MAIL ONLINE: Victoria's secret crush: How Queen fell under the spell of Indian servant after death of ghillie companion John Brown: Just imagine. It’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, the eyes of the world are on London... and the Prince of Wales threatens to have his mother declared insane. ¶ Unthinkable? Well, that’s what happened to Queen Victoria in 1897 after her Royal Household refused to condone any longer Her Majesty’s shockingly intimate friendship with an Indian servant. ¶ It was a relationship that violated Victorian taboos of race and class, and threatened to destabilise the monarchy and the Empire – yet, although Queen Victoria’s earlier scandalous relationship with her Scottish ghillie [an outdoor servant] John Brown is still common knowledge today, her deep affection for her Muslim servant has been almost forgotten. ¶ A new Channel 4 documentary, Queen Victoria’s Last Love, rediscovers how, as courtiers plotted to depose the royal favourite, the nation’s Jubilee celebrations teetered on the brink of chaos. » | Mary Greene | Friday, April 20, 2012
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Queen Victoria's Last Love (2012)
MAIL ONLINE: Victoria's secret crush: How Queen fell under the spell of Indian servant after death of ghillie companion John Brown: Just imagine. It’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, the eyes of the world are on London... and the Prince of Wales threatens to have his mother declared insane. ¶ Unthinkable? Well, that’s what happened to Queen Victoria in 1897 after her Royal Household refused to condone any longer Her Majesty’s shockingly intimate friendship with an Indian servant. ¶ It was a relationship that violated Victorian taboos of race and class, and threatened to destabilise the monarchy and the Empire – yet, although Queen Victoria’s earlier scandalous relationship with her Scottish ghillie [an outdoor servant] John Brown is still common knowledge today, her deep affection for her Muslim servant has been almost forgotten. ¶ A new Channel 4 documentary, Queen Victoria’s Last Love, rediscovers how, as courtiers plotted to depose the royal favourite, the nation’s Jubilee celebrations teetered on the brink of chaos. » | Mary Greene | Friday, April 20, 2012