0:00

October. Man, it is packed

0:02

to the gills every year, is

0:05

what we just started. We're only I don't think

0:07

we mentioned this last time. We're just a few sessions

0:09

in to starting power yoga.

0:12

That's true.

0:14

Oh man, my fourth,

0:16

fourth, my third, needless to

0:18

say, I've not done yoga before.

0:20

Also my first hot

0:22

yoga. I've done some yoga, but this

0:24

is my first like hot yoga.

0:25

And god, and it's not even

0:28

just I mean, the heat is one element, but it's the

0:30

I mean it is a strength exercise and

0:33

it's like stability, you know what. Everything

0:36

they say about yoga is true. It's

0:39

hard.

0:39

I know, it is tense. Yep,

0:42

and I'm.

0:42

Going to come out of this looking like Ryan

0:45

Reynolds crossed with

0:48

one of the Hemsworth. I

0:51

would say, I would say three more weeks.

0:53

Nice.

0:54

Yeah, I think it's about six weeks of work for them,

0:56

right.

0:57

I think so at least or so like

0:59

that that. Yeah, if

1:01

that maybe five? Yeah, it's just

1:03

because they can do it, you know, full time.

1:05

They probably eat half a pizza every other

1:07

night, right, definitely? All right, then I'm right

1:10

on all the meats for protein. Oh

1:12

I don't eat meat. Ah

1:15

crap. Now, I'll never.

1:16

Look like vegetables do nothing

1:18

for you.

1:20

What else is going on this month?

1:22

Let's see, Well, it's I mean it's it's

1:24

Halloween month. It's spooky season. So

1:26

what isn't going on? We got stuff

1:28

to do, We got costumes to plan. Yeah,

1:31

because we actually have a party to go to this year.

1:33

Oh crap.

1:33

We get a parade A little five points

1:36

A little.

1:36

Five points Halloween Parade is a

1:38

time hunered Atlanta tradition. If you've never been,

1:41

it's a wacky, wild, good time.

1:43

I mean, it's pretty much the pre eminent

1:45

Halloween weekend of activities,

1:48

yeah at in Atlanta. Yeah, because

1:50

it's like a whole weekend of various stuff.

1:53

They got a haunted house, a three

1:56

D haunted house, which I don't know if that means because

2:02

in the third dimension they're

2:04

usually forty we can like smell

2:06

things.

2:06

Too, but yeah, and they take time. That's

2:09

a dimension, right, I

2:11

so.

2:12

Question question the three D el on.

2:14

Quite honestly, I'd be more impressed to experience

2:16

a two dimensional haunted house.

2:19

It's all in a coloring book or something.

2:21

Well, I will have a hard time doing that this

2:23

month too, because I'm also remounting

2:27

the show that I was in. What last year

2:29

when we did Tipsy Tales

2:32

Presents robin Hood. It's a live show that

2:35

I'm the narrator and I'm Alan

2:37

Adale or the Rooster. If you're only familiar

2:39

with Disney's Robin.

2:40

Hood, I wish you were dressed like a rooster.

2:42

Look, I almost was in

2:44

the show. To be fair, I had a lot of pomp

2:47

I love that and pizzaz But yeah, we

2:49

do. The producers

2:52

of the show wrote this hilarious script, just

2:54

one hour sort of robin Hood

2:56

story, the traditional Robin Hood story

2:58

classic, but each night of the show, one

3:01

actor gets pretty drunk

3:03

before we go on an assigned

3:05

actor and then continues

3:07

drinking throughout the show and we just have to sort

3:09

of improv around whatever Shenanigan's happen.

3:12

They're given full rein to destroy

3:15

their part any.

3:17

Scene, and they do. Last time, Like

3:20

last time we did this, characters

3:22

main characters were dead halfway through

3:24

the show, and you just have we as the actors, just

3:26

have to go with whatever the drunk does.

3:29

If it's safe, we have to kind of

3:31

just roll with it. And so

3:33

it would just randomly like made Marian got killed

3:36

halfway through the show one night, and I

3:38

feel.

3:38

Like there was a win.

3:39

We had to get her twin to come back. That's

3:42

right.

3:43

I feel like I feel like there was a romance

3:45

between the sheriff.

3:48

That's what it was, one

3:50

of them. That's right. That was fun.

3:53

Anything it happened. Some people asked

3:56

last time when we talked about it if they

3:58

could see it, and we only did one weekend last time. We're

4:00

only doing one more weekend this time. A

4:02

few different actors but otherwise mostly the same

4:04

show. And it's the weekend

4:07

before Halloween in Atlanta, So shoot

4:09

us a message if you are in the city and want to catch

4:11

it, because it's a it's it's a good time.

4:14

It is a good time. It's a lot of fun. Plus you're,

4:16

of course encouraged to drink. I

4:18

believe that.

4:19

Yes, not me, Yeah, you're

4:21

I'm in charge of the drunk on

4:23

stage and making sure they don't die. So I specifically

4:26

am not drinking.

4:27

That's right. You're the babysitter. But the

4:29

rest of us are allowed to drink as much as we

4:31

want.

4:31

Oh yeah,

4:33

look, alcohol makes Alcohol

4:36

is every comedy theater show's best friend.

4:39

It does help a lot for

4:42

people to be a little loose.

4:44

Yeah, you know, but

4:46

seeing as how it's October, that of

4:49

course changes everything around here on Ridiculous

4:51

Romance too, because year one

4:53

we started this tradition almost

4:55

by accident, and we've loved

4:58

it, y'all have loved it ever since. It's

5:00

time for recripulous Romance,

5:06

and that's when we take the spookiest, scariest,

5:09

grossest, creepiest stories we can find

5:12

that still fit the Ridiculous Romance category

5:14

and we try and do them once a week throughout October. Tonight

5:17

will be no different. In fact, a nice

5:19

roll into the season.

5:20

I think, true, true, because we're

5:23

actually we're going to talk about Queen Victoria,

5:26

not who.

5:27

I think of when I think horror and murder and

5:29

mystery.

5:30

I know it's so true. We are

5:32

not abused, but no,

5:34

Queen Victoria actually had quite a fascination

5:37

with the spirit world. She

5:39

was a very powerful queen. Obviously, she had one of the

5:41

longest reigns in British history until,

5:43

of course, our girl, Queen Elizabeth

5:45

the Second. She was very

5:48

ably assisted by her husband, Prince

5:50

Albert, and these two had a like

5:52

Hollywood romance. They fell head over heels

5:55

in love with each other. They were sexy into

5:57

each other. They were doing it all the time, and

6:00

when he died she suffered

6:02

really intense depression. So

6:05

when a thirteen year old medium named

6:07

Robert James Lees claimed

6:10

to have a message for her from her

6:12

late husband, Victoria was all

6:14

ears.

6:15

So for our first.

6:17

Recorptulous romance of the spooky

6:19

season, let's find out how Queen

6:21

Victoria ruled over the British Empire

6:24

with the health of her husband's

6:26

ghosts.

6:27

Let's goot

6:30

friends, a listen, well, let's

6:33

beat say you welcome

6:35

to Hell.

6:36

There's no matchmaking, romantic

6:39

taps, it's judged all cops,

6:42

you're lying and crypts.

6:44

I love my dag type of moms

6:47

A ghost.

6:49

Stood demonic dog that

6:51

if.

6:51

There's a spirit with a shift in jags,

6:54

we'll put it an all show record.

6:58

Row a

7:03

production of iHeart Radio.

7:07

So Victoria, she was fifth in line

7:09

to inherit the throne when she was born in eighteen

7:11

nineteen, but ahead of her were

7:14

two elderly uncles with no kids.

7:17

Her uncle William's two daughters, both

7:19

of whom died as infants, and

7:22

her own father, Edward, who died when Victoria

7:24

was only a year old. So even though

7:26

she didn't become the official air presumptive

7:29

until she was eleven, you know, it

7:31

was pretty easy to see that she was going to inherit.

7:33

Well, we have people kept dropping off around this.

7:35

Baby curiously, man, like this is

7:37

some weird shit.

7:38

I'd be looking at this baby fifth in line And'd be like, uh,

7:41

numbers one, two, three, and four. Suspiciously,

7:45

that's the first mystery. Which

7:47

of the Pickwick triplets?

7:49

I did it?

7:50

Baby murderer?

7:53

Okay, we clearly just finished only murders in the building.

7:55

Yeah.

7:56

So yeah, many people were like, Okay, it's definitely

7:58

going to be this little girl, except for Victoria

8:01

herself. Funnily enough, her governess

8:03

Louise Lesson slipped

8:05

a copy of the genealogy of the House of Hanover

8:08

into one of Victoria's like lesson books,

8:11

and when she studied it, that's when she realized

8:13

like, oh shit, I'm going to be the next monarch. And

8:16

she is reported to have said quote, I

8:19

will be good. Oh she

8:23

is, like, I've seen some shit kings and

8:25

queens in our past. I'll do I'm

8:27

gonna try to be a good one. And that became like

8:30

kind of a big folk legend that she didn't know

8:32

until she saw and then she was like, I'm gonna be good.

8:34

So she meant I will be good, I will be good at

8:36

it, I will be kind yeah,

8:39

and neither oh,

8:42

I'll be good like I'll be the best theraist,

8:44

which is never a good attitude to take into a leadership position.

8:47

It could have been that, but I feel like, was

8:49

she like, I'm.

8:50

Good, I'll be good. You

8:53

guys can have it. I'll be good.

