Kristine Hughes – Page 54 – Number One London

THE DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT

by Victoria Hinshaw

On the night of 14 December, 1861, Queen Victoria lost her beloved husband Prince Albert. In the custom of the time, most of her subjects learned of his death through the tolling of church bells, traditional alert to crisis.

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 1840

In 2011, 150 years after the event, the BBC History Magazine carried an article about how the death of Prince Albert threatened the continuing existence of the monarchy. Here is a topic with everything: love, dynasty, death and mourning, royalty, and Future Considerations, the capital letters well-deserved. Most of the information in this post comes from the magazine article by Helen Rappaport, author of Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy, published by Hutchinson, 2011.

Victoria was already Queen when she and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha were married on February 10, 1840. There is no doubt that she adored him — handsome, clever, and virile, Prince Albert had long been intended to be her spouse by their mutual uncle, Leopold, King of the Belgians, since 1831 and the widower of the late Princess Charlotte of Wales, who died in 1817.

Leopold I, King of the Belgians; portrait by Winterhalter

King Leopold was the brother of both Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, and Albert’s father, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with their children in 1846; Painted by Franz Xavier Winterhalter

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were parents of four sons and five daughters and eventually 42 grandchildren, most of whom married into European royalty and aristocratic families.

There is little doubt from her writing that her marriage to Albert was a love match for Victoria. If those early years were difficult for Prince Albert, he was confident of her adoration, and he worked hard to win the confidence of her advisers, government officials, and the public.

2010 Exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

Several years ago, Kristine and I attended the exhibition “Victoria and Albert: Art and Love” and feasted our eyes on the lovely portraits and objects they gave each other. According to the catalogue, “This exhibition is the first ever to focus on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s shared enthusiasm for art. Bringing together more than 400 items from the Royal Collection, it celebrates the royal couple’s mutual delight in collecting and displaying…” We examined each item, until we could hardly stand on our tired feet. Seeing their love so obviously expressed gave us a new appreciation of their mutual trust and dependence upon one another

By the time he died, most people (according to Rappaport) considered Albert to be King in all but name. Regarding the press accounts of his death, Rappaport writes, “Many of them were tinged with a profound sense of guilt that Albert had never been sufficiently valued during his life time for his many and notable contributions to British culture as an outstanding patron of the arts, education, science and business.” The Queen was plunged into a profound depression which lasted for many years.

As seemed to be common in the British Royal Family, first sons and their ruling fathers often did not see eye to eye. Prince Albert was disappointed in his eldest son, known as Bertie, who succeeded his mother as monarch King Edward VII in 1901. Albert had kept Bertie to a strict regimen of preparation for his eventual role as King, but Bertie, being young and mischievous, managed to involved himself in troublesome activities. The Queen, in part, blamed her son for her husband’s illness and death.

The fear grew in Britain that the Queen would never recover from her grief, and her exaggerated mourning would endanger the continuation of the monarchy. Victoria and Albert had, during their 20-year reign, re-established the dignity of the royal family, so greatly reduced during the period of the Hanovers, the first four Georges and William IV.

Prince and Princess of Wales, wedding in 1863

Rappaport writes, Victoria “became increasingly intractable in response to every attempt to coax her out of her self-imposed purdah…the only thing that interested Victoria now was her single-handed mission to memorialize her husband in perpetuity.”

The Albert Memorial, Kensington Gardens, London, one of many memorials to the Prince Consort

Not until 1871 did Queen Victoria begin to appear in public again. Rappaport writes, “…discontent escalated into outright republican challenges and calls for Victoria’s abdication…when Queen Victoria attended a thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral” to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from an attack of typhoid fever, the disease which may have killed his father ten years earlier. From then on, public sympathy was recovered for the Queen and her son.

With the help of her favorite PM, Disraeli, and her beloved Scottish servant, John Brown, the Queen became “…a respected figure of enduring dignity and fortitude, ageing into her familiar image…only now that people started calling themselves ‘Victorian’s’…”

Albert and Victoria resting side by side in the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore

HOW TO SCORE THE MARKLE SPARKLE

Meghan Markle made her first official appearance along with fiance Prince Harry in Nottingham on 1 December and her coat (Mackage ‘Elodie’ Navy Wool Coat US$790) and boots (KG by Kurt Geiger Violet Black Suede Over the Knee Boots £229) sold out on the same day. How did everyone find out what pieces she was wearing, so fast? Kensington Palace’s newest fashion icon has us mere mortals wanting to shop pieces, but how do we get the 411 about what they are and where to buy them? I mean before they sell out?

