(mystical music) - We are 2019, 200 years since the birth of Victoria.
What I find remarkable is how 200 years feels not that long ago, but it was really, in terms of the social climate and context and women didn't have the vote.
The whole world was so, so different.
- There were many legacies of the Victorian age, but I think one legacy that Victoria particularly did was to show that a woman could be powerful and be a wife and a mother.
- It's a really remarkable thing to consider.
She's only been reigning for 14 years at this point, and she's had seven children.
- The other legacy, obviously, that she and Albert left, was the fact that the Royal Family survived.
And I think that's because Victoria understood that they couldn't just be distant aristocrats, they had to be a family that her public could relate to.
- These trivial domestic scenes, they remind your subjects that you're not some remote, Olympian being, but rather a woman who bathes her children and loves her dogs.
- I find Victoria's ability to be so wholly and unashamedly herself, and so unabashed and frank and honest in her kind of abruptness and feelings and impatience and fiery temperament and will say what she thinks, even if it's completely inappropriate.
I find that lack of apology for who she is quite incredible at that period of time.
Well as you know from recent experience, Lord Palmerston, the public can change their mind in an afternoon.
- Sounds as if your mind is made up.
- It is.