8:56

Somebody call I don't know when I old

8:58

uncles or something still around.

9:00

Well, if she became queen before

9:03

she turned eighteen, of course the

9:05

nation would have a regent in charge,

9:07

and that would have been Victoria's mother.

9:09

The Duchess of Kent too, the doctors

9:12

of Kent.

9:13

Now, unfortunately, the Duchess of Kent

9:15

was close as crabs with her comptroller,

9:18

Sir John Conroy. Some people even

9:20

thought that they might have been lovers. Of

9:23

course, a lot of scholars have dismissed that idea.

9:25

But together these two schemed

9:27

up all kinds of ways to keep Victoria

9:30

under their control and away from her

9:32

powerful uncles. We've seen this a

9:34

thousand times in every sort of historical

9:38

regal drama, the regency drama.

9:40

That we see, it's always this power behind

9:42

the throne.

9:44

Now, they created what was called the Kensington

9:46

system, and this was an elaborate

9:48

set of rules about how Victoria would

9:51

be educated and how she could

9:53

behave and with whom she could spend

9:55

her time, which was only these two

9:57

other kids and her dog, Dad

10:00

Spaniel. So this

10:02

Duchess and John Conroy, along with the

10:04

Duchess's lady in waiting, Flora Hastings,

10:07

who also rumors that

10:09

might have been the Duchess's lover.

10:12

The funny thing about this is that, like

10:14

if you're in a court, everybody's like, she

10:17

probably fuckings somebody, you know, They're

10:19

all just whisperings.

10:21

That is not unlike today.

10:23

It's so true. So I don't know how much I

10:25

believe any of that.

10:26

You were always like two people, a man the woman

10:28

spending time together. Oh, two

10:31

women spending time together.

10:32

Oh, I mean, I guess there's

10:34

not a lot to do in this time period.

10:37

So maybe that was the common wait

10:39

a while away, it just came only

10:41

lasts so long. There's only

10:44

so many books one can read.

10:46

Well regardless, still just rumors.

10:49

Point being that the Duchess

10:51

and Conroy made Victoria's childhood

10:54

extremely lonely and isolating, right,

10:56

that was kind of the point. The idea was to make

10:58

her really weak willed, really dependent

11:00

on them for her judgment, so that

11:03

even once she was old enough to rule alone,

11:05

they would still have a lot of power concentrated in

11:08

their hands.

11:08

She would constantly be turning to them like what should I do? What

11:10

should I do? But as she

11:12

got older, Victoria was pressured

11:15

constantly to make Sir John Conroy

11:17

her personal secretary, which was given

11:19

quite a lot of power over like, you know, her

11:22

messages and everything else around her. But

11:24

by then she hated Sir

11:26

John, she hated her mother, and she hated

11:29

Flora Hastings.

11:31

So she refused the three people who oppressed

11:34

her her entire childhood.

11:35

She did Fondo didn't like

11:37

anymore.

11:38

Sorry, that plan backfired all right.

11:40

And fortunately she was not the only one who

11:43

disapproved of this little contingent that

11:45

was about her ears, you know, like her uncle, King

11:47

William the Fourth once declared

11:49

in the Duchess's presence that he intended

11:52

to live until Victoria was eighteen,

11:54

just so they could avoid a regency with her

11:57

in argap, which I just think is so funny. He's

11:59

like, I can plan my death and guess what

12:01

it's time to keep. Mom makes sure that

12:04

you never have an official role here.

12:06

Amazing.

12:07

He also, of course, had some thoughts about

12:09

who Victoria should marry.

12:11

Oh and he favored Prince

12:14

Alexander of the Netherlands, but

12:16

her other uncle, King Leopold of the Belgians,

12:19

offered up his nephew, Prince Albert

12:22

of Sex, Coburg and Gotham.

12:25

I also love that William

12:28

and everybody hated these three so

12:30

much because I have to

12:32

relate everything back to TV to make it work in my

12:34

brain, because I'm a millennial and I'm broken

12:37

like that. You could just see these

12:39

characters just being the most sniveling, obnoxious,

12:42

power hungry, and how could you not

12:44

see that constantly? It's so obvious, you

12:47

know when these schemers are scheming. Oh

12:49

yeah, they're not subtle about it. Well. The minute

12:51

that Victoria met her cousin Albert

12:54

in eighteen thirty six, poorl

12:56

Alexander, King William's choice didn't

12:58

stand a chair because

13:01

Victoria went straight into her diary and started

13:03

writing about how handsome and

13:06

charming Albert was, while

13:08

alex got one line about being quote

13:11

very plain.

13:12

Damn. I mean, it's like galling.

13:14

She's just like paragraphs of like his beautiful

13:17

face and his charm of manner whatever.

13:20

And then she's like alex he was there

13:22

too.

13:23

She's just doodled in the margins missus

13:25

Albert and Saxe, Coburg and Gotha,

13:28

and then yeah, a little doodle of Alexander

13:30

in with like a fark cloud around him. Oh

13:33

no. Victoria even thanked

13:35

her uncle Leopold.

13:37

For quote, the prospect of great

13:39

happiness you have contributed to give me in

13:41

the person of dear Albert. He

13:44

possesses every quality that

13:46

could be desired to render me perfectly happy.

13:49

He is Sue sensible, Sue

13:51

kind, and Sue good, and

13:54

Sue amiable too. He

13:56

has besides the most pleasing

13:59

and delightful steria and

14:01

appearance you can possibly see.

14:05

But since Victoria was only seventeen

14:07

at this point, marriage itself would have to

14:09

wait a little while, but pretty clear that she had

14:12

her eyes on the price.

14:13

She knew who she wanted at this point. But

14:15

Victoria turned eighteen on May twenty fourth,

14:18

eighteen thirty seven, and less

14:20

than a month later, King William

14:22

died.

14:23

Oh my god. Wow.

14:24

Straight, he was like clinging to life

14:26

until her birthday.

14:28

I just want to make sure the Duchess of Kent's

14:30

not control here. Oh thank god, I

14:32

can die. Give me the cocaine.

14:34

Keep my eyes open until May twenty fifth.

14:36

So anyway, he died. She became the

14:39

Queen of England.

14:40

Okay, and as queens.

14:41

She started off pretty popular. You know, she's

14:43

young, she's beautiful, right, They're all like, hey,

14:46

love this beautiful queen of ours. But

14:48

then the Duchess's lady

14:50

in waiting, Lady Flora Hastings,

14:53

started walking around with what looked like a

14:56

baby bump. Oh and she wasn't

14:58

married, so this caused a lot talk

15:00

and Victoria of course hated that bitch,

15:03

so she was very excited to talk about

15:05

her. She's like, yeah, she probably is

15:08

pregnant. And guess who I think the dad is? Oh,

15:10

Sir John Conroy, that other bitch.

15:13

But I hate wow.

15:14

So she was kind of getting in on these

15:16

rumors. They got worse and worse. Finally

15:19

Flora agreed to an official

15:21

like medical examination. Okay, This

15:23

medical examination found out that a Flora

15:27

was a virgin b she

15:29

was not pregnant, so we don't have like a

15:31

Messiah situation going on with Flora. See,

15:35

she had a large tumor on her

15:37

liver which had distended her stomach,

15:39

and she only had a few months left

15:42

to live. Oh my god, it's like the worst

15:44

possible house. That's awful, especially

15:46

to be like examination.

15:47

Talking shit like she's got she's pregnant,

15:50

and then find oh, no, she's terminally ill.

15:52

Not only is she a virgin, has never

15:55

had sex. Wow, she's like terminally

15:58

sick, and you've been making fun of her tomb.

16:00

Yeah, so this was pretty crushing, and Victoria

16:03

did feel very bad. It's reported that

16:05

she had nightmares about Flora for years

16:08

afterwards. So a lot of guilt there, right,

16:10

which is, you know, just a lesson for everybody.

16:13

We don't need to be talking shit so much. You

16:15

know it's gonna come back and bite you. But

16:17

it wasn't just that. It was also Sir

16:20

John Conroy, Flora's family,

16:22

the opposition party, the Tories. They

16:25

all got together and they started a press campaign

16:28

criticizing Victoria for throwing

16:30

a dying woman into a month's long scandal and

16:32

making her final months miserable. So she's

16:35

already feeling bad and all these people

16:37

are like, yeah, you.

16:38

Should feel right, You're a real piece

16:40

of shit.

16:41

They were hoping to discredit her so she

16:43

would be forced to give Conroy a position

16:45

in her court, and they did succeed

16:48

at making her very unpopular. Now, as

16:50

soon as Victoria had become queen, she

16:52

had relegated Sir John Conroy and her

16:55

mother, the Duchess, to a small, faraway

16:57

apartment in the palace, and she refused to

16:59

see either one of them. But since

17:02

she was still single, she did still

17:04

have to live with her mother, which meant, of course

17:06

that she still had to live with John Conroy

17:08

too, who was her chief tormentor.

17:10

Right, So the whole time this is happening, this man's

17:12

in her house. I mean it's a it's Buckingham

17:14

Palace. She's not tripping over

17:17

him, but she's like, get him out of my house.

