Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s entanglement in the Epstein scandal has prompted one of the greatest controversies in the Royal Family’s nearly 1000-year history – but it won’t sink the Firm, an expert has said. Looking back over the scandals past monarchs have had to deal with and how they overcame them can be a useful tool, novelist and screenwriter Daisy Goodwin explains. As a particular expert on the life and reign of Queen Victoria, Ms Goodwin – who wrotethe hugely popular ITV series, Victoria – is clear that this, like the scandals Victoria overcame, will pass. But looking to the future, there will be two members of the Royal Family above all others who will be essential in carrying the Firm forward for the next generation.
“I don’t think the Andrew scandal is going to bring down the monarchy,” Ms Goodwin exclusively tells the Express during a talk about her new play, Victoria: A Queen Unbound.
She adds: “The monarchy was pretty unpopular before Victoria. By the time she died, the monarchy couldn’t have been more popular. You can get through these things, but it’ll be down to William and Catherine to be impeccable—which so far, of course, they have been.”
Before Queen Victoria’s reign, the Royal Family’s reputation had been damaged by the lavish excesses and scandalous lives of her uncles, King George IV and King William IV.
And, in the early years of Victoria’s time on the throne, she was embroiled in controversy over the death of her mother’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, and the controversial bedchamber crisis, where she was accused of favouring the Whig political party over the Tories by refusing to change her ladies-in-waiting to be a mix of wives from both parties.
Ms Goodwin is clear that while the Royal Family will survive, it will be the Prince and Princess of Wales who will be relied on to carry the weight of the crown.
Ms Goodwin’s provocative new play will delve deeper into the relationship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and question the real story behind what is often called the greatest royal love story of all time.
For the writer, her new play was born of a simple phrase she spotted in Queen Victoria’s diaries: “He did everything for me; he even used to choose my bonnets.” This small domestic confession from Victoria after Albert’s early death wasn’t a grand political decree in her widowhood, but it did reveal a darker truth.
“I used to think that was so sweet,” Ms Goodwin says assuredly. “Now, I think: is it actually slightly creepy that he was trying to control every aspect of her life down to her headgear?”
The new play’s angle is not a view that is known by the masses – it tackles the fiery arguments between the couple, the constant fight for attention and will challenge the audience to question how our memories are sometimes whitewashed by time.
Victoria: A Queen Unbound opens at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury, on Friday, March 27 and runs until Saturday, May 9. Ticket prices start from £20.
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