I wrote back during Season 1 of this fabulous series (are you watching it? Whyever not?) about how one scene made it so achingly clear how quickly time passes, with moments of utter joy being over in a . . . well, moment. Season 1 ended with the birth of Victoria and Albert’s first child, Vicky, and now we’re about two-thirds through Season 2, with three of their nine children having been born and two more episodes to go. Both Jenna Coleman (Victoria) and Tom Hughes (Albert) are continuing on for season 3, for which all of us fans are very grateful. Over all of the scenes looms the specter of Albert’s death, which we all know is coming when he’s only 42, after he and Victoria have been married for a little over 20 years. All that passion, all that rivalry and head-butting, all that love—all gone. And Victoria left to live on as a widow for 40 years, double the amount of time she spent as a wife.
Anyway, maybe I should get to the life lesson in this post, which has to do with an incident in the series that almost certainly did not happen in real life. Victoria and Albert, tiring of life in London, decide to visit Scotland and are royally entertained by kilts-clad Scotsmen playing bagpipes. (No mention of haggis.) One day the royal couple decides to go riding on their own (something that would never have been allowed, although Victoria does mention in her diary that she and Albert did go riding one day with just a servant). They get lost and end up spending the night in a crofter’s cottage. They don’t tell the elderly couple who they are and are fed trout roasted in the fire. The old woman teaches Victoria how to darn a sock. and she and Albert are given the one bed in the house. Meanwhile the frantic search is going on for the two, and as they wake up in the Scottish sunlight the next morning they see a group of plaid-clad searchers beating the fields. The short interlude is over. I was moved almost to tears as the old couple realizes who their visitors are. The old woman gives Victoria her darning mushroom as a parting gift, “You take this,” she says. “Ye’ll be wantin’ to practice your darning.” “I hate to leave,” Victoria says. “We’ve had such a lovely time.” Later, back at the palace, Victoria confides in her Mistress of the Wardrobe: “Just for a moment, there, the Prince and I were actually free.”
I was reminded of something I read many years ago and have never forgotten, although I have no clue as to the source. A woman in high society is describing how she and her husband would spend their summers on their farm, living very simply, each of them having only a tin plate and cup. They love that simple time, and it’s always a wrench for them to come back to their mansion in town with its fancy china and glass. On the farm they’re free of ceremony. They live like poor people, and they enjoy it.
All of the foregoing ties in beautifully with the sermon my pastor preached Sunday from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes chapter 5, in which the speaker of the book says:
The one who loves money is never satisfied with money, nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke. The more loot you get, the more looters show up. And what fun is that—to be robbed in broad daylight? Hard and honest work earns a good night’s sleep, whether supper is beans or steak. But a rich man’s belly gives him insomnia. (Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 The Message)
Who’s happier, the old couple in the croft or the royal couple in the palace? Right after the return to London from the idyllic Scottish holiday, Victoria has to address Parliament. There’s a long sequence showing all the layers and layers of ceremonial clothing she has to don, culminating with the heavy crown. It always seems as if it would be so wonderful, so glamorous, to march down the aisle wearing that crown, carrying a scepter, with your long cape flowing behind you. But in reality it’s heavy and hot. You’re completely constrained. Your every more is choreographed. Your head aches. You have to wait on that bathroom break. You don’t have a bottle of water hidden underneath a fold somewhere. And every eye is watching you to see if you mess up.
Well, I have perhaps as usual maundered on long enough. I’d encourage you to watch this one episode which I link to below even if you think you don’t like costume dramas that take liberties with history. (Alas, Victoria’s Mistress of the Wardrobe, Harriet, did not in real life have a love affair with Duke Ernst, Albert’s brother.) I also include a recent pic of the current Queen at the opening of Parliament and also, just for grins, the link to a video of the annual Ceremony of the Knights of the Garter. It is ab-so-lutely-ly un-be-liev-a-ble! So take a look at all those, and then go roast a trout and darn a sock!
“Lost in Scotland” Episode from Season 2