17:20

So she's complaining about this to her Prime Minister,

17:23

Lord Melbourne at the time, who told

17:25

her, of course, the quickest solution would be to

17:27

get married, because then she could have vict her mother,

17:29

and her mother would take John Conroy with her. And

17:32

Victoria called it a quote shocking

17:35

alternative, but you

17:37

know, she was still totally crushing on Albert. So

17:39

she, you know, she was kind of like a

17:42

little not wanting to get married

17:44

and give up you know, some of her position as queen,

17:47

right, but also she's going, let me get this hottie

17:49

up in my bed, body

17:52

up in here. So she finally proposed

17:54

to him, and they were married in February eighteen

17:57

forty, and Victoria discoveredude

18:01

sex. She

18:03

wrote in her diary after her wedding night

18:05

quote, I never

18:08

never spent such an evening

18:12

my dearest, dearest dear

18:15

Albert. His excessive love

18:17

and affection gave me feelings of heavenly

18:20

love and happiness I never could have hoped

18:22

to have felt before. They clasped

18:25

me in his arms, and we kissed each

18:27

other again and again. His

18:29

beauty, his sweetness, and

18:32

gentleness. Really, how can

18:34

I ever be thankful enough to have such

18:36

a husband. To be

18:38

called by names of tenderness I

18:41

have never yet heard used to me before?

18:44

Was bliss beyond belief. Oh,

18:47

this was the happiest day.

18:48

Of my life. She I

18:50

mean, she is like God. I

18:53

feel like I'm gonna hear Senator John Kennedy

18:55

reading that out on this Congress

18:57

floor.

18:58

I will give you the best low job.

19:02

That's in the news. If you'all haven't seen that one yet, look

19:04

it up. Senator John

19:06

Kennedy reading a

19:08

pornographic book is one

19:11

of the best clips of the of the past,

19:13

of this of the year, and.

19:14

One of the least sexy things you'll ever hear.

19:16

Shot we could.

19:19

But yeah, so she's she is like

19:22

I found out what an orgasm, is very

19:25

excited about it, and I want more. Let's do

19:27

this.

19:27

Albert a generous lover's handled

19:31

business. And this is

19:33

probably probably why she wanted to put him in a can. Prince

19:37

Albert in a can.

19:39

I don't know this, you know, I don't know that. I'm

19:42

sorry that I made

19:44

that joke. Fall Rell flat. I don't know it was.

19:47

It's a very old joke. It's like a like

19:49

a prince. Do you have Prince Albert in a

19:52

can? We'll let him out of the house. Oh, because

19:54

it was it's a I think it's a chew tobacco product

19:57

or no, it's a pipe tobacco, pipe tobacco.

20:00

Yeah.

20:00

Well, a lot about it.

20:04

Anyway has been Eli's

20:07

year old jokes. Thanks for tuning

20:09

in, everybody.

20:11

I thought Prince Albert was the piercing.

20:13

Yes, yes, Also you don't

20:15

put that in the can.

20:16

Maybe he had a penis piercing that

20:18

added to the situation. I don't know why it's called

20:20

the Prince Albert.

20:21

Uh, readers, let us know. I don't feel

20:24

like I don't feel like adding that to my Google searches.

20:26

No thanks, So at any rate, all have

20:28

to say, Queen Victoria loved

20:30

doing it. She's got she's real

20:33

into whatever Albert.

20:34

Had going on down men had the moves.

20:37

Within two months of their marriage.

20:39

She was pregnant, and of course her popularity

20:41

soared. Once again, nothing better than a pregnant

20:44

queen.

20:44

People love a pregnant queen. And you

20:46

know, they kept at it all

20:48

day, all nights, every surface of Buckingham

20:51

Palace. Probably in all

20:53

they would go on to have nine children together,

20:56

the two of them also together whether several

20:59

assassinations attempts, and these

21:01

actually made Albert more popular with the

21:03

public because he was very cool headed

21:05

in a crisis. He was a quiet

21:08

guy, but he was a great dad. The fact that all

21:10

nine of their kids lived to adulthood was

21:13

credited to Albert's quote enlightened

21:15

influence in running the nursery.

21:17

Bio biographer named Hermione Hobhouse.

21:20

Love that name, Mione Hobhouse British.

21:23

Yeah, Albert even got Victoria

21:25

to dismiss her old Governess Louise

21:28

Lessen, who had been kind of running the household

21:31

the whole time before him. Lesson had been

21:33

the one who helped Victoria build a strong personality

21:35

in spite of this Kensington system

21:37

that her mother and Conroy

21:40

raised her with, and she had supplanted

21:42

Victoria's mother, in Victoria's

21:45

own affections, kind of more of a

21:47

motherly figure than her mother herself.

21:49

Victoria called her mother on several occasions.

21:52

But Lessen was also the one

21:54

who was out there spreading rumors about Flora

21:56

Hastings and that kind of blew back against

21:59

Victoria. Albert hated her for

22:01

that, so to keep him happy, Victoria

22:03

pensioned her off.

22:04

I mean, it says a lot about her feelings for Albert

22:06

that she was willing to send this lady

22:09

away who had been like her main source

22:11

of comfort so long. Yeah, and

22:13

Victoria also relied on his advice and assistance.

22:16

But fortunately Albert had some cool notions.

22:20

He was actually four child labor

22:22

laws instead of against he was like maybe kids shouldn't

22:24

be working.

22:25

Oh, child labor laws. I'm four child

22:27

labor laws in that we should stop getting up.

22:29

Yeah, we should put children, we should put them to work.

22:31

Now.

22:31

At the time, it was a big thing whether

22:33

kids could work in factories, you know whatever,

22:36

and he was like, no, kids should go to school, kids

22:38

should not do that. He also wanted to abolish

22:41

slavery worldwide. He's

22:43

also credited with being the guy who kind of felt

22:45

that the British royal family should be above

22:48

politics. So he's sort of the reason

22:50

we have this distance between the royal family

22:52

and the Parliament that seems

22:54

pretty average now. And he

22:57

also arranged the Great Exhibition, which

22:59

is basically the the first World's Fair.

23:02

Wow, and people like fought

23:04

him every step of the way. They were like, don't bring that foreign

23:06

stuff into my you know, my country

23:09

or whatever. But of course it was an enormous

23:11

success, so they were like, oh shit. Albert's

23:13

a smart guy. So over the years his influence

23:16

only grew and he ended up like helping

23:18

with Victoria's government paperwork. He

23:20

started drafting or correspondence.

23:23

He would attend cabinet meetings. He would even

23:25

see cabinet ministers alone without

23:27

Victoria. So a clerk named

23:29

Charles Greville wrote in his private journal

23:32

quote, he is king to

23:34

all intents and purposes.

23:36

Man, I want to put this guy in a can and carry

23:38

him out, all right.

23:39

He sounds like a smart cat.

23:41

Just oh yeah, things look pretty dark.

23:43

I'm gonna pop open at cant Albert, see

23:46

what happens. But you

23:48

know, it's ridiculous romance, and as

23:50

is often the case, tragedy awaited.

23:54

Their eldest son, Bertie, was

23:56

at Cambridge at this point, and the Queen had

23:58

heard that he was consorting with an Irish

24:01

actress named Nellie actress

24:05

excuse me. They were terrified

24:07

that this girl was going to get pregnant, or start

24:10

some kind of scandal, or even start blackmailing

24:12

Birdie something like that. So Albert

24:15

went to visit the kid and discuss

24:17

him, you know, getting his shit together.

24:20

A few weeks later, though, Albert

24:23

died of typhoid fever. But

24:26

two years prior to his illness with typhoid,

24:29

Albert had been dealing with intense pain

24:31

in his stomach and legs, So

24:33

there's some scholars that think that he might have already

24:35

been suffering with Crohn's disease or

24:38

maybe even kidney failure or stomach cancer.

24:41

So unsure exactly what it was that

24:43

led to his death, or that he would not have died

24:45

soon anyway, but

24:47

Victoria was devastated. Obviously, we

24:49

know how much she loved him, and she went into

24:52

deep mourning. She would only wear

24:54

black for the rest of her life. She locked

24:56

herself away from the public. She became

24:59

so remote that she was known as the

25:01

Widow of Windsor. She

25:04

slept with a plaster cast

25:06

of Albert's hand, and she also

25:08

kept Albert's room exactly the

25:10

way it was, wouldn't touch anything. The

25:13

servants even came in each night to

25:15

lay out fresh clothes and hot water and

25:18

change the sheets.

25:19

No one was in there as if he was coming home.

25:22

I find that so sad. A plaster

25:25

cast of his hand makes me really

25:27

sad, because you know, she just wants to hold She just.

25:29

Wants to hold it.

25:31

That's so sad.

25:31

Yeah, I mean, unless your mind slips into the gutter

25:34

like mine. But I'm going to go with it. She was just holding

25:36

his hands up against her face

25:39

on the pillow at night. I

25:41

mean, I think he would probably go with it from

25:44

those diary entries.

25:45

Okay, However, speculation station

25:49

it was a masturbation aid. But

25:53

not long after Albert's death, someone

25:56

brought a startling story to Victoria's

25:58

attention. It was the editor of

26:00

a spiritualist magazine who had

26:02

recently sat in on a seance. Now,

26:05

at this time, spiritualism was as

26:07

in vogue as scientific advantage.

26:10

Sort of. The funny thing about the Victorian age the

26:12

spirit you know, alongside everyone

26:14

being like, let's measure in way I categorize

26:17

everything, they were very concerned

26:19

with the unknowable, you know, which

26:21

is really interesting. Nothing

26:23

preoccupied the Victorian mind more

26:25

than if there was life after death, and if

26:27

so, what was going on in how

26:30

can I talk?

