a dumb idea for a running joke: one of the guys keeps trying to discreetly ask albert if he has a… certain piercing. he has no idea what they’re talking about and the exchanges always end in misunderstanding.

Fallen London’s True Identities

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the Brooding Captain and the Shadow with Teeth

My dear Victoria, these days will be full of sadness since I know the King is dear to you. Will you allow me to offer my support, albeit at a distance? If I cannot be with you, then I pray you will hear my voice in the music that I send. You know my love of Schubert. This is his "Swan Song". And I play it with you in my heart.

Princess Beatrice VA, CI, GCVO, GBE, RRC, GCStJ (Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore; 14 April 1857 – 26 October 1944), later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Beatrice was also the last of Queen Victoria's children to die, nearly 66 years after the first, her elder sister Alice.

HISTORICAL LOVERS - I

Victoria & Albert

Few lovers have entered the popular imagination as permanently as Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Married for twenty-one years, until the prince's untimely death, the pair became the epitome of marital bliss, and no one ever questioned the harmonious relationship between the queen and her husband.

Over the years, several small demonstrations of love proved the passionate nature of their marriage. Among it, the engagement ring that Albert himself designed for the bride, in the shape of a serpent, to represent the truth of his commitment, decorated with rubies, diamonds and a single emerald (Victoria's birthstone); the portrait Victoria had secretly commissioned as a twenty-fourth birthday present for Albert, which depicted her casually dressed, reclining against a red velvet pillow, her hair loose; the crystal heart pendant that the queen wore day and night, containing a lock of the prince's hair.

The two-decade union produced nine children, five girls and four boys: Victoria (1840-1901); Albert Edward (1841-1910); Alice (1843-1878); Alfred (1844-1900); Helena (1846-1923); Louise (1848-1939); Arthur (1850-1942); Leopold (1853-1884); Beatrice (1857-1944). Most of the children would eventually marry into other royal european families, which resulted in Victoria being called the "Grandmother of Europe." Until the beginning of the 20th century, most of these ruling houses could boast of sharing the queen's blood through the paternal side, maternal side, or even through both.

As parents, the prince and queen could differ in many ways, although in the end they both loved their children. Albert tended to be more involved with the princes and princesses during their childhood, especially in their education, and it is common consensus among historians that their eldest, Vicky, was his favorite, since she shared his enthusiasm for culture, languages and natural studies. The prince taught his children many of his favorite topics, and encouraged them to value the arts and sciences. His “enlightened influence” inspired many of them to engage in intellectual hobbies such as politics, philosophy and history.

The queen, in turn, connected more easily with her children at an older age. Victoria hated being pregnant, from the usual symptoms to the painful labor, and she thought newborns were ugly. But she was willing to follow her husband's opinion about the health of the children, and she watched the progress of each one of them in their studies. She drew them quite frequently, sketeches and paintings that still exist today in the private colection of the British royal family. Her daughter Louise would become her loyal secretary after Albert´s tragic death, and the youngest, Beatrice, her devoted companion even after married.

But perhaps the most iconic reflection of the connection between the British queen and the German prince is Victoria's reaction to his loss. No one in the royal family grieved his death as much as she did. The queen, still in her early forties, never remarried; she retired even more and more frequently to her countryside properties, especially Osborne House, the estate her husband prefered to visit during the summer; and she abandoned any colorful clothes in her wardrobe, confining herself to the black reserved for mourning, until she passed.

“My life as a happy one is ended. The world is gone for me. If I must live on (and I will do nothing to make me worse than I am), it is henceforth for our poor fatherless children – for my unhappy country, which has lost all in losing him – and in only doing what I know and feel he would wish.”  – Passage from Queen Victoria's diary, after the death of Prince Albert, 1861.

someone cast rupert friend and haley bennett in a film together pls

Marriage of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Queen Victoria in 1940

British vintage postcard

King Albert II of Belgium.

