Posted on 03/02/2021 5:08:23 AM PST by C19fan
Disclaimer: I must admit I have never read a biography of Queen Victoria. My knowledge of her as a person has been accumulated by reading articles, mentions in non-fiction books, watching documentaries, and listening to podcasts. As a side note, if you are interested in the Victorians the “Age of Victoria” podcast is excellent.
After an excellent start to the series with season 1, season 2 keeps up the quality as Victoria and Albert enter the 1840s. I find this series is quite subversive in our post-modern world. What do I mean by that? Starting with Lytton Strachey publishing “Eminent Victorians” in 1918, societal elites have tended to look down on the Victorians as being philistines, prudish, and repressed. A condensed symbol of this attitude is the ongoing myth that the Victorians covered up the legs of furniture because it was improper to show naked legs. The creator of this series Daisy Godwin is committed to destroying these perceptions and rehabilitate the Victorians to their rightful place as innovators who fundamentally changed the world. Throughout this series she celebrates their accomplishments and her characters are fully formed human beings with complex emotional lives.
My Victorian geek meter goes to Red whenever real persons, events, and new technologies are portrayed. The first episode starts off with a bang as one is shown a scene from the Khyber Pass as haggard survivors from the disastrous British expedition into Afghanistan struggle against the elements. Back in London, one sees Wellington discuss the situation and realizes that things are not going to turn out well. This is the first modern empire Afghanistan is going to claim as it earns the title of “Graveyard of Empires”. Now one can add the tombstone of the American Empire to the graveyard.
One a lighter side, one encounter Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, the grandparents of computing hardware and software, showing off one of Babbage’s mechanical computers to an excited Prince Albert. Queen Victoria opens Brunels’ Thames Tunnel although I was disappointed there was no portrayal of Marc or Isambard. The Brunels’ seeing how a worm bored through wood created a revolutionary technique of tunnel building that is still used today. I loved the new side paddle steamship royal yacht “Victoria and Albert” transporting the royal couple to France for a summit with King Louis Philippe I.
Throughout this season there are mentions of Edwin Chadwick and his efforts at sanitary reform. Albert meets Chadwick and others at Buckingham Palace as they examine a sewer line. Albert makes this wonderful comment about how in the modern 19th century the sanitary system is vastly inferior to what the Romans built. This has been true since the fall of Rome, but the Victorians will do something about this.
The time period season 2 covers would be called the Hungry Forties as the era saw failed harvests culminating with the Irish Famine. There is a tear jerking episode covering the famine. Ms. Godwin uses the life of one of her direct ancestors the Low Church clergyman Robert Traill who had a living in County Cork. Rev. Traill is moved by the starvation he sees, provides comfort to all those effected whether Catholic or Protestant, and tries to warn the general public about the disaster that is unfolding. He is invited to a fictional meeting with Queen Victoria. In opposition to the compassion of Rev. Traill, is the ugly anti-Irish bigotry of Sir Charles Trevelyan who advises the Queen the government should do nothing as the Irish Catholics deserve their fate and to steal a quote from Charles Dickens, “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” I have quarter Irish-Catholic blood and I was on the verge of tears watching this. But unlike today’s Woke Revolutionaries, I understand history is a rather complicated process and one takes ”The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.
The Christmas Special associated with this season much have blown the gasket of the Woke Left. A major plot point, as Prince Albert is about to introduce the English Speaking world the Christmas Tree, is a British naval officer saves the last remaining young member of an African royal family from being sold to slavery. He tells off the African Chieftain, if he sells the girl then he will anger the “Great White Queen”. I would imagine the historically ignorant Woke throwing a brick at the TV saying we all know it was only racist whites who were involved in the slave trade because that is what “Roots” told me. The officer, a Captain Forbes, takes the young girl home into a loving family. His wife teaches Sarah how to read, write, and play piano as Mrs. Forbes intends to raise the girl as a proper English Lady. I was laughing inside knowing the Woke Left would have an apoplexy. How dare this white woman raise a child of color like that.
One of the delights of this season was a new character the Duchess of Buccleuch portrayed by the Diana Rigg who needs no introduction. She comes off as quite a curmudgeon in out of fashion mourning clothes. But given the tone of the series she shows a very compassionate soul giving comfort to the other characters as they go through life’s trials.
I cannot say enough about this wonderful series. If you do not watch it, I would do it now before the Woke working at the “Ministry of Truth” decides to throw this series down the Memory Hole.
Oops..on my scale of 1 to 5 bonnets I am going to give this 5 bonnets. I would normally give it 4 bonnets for some historical fictions being added but I am adding a bonnet because of how subversive it is in our crazy world.
I’ve been waiting to hear when season 4 would start, but it seems they were still in discussions about it last month, so it will be quite a while yet.
Sounds like it’s worth watching - which channel is it on?
I watch it via Amazon Prime video. It is free for Amazon Prime members.
Good. Thanks - I happen to have Amazon Prime. I don’t believe I’ve watched any original programming from them
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