being Queen Victoria was a pretty sweet
deal considering all her wealth palaces
and devoted subjects but he scratched
beneath the surface that isn't often
covered in the movies and TV shows about
her you'll find plenty of calamity and
controversy every family has a black
sheep like a slightly racist uncle but
what if you were related to the most
notorious serial killer of all time well
there's actually a theory that
Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor
was Jack the Ripper Eddie as he was
affectionately known was rumoured to
have contracted syphilis from a
prostitute in the West Indies living in
an age before penicillin was a bad time
to be sexually irresponsible as STDs
were rife and there was no easy cure the
theory goes that as the syphilis began
to rot
Eddie's brain he took his revenge by
killing ladies of the night in London's
East End another theory suggests that he
secretly impregnated and married a
common Catholic girl from Whitechapel
who was friends with Jack the Ripper's
victims
apparently in order to stop the scandal
and silence everyone who knew about it
an agent of the royal family started
slaying anyone who knew Victoria's
physician William gull was rumored to
have carried out the dark deeds the
theory is also the basis for Alan
Moore's graphic novel from Hell which
was adapted into a film starring Johnny
Depp
there was little love for Queen Victoria
on the Emerald Isle
during her rule Ireland suffered through
the great hunger the darkest and most
despair riddled seven years in the
country's history this fierce and
unforgiving famine resulted in the
deaths of 1 million men women and
children and caused 1 million more to
forsake their native country and
emigrate to distant shores Victoria made
a token gesture of donating two thousand
pounds to aid victims of the famine but
it did more harm than good as royal
protocol dictated that no one could
appear more generous than the Queen when
the Sultan of Turkey offered ten
thousand pounds he was told to reduce it
to below two thousand as to not offend
her majesty
according to historian christine
connealy there is no evidence that
victoria had any real compassion for the
irish people in any way in her very long
range
she only visited Ireland four times and
one of those times was 1849 when
famine was still raging but coming to an
end Victoria's reputation was eventually
so infamous in Ireland that she came to
be known by the nickname the famine
queen you can't kill an idea and
apparently you can't kill Queen Victoria
either despite a staggering eight
assassination attempts on her life she
had a lot of hearts and a survivor soul
what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
and the assassination plots actually
boosted her popularity the public loves
an underdog in Victoria herself took a
philosophical view on the people who
wanted to do her in even once saying it
is worth being shot at to see how much
one is loved her assassins were a mixed
bunch of desperados who probably thought
killing the monarch would land them in
the history books instead they failed
and have all been consigned to obscurity
the only assassin who came close to
harming a hair on her head was a former
soldier named Robert Bates he whacked
the Queen over the head with an iron
tipped cane that left her bruised and
battered but still very much alive and
kicking she made a point of appearing in
public two hours later because when
you're a royal the show must go on
hate was sentenced to seven years in
Tasmania's penal colony the other
would-be assassins were either exiled
imprisoned are carted off to the asylum
at Her Majesty's pleasure Victoria had
an Indian servant named Abdul whom she
treated like an exotic pet you can't
take a Muslim to Florence I can take a
Muslim wherever I like some royal lovers
use her relationship with Abdul to
justify what a progressive monarch she
was but that's questionable at best
although she was called Empress of India
she never set foot in the country you
should go there I can never go there I
am forbidden forbidden they said I would
be assassinated
Victoria regarded India as a remote and
exotic place but also one that had to be
ruled by the British at its peak the
Empire included over 13 million square
miles of territory and a quarter of the
world's population but Britain's policy
of colonialism did untold damage
Abdul's fellow countrymen and women
suffered terribly
in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries an estimated 12 to 30 million
Indians died from starvation while
Britain benefited immensely from
wondering India of all its lutes in
general British imperialism led to
widespread poverty famine and genocide
while Victoria had no say in government
policy
she was the figurehead as the British
Empire thrived and the inhabitants of
the countries it occupied very much did
not as a child Victoria was forced to
adhere to the Kensington system which
was devised by her mother's royal
adviser John Conroy it fostered complete
dependence upon her mother kept
interactions with other children to a
minimum and isolated her from the world
it also forced Victoria to hold
someone's hand every time she climbed
the stairs and she was made to share a
bedroom with her mother until she became
Queen she grew up to loathe this
repressive system and her mother
forgiving at the green light alas the
rot had already set in as her difficult
upbringing had a detrimental effect on a
relationship with her own children
she could be fiercely critical and have
an acid tongue she even blamed her son
birdie for Prince Albert's death which
she believed was caused by typhoid fever
he contracted while visiting his
troublesome son in Cambridge to give him
a stern talking-to
in general she didn't think very highly
of babies are pregnancy either she
branded it the shadow side of marital
life and once wrote an ugly baby is a
