by this awful, awful thing.

Finally, we had the programme about Princess Anne.  I don’t know whether the title was just meant to attract attention or whether someone genuinely thought it was a valid statement.  I can’t imagine for one second that Princess Anne even wants to be Queen, and there’s certainly no “should” about it: she’s not the eldest.  And, whilst I think she’s amazing, it’s probably a job for someone a bit more tactful!  She is great, though!

One of the “experts” mispronounced everything from “primogeniture” to “governess” which was rather annoying, but it was a very good programme otherwise.  We went back through Anne’s early years, and how the media were quite negative about her in the early 1980s, and she was overshadowed by Diana and Fergie as well as by Charles, but how she earned huge respect because of her work with Save The Children and other charities.  There was also quite a lot about her equestrian career.  It didn’t mention A Question of Sport 🙂 , but it did mention her being Sports Personality of the Year in 1971, and competing at the Olympics on 1976.  It also emphasised the fact that she’s often been the first British Royal to make overseas tours to places which are sensitive for one reason or another, notably the Soviet Union – a very good point.

I remember the negative press she used to get, and was very pleased that this programme was almost entirely complimentary about her hard work and no-nonsense attitude.

She does a sterling job!   As do all the other senior royals – and they’ve been doing what they can in these difficult times.  Thank you to them, and thank you to ITV and Channel 5 for taking the trouble to make these new programmes.  I enjoyed all three of them.

Inside the Crown: Secrets of the Royals – ITV

Watching this was like spending an hour reminiscing with old friends – some laughs, some sighs. They had a nerve calling it “Secrets of the Crown”, though. What secrets?!  At one point, they produced a document from the archives, and announced that … ta-da … it had cost £50 to hire all the chairs for the Queen and Prince Philip’s wedding. Hold the front pages!   And they must have spent a good five minutes discussing the creases in Diana’s wedding dress. I wasn’t really expecting any great revelations, though, and it was easy watching. And they kept going on about what a wonderful team the Queen and Philip make, and how theirs is the longest royal marriage in British history. Bless 😊.   Unsubtle use of “the Crown” in the title.  I haven’t got a Netflix sub, so I’ve never seen “The Crown”, but I’ve never been sure that I want to.  But I do like things like this.

This was supposed to be about balancing love and duty. A few bits had clearly been hastily shoved in at the last minute, after Harry and Meghan jumped ship, but I assume the rest of it had been filmed a while ago and that the timing was just a weird coincidence. Out came all the old stories! Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, and whether or not they sympathised with the Nazis. The establishment not being overly chuffed with Princess Elizabeth wanting to marry Prince Philip, and how she stood her ground. Was she ringing Philip from the telecommunications carriage on the train, during the 21st birthday tour of South Africa?  No idea, but I hope so. The much-told stories of how Queen Mary mistaking the traycloth that Gandhi sent them as a wedding present for a loincloth, and how people sent Princess Elizabeth their own clothing coupons – proving how wrong those grumpy MPs who said that people weren’t in the mood for a big royal wedding were. Never trust MPs!

The one part of the programme where they deviated from the traditional view of things was whilst discussing Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend.  Most people take the view that Princess Margaret decided she didn’t fancy giving up her royal status, but this showed documents agreeing that she could keep her royal status, and her Civil List income, and generally carry on as before, and that all she’d have had to give up was her place in the line of succession, which was irrelevant anyway because Prince Charles and Princess Anne were ahead of her. Their interpretation of events was that she just decided that Peter Townsend wasn’t Mr Right after all.   Who knows?  I don’t think anyone buys all that “mindful of the teachings of the church” stuff, though!

Then they brought up all the speculation in the late 1950s that all wasn’t well between the Queen and Prince Philip.  See, all the Royals get hassle from the press.  Remember all those headlines about “the Duchess of Pork”, “Sophie and the Fake Sheikh” and “Waity Katy”?  And it’s not just here – it happens to the royal families of other countries too.  How Harry and Meghan can be so self-obsessed as to make out that the media are picking on them in particular is beyond me.  Look at all the grief Camilla’s had to put up with.  It must be horrendous, but keep calm, be dignified, carry on, and it passes.

They were very even-handed, in this programme, with Charles and Diana, which I was impressed with – it annoys me when people try to vilify one or the other of them.  Can we just accept that it was a bad match?  They’re hardly the first people to have made bad choices of partner, and, if they’d been any other couple, they’d have split up very soon after the wedding.  It’s sad, though.  Easy to be wise after the event, but, looking now at the pre-wedding interviews, it was so obviously a disaster waiting to happen.  I’ve seen better chemistry between complete strangers.  Oh dear 😦 .

Finally, the latest generation of royal couples. High, and well-deserved, praise for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and especially for the Duchess. As for the Sussexes, enough’s been said about them over the last few weeks, and may they stay out of the headlines like they claim they want to.  But it was the Queen and Prince Philip who were the stars of the show.  As great royal romances go, theirs is right up there.

So, like I said, it was like reminiscing with old friends.  But there were definitely no secrets revealed!