Dr Who star Jenna Coleman reveals the very saucy side of the surprisingly raunchy royal
The eight-part series is based on the young royal’s diaries and letters in which she happily detailed her raunchy feelings
OVERWEIGHT, unamused and swathed in frumpy outfits that look more like upholstery — Queen Victoria is still the image of prudish respectability.
But all that is about to change with a new ITV series revealing her life as a young woman and her VERY sexy side.
The eight-part drama starring Jenna Coleman is based on the young royal’s diaries and letters in which she happily detailed her raunchy feelings.
For example, in 1839 aged 20 she noted of her then-fiance: “How handsome Albert looks in his white cashmere breeches with nothing on underneath.”
The pair later even had a button installed by their bed in their Isle of Wight love nest which, when pressed, would automatically bolt the door so their steamy nights
All storylines to do with Victoria are all things that actually happened... pretty much everything that happens in it, did happen
Former Doctor Who actress Jenna, 30, was gobsmacked to discover this side to Victoria when she researched the role.
She said: “I don’t think people are quite aware of how vivid she was, or what a lust for life she enjoyed.
“She grows into this formidable woman with a veil of steel yet never loses her humour or lack of self-consciousness.”
The series, written by Daisy Goodwin, also throws light on the young Victoria’s obsession with then-PM Lord Melbourne, played by Rufus Sewell.
He became her tutor and confidante and the pair because so close that others soon nicknamed her “Mrs Melbourne”.
As Jenna — who had her own raunchy royal moment last year when Victoria’s great-great-great-great grandson Prince Harry was snapped tenderly resting his hand on her knee at a polo party — puts it: “She takes one look at him and is head over heels.”
Again, it is all based on details scribbled down by the smitten youngster, who had only just turned 18 when she became queen after the death of her uncle William IV.
Daisy said: “Victoria kept such detailed records that we know very much more about her than we do about any other monarch. For example, she doesn’t write ‘I am love with Lord Melbourne.’
“But if you count out the number of times she mentions him in the two years that they’re together, it’s pretty clear that that’s exactly what happened.
“All storylines to do with Victoria are all things that actually happened.
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“There are conversations and encounters which I’ve had to imagine. But pretty much everything that happens in it, did happen.”
It was in those diaries and letters that Victoria charted her romance with Albert, her German first cousin.
After their first meeting, Victoria had been somewhat less than impressed, noting that he seemed common and boring.
Unforgivably, he had refused to dance and went to bed at half-past nine But his good looks soon changed her mind and as she began to fall in love she set about listing all the things about him that besotted her.
She wrote: “(Albert) extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful.”
She even detailed their wedding night in a letter to former flame Lord Melbourne, writing: “It was a gratifying and bewildering experience . . . I never, never spent such an evening.
“His excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness. He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again.”
And a few days after their wedding Victoria noted casually in her journal: “My dear Albert put on my stockings for me.”
Oh! Am I not to have any more fun in bed?
Albert — three months Victoria’s junior and played by Tom Hughes in the series — was just as turned-on by his bride.
He even had a special secret portrait commissioned that was considered too racy for public viewing as it showed her bare shoulders and decolletage, with hair wantonly draped over her left breast.
The pair had such an exciting sex life he became the first royal NOT to have a mistress.
Daisy said: “They genuinely were in love. That was the first time for the royals in this country that you had a king and a queen who actually liked each other.
“Albert was certainly the first royal male not to have a mistress.”
When the couple’s ninth and final child, Beatrice, was born in 1857, 38-year-old Victoria was warned by her doctor Sir James Reid not to get pregnant again.
Horrified, she said: “Oh, Sir James. Am I not to have any more fun in bed?”
Unsurprisingly it was Albert who designed their cunning bedroom lock at Osborne House.
Daisy said: “Albert designs every detail of the marital bed, including a special lock so that when they want to get it on he can lock the bedroom doors from the bed.
“He’s got this special thing that goes all the way around the room, so the children or servants can’t come in, which, if you think about it, is quite sensible.
“And that’s presumably how they got to have nine children.”
The series will be full of saucy love scenes between Victoria and Albert, whose death aged 42 plunged Victoria into deep mourning for the rest of her life.
But it is also full of other rich details from the early reign of our Queen’s great-great grandmother.
Until her coronation she had been forced to live by her long-widowed mother’s strict, joyless rules.
She had been allowed no time alone and was even forced to share a room with her at their Kensington Palace home.
Revealingly, one of the 18-year-old’s first requests as queen was an hour alone, something she had never enjoyed before.
Jenna is now a huge fan of the teen who went on to rule for more than 63 years — the longest in history until Elizabeth II overtook the record last year.
The actress said: “I think her strength in her youth is actually her purity. It meant was she came to the throne with a real good will.
“She herself said: “I may be young and I don’t have any experience, but I feel there is no one more fit to rule.’
“One very interesting thing, which I think Lord Melbourne said, is that once the Queen’s mind is made up then there’s no earthly power to make her go round.
“That is a flaw — but it’s what made her great.”
- Victoria begins on ITV on Sunday August 28 at 9pm.