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S02.E08: The Luxury of Conscience


Meredith Quill
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5 hours ago, Nolefan said:

In regard to the whole argument about her being “spoiled,” I see that as an argument between a husband and wife, not Queen and subject. It had to do with marital issues of placing boundaries in a marriage  with respect to in-laws (although Lehzen was technically a servant, her relationship with Victoria was more that of mother and daughter). Lehzen disliked Albert from the beginning, flat out telling Victoria that she thought he was not worthy of her “as a second son from nowhere.” On top of that, she busts into their bedroom whenever she likes, shoots him dirty looks when Victoria and Albert are in disputes, tries to reinforce Victoria’s fears that Albert does not need her, and then uses little Vicky as a pawn (knowing how much Albert adores the child as there have been many scenes of Lehzen observing Albert with Vicky) to attempt to demonstrate the she (Lehzen) is more valuable to Victoria then her husband because as Lehzen stated “she ONLY serves” Victoria (playing on Victoria’s deepest fears that she might be abandoned one day).

I agree that Lehzen chose the strategy that almost always fails. It's also true that Victoria acted often like a spoiled teem ager in S1. 

However, she was not spoiled as a child but quite the opposite: she had no freedom at all but lived like in prison. Therefore, it was very cruel from Albert to say that she should have grown in a harsher way as it hardly wasn't possibly and what she really had lacked was love and understanding.

Albert's idea about bringing children sounded very oldfashioned, just as his opinion that fresh air was dangerous.

The only matter where Albert was right was to call the doctor when Vicky became sick but even then he shouldn't have threatened Victoria to chose between him and Lehzen.

In short, Albert resented Lehzen because they were rivals for control over Victoria.   

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3 hours ago, qtpye said:

Do you think the real Albert liked her in the beginning or was it more that she was a great catch being the queen of England? I know they ended up having a great relationship, but he really did marry up financially and would probably be called a gold digger if he was a woman. 

I think that you forgot that it was a time when an arranged marriage was a normal and accepted habit. Royals married royals. Nobody thought anything wrong in it.   

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1 hour ago, Roseanna said:

I think that you forgot that it was a time when an arranged marriage was a normal and accepted habit. Royals married royals. Nobody thought anything wrong in it.   

And class married class.  And preferably everybody married, even those who preferred the same gender.  

I wish you'd seen the Christmas episode, as a lot of this is explained in Show & in Forum.  I'm busting, but it would be a spoiler here.

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I agree that Albert should not have gone to Parliment, but I do not think he went there because he “resents” Victoria but because he greatly admired Peel and wanted to witness the debate — I saw that it was similar to him going to see the train after Victoria told him not to. It was a huge mistake, which he admitted to Victoria when she asked about his hand. During their fight, Albert said some not so nice things, but Victoria and Albert forgave each other. It was their fight, their marriage, and their business. Lehzen’s downfall was inserting herself into their business and attempting to instigate more strife between the couple when pointing out her observation about Albert not respecting Victoria enough — again the whole you are a queen and better than him speech. Albert was right, she was attempting to create a wedge and Lehzen basically admitted this when she told Victoria that she still saw her job as protecting Victoria. Victoria does not feel threatened by Albert (and knows despite their fights that he loves her) and told this Lehzen. I totally agree that Albert resented Lehzen, but as Albert said, he is her husband and should be placed on a higher level than Lehzen in Victoria’s life. Albert has placed Victoria at the highest level in his life, even sending his brother back to Coburg when he feared Ernest’s behavior might negatively impact Victoria’s image as Queen.

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18 hours ago, Roseanna said:

How can a man be "giddy with happiness" proposing a marriage just after losing his lover and woman accepting him but knowing he loves another? Either they pretend feelings they don't feel or they betray themselves. Or, most likely, the writers are too lazy. 

I will take this to the History Talk topic since I'm not sure if it violates the spoiler policy and the mods have been posting warnings.

Edited by yorklee2
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7 hours ago, Nolefan said:

I agree that Albert should not have gone to Parliment, but I do not think he went there because he “resents” Victoria but because he greatly admired Peel and wanted to witness the debate — I saw that it was similar to him going to see the train after Victoria told him not to. It was a huge mistake, which he admitted to Victoria when she asked about his hand. During their fight, Albert said some not so nice things, but Victoria and Albert forgave each other. It was their fight, their marriage, and their business. Lehzen’s downfall was inserting herself into their business and attempting to instigate more strife between the couple when pointing out her observation about Albert not respecting Victoria enough — again the whole you are a queen and better than him speech. Albert was right, she was attempting to create a wedge and Lehzen basically admitted this when she told Victoria that she still saw her job as protecting Victoria. Victoria does not feel threatened by Albert (and knows despite their fights that he loves her) and told this Lehzen. I totally agree that Albert resented Lehzen, but as Albert said, he is her husband and should be placed on a higher level than Lehzen in Victoria’s life. Albert has placed Victoria at the highest level in his life, even sending his brother back to Coburg when he feared Ernest’s behavior might negatively impact Victoria’s image as Queen.