26:30

I mean, I guess that makes sense if you're in

26:33

an age where you're really looking a

26:35

lot of scientific advancements and

26:37

you're trying to answer I mean, isn't that what

26:39

science often is is the pursuit of answering

26:41

the unanswerable. Right, So your mind is already

26:44

in that place and you're just like, Okay,

26:46

I figured out why water turns

26:49

to steam when you heat it up. Now tell

26:51

me what happens when we die? Right?

26:53

Can I not talk to my mom?

26:54

Yeah? Like goes in that order water

26:56

into steam. What happens when we die.

27:00

Amazing. There's so many reasons that

27:02

it took off spiritualism, and one of them

27:05

I think is interesting is that they found women

27:07

to be better mediums than men because they

27:09

were considered a more spiritual sure, so

27:12

there's a lot of actually a lot of women's

27:15

rights sort of marched along with spiritualism

27:19

and mediums and stuff because they were able to gain some

27:21

power and influence. They were able to make

27:23

money on their own. So all

27:25

that to say, spiritualism is huge at

27:27

this time. Everybody's into it. Even

27:30

Charles Dickens, our old friend, who

27:32

did not believe in spiritualism at all, was

27:35

writing ghost stories. You know, people

27:37

will prop preoccupied.

27:38

I know it exactly.

27:41

Victoria and Albert had even attended

27:43

a few seances themselves. Victoria

27:45

particularly into this. They even awarded

27:48

a particularly convincing medium

27:50

with a medal for quote meritorious

27:53

and Extraordinary clairvoyant.

27:57

So after Albert died, Victoria

27:59

received this letter from this editor

28:02

of the Spiritualist magazine telling

28:04

her about this seance that he had

28:06

attended. She probably would have been interested anyway,

28:08

but it was even more attention grabbing

28:11

because He said that the thirteen year

28:13

old medium Robert James Lees, had

28:16

received a message from beyond for

28:19

the Queen herself, and he claimed

28:21

that it was from the Prince

28:23

Consort Albert. Oh

28:26

my god, what did Albert

28:28

have to say? We will tell you right

28:31

after this quick break, Welcome

28:38

spirits. Oh back to the

28:40

show.

28:43

Oh, I just got a chill. The

28:45

curtains just rustled. Look.

28:48

Most of the information that follows here comes

28:50

from the book Whisperers, The

28:53

Secret History of the Spirit World

28:55

by J. H. Brennan. Now, a

28:57

chunk of the book concerning Queen Victoria

29:00

was reprinted in The Daily Beasts, so that's where we found

29:02

most of this. Brennan says

29:04

that, of course, any historian will

29:06

tell you that Victoria had a nervous breakdown

29:09

after Albert died, and she retreated

29:11

from public and political life for over two

29:13

years. She stopped trusting

29:16

her own judgment. She preferred to wonder

29:18

what Albert might have done, but

29:21

Brennan suggests that she actually found

29:23

a way to ask for his advice, as

29:25

if he were still alive. When

29:28

she heard about this message that Robert James

29:30

Lees claimed to have, Victoria

29:33

had to move carefully. She wasn't stupid,

29:35

right, she did have a healthy skepticism

29:38

about Lee's about I'm sure

29:40

mediums in general. Even when she was having

29:42

a good time and saying, oh you did so well,

29:45

she's like okay, rationally, if I had to say

29:48

so. It wasn't unusual for a famous

29:50

death to attract all kinds

29:52

of fake mediums pretending to have messages

29:55

for the grieving family. Victoria knew

29:57

this as well, so she summoned a couple of her

29:59

courtiers and told them

30:01

to attend the next Lee's seance

30:04

undercover.

30:06

So, using fake names and

30:09

not revealing their connection to the palace,

30:11

the two courtiers went to the seance.

30:14

Now, according to Brennan, these men were not believers

30:16

in spiritualism, so they were probably

30:19

trying not to laugh as they entered

30:21

the seance room, sure, which would

30:23

have likely been filled with candles

30:26

and oil lamps on low, maybe

30:28

decorated with red drapes because that

30:30

was believed to enhance communication between

30:33

the living and the dead. Now,

30:35

the participants would have all held hands

30:37

as Robert James Lees welcomed

30:40

the spirit of Prince Albert to join

30:42

them, and we don't have details

30:45

of the exact methods used by Lee's.

30:48

There were lots of different methods that mediums

30:50

used at this time. They often

30:53

communicated with spirits through taps and wraps,

30:55

so they would ask a question once for yes,

30:57

twice forno okay. Sometimes they would

30:59

go into a large cabinet for

31:02

part or all of the seance, and

31:04

they would maybe shout messages that they were

31:06

receiving from inside the cabinet, or they

31:08

would come out possessed by the spirit.

31:11

Often the cabinets would then be covered with like

31:14

gooey ecdo plasma, so it's

31:16

proof that some uncanny activity

31:18

had happened in there. Some used

31:21

weed aboards, or they had pencils

31:24

rigged up over paper, so messages

31:26

would be written or drawn by an unseen

31:29

hand.

31:31

And it seems like Lee's would go into

31:33

a trance in front of his guests because

31:36

to the courtier's surprise, Lee's

31:39

began to speak in Prince

31:42

Albert's voice. It

31:44

was uncanny. They grew more

31:46

and more uneasy as Lee's described

31:49

rivate details of life at the palace

31:51

that only Albert would have known

31:55

h drapped in this cab

32:00

My penis was Peters,

32:04

who else could have known these things? Even

32:07

more terrifying. He called

32:09

the courtiers out by name,

32:12

their real names, not the

32:14

fake ones that they had given Lees. They

32:17

were forced to admit that they were there

32:20

on the Queen's behalf, and they questioned

32:22

the ghost of Albert further. What

32:25

they heard impressed them so much

32:28

they sent a glowing report to

32:30

Victoria. This medium

32:33

might be the real deal.

32:35

Victoria had barely finished reading

32:37

it when she received a letter from Lee's,

32:40

a letter he said was really

32:43

from Albert. This was

32:45

an example of automatic writing,

32:47

which is when the spirit would take over the body

32:49

of the medium or just their hand even

32:52

and use it to write a message. Brennan

32:55

says the letter was signed with a

32:58

personal pet name only Albert and

33:00

Victoria used, and it was chock

33:02

full of personal details. Victoria

33:06

was convinced. She sent for Lees,

33:09

who held a seance in Buckingham Palace for

33:11

her, and she was thrilled to hear

33:13

Albert's voice once again. She

33:16

invited Lee's back over and over. In

33:18

all, he held nine seances

33:20

for her. She finally asked if he

33:22

wanted to take up residence in the palace and become

33:25

the court medium. Lee's

33:27

consulted with his spirit guides, but

33:29

they told him to decline. Fortunately,

33:33

Albert wasn't too picky about who could

33:35

speak for him Lee's as

33:37

Prince Albert told the Queen that a new

33:39

medium had been chosen to be his conduit.

33:42

Quote the boy who used to

33:44

carry my guns at bellmorle

33:47

Haw.

33:47

This boy was John

33:49

Brown, and he had been the Prince's

33:52

gilly, or the guy who goes along

33:54

on fishing and hunting expeditions, especially

33:56

in the Scottish Highlands. He

33:58

would have been over twenty years old

34:01

when he started working with the royals, but

34:03

not really a boy, but

34:06

he worked with the family for years, so he became

34:08

a personal friend of Albert's and was eventually

34:10

promoted to a permanent position leading

34:13

the Queen's pony. Victoria

34:15

wasn't surprised that he was a medium either, because

34:18

she had become convinced that he had

34:20

a second sight when only weeks

34:22

before Albert's death, John Brown

34:24

had said goodbye to them at Balmoral Castle,

34:27

hoping they traveled safely and quote

34:30

above all that you may have

34:32

no deaths in the family.

34:35

So she said, and then Albert died

34:38

and John saw that con.

34:41

Although to say, hope nobody

34:44

dies, and then someone dies to me is

34:46

suspicious.

34:47

You're a suspect, John, how'd

34:49

you give him typhoid from Scotland?

34:52

But anyway, what most people saw at this point

34:54

when Victoria turned to John Brown was a

34:57

grieving widow turning to a close friend at a time

34:59

that she a difficult time. But

35:02

the Queen started to rely heavily

35:04

on Brown, and his influence

35:06

over her raised a lot

35:08

of eyebrows. Now we're going

35:10

to get into that and maybe unravel the

35:13

mystery of some of these spooky seances. Right

35:15

after this BREAKO,

35:23

wellcome sorry,

35:28

I'm doing some of my yellow exercise.

35:30

It is still so

35:35

yeah.

35:36

Pretty quickly Victoria started to

35:38

rely kind of heavily on John

35:41

Brown, her servant, and that was super

35:43

weird for people around the castle. The

35:46

Daily Mail recounts that she would gaze

35:48

at one of her many busts of Albert

35:50

when she was asked a question about what to do.

35:53

Then she would look at John Brown before

35:55

giving her answer. She consulted

35:58

him about everything, or at least to He

36:01

was also allowed kind of extraordinary license

36:04

with his behavior. He was allowed to smoke

36:06

around her, which even her sons could

36:08

not do. Her second son, the Duke

36:10

of Edinburgh, even said that he had been evicted

36:12

from Buckingham Palace for refusing to shake

36:15

John's hand. Instead

36:17

of calling Victoria your majesty,

36:19

he would call her woman, what like

36:22

hey woman? And he would repeatedly tell

36:24

her off to her face. Ah, just

36:27

lots of very clear instances

36:30

of them being pretty intimate with one

36:32

another. She allowed him a lot of

36:34

freedom in the way he behaved around her, and

36:37

he got very high handed with the

36:39

rest of the royal staff, and so

36:41

it wasn't long before he was pretty universally

36:44

hated around the court. They didn't like how

36:46

much power this guy had.