Well, it seems that Meghan has been a trendsetter since at least November 2016, when the website Meghan’s Fashion debuted. Loaded with photos of Meghan’s outfits and the required links to shopping those looks, this site should be bookmarked by all Royal watching fashionistas. Can’t decide between Meghan’s outfit or Katherine’s? No problem, there’s a Kate’s Closet site, as well.

And another similar site Princess Charlotte Style for all your tiny princess buying needs.

Then there’s Meghan’s Mirror, a site similar to those above, but which also features Meghan’s best looks, her favourites, her fashion rules and even what’s on her reading list.

Want to see Meghan’s airport look? No problem!

And here’s Meghan’s yoga style

Even more exciting, Meghan has designed her very own dress line, The Meghan Markle Collection, available online at Canadian retailer Reitman on 27 April, in store 28 April. There’s no way to guess whether Ms. Markle will be able to continue selling her line beyond this season and after marrying into the Royal family, so this may be our only chance to get one of the gorgeous dresses below – all selling for under $100. Mark your calendars!

You can find photos of the full line here.

Of course, the one MM fashion item we’re all eagerly awaiting is her wedding dress. Trust Number One London to bring you all the speculation, guesses and possible winners as soon as we can.

A NUMBER ONE LONDON GIVEAWAY!

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BRUSHING UP ON BOSWELL

James Boswell by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1785

James Boswell is best known as the biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson, but he was also 9th Laird of Auchinleck, in Scotland, with the family seat being Auchinleck House, in Ayershire, below, since it was built circa 1760. Boswell visited often and he and Dr. Johnson stayed here together in 1773 during their return from the Hebrides. As it turns out, a small group of lucky travelers will be staying here and we’ll have the entire estate to ourselves during Number One London’s 2018 Scottish Writer’s Retreat in September. Can there be a more perfect location for a writer’s retreat than the home of the author commonly said to have written the greatest biography in the English language – or the man who spent nine years working on The Dictionary of the English Language?

In light of my upcoming stay, I thought it would only be fitting for me to brush up on my Boswell/Johnson knowledge by re-reading Boswell’s Journals and Christopher Hibbert’s excellent biography, The Personal History of Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds, circa 1772

Also on my reading list is Adam Sisman’s book, Bowell’s Presumptuous Task, which garnered this review by Bibliomane01 on Amazon:

“In this magnificent work Mr Sisman describes the making of that greatest of all biographies, Boswell’s Life of Dr Johnson. To his contemporaries the task that Boswell had taken on was presumptuous indeed – to record the life of the greatest literary man of his age, while being dismissed himself as a frivolous and reprobate dilettante incapable of any serious activity. Well, the world knows that Bozzy succeeded in confounding his critics, but the tragic irony of his predicament was that he succeeded too well. While hailing the book as a masterpiece, the current and future literary establishment dismissed Boswell’s own role as little more than that of a stenographer. Macaulay’s damning essay on Boswell formed the opinion held by too many people for far too long. The true story of Boswell’s genius became well known to scholars in the 20th century; with this book, Mr. Sisman brings the story to a wider audience. It is a remarkable portrait of Boswell’s love for Johnson and the great struggles he endured to bring his hero to life in the pages of his biography. Battling drink, debauchery, depression and his own self-destructive nature, Boswell managed to pull off the one great sustained piece of effort of his life. In his book Johnson was brought to life once again, an image so convincing that it took over 150 years for people to discern the art behind the apparent ingenuousness of Boswell’s technique. Sisman does a good job of showing how the Johnson of the Life was as much a product of Boswell’s gift as the historical record (although I think readers would have benefited from a few examples of textual analysis to illustrate this). His final chapter on the gradual unearthing of the Boswell papers provides an exciting ending and his writing is clear and compelling. “Boswell’s Presumptuous Task” is nothing short of a triumph.”

The “gradual unearthing of the Boswell papers” mentioned above refers to a cache of Boswell’s private papers and journals found at Malahide Castle just outside of Dublin in the 1920’s. Boswell’s great-great-grandson, Lord Talbot de Malahide sold the papers to American collector Ralph Isham and they now form part of the collection at Yale University. Having only just visited Malahide Castle in September, I’m looking forward to reading Sisman’s book soon.

