Queen victoria john brown biography
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What duties did his role in the royal household involve?
Within two years he was also asked to lead Queen Victoria’s pony on their Highland expeditions. He was conscientious, hardworking, always ready to do anything, and Albert admired his "transparent honesty and straightforward, independent character". Other responsibilities included brewing the pot of tea that she took on picnics. She once told him he had given her the best cup she ever tasted, and he told her it should have been, as he put "a grand nip o’ whisky in it". The fact that Albert had always spoken and thought so highly of Brown meant that he remained high in her estimation after Albert, bygd then Prince Consort, died at Windsor Castle in 1861.
In October 1863 the queen was returning from a carriage ride to Balmoral one evening when the driver, who was drunk, lost his way in the darkness and took the vehicle over some very rough ground. It overturned with the passengers inre, but Brown had had
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The truth about Queen Victoria's relationship with John Brown
We know Queen Victoria was devoted to Prince Albert but did she really have an affair with a servant after his death?
Julia Baird shocked historians in 2014 when she revealed new evidence she had uncovered for her Queen Victoria biography: evidence of the queen's relationship with her servant. British Heritage Travel spoke to the author about her meticulous research and “the world’s most powerful working woman."
There was a lot of press after your New York Times op-ed a few years ago. Were you surprised?
It’s funny how years after Victoria’s death, the fascination with her intimate relationship with a servant endures. I’m not entirely surprised by that though, largely because it is very difficult to find fresh, uncovered, illuminating information about a Queen; not just because she has been the subject of numerous inquiries, but because so much of the material regarding John Brown has been destroyed by the roy
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John Brown lived from 8 December 1826 to 27 March 1883. A native of Crathienaird in Deeside, he was the second of the eleven children of tenant farmer John Brown and his wife Margaret Leys. After a variety of jobs as a farm labourer and ostler's assistant, John Brown became a stable boy on Sir Robert Gordon's estate at nearby Balmoral in 1842. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.
In 1848 the Balmoral Estate was leased by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and it was purchased by them in 1852. The Queen first mentioned Brown in her Journal on 11 September 1849, and from 1851 John Brown, at Albert's suggestion, took on the role of leading Queen Victoria's pony. In 1858, Brown became the personal ghillie (shooting guide and gun-loader) of Prince Albert.
After Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria went into deep mourning, becoming almost a recluse. In 1864, her daughter, Princ