by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2017 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
I had a rather nervous
evening and spent most of it watching TV, including the first three hours of
the quite good British TV miniseries about the life and reign of Queen
Victoria, called simply Victoria, made in 2016 not by the BBC but by Britain’s commercial television company, ITV — though
certainly in the style we’ve come to know from the British drawing-room dramas,
concentrating on the relationships between the human characters instead of the
sheer spectacle of the monarchy and its court. Victoria became Queen of England
in 1837 following the death of the previous king, William IV, who himself had
acceded to the throne after the 10-year reign of his older brother George IV.
All these people were members of the House of Hanover, which had been imported
from Germany in the 18th century after the fall of the Stuarts to
make sure the United Kingdom stayed safely Protestant — indeed, until
Victoria’s grandfather George III became king in 1760 the Hanover monarchs
spoke German exclusively and carried out the court’s business in that language.
Some of this is reflected on the program in the character of Victoria’s mother,
Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, who in the show is constantly
lapsing into German when addressing her daughter, who has to keep correcting
her and reminding her that as the rulers of Britain they should speak only
English.
The show stars Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria, and its main dramatic
point is that she took the throne at 18 and a lot of people both in the royal
court and in Parliament, bitterly divided between the “Whig” (Liberal) and
“Tory” (Conservative) parties, thought she was too young and immature for the
job and wanted there to be a regency led by her surviving uncle. Victoria is shown
as fiercely independent, anxious to succeed, chafing at the limitations on the
royal role imposed by the British constitution — she’s shocked to learn that
slavery is still in effect on the island of Jamaica and is upset that she can’t
just issue a royal proclamation abolishing it — and also as incredibly
moralistic. In the first episode, “Doll 123” (named after an actual doll in her
collection which at age 11 she literally crowned when she realized that one day
she would quite likely be queen), she suspects an affair between Lady Flora
Hastings (Alice Orr-Ewing) and another courtier with whom she shared a carriage
ride. She orders two doctors to conduct an “examination” of Lady Flora — it’s
not clear, but at least the implication is there that the doctors are really
performing an abortion on the illicitly pregnant Flora, only the operation goes
horribly wrong and Lady Flora contracts an infection and dies — though the
official story is that she only appeared to be pregnant and really suffered from a tumor. It’s an interesting
plot point that fits given that the word “Victorian” has entered the language
as meaning a period of particularly intense sexual repression and judgmental
“morality” imposed by government fiat.
But the main thrust of the first three
episodes (as often seems to happen in shows like this, in order to start with a
spectacular opening show the PBS telecast jammed the first two episodes into
one two-hour “event” presentation) is Victoria’s relationship with her prime
minister, Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell), whom she’s infatuated with even though
he’s almost three times her age and he’s a widower. It’s previously established
that he stayed loyal to his wife even when she ran off with Lord Byron (that Lord Byron?) and, though she’s long dead, in the
film’s kinkiest scene he takes a lock of her hair from a keepsake box and
practically makes love to it. (Ironically, according to historian Robert K.
Massie, Victoria did something similar when her later husband, Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha — who was also her first cousin — died; she had a cast
made of his face and his hand and had them placed next to her bed so she could
reach out, see his face and hold his hand just as she had when he was alive,
and in Cabinet meetings she often asked aloud the WWAD question — “What would
Albert do?”) The third episode, “Brocket Hall,” deals with Melbourne’s
deteriorating political position — his Whig Party loses a vote of confidence in
Parliament and the Tories select Robert Peel as the new prime minister;
Victoria signals the only Tory she’s willing to accept as the head of
government is the Duke of Wellington, who begs off on the ground that he’s too
old; and eventually she forces a constitutional confrontation and insists that
Melbourne stay on — and also the vexing question of just whom Victoria should marry: Prince Albert (pushed on
her by yet another uncle, King Leopold of Belgium), the British Prince George
(Nicholas Agnew), the Russian Grand Duke (Daniel Donskoy), or no one at all.
(Victoria is shown casting several long gazes at the portrait of her
illustrious predecessor, “Virgin Queen” Elizabeth. and wondering whether it
would be best if she followed Elizabeth’s example.)
There are also sequences
dealing with the Chartist rebellions that swept Britain in the 1840’s, whose
platform, known as the People’s Charter, called for universal suffrage for all
men 21 and over (and there were a few especially radical Chartists who
advocated for votes for women as well), a secret ballot, elimination of the requirement
that Members of Parliament be landowners, payment for M.P.’s so working-class
people could afford to serve, redistricting to make legislative districts equal
in population, and new elections every year. The Chartist movement was
violently repressed by the authorities, and many of the movement’s leaders were
deported to Australia (where some of them continued their activities) while
others were put on trial for treason — though eventually, starting with the
Second Reform Act of 1867 (sponsored by Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli
under Victoria’s reign), some of the Chartists’ demands ultimately became law.
There’s a spectacular scene of Victoria herself being confronted by Chartist
demonstrators as she unveils a monument to her uncle the Earl of Kent — an
interesting counterpoint to the fooforaw going on in Washington, D.C. right now
as the Trump administration declares war on the media for daring to report that
the crowds for his inauguration in 2017 were considerably smaller than for
President Obama’s first inaugural in 2009.
It’s nice to see a “Royal porn” show
that actually acknowledges the working-class movements of the time — indeed, in
1842 a Chartist named John Francis actually took a shot at Queen Victoria, and
she rode along the same route the next day in hopes of provoking him into a
second attempt so the authorities could arrest him. It’s also fascinating that
Victoria goes into a hissy-fit when she’s told that she has to replace her
ladies-in-waiting that were married to Whig politicians and install Tories’
wives instead — she thinks, not unreasonably, that just because one party lost
an election that shouldn’t determine who gets to serve in her royal household. Victoria, judging from the first three (of eight) episodes,
is a quite good bit of political TV, drenched in past-is-brown orthodoxies
(explainable by the fact that when it occurred the palaces were still lit by
candles; Victoria tries to have gas put in but one of the palace staff burns
her hand trying to light the gas jet and Victoria’s mom peremptorily orders the
conversion stopped, especially since the gas installation also disturbed the
palace’s rats and they started migrating to the living quarters) but vividly
acted in that marvelously understated way British actors have of vivifying
their country’s history.
