Queen Victoria was widowed at 42, and she did not stop mourning for the remaining nearly forty years of her life. The popular picture is of a bedroom frozen in place, with the clothes laid out and the water brought in every morning. Some of that is documented. A good deal of the rest is the kind of detail that gets added in the retelling.
The Horror
Prince Albert died at 10:50 pm on December 14, 1861, in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, aged 42, with Victoria and five of their nine children present. His physician, William Jenner, had diagnosed typhoid fever on December 9. That was the contemporary view. Albert had suffered stomach pain for at least two years before, and modern writers suggest a chronic illness such as Crohn’s disease, kidney failure or abdominal cancer. The real cause is unconfirmed.
Victoria withdrew. She wore black for the rest of her life, and her seclusion damaged the standing of a monarchy Albert had worked to make a national institution. His funeral was held on December 23 at St George’s Chapel, and his body was placed in the Royal Vault. About a year later it was moved to the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore, which was not finished until 1871.
His rooms in all of the royal houses were kept as he had left them. Hot water was brought in each morning, and linen and towels were changed daily. Wikipedia notes that this kind of upkeep was common in the households of the very rich.
The Legend
Popular accounts say more. They say his clothes were laid out on the bed every evening, that fresh flowers were set on his pillow, that the glass from his last dose of medicine was left untouched, that his watch was kept wound, and that the room was photographed so that it could be restored exactly if anything was moved. These particulars are unconfirmed and are best treated as legend. The documented detail is the daily hot water and clean linen.
The Modern Relic
Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight at 6:30 pm on January 22, 1901, aged 81. Her 1897 instructions asked for a military-style funeral and a white pall instead of black. On January 25 her son Edward VII, Prince Arthur and Wilhelm II lifted her into the coffin. She wore a white dress and her wedding veil. At her request, her doctor and dressers placed keepsakes with her: a dressing gown of Albert’s, a plaster cast of his hand, and a lock of the hair of her servant John Brown with his picture, hidden in her left hand by flowers. The funeral service was on February 2 at St George’s Chapel, and she was buried on February 4 at Frogmore beside Albert. Their shared granite sarcophagus was carved from the largest block of granite ever quarried in Britain, according to Wikipedia.
Osborne House is run by English Heritage and open to the public. Albert designed it himself with the builder Thomas Cubitt. The first-floor apartments were opened to visitors in 1954 and the second floor in 1989, and Albert’s Dressing Room is on the visitor route. After 1901 the royal bedroom became a private museum open only to the royal family, and whether it is open to visitors today is unconfirmed. The rumour that John Brown was her lover is unconfirmed.