If you’d like to join us on The Scottish Writer’s Retreat, you will find complete details here – there are only two places remaining!

BRITBOX TV – IS IT WORTH IT?

by Kristine Hughes Patrone

If you’re at all like me, you probably prefer watching British television to American television. Not so long ago, this was almost impossible to do in the USA. The only options available were Masterpiece Theatre or buying mini-series and movies on video tape or CD. Then came Acorn TV, which was much better than what we had, offering more content and many British shows otherwise unavailable to us. Acorn TV answered a need and served a purpose. Yes, we had to pay for the service, but if you were a dedicated Brit telly fan, the monthly fee of $4.99 was worth it.

Enter Britbox, a joint service by the BBC, ITV and Amazon video, allowing those of us in America to stream UK telly. When it first launched I yawned. In fact, I’d been yawning for quite a while as my Acorn TV subscription had become a tad stale. Who needs Britbox, thought I, it will most likely be nothing more than another version of Acorn TV, where the same old programs were rerun again and again. And again. After several years of subscribing to Acorn TV, I’d grown tired of the slow turnover of “new” shows and I’d been seriously considering dropping my subscription. Admittedly, old standards such as Blacks Books, Cradle to Grave and Grandma’s House were interspersed with more contemporary, and desirable, shows such as Vera, Doc Martin, A Place to Call Home, and Happy Valley, but new episodes were slow in coming. And besides, I wanted access to more than just dated, and well watched, series TV. I wanted prime time British telly.

I’m a huge fan of Coronation Street, the UK soap opera that’s been on the air since 1960. I’ve seen every episode aired since 1970, discovering the program on YouTube and watching it for months until I’d caught up with the current episodes. I also used to be able to watch new episodes on YouTube, where a handful of lovely people would upload them soon after they aired in the UK. Recently, Coronation Street’s parent company, ITV, began policing YouTube and reporting “pirated” content, which was quickly taken down. It’s almost impossible to find a recent episode on the platform any more. When I learned that Hulu was streaming new episodes of Coronation Street, of course I headed their way. $5.99 per month, so worth it to see Corrie. I signed up for their free trial and waited for new episodes of Coronation Street. And waited. And waited. As of last night, as I write this on November 9, the latest episode available on Hulu was October 23rd. And that’s been the latest episode for almost two weeks now. Not. Funny. Not. Happy.

And so I found myself on the Britbox website. Since Britbox is affiliated with ITV, the producers of Coronation Street, chances were better that new Corrie episodes would drop in a more timely fashion. Taking a lesson from my Hulu experience, I checked the Corrie line up before getting too excited and, lo and behold, they had Corrie episodes right up until yesterday’s date. Joy! I cancelled my trial period at Hulu and signed up with Britbox and then browsed their line up of other shows.

And they had plenty that was current. Don’t get me wrong, there were still a good amount of old saws like Poirot, Dalziel and Pascoe, Rosemary and Thyme, Sharpe with Sean Bean (Sean Bean !!), Fawlty Towers, Upstairs, Downstairs and Cranford, but there were also many more current shows, such as Broken with Sean Bean (Sean Bean !!), Cold Feet 2017, Strictly Come Dancing, Kat and Alfie, The Great Chelsea Garden Challenge, Flog It!, In The Dark, Ordinary Lives, The Moorside, plus documentaries, Royal specials and, in addition to Coronation Street, new episodes of favourite soaps Emmerdale, Holby City and East Enders.

Acorn TV does seem to be stepping up it’s game with the arrival of Britbox on the scene, adding new shows like Loch Ness and The Good Karma Hospital, but they’re going to have to step up their line up of current shows in order to keep pace with the new kid on the block. For now I’ll keep both subscriptions for a total of $11 per month, but it would be lovely if the UK telly powers that be would just let us subscribe to their t.v. tax and allow us to watch real time telly. Until then, I’m happy to have new episodes of Coronation Street and I’m also enjoying Broken – it’s gritty, gripping and heartbreaking. In short, entirely binge worthy. As is Ordinary Lies. And Scott & Bailey. And Britbox will also be airing the Queen’s Christmas speech on the day.

If you’ve subscribed to any of these streaming services, or are considering signing on for any of them, I’d love to hear your thoughts.