36:48

Then, no one could understand the hold that this

36:50

guy had over the Queen either, So naturally

36:53

most decided that Victoria and John

36:55

Brown must have been lovers, the

36:58

queen a woman and a man's time

37:00

together. I mean, there was a lot

37:02

to support that theory, though The Guardian writes

37:05

that John Brown had taken up residents

37:07

in rooms adjoining the Queen's, according

37:09

to Courtier, who said it was quote

37:12

contrary to etiquette and even decency.

37:15

We remember that from our Queen Elizabeth

37:17

the First and Lord Robert Dudley

37:19

episode where he had rooms next to yours.

37:21

There are a lot of rumors.

37:23

Victoria's daughters joked about quote

37:25

Mama's lover, and newspapers

37:27

speculated that a secret marriage had

37:29

even taken place, maybe even a

37:32

secret child, and they began

37:34

calling Queen Victoria missus

37:36

Brown.

37:37

Oh, Missus Brown, You've got a lovely daughter.

37:40

Missus Brown was also the name of a nineteen ninety seven

37:42

movie about this relationship, starring Judy

37:44

Dench and the Great Billy Connolly. The

37:47

Great Judy Dench, they're both the great what

37:51

they're both great? Victoria

37:53

even created two Medals of Service

37:56

just for John Brown, though one was

37:58

given him for foiling another possible

38:01

assassination attempt, So that's legit, Like,

38:03

I just think respectable.

38:04

Faithful, meritorious service. You

38:07

took a bullet for me.

38:09

But if, as Brennan writes, she

38:11

believed that John Brown was a direct conduit

38:13

to her beloved husband, it makes

38:15

a lot of sense why he had so much influence over her right

38:18

exactly now.

38:19

A sculptor named Edgar Boehm spent

38:22

several months at Balmoral sculpting a

38:24

bust of John Brown for the Queen, and

38:26

he once told Catherine Walters, who is

38:28

one of Edward the Seventh mistresses

38:31

that quote. The queen, who had

38:33

been passionately in love with her husband,

38:35

got it into her head that somehow the Prince's

38:38

spirit had passed into Brown, so

38:41

he believed she allowed him quote every

38:44

conjugal privilege. Ooh.

38:48

It seems that whenever she needed Albert's

38:50

advice, she would simply get Brown to

38:52

conduct a seance and tell her what Albert

38:54

thought she should do. Once,

38:56

The Daily Mail recounts she left a meeting

38:59

of the Privy Council to consult with Albert,

39:01

returning to tell them quote the Prince

39:04

was hostile to any act of war

39:06

by England. And then, of course there

39:08

were plenty of skeptics who were like, this guy does

39:11

not have a direct line to

39:13

the ghost of Albert. He is totally faking this, And

39:16

they started thinking that, you know, he was kind of exploiting

39:19

Victoria's well known fascination with

39:21

spiritualism. They started calling him quote

39:23

resputant in a kilt man.

39:26

I mean yeah, when he came back around and was like,

39:29

uh, Prince Albert says, I can blow

39:31

my smoke in your face woman.

39:34

You know, yeah, if he

39:36

thinks it's best.

39:39

Prince Albert says, time for a pay raise.

39:42

When John Brown died in eighteen

39:44

eighty three, the rumors somehow

39:48

gained even more power because the Queen was

39:50

devastated by his death, much like Albert's.

39:53

She likened it to losing Albert. She said

39:55

that life quote for a second

39:57

time, had given her a heavy blow. She

40:00

wrote quote, perhaps never

40:02

in history was there so strong

40:05

and true, an attachment so warm

40:07

and loving, a friendship between the sovereign

40:09

and servant. She

40:12

wanted to write a memoir of John Brown's

40:14

life, including all the seances

40:16

that he had conducted for her, but she was advised

40:19

against this. A lot of her writing

40:21

about those seances ended up being burned,

40:23

so.

40:24

Unfortunately we don't have a lot of the information

40:26

about the seances right.

40:28

And when Queen Victoria herself died

40:30

years later, her face was surrounded

40:33

by her wedding veil, her hands covered

40:35

in rings from Albert and her children,

40:38

and she had one of Albert's cloaks,

40:40

a handkerchief, and the plaster cast

40:43

of his hand with her. But secretly,

40:46

the doctor James Reid dropped

40:48

a few other items in her coffin as

40:50

well. John Brown's mother's

40:53

wedding ring was placed on one of Victoria's

40:55

fingers, his photograph in

40:57

her hand, along with some of his

40:59

head and a handkerchief that

41:02

belonged to him. I mean, so.

41:05

She was mementos, yeah, of

41:08

someone she really loved. Now, of

41:10

course, not everyone is convinced that they were

41:12

lovers. There's not a lot of evidence to support

41:15

it, like written down evidence or

41:17

anything. They're not even convinced

41:19

that John Brown really had that much

41:21

influence on her. Kind of like it was an

41:23

intimate relationship, but it doesn't follow that

41:25

it was sexual, okay, and he

41:28

didn't really care about politics, so what would

41:30

have been the point to trusted rascootin and a kilt

41:32

thing. There's lots of reasons for this. Some say

41:35

Victoria would never consider lowering herself

41:37

to have sex with a servant, she was not that type

41:39

of gal, Or that Victoria didn't

41:41

approve of widow's remarrying, so

41:43

she never would have had a secret marriage with this guy,

41:47

or you know, she was also raised in a time when

41:49

women were taught that men were superior.

41:51

Even the Queen was taught that. For example,

41:54

she called Albert master and he called

41:56

her child, which is not that unusual.

41:59

Child was kind of a common endearment

42:01

for a man to call his wife okay at

42:04

that time, so the you know their feeling is

42:06

she would she could never see an inferior

42:08

man who had to call her mistress or whatever as a

42:10

partner. However he called her woman.

42:13

So we don't know, I know, right, we don't

42:15

know. But even in her own

42:17

time, some of Victoria's court thought Brown was

42:19

pretty harmless, and in fact were

42:21

relieved that she had put her trust in

42:24

someone with zero political aspirations.

42:26

He did not try to use that position to

42:29

gain power for himself for members of

42:31

his family. Nothing like that. Interesting, More

42:33

often than not, when she was faced with a tough

42:35

political issue, she wouldn't turn to Brown at all.

42:37

She would turn to her favorite Prime Minister, Benjamin

42:40

Disraeli, who on his deathbed

42:42

in eighteen eighty one quipped that no one should

42:44

send for the queen quote. She would

42:46

only ask me to take a message to Albert.

42:49

Oh wow, which it's just because

42:51

a funny.

42:51

I love that they knew back then that she

42:53

was just never stop talking about it. No.

42:55

Well, and I would also like

42:57

to say that that's not the only say on so

43:00

she had. She also had seances with different mediums

43:02

to talk to children of hers that had.

43:04

Departed kidding her.

43:05

So she had several She was really into this,

43:08

Okay, she was into it, and again it was well

43:10

known. Disraeli's like, I don't want to

43:12

talk to anyone's ghost. M So

43:15

there's a lot of reasons why people kind of dismissed

43:17

this idea. They were just like, he was just a really

43:19

good friend.

43:20

The Oxford Dictionary of Biography likens

43:22

John Brown basically a court gesture

43:24

of old right. For Victoria,

43:27

the loss of Albert was also

43:30

the loss of the one man on earth who could tell her

43:32

about herself. And without him,

43:34

she was surrounded by courtiers. Even

43:37

her children were her subjects. They

43:39

were all too terrified to talk to her

43:41

like a person. When Albert died,

43:43

Victoria even said, quote, who

43:45

will call me Victoria?

43:47

Now that's such a melancholy

43:49

line. I don't know, it made

43:51

me sad to read that.

43:52

Yeah, John Brown's gruffness,

43:55

his willingness to speak his mind to her, and his

43:58

lack of interest in political power is

44:00

pretty much exactly what she valued. When

44:02

she asked Alfred Tennyson to write lines

44:05

for John Brown's tombstone, she wrote

44:07

about him, quote he had no thought

44:09

but for me, my welfare, my

44:12

comfort, my safety, my happiness.

44:15

Courageous, unselfish, totally

44:17

disinterested, discreet to the highest

44:20

degree, speaking truth fearlessly

44:22

and telling me what he thought and considered

44:25

to be just and right, without

44:27

flattery, and without saying what would

44:29

be pleasing if he did not think it right. The

44:32

comfort of my daily life is gone. The

44:35

void is terrible, the loss

44:37

is irreparable.

44:39

I think that says a lot about it, really,

44:42

what she really liked about him?

44:43

Yeah, and you know she was.

44:45

She liked sex. We know that about Victory,

44:49

so you know, maybe she did find

44:51

herself some comfort somewhere.

44:53

She liked sex with Albert. We know

44:55

that with Albert. I mean he didn't see I

44:57

don't remember seeing any journal entries

44:59

about anybody else she was banging.

45:01

She wrote a lot, so maybe she tried

45:04

and it was just like some

45:07

things, no one can replace Albert on.

45:09

I'd rather sleep with my plaster cast

45:12

his hand.