very nasty object and the prettiest is
frightful when undressed mother earth
she was not although doctors have since
suggested that this mother of 9 suffered
from postpartum depression before Prince
Andrew made tabloid headlines around the
world there was Edward the seventh the
Playboy came known as birdie he set a
new Royal standard in Affairs drinking
and gambling bathing and champagne was
one of his preferred pastimes in just
the tip of the iceberg being born in
such a repressive society may have
instilled in birdie a need to rebel but
more likely an indulgent yet distant
mother led him to behaving like a hell
raising and party loving rockstar before
the likes of Led Zeppelin had even
strummed a single court birdie once
remarked I don't mind praying to the
Eternal Father but I must be the only
man in the country afflicted with an
eternal mother like most people who act
out there was probably a little lost
child inside him looking for the
attention that his
never gave him ha button to rub salt
into an already raging wound Bertie had
to wait 60 long years before he got to
step up to the throne and wear the crown
that had to hurt sadly for birdie his
reign was rather short-lived compared to
his mother's epic 63 year stint after 9
years three months and 12 days of rule
he died of pneumonia in 1910 Victoria
was the first carrier of what was once
referred to as the royal curse today it
is known as hemophilia but in Victoria's
time the blood clotting disorder was an
unknown factor all doctors knew was that
Victoria and many of her descendants had
inherited the curse that could lead to
excessive bleeding and even death she
was afflicted with a very rare strain of
haemophilia caused by a spontaneous
mutation of the X chromosome since
females possessed two X chromosomes and
males possess X Y chromosomes the
disease is passed on by females who
manifest no symptoms to male descendants
who do her son Prince Leopold was the
first Victoria's line to inherit the
curse Leopold was a sickly child and
Victoria fretted about him constantly
her worry was justified after suffering
a fits and hitting his head in the South
of France in 1884 he died the following
morning from a cerebral hemorrhage
he was just thirty before his untimely
death Leopold fathered two children
his son was unaffected by the curse
while his daughter Princess Alice of
Albany became a carrier she in turn
passed it on to her son Rupert Alexander
George of Teck who would die from a
hemorrhage caused by a car crash through
two of Queen Victoria's daughters
Princess Alice and Beatrice the curse
spread into many of Europe's royal
dynasties Victorian London was soaked in
opium the sailors who made their home in
the East End had been smoking it
recreationally for years opium dens
became favored by aristocrats looking to
forget reality ruling over all this
chemical chaos was Victoria who is no
stranger to mind-altering substances she
was rumored to use opium tinctures and
once chewed cocaine laced gum with a
young Winston Churchill but all of that
was legal where she shocked society was
when she insisted on inhaling chloroform
for 53 minutes from
a handkerchief when she was in labor
with her eighth child according to the
New York Times she described it as
blessed chloroform soothing quieting and
delightful beyond measure
Victoria's use of the drug went against
medical advice doctors believe that pain
relief during birth was dangerous and
would interfere with child labor but
with nine children Victoria had plenty
of first-hand experience giving birth
and she had no time for such theoretical
nonsense for men as a result her
stubbornness helped pioneer the use of
pain relief during pregnancy after the
death of her husband Prince Albert in
1861 Victoria basically stopped wearing
colors for 40 long years until her death
in 1901 she presented herself to the
world in 50 shades of black the
Victorians could be inherently more
gothic than the cures Robert Smith on a
bad hangover
they tended to romanticize horrific
things like tuberculosis looking like
you were at death's door was off at all
the rage so society tried to be pale
frail and morbid by committing herself
to wearing nothing but black Victoria
provided the nation with a cast-iron
template on how to be a diva of despair
such was her Gothic greatness that you
could quite barely call Queen Victoria
the patron saint of God but strangely
enough white wedding gowns are actually
her greatest tutorial legacy as a 20
year old blushing bride she started the
fad for white weddings and
single-handedly influenced nearly two
centuries of what women wear when
getting hitched Billy Idol clearly owes
her some royalties no pun intended
after getting hitched Victoria and
Albert went at it like bunny rabbits
although Victorian society was deeply
repressed in straight-laced Victoria
loved a good time in the bedroom as
evidenced by her nine pregnancies
historians have often pegged her for
having a rampant libido it's even been
suggested she was an insatiable predator
who devoured her poor husband yet such
depictions were purely the product of
19th century thought that branded female
desire is pathological women who
expressed the merest curiosity and
physical intimacy were considered brazen
nymphomaniacs with mental health
disorders Victoria's passionate delight
in expressing her love for her husband
was countercultural it was also quite
touching and by today's standards
strangely quaint a note from her diary
the day after her wedding night reads
I never never spent such an evening my
dearest dear Albert said on a footstool
by my side and his excessive love and
affection gave me feelings of heavenly
love and happiness I never could have
hoped to have felt before he clasped me
in his arms and we kissed each other
again and again Oh
this was the happiest day of my life if
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