Fact or Fiction: Inside Episode 3
Victoria may have departed for France, but did Victoria depart from fact? Here’s what’s fact and what’s fiction in “Entente Cordiale,” Episode 3 of Victoria Season 2.
- 1.
Fact or Fiction: Victoria was the first British monarch to visit France since Henry VIII.
Fact: Additionally, she was the first monarch to have left England in nearly a century.
- 2.
Fact or Fiction: Prince albert suffered from seasickness.
Fact: Numerous accounts describe the Prince as suffering from seasickness during especially rough Channel crossings
- 3.
Fact or Fiction: Victoria was treated as dowdy by the French.
Fact: “They were astonished by her clothes when she came, and they just couldn’t believe this bag she was wearing, her Dash bag. They were just amazed by that. But they were very impressed by her natural dignity and her incredible jewels.” –Daisy Goodwin, writer and creator of Victoria
- 4.
Fact or Fiction: Victoria typically didn't wear makeup.
Fact: She considered “face painting” to be vulgar, and suitable only for prostitutes and actresses.
- 5.
Fact or Fiction: Louis Phillipe made Victoria a diplomatic promise that he then discarded.
Fact: During diplomatic talks around the Affair of the Spanish Marriages, as it came to be called, Louis-Philippe agreed not to pursue a French match to the 16-year-old Spanish Queen Isabella II if the British would drop their bid for a Saxe-Coburg match. However, he undermined his agreement when he orchestrated the wedding of his son to the Spanish queen’s younger sister, the same day as the Queen’s wedding to her close relative Francisco de Asís de Borbón.
Want more Victoria history? Get the scoop on the true history behind Victoria Season 2 Episode 3 through images from the era of Her Majesty’s reign.