45:15

Oh, Albert's plaster cast is

45:17

a more generous lover than you'll ever

45:19

be. John Brown.

45:20

Damn.

45:21

I feel like John Brown doesn't sound like a generous

45:23

lover to me.

45:24

He does not, He does not. There

45:27

is a little story where

45:29

her doctor James reed once

45:31

like happened upon the Queen and John Brown

45:34

together, okay, and he don't know what they're joking

45:36

about. The only two lines her we

45:38

know is that John

45:40

Brown lifted his kilt to show his knee

45:43

and said is it here? And Queen

45:45

Victoria lifted her skirt and said, no,

45:47

it is here. So they're

45:50

like, there's something going on there because

45:52

it's very unusual in Victorian times to show your

45:54

limb to a man that was very I may as well have popped

45:56

a boob out at him or something. So

45:59

the doctor clearly saw it as

46:01

strange enough that he had to write it down in his diary.

46:04

That's the reason we know about that story.

46:06

Well, it was the old two knees.

46:07

Joke, the old the old two knees

46:09

flirting.

46:09

Which, uh, which

46:12

nie is? Yeah?

46:16

Which knee am I gonna? Well,

46:19

I don't know what the old two knees joke is. Well,

46:22

I guess that's it.

46:23

We don't know. Setup no punchline, but

46:26

the worst kind of joke. But I kind

46:28

of think I don't know. It's it's just

46:30

very funny because she's such an interesting character.

46:33

Victoria. She liked Benjamin

46:35

Disraeli because he flattered her a lot. He

46:37

even had a joke about like laying it all with a trowel

46:39

or something like that. But then she likes John Brown

46:42

because he doesn't. So she clearly just

46:44

needs different things from different people. She

46:46

likes having some guy around her that does

46:49

not cow tow sure, and

46:51

she liked having somebody who I

46:54

don't know it wasn't afraid of being fired or

46:56

beheaded or something by her, you know, who could

46:58

talk to her like a regular person to be a friend.

47:00

I mean, isn't that the real power of being

47:03

a queen too? Is Like I obviously

47:05

people's default mode is going to be towards

47:08

subservience and doing whatever they think makes

47:10

you happy. But you can also get

47:12

a couple of people to say you kind of have control over

47:14

that. I don't have control over that. Like

47:17

people are going to do one or the other around me. I got

47:19

nothing to say about it, And

47:21

usually it's the latter. Usually it's people telling

47:23

me to my face what's wrong with

47:26

everything I'm doing? Present

47:28

company included.

47:29

So I don't know what you mean.

47:31

I've never spoken a word of criticism, so.

47:35

You know, it just another benefit of

47:37

that royal life, I guess right.

47:39

And the drawback though, because I think, you know,

47:42

everyone talking to her wanted something. Yeah,

47:44

and so she's like, I like this guy, I don't want nothing

47:46

from me. He just wants to do what he's doing.

47:49

But how many of those how many those people were offered

47:52

up to her that she dismissed or or punished.

47:55

I do wonder that, you know, because at the same time,

47:57

it's she she wants everybody to tell

47:59

her what she you know, she wants people to reveal

48:01

with her until she doesn't one day and is

48:03

like, how dare you speak like that?

48:05

I'm the queen.

48:06

Well, and she's the reason her kids were kind of afraid

48:08

of her too, she was. She never let them forget

48:10

that she was the queen and not just their

48:12

mother, so that, you know, there she had

48:14

a little bit to you know, she had

48:16

responsibility for that for sure. But

48:20

but yeah, and I do wonder sometimes, just

48:22

with knowing about the Kensington system, how

48:25

much because she's she was a decisive

48:27

person. Oh no, I'm not trying to take away

48:30

her agency here as a queen. She made

48:32

decisions. She was not just handing off her power

48:34

right and left to different men.

48:35

Or anything.

48:36

But I do wonder how much she second guessed herself

48:39

just because of growing up with people

48:41

being like you should be second guessing yourself at all

48:43

times. Not only does she have that coordinated

48:46

campaign to make her like that, but

48:48

she also was already growing up in a time where it's like women

48:50

aren't really that smart, women don't really

48:52

know what to do, women don't know how life.

48:55

You can't do life, and you know what I mean. So it's

48:57

just like you have from so many different

48:59

sides this feeling of am I should

49:01

I? Am I really the right person

49:03

to be doing this? Should I not? You know what I mean?

49:06

So anyway, I just feel like she must

49:08

have had a lot of conflicting, a

49:10

lot of mixed emotions around that sort of thing. Yeah,

49:12

where she's like, I need my respect that I

49:14

deserve and if you don't show it, I have

49:16

to you know, I'd be like fuck you.

49:19

Yeah.

49:19

But also I wish I had a friend who could just josh

49:21

around with me about my knees.

49:22

But two knees joke, Oh,

49:27

nobody's done two knees with me since Albert's

49:30

played two.

49:30

Knees with me now, So you

49:33

know, I don't know do you think she was fucking John Brown?

49:35

Do I think she was? On this?

49:38

Based on this evidence, I'll.

49:39

Say, I don't know. It kind of feels

49:41

like it because it's sort of she's got like a

49:44

in a sexual sense, she's got subvibes

49:47

to me, like a submissive, like she

49:49

likes having a daddy and uh, you

49:51

know, and like somebody is sort of like

49:53

the more dominant hand plaster

49:56

or flesh, whichever it may be. And

50:01

again, that might come back from social

50:04

conditioning, whether that was her upbringing

50:07

or just like you said, women of the time

50:09

or whatever. But she seemed to kind of maybe

50:12

maybe take some pleasure in someone who

50:15

kind of stood up to her. I

50:17

might have been thrilling. You see that a lot with

50:19

people who are I'm not saying

50:21

you see it a lot, but the general

50:23

idea is that people

50:26

in high level, powerful positions

50:29

in the bedroom are willing to hand that power

50:31

over to someone else.

50:32

Yeah, they want to not

50:35

make decisions for a minute, and they want to be told

50:37

to do and.

50:37

Maybe not even just in the bedroom, it might even

50:40

be in their relationship. You know, it's like

50:42

I go home and that the other person's

50:44

in charge. Yeah, I'm in charge all day. So

50:46

she to me their dynamic

50:49

Carson. John Brown's feels like that, like he's

50:51

like, hey, you do what I say.

50:54

I call you woman, I do what I want around

50:56

you. You know? Was she like

50:59

did that kind of turn her on a little bit?

51:01

Maybe?

51:01

I don't know, maybe maybe no, no

51:04

telling.

51:04

I gotta wonder too if she's just like one person

51:07

has to love me, specially just me

51:10

and have my welfare at

51:12

heart. I'm their main concern

51:15

because she had Louise her governess. Then

51:18

she went to Albert, then she went to John

51:20

Brown. You know, she only has the one person

51:23

kind of as a confidant. Everybody

51:25

else is like everybody else. Yeah, So

51:28

I wonder too if she's like not capable of having

51:30

two confidants at once, like she

51:32

doesn't believe you know what I mean. I don't know if

51:34

that's just a pattern she got into.

51:36

Also did we

51:39

kind of brought up earlier, but like did John

51:41

Brown ever say, oh, Albert

51:44

wants to have sex with you, Victoria, so

51:47

through me, right, he would like

51:49

to And of course that's like kind

51:51

of tantamount to rape, right, I mean, like I'm giving

51:54

you the false yeah, pretext,

51:56

I'm taking advantage of your frash and emotional state

51:58

to have second you. That's pretty twisted, right

52:01

Did John Brown do that? I don't

52:03

know. He's certainly I

52:06

know he didn't use it to get political power. But

52:09

if he's not communicating

52:12

with the ghost of Prince Albert, and personally I

52:15

don't think he was, then

52:17

he was using it for something. I mean,

52:19

whether it was just a comfy bedroom to

52:21

sleep in at night, or you know,

52:23

getting laid by the Queen. I

52:25

don't know, maybe I mean.

52:27

But also you have to keep in mind there's

52:29

a different feeling in the UK about

52:32

your queen. You know, there

52:34

are plenty of people who are like it would be the

52:36

honor of my life, a privilege of my life

52:39

to be a close person to the Queen.

52:41

I would like nothing more than to

52:44

help them. And if he really did dedicate

52:46

himself to her interests like that, he might have been

52:48

like, whatever it makes her feel better. I'll

52:51

pretend to be Albert and I'll say whatever you think

52:53

is right is what you should do.

52:55

But you can let me smoke around you.

52:56

But I want to smoke.

52:59

I don't know. I don't know. The fact that he called her

53:01

woman doesn't make me feel like he had

53:04

all this reverence for the position of the queen.

53:06

I don't know that. I

53:09

don't know.

53:09

I can't decide myself because I'm like part

53:12

of me is like I don't believe it because she was just

53:14

so so in love with Albert, and she was in love

53:16

with him her whole life. She never stopped loving him,

53:19

so I'm like she never really considered herself

53:21

open to love someone else. I don't know

53:23

if that means she said no one can have

53:26

sex with me again, but it

53:28

seems to be really tied up. Sex and love

53:30

were very tied up for her, so I would

53:33

be surprised.

53:33

I think.

53:34

But if you found some real, real

53:36

evidence of it, and I could see her being

53:38

very lonely and wanting a friend and saying, you

53:40

can call me whatever, I don't care. Because he had

53:42

been Albert's friend too, so

53:45

he knew Albert. He could talk to her about Albert.

