Queen Victoria's Children
In a 60-year family saga this three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother. The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life.
- 2013-2013
- 1 season
- Documentary, Drama
In a 60-year family saga this three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother. The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life.
Season 1 Episode Guide
3 Episodes 2013
Episode 1
The Best Laid Plans...
59 mins
Focuses on Victoria's tempestuous relationship with Prince Albert, their attempts to engineer the upbringing of their children and to save the monarchy by projecting a modern image of the royal family.
Episode 2
A Domestic Tyrant
59 mins
It concentrates on Victoria's relationship with her daughters, after Albert's death, Victoria clings to and bullies them and arranged their marriages. In response the princesses fight back, becoming independent women determined to find love and fresh purpose. From sculpture to medicine, the daughters become champions of women for a new era.
Episode 3
Princes Will Be Princes
59 mins
It focuses on Victoria's relationship with her sons and how, after Albert's death, they struggled to live up to his model of purity. It explores Victoria's difficult relationship with her eldest son Bertie, whom she blamed for Albert's death, believing his sexual indiscretions to have fatally weakened her husband. It also examines her relationship with her son Leopold, the physically weak but spirited hemophiliac who put up the most determined effort to break free from his mother's control. Ultimately, the idea of monarchy based on purity is put to the test as the philandering Bertie comes to the throne.
