Was the young Queen Victoria incredibly beautiful or nay?

[MorrisZapp]

Movies and TV suggest she was stunning as a young woman, but all the pictures of her that are widely familiar today are of a plain fizzog.

Was she hot or not?

It was supposedly so he could make his willy look neater in his trousers. The piercing was on the head of his penis and it would then be attached to a chain and tucked out of the way. So as not to ruin the silhouette. So they say.

I think the piercing thing is a (fun!) urban legend

Prince Albert comes across in everything I've read as uptight, controlling, humourless and prudish (except in his sex life with QV, and even then a lot of historians reckon she was keener than he was). That he had genital piercings just doesn't compute, somehow.

Also, I am no expert but it seems to me that a chain to keep your penis in check is not the most effective way to go about it. Or the least painful.

It does seem an extreme solution! 😂

For my sins I googled and came across this from a Guardian archive
Though I've read a fair amount of Victorian erotica - fiction as well as the candid memoirs of Coral Pearl, Frank Harris and a few other uninhibited souls - I don't recall a single mention of piercings of any sort. I tend to doubt that this was a widespread fashion in the 19th century. Although I?ve heard the story of Albert?s little gold ring before now, it would surprise me to learn that the Prince Consort actually sported this novelty. Judging by Albert?s apoplectic fury (his letters from the period border on the irrational) at his eldest son?s fling with an actress at an army camp in 1861, he was undoubtedly uptight about sexual matters and thus unlikely to go in for even this mild bit of kinkiness. To hazard a guess, could it be that from some angles a foreskin held together with a gold ring resembles the double-breasted frock coat known as a Prince Albert?

To call him uptight about sex (or extra marital sex, anyway) is an understatement. Bertie had a fling with an 'actress' when he was at an army camp in the Curragh at the same time a marriage was being planned for him, and Albert went into moralistic overdrive about his behaviour. Vic wasn't much better, lamenting that her son on his wedding night couldn't give his bride ' the pure flower of an unsullied life.' (Not the exact words but that was the drift).

The bit about Victorian erotica isn't me (formatting went a bit whoopsy) but it sounds worth reading 😅

I think Albert was the product of a very unhappy marriage which may have coloured his view. His father, Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was a cruel philanderer who had many affairs and it’s possible he was not in fact Ernest’s son at all, there are questions about his legitimacy. Albert’s parents divorced in 1826 and his father went on to marry his own niece, Marie of Wuttenburg. Marriage between an uncle and niece was still legal at that time, but was becoming increasingly rare. Ernest kept custody of his children and they were at this point separated from their mother, Princess Louise.

So perhaps Albert’s irrational prudishness was a result of growing up with his father’s constant infidelities, which would have in turn affected his mother (though it was rumoured that she too had an affair). But it appears that maybe he did inherit something of his father’s cruelty. He wrote many angry letters to Victoria, admonishing her for her temper and overly passionate nature. It was a tempestuous relationship at times - neither of them had had particularly good childhoods.

Albert’s piercing - it’s more than likely to be an urban legend.

I remember Prunella Scales years ago reading aloud extracts from Victoria's diaries. On the morning after her wedding night with Albert, she wrote "Oh, what heavenly bliss...." !

The story of Albert's mother is so sad. She separated from their father when they were very young and died just a few years later, aged only about 30 or 31.

Her diaries were rewritten , copied out and destroyed by her daughters after her death- to protect her image.

Her diaries were rewritten , copied out and destroyed by her daughters after her death- to protect her image.

Really? That's a shame.

This thread is fascinating

It was Queen Charlotte (wife of Geroge III) who introduced the Christmas tree to Britain, not Albert. Although it was illustrations of Victoria and Albert's trees that brought them to mass popularity .

That photo of her in her 30s on interest is exactly how I've always imagined Cinderella's stepsisters.

I love Queen Charlotte. She was who made Kew Gardens.

I didn't know how poorly King George was until Bridgerton.

Have you seen The Madness of King George?

Beauty ideals change over time, so by her time, possibly, in 2023, no. HTH

No,Margaret was the beauty.

The young Charles didn’t have a bad bod.

Lots of riding? And corsets. You couldn't eat very much if you wore a corset! Plus no UPFs back in those days.

George IV was enormous in his later years.