53:48

I don't know, my I think where I'm

53:50

landing is that I think that

53:53

combined her talking about

53:56

him after he died, her grief

53:59

and despair after John Brown died being

54:01

the only thing that ever matched Albert's death,

54:04

and her being so

54:06

in love with Albert and thinking that John

54:09

Brown was a conduit for him. I

54:11

think I think they were.

54:12

Doing they were doing it. I think I do fa but

54:15

fair enough, it could be.

54:17

There's only one way to know for

54:19

sure, and that's define

54:22

that's to have a seance.

54:23

Prince Albert, if you're here, well,

54:35

speaking of the seances, I

54:38

mean we we did hear some pretty gnarly

54:40

stuff. They knew the courtier's names

54:43

and he was speaking.

54:44

With his voice.

54:47

Yeah, so we I mean,

54:49

we can't know how real these

54:51

stances are. We were not there. I

54:56

think there are some people who do seem to have a

54:58

knack with you contacting

55:01

uncanny or having some kind of experience,

55:03

and I'm not going to tell them they weren't having an experience.

55:07

But it must be said that, of course,

55:09

there were tons of ways to fool

55:11

people in Victoria's time, and people,

55:14

oh, we're doing it. It's a very lucrative

55:17

scam.

55:17

When people want to believe

55:20

something, it's a lot easier to convince them that it's

55:22

happening, very true.

55:23

And we're time at desperate, sad people that they

55:25

were praying on, so pretty fucked up. Predatory

55:28

mediums would do a lot of crazy

55:30

things to convince. For

55:33

example, they would regularly hire actors

55:36

and ventriloquists so they

55:38

could make voices and whispers you know, sound

55:40

around the room during a seyon.

55:43

They would also use invisible ink,

55:45

right, so all the medium

55:47

would have to do is get some water

55:50

sprinkled over a piece of paper, and then a message

55:52

would appear.

55:53

As if it was being written.

55:55

Yeah.

55:55

Chimney sweeps were paid to hang out in chimneys

55:57

and wrap on the flu in response to question

56:00

so once for yes, twice for no, and there's just

56:02

a little seven year old up there or

56:04

whatever.

56:05

I'm kind of into this one too. They would make candles

56:08

that included the deceased perfume

56:11

or cologne, so when they would like them,

56:13

the breeze would come in and be like, it smells

56:15

like my late husband didn't here.

56:17

Oh my, I mean that would

56:19

be very convincing if you had a waft

56:21

of your wife's perfume or something, Oh my god.

56:24

Of course, fake ectoplasm is easily

56:27

made with normal household things

56:29

like flower water and corn starch, so

56:31

not a hard thing to fake that out.

56:33

Oh yeah, sure. I'm often

56:36

making pizza at night and be like,

56:38

who got ectoplasm all over the counter.

56:43

They even Obviously, photography was

56:45

pretty new. Nobody really understood how photographs

56:47

worked very well back then, so the people who

56:50

did could make spirit

56:52

photos by overlaying underdeveloped

56:55

portraits that would make it seem like there was

56:57

this ghostly figure captured in there.

57:00

I mean, I can't even see a real photo

57:02

that I took myself without thinking

57:05

I photoshot ai. That's fake.

57:09

But of course photography at the time, Yeah,

57:11

that was the only way to capture the truth. If

57:13

you saw a ghostly figure, it must have been there, you

57:15

know. So lots of lots of

57:17

ways to mess with people. And

57:20

I do think it's really funny that they would go into

57:22

a cabinet.

57:23

This is what that's the one that

57:25

really got made.

57:26

I'm going to watch you, thank you very much.

57:28

Turn around. I will speak

57:30

to the medium.

57:34

I have invisibility powers, but only

57:36

when you so

57:40

yeah, you know, And of course we've

57:42

all seen a million of these

57:44

types of fakers,

57:47

right. It's it's Victoria's

57:50

fascination with spiritualism was so so

57:52

well known that it's possible

57:54

that whoever Robert James Lee's

57:57

and whoever he was working with for these seances

58:01

deliberately said, let's get a message from Albert,

58:03

because then the queen will notice us. And

58:05

then they might have said, oh, well, let's make sure

58:08

we know if she's she's gonna send somebody to

58:10

see how really you are. Let's make sure we know who they

58:12

are, and when they come in, uh, Hans.

58:14

They might have had somebody in the court, you

58:16

know, leaking information center.

58:18

They would have some private details. It's not hard

58:20

to imagine how you could hoax that she send

58:23

in Gerald and Philip

58:25

and then make sure he says something about how

58:27

glad he is. She still has his hand

58:31

the night. That's good to comfort. She'll

58:33

know what it means.

58:35

Uh.

58:35

And you know, of course Lee's might have been like a good impressionist.

58:38

See, and they must have heard Albert talk, yeah,

58:40

before I give a speech or something, so

58:42

they could fake up his voice somehow or something

58:44

like that. Okay, but you

58:47

know, it is also possible that

58:49

the veil between living and dead

58:52

is thinner than we think, especially

58:54

in spooky season. Could

58:57

be true that's something of our souls,

59:00

our consciousness can imprint itself on the

59:02

world and leave itself behind. It

59:05

could be true that there's something.

59:07

With us right now, Oh

59:14

spooky, okay, all right, a

59:17

royal seance for a

59:21

dead prince ghost ghosts?

59:23

Okay?

59:24

Now, my my other question is if

59:26

there really is a ghost of Prince Albert hanging

59:28

out? Are he and Victoria hanging out?

59:32

Or is he like lonely because no one talks to him

59:34

anymore?

59:34

I hope that if because

59:37

Queen Victoria's a ghosts now too.

59:38

In that case, they're they're

59:41

they're doing it in the beyond and leave an ecoplasm

59:43

all over.

59:48

She tossed away that plaster hand

59:51

was like, finally, I don't need this.

59:52

Anymore, give

59:55

me some spirit fingers.

59:57

Oh man, that's the spookiest

1:00:00

image of all. Well,

1:00:03

I like it. I don't know. I

1:00:06

would love to see Lee's setting

1:00:09

up this ghost heist

1:00:11

basically, you know. Also insane

1:00:14

to me that if they did, if they were

1:00:16

like Queen Victoria, she's

1:00:19

into spiritualism, Let's see if we

1:00:21

can nab her. Like, if you're running

1:00:24

a con operation of

1:00:26

spiritualism and ghosts, you're

1:00:28

going to go for a fish that big. That's

1:00:31

that's ballsy, it is because that is

1:00:33

drawing a lot of attention to yourself. And

1:00:36

you know, fortunately she bought it. But to me, that's

1:00:38

like, that's like we're gonna rob the Bellagio.

1:00:41

You know. That's the big score that a lot of people

1:00:44

have been like, why would you put yourself in that

1:00:46

danger? I'm perfectly happy going

1:00:48

after the First National Bank. A couple of times.

1:00:52

This guy was like, I'm made for life though

1:00:54

as a medium. I mean you must think that. Yeah,

1:00:56

and especially because male mediums were less

1:00:58

popular, maybe he was like, I really need to

1:01:01

stand out. If I do some seances at Buckingham

1:01:03

Palace, I mean, I'll be in demand.

1:01:05

He told his crew this one

1:01:08

last score and then we're out.

1:01:10

We'll be sipping

1:01:12

martini's in Malibu.

1:01:14

What's a martini?

1:01:19

Yeah, that's the better question. Okay, all

1:01:21

right, well here's my question to you. Then?

1:01:23

What's that?

1:01:24

Uh? Who? What historical

1:01:27

figure would you seance with? Mmmm?

1:01:31

That I would most want to call to me? Questions?

1:01:34

Yeah, you get one, you have one little sciance. It's it's

1:01:37

the classic like who would you have lunch with? But they're

1:01:39

they're actually.

1:01:39

Dead right and they can only speak

1:01:41

in caps and wraps or some shit.

1:01:43

You taps and raps or through a medium conduit.

1:01:45

Okay, listeners, I want you to email us your answers

1:01:47

as well.

1:01:48

Yes, we'd love to know who would

1:01:50

I saance with? Hmmm,

1:01:53

God, this is tough. So

1:01:55

many people.

1:01:56

I know what you're doing in your mind too well.

1:01:58

It could be this, but then what about that?

1:02:00

But then if I didn't do that, I'd

1:02:02

be like, what would I rather stay on with someone who could tell me more about

1:02:04

myself and my family history, or

1:02:06

somebody you know, way from the past,

1:02:09

or somebody who might have the key to

1:02:11

a long held mystery or cold

1:02:13

case or something that would be pretty cool to be able

1:02:15

to find out.

1:02:17

You know, he's just got some good stories, you know, right.

1:02:19

That's really what I'm like, honestly, would

1:02:21

rather just be like, tell me, you know about, I

1:02:24

don't know, some cool party you went to and

1:02:26

all the people that were there.

1:02:27

Yeah, Mark Twain, Yeah, might be

1:02:29

really fun.

1:02:31

I think about Oscar Wilde. I think he would be sure

1:02:34

tell me everybody he was really talking about when he wrote

1:02:36

the Importance of being arnestor or

1:02:39

whatever. That's what I don't know. I

1:02:41

feel like some part of me would be like, I'd rather

1:02:44

talk to my dad's mom, who died when

1:02:46

I was ten. I would love to know more

1:02:48

about her life and like, you

1:02:50

know, give me some of the dirt you know from your

1:02:52

life and your family and stuff, because we don't only know

1:02:54

much about it.