I don't think going to see the train can't be compared with going to Parliament. The former was a private matter, the latter was a constitutional one. Albert was wrong to assume that as a husband of the Queen he could interfere politics just as he pleased.  

That part of the quarrel wasn't a quarrel between spouses, it was a quarrel between the sovereign and subject. It wasn't only that Albert's opinion was wrong, but he was wrong to act against the sovereign's will. 

About "Albert has placed Victoria at the highest level in his life": I don't think he has. Although he of course wants to make his best for Victoria to be safe and sound, when it's about different opinions, there are no discussion between equals because men are naturally superior to women. Therefore, he thinks that he must be the sole master who has a total control over his wife. In this, Lehzen was quite right, although her tactics was wrong. 

Of course, Albert was a man of his time, but the problem is that Victoria isn't only his wife and the mother of his children but also the Queen and he can't make difference between her roles. Albert has a legal right to command Victoria as his wife, but the Queen has a legal right to command Prince Albert as her subject.

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5 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I don't think going to see the train can't be compared with going to Parliament. The former was a private matter, the latter was a constitutional one. Albert was wrong to assume that as a husband of the Queen he could interfere politics just as he pleased.  

That part of the quarrel wasn't a quarrel between spouses, it was a quarrel between the sovereign and subject. It wasn't only that Albert's opinion was wrong, but he was wrong to act against the sovereign's will. 

About "Albert has placed Victoria at the highest level in his life": I don't think he has. Although he of course wants to make his best for Victoria to be safe and sound, when it's about different opinions, there are no discussion between equals because men are naturally superior to women. Therefore, he thinks that he must be the sole master who has a total control over his wife. In this, Lehzen was quite right, although her tactics was wrong. 

Of course, Albert was a man of his time, but the problem is that Victoria isn't only his wife and the mother of his children but also the Queen and he can't make difference between her roles. Albert has a legal right to command Victoria as his wife, but the Queen has a legal right to command Prince Albert as her subject.

We will have to just agree to disagree :) As I said, Albert was wrong to go to Parliment, and, while the Parliment visit was on a higher level of inappropriate than the train visit (which I think would be viewed as “official” by the outside world because a member of Parliament, Peel, was there), I think in both instances he lost his mind for a moment because he was excited about the subject matter, not because he has some sort of underlying, deep-seeded loathing (or resentment) for Victoria. He got away with it during the train visit, so maybe this made him think that people can separate his actions from his wife’s actions.  But I think he learned in a very embarrassing way that his actions will always be equated with the Queen, so he needs to think about that before he participates in things in the future. I never got any “I’m the sole master” vibe. In fact, he admitted to Victoria he was wrong (“this is what happens when I don’t listen to you,” which to me shows that he recognizes that what she says holds value). Victoria forgave him. I think Victoria and Albert, at this point in their marriage, are still working through this very unique relationship they are in, especially for the time (Victoria trying to figure out how to be a Queen and a good wife and Albert trying to figure out how to be a good husband to a Queen). They have no examples to go from, so they are figuring it out as they go along. I see both Victoria and Albert as strong willed. Both are adults, and I think Albert’s problem with Lehzen was that Victoria is an adult, and, as an adult and his wife, she should not be going to Lehzen, who hates him and is just a yes man for Victoria’s opinion (compared to advice from Ernest, Lord M, and even Uncle Leopold who are able to point out other perspectives to each of them during V&A’s disputes that help them keep their relationship together, instead of wanting to see the relationship fail, like Lehzen). I think because they deeply love each other and both want the best for each other despite their disagreements — as Victoria said “they are both on the same side” — they are able to forgive each other for their human shortcomings (as each are far from perfect) and figure out a way to move forward together in their marriage.

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We have discussed the dispute about Lehzen only from the POV of Victoria, Albert and Lehzen. But what about the children?

Victoria left children to Lehzen for weeks when she visited France and Scotland and even otherwise Lehzen spent much time with them - probably more than their parents who had work and duties. Although they have nurses and nannies of their own, it must have been a great shock to them to lose Lehzen so suddenly. Albert never thought that, nor did Victoria.

I wonder whether V&A really sat on the floor playing with their children, or were they more like the parents of Duke of Windsor: nannies brought children to parents once in a day and warned them to behave and if they cried, they were at once carried away.

Somehow, Albert's word that that bad qualities should be extirpated from Vicky as a child seemed to signal that he was for hard disciplin - which was of course no wonder in that age,     

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