Queen Louise of Denmark, Tsarevich Nicholas , Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia,Prince Albert Victor , Prince George of Wales, and Alexandra Princess of Wales Fredensborg 1889

the guys are very much enjoying the world cup

ok not to be a fucking British history nerd on main but yall

Henry's royal house is 'Hanover-Stuart' - implying he comes from the House of Hanover

but the last Hanover monarch was Queen Victoria. Her children inherited their father (her cousin's) house- Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. After that the British line of Hanover effectively ended

So the persistence of the name then implies that in the Red White and Royal Blue universe, Queen Victoria - who we know exists as a Queen in universe because of the food fight joke- was either succeed by a much more distantly related Hanover- implying her children either didn't exist or were somehow removed from the line of succession (hello new fictional civil war of 1901), OR it implies that Queen Victoria somehow, in 1840- changed the entire system of patralineage into a matralineage so her children would inherit the Hanover title. This would then in turn imply that the female line would have to be acknowledged as the stronger claimant to the throne meaning the heir to Victoria's throne would NOT have been Edward VII, but instead Victoria's first born- a daughter also called Victoria (hereafter referred to as V2 for clarity).

But in real life V2 went on to become the empress of Germany and the mother of the last German Kaiser - you know the one who was CREEPILY almost incestuously obsessed with his mothers hands and who ALSO LARGELY CAUSED WW1 BY MAKING 1910s GERMANY AN EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE MILITARY POWER TO RESOLVE IS DADDY ISSUES?! But if in RW&RB V2 never became the German Empress, she never would have had Wilhelm II, and would instead have married a man of lower station and went on to continue the Hanover line in England, meaning there would be no Willhelm II - whos infamously erratic and hostile foreign policy led to the destabilization of Germany's position in Europe and was likely the main contributor to the reactionary foreign policies of other European powers that then caused the beginning of the conflict that became WW1.

SO IN RW&RB, IS THERE NO WW1?!

and that's not even getting into the Stuart of it all - a Royal line that ended IN 1714 AND WAS THE WHOLE SOURCE OF THE JACOBITE UPRISINGS. like if the Stuart line continued in the name, that implies that instead of it dying out with Anne, and the distant relatives of James II then forming the Jacobites to reclaim the throne, they somehow wove them back into the family tree?!

So were there no Jacobite Uprisings in RW&RB?

Is that why Henry is able to be styled as Prince of Wales, despite him not being the Crown Prince- because in this universe with the Stuarts still part of the royal family the Crown Prince's seat now becomes Prince of Scotland, also implying that Scotland has also now become a principality rather than a kingdom?! And how did the Stuart line stay in? Did Victoria NOT marry Albert, but instead marry a Stuart? But no, because the last Stuart was literally a fatherless priest who died 20 years before she was born, and the V&A still exists in universe, so Victoria still definitely married Albert. So did V2 get married off to some distant Stuart (most likely Francis V of Modena)? IS SCOTLAND A PRINCIPALITY NOW?! WHO CAUSED WW1?! WAS IT BECAUSE OF THE FICTIONAL BRITISH CIVIL WAR OF 1901?!

WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS AMAZON. YOUR SILLY LITTLE CHANGE TO AVOID PISSING OF PONCEY KING CHAZ IS GOING TO EAT HOLES IN MY BRAIN

pictured here: my mental state rn

Victoria, Princess Frederick William of Prussia, March 1859

Victoria was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She is pictured here with her first child, future Emperor Wilhelm II, agd. about two months.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1859

"My dearest dearest dear Albert sat on a footstool by my side and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before!

He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again!

His beauty... his sweetness and gentleness - really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a husband!

To be called names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before - was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!

May God help me to do my duty as I ought and be worthy of such blessings."

~ Queen Victoria

The Royal House of Windsor in Britain

An infographic illustrating the history and lineage of the Royal House of Windsor (the reigning dynasty of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms). The Windsors began when Edward, the eldest son of the last Hanover monarch, Queen Victoria, inherited the crown and the royal line changed over to the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (from his father, Prince Albert). As World War One broke out in 1914, Britain, Russia, and Germany's monarchs were closely related. However, as anti-German sentiment rose at home, on July 17, 1917, George V of Britain issued a Royal proclamation changing the dynastic name to Windsor.

Image by Simeon Netchev