Know Your 'Victoria' History: "Faith, Hope & Charity"
Think you know the history of Queen Victoria's reign? Wondering how much of the history portrayed by PBS series Victoria is accurate? We run down the truth behind the drama in the latest episodes of Season 2, "Faith, Hope, and Charity."
The Irish Potato Famine
We've skipped ahead in time again, and skipped the birth of yet another one of Victoria's endless children to get to the Great Irish Potato Famine. Since this season was covering the 1840s, it was only a matter of time until we had something that referenced this horror that occurred from 1845-1849. In terms of what the famine was like, the show is startlingly frank. Victoria, as a series, is at times as deep as a puddle, and it's surprising how hard in on the historical accuracy they go here, including an honest accounting of the racism by the Protestant community towards the Irish Catholics that made the situation worse.
But here's where the show isn't so accurate. It has consistently established Victoria to be a woman far ahead of the times socially (sometimes comically so). She isn't allowed to have these backward, racist attitudes. But there's little historical basis to say that she gave a fig about what was happening in Ireland, though she did donate £5,000 towards famine relief. (That may seem like a lot, but it was actually mild compared to others.) In fact, the scale of the devastation is a good indicator the Queen didn't pay much attention to what was happening over there, or someone would have probably done something. But Victoria is lucky in that Netflix's The Crown has hammered home that the royal monarch is not allowed to express their political opinions. In fact, the few times Elizabeth has attempted to get directly involved in politics on that series, the show makes sure to highlight the negative fallout. Moreover, other PBS films, like King Charles III, are based upon the idea that the monarchy would fall, should the monarch in question attempt to do anything but smile and be a figurehead.
Victoria uses this to their advantage by insisting that the queen's hands were tied, and that anyone laying this horrific cataclysm at her feet is wrong. She would have done something — visited Ireland, drawn attention to the plight, made something happen — if she could. It was the political cowardice of Sir Robert Peel and those other bigoted politicians who cared nothing for the people who were dying, who were really to blame.