1:02:55

Yeah, we only got your son's version, I

1:02:57

know.

1:02:57

Right, and he only got you

1:03:00

know, probably your highly edited version because

1:03:02

he's your son to tell him everything. So

1:03:05

I need to know the truth. I want to know what really

1:03:07

is going on with her, why she left

1:03:09

Edinburgh, what's you know? All that stuff? So I

1:03:11

don't know. That would be really fun, but it

1:03:14

would also be really cool to be like, hey, Governor

1:03:16

Morris, tell me about the founding of America.

1:03:18

Yeah, true, and all your fun house

1:03:21

parties and stuff. Who would you do?

1:03:23

Who would you talk to?

1:03:24

I think I would talk to right

1:03:27

now. I just want to go to John Brown and

1:03:29

be like, what was Scott? I'm your answers here,

1:03:31

buddy, were you guys doing it or not?

1:03:33

There you go.

1:03:34

That's just because it's on my mind. I know, I

1:03:36

don't know. Mostly I just want to hear

1:03:38

what you all think. Tell me about

1:03:41

your spiritual seances, tell

1:03:43

us, tell us if you've had one, because I'll

1:03:45

tell you. And here's another question for

1:03:47

you. Have you had communication

1:03:50

with the other side, Yes, I.

1:03:52

Would love to know that.

1:03:55

What about you have I No, I

1:03:58

have not, and I have been to a stay. We

1:04:01

have actually conducted one ye and

1:04:04

I was not a believer. I wasn't

1:04:06

by the end either, but a lot of people that were there felt

1:04:08

said that they felt things.

1:04:09

Well, especially the person

1:04:11

I was oijiing with that

1:04:14

Ouigi was going nuts and

1:04:16

she straight out told me half an hour later,

1:04:18

oh yeah, I was moving that all over the place, and she is a

1:04:21

believer. So I don't understand why

1:04:24

that was what was happening there. But

1:04:27

I did see a spooky, spooky

1:04:29

spirit when I was

1:04:31

a kid in my house, and others had claimed

1:04:33

to see it as well, a young girl standing

1:04:35

at the top of our basement stairs.

1:04:38

So that was I do remember that.

1:04:40

Robbiie one that stuck

1:04:43

with me. And then I think

1:04:45

I have told this story about when

1:04:47

I when the the

1:04:49

children's book that played sounds was

1:04:52

going off in the middle of the night and I thought it was a train.

1:04:54

But what I remember in my

1:04:57

as I was waking up was pushing

1:04:59

the b and on a like

1:05:02

like reaching up and pushing some sort of button, which

1:05:04

after I knew that it was a book of

1:05:06

sounds. I was like, oh my god, it was that

1:05:08

book like floating over my head and I pushed

1:05:11

the button.

1:05:11

Oh creepy.

1:05:13

And then also I distinctly remember

1:05:16

once as a kid looking up at the ceiling and

1:05:18

the shadows from my lamp

1:05:21

like turned into a face, like an animated

1:05:23

face that was talking.

1:05:25

Whoa that.

1:05:26

I'll never forget that one.

1:05:28

That's very creepy. Yeah, yeah, and

1:05:30

I haven't had anything like that.

1:05:32

Yeah.

1:05:32

I don't know if I should be happy or not.

1:05:34

I just honestly don't recommend

1:05:36

it. All those memories have stuck with me,

1:05:38

and not in a positive way. I mean, they're cool stories,

1:05:41

you know, but but I got

1:05:44

other stories.

1:05:45

The principle of my high school told us

1:05:47

once she was a very pragmatic

1:05:49

person, not a believer in magic,

1:05:52

but she said she she experienced someone

1:05:55

with telekinesis once she watched

1:05:57

her move a lamp from one side of the room to the other

1:05:59

with the moving just with their eyes

1:06:01

or something.

1:06:02

That's what I don't believe, because I have been trying

1:06:05

so hard to move stuff

1:06:07

with my mind. If you see me and I'm

1:06:09

not actively engaged in conversation, I'm

1:06:11

probably trying to move things around my mind.

1:06:14

My only thought is that what if it's harder to move with your

1:06:16

mind than with your body, so you'd just be like, I'd

1:06:19

rather just fucking pick up the lamp. It

1:06:21

gives me stuck a headache.

1:06:23

I thought that if I if, like the

1:06:25

power is that you can teleport, but it takes

1:06:28

as long as it would for you to walk, Oh,

1:06:30

would you still do it?

1:06:31

Would you bother?

1:06:33

I mean yes, I mean yes, I

1:06:35

wouldn't have to walk.

1:06:37

The thing is that I don't have to walk. I

1:06:40

guess the question would be if it takes as long

1:06:43

as a flight though, Like if you if you could

1:06:45

teleport from here to Europe, but it took as long

1:06:48

as a flight as a flight, absolute, would

1:06:50

you still teleport?

1:06:51

Why? Yeah? Why wouldn't I obviously deal

1:06:53

with the airport anybody? My question

1:06:56

is if it took you as long as it took

1:06:58

to walk, so it would take you for

1:07:00

you know, yeah, whatever weeks probably

1:07:02

to get to Europe, would

1:07:05

you fly or would you still teleport? Probably?

1:07:09

Fly? I don't know. My time's not that valuable.

1:07:11

Wow. If

1:07:14

I don't have to deal with the airport, I don't have to get on a plane.

1:07:16

If I don't have to get up to it. Rather, look,

1:07:18

I've often said that with superpowers,

1:07:21

I would be the laziest super

1:07:24

person. I won't even say superhero of

1:07:26

all time. I would be a real fat Spider

1:07:29

Man because I'd be just getting I'd

1:07:31

just be web slinging Dorito's from

1:07:34

the cabinet to my to my lap, and

1:07:37

that that'd be the long and short of my Spider

1:07:39

powers.

1:07:40

No, that is that is a that is a stone left

1:07:42

unturned by a lot of these right

1:07:45

superhero shows, Because

1:07:47

I know we complained about this about the Flash

1:07:50

on c W is that anybody who

1:07:52

got powers besides the Flash was the bad guy

1:07:54

to immediately be evil, And

1:07:56

we were like, where are all the people that would get powers

1:07:58

and literally do nothing not

1:08:01

change their life very significantly. They

1:08:03

would just like, oh now I don't have to get up

1:08:06

out of my bed to turn on the line.

1:08:08

Right, It'd probably be like, oh, I can control

1:08:10

the weather. Great, it's

1:08:12

rain today and I want to go outside, so I'm gonna make it not rain,

1:08:15

or like I don't feel like going anywhere today, so I'm gonna do a

1:08:17

little thunderstorm and read a book. Yeah,

1:08:19

that's probably most people have six steps.

1:08:22

Right, would be like I'm going to make sure it rains on

1:08:24

my ex's wedding day or something.

1:08:26

You know, it's not going to be maybe

1:08:28

little, yeah, little scampy stuff like

1:08:30

that, but not like I'm going to craft

1:08:32

a tornado so I can rob a bank.

1:08:34

Like, I mean, how many people really want to

1:08:36

do all that? There's a lot of effort, is what I'm

1:08:38

saying, And a lot of people don't like to put in a

1:08:41

lot of efforts.

1:08:42

Well, and I would argue that for

1:08:44

most people, not being

1:08:46

able to form a tornado at will

1:08:49

is not the thing stopping them from robbing

1:08:51

a bank. It's not the

1:08:53

only thing, man, It's the only thing holding

1:08:56

me back from robbing that bank. But I'll

1:08:58

tell you, if I could create a tornado with my hands,

1:09:01

it's sober for you, It's sober.

1:09:02

For all, y'all. I'll be up in that first

1:09:05

national.

1:09:06

Right the bellagio.

1:09:09

Oh y'all, we get robbed. What

1:09:13

does a tornado play into this heist? Anyway?

1:09:16

You know, tornado comes through the roof, it's in

1:09:18

the vault, sucks up money,

1:09:20

tornado.

1:09:21

Tunnel it up. Okay,

1:09:23

well then now it makes sense. Now I feel like if you

1:09:25

can make a tornado. It's kind of weirdo. E

1:09:30

is not as much as I expected.

1:09:31

All right, I'm switching my exercises in

1:09:33

telekinesis to now tornado creation.

1:09:36

So that we can rob banks.

1:09:37

So we can rob thanks. What

1:09:40

a life?

1:09:42

Well anyway, Austin. Sensibly this episode

1:09:44

was about Queen victorious somewhere,

1:09:49

so hopefully you enjoyed this.

1:09:51

It was a lot of fun for us to talk about a

1:09:53

lot of a lot of sauce on that. Hopefully, hopefully.

1:10:00

You do reach out and tell us about your

1:10:02

spooky experience or whom

1:10:04

you would want to talk to if you were able

1:10:06

to contact them in a stay on with

1:10:09

you know, a legit Robert James, Lee's

1:10:11

or whatever. You can reach us through email.

1:10:14

It's ridict Romance at gmail dot com.

1:10:16

That's right, or we're on Instagram.

1:10:18

I'm at O Grade, It's Eli, I'm at

1:10:20

Dianamite Boom, and the show is at pridic

1:10:22

Romance.

1:10:23

Anna.

1:10:24

We love you. We can't wait to contact more

1:10:26

people from the beyond. Yes, back

1:10:28

to another episode crypt

1:10:31

Roma.

1:10:34

So long friends time

1:10:37

would we write again allos

1:10:41

with your friends pads

1:10:44

and pay for them. Our show