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Queen Victoria's Children: Episode 3: Princes Will Be Princes...

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Princes Will Be Princes...

Episode 3

Episode 3: Princes Will Be Princes...

BBC Two - Queen Victoria's Children, Princes Will Be Princes...

Examination of how Victoria's sons struggled to live up to Prince Albert's model of purity

Series exploring the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships. This final episode focuses on her sons and on Albert's model of purity.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shared a passionate marriage. Behind closed doors, royal domestic life often seemed like a battlefield. 

In a 60-year family saga, this three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children. It is a story of manipulation, conflict, intimidation, emotional blackmail, and fevered attempts by her children to escape the clutches of their domineering and needy mother.

The series uses a wealth of written material and photos left by Victoria, Albert and their children, including letters, diaries, memoirs and journals, to bring the subject and characters to life. 

This final episode focuses on Victoria's relationship with her sons and how, after Albert's death, they struggled to live up to his model of purity. It explores Victoria's difficult relationship with her eldest son Bertie, whom she blamed for Albert's death, believing his sexual indiscretions to have fatally weakened her husband. It also examines her relationship with her son Leopold, the physically weak but spirited haemophiliac who put up the most determined effort to break free from his mother's control. Ultimately, the idea of monarchy based on purity is put to the test as the philandering Bertie comes to the throne.

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Series exploring the reign of Queen Victoria through her personal relationships.

In a 60-year family saga this new three-part series explores the reign of Victoria through her personal relationships with her husband and her nine children.

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Episode 3: Princes Will Be Princes...

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