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Residents of The Elden hear about influential 'Royal Scandals' in virtual event

On Thursday morning, residents of The Elden took part in a virtual 'Royal Scandals' event hosted by Lianne Harris and Officer Elisabeth with South Simcoe Police.
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Lianne Harris hosts a fun, interactive virtual event for residents of the Elden on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, residents of The Elden took part in a virtual 'Royal Scandals' presentation hosted by historical entertainer, Lianne Harris of History by Harris

Harris mixes entertainment with history to bring theatrical, engaging presentations, including costumes she makes herself from artifacts, power points, and anecdotal stories. She is a historical culture and studies resource specialist with the Toronto Board of Education and has taught over 80,000 teachers and students.

Donned in jewels, a fancy top hat, and a matching purple dress with a fancy castle-like Zoom background, Harris shared stories of scandal among the Royal Family that have shaped and influence our daily lives.

She shared stories of four specific historical Royal Scandals that have made a significant impact in our daily lives. 

"All that naughty behaviour that the Royals engage in...will ripple down and affect everyone," she said. 

Prince George and Caroline of Brunswick - The Regency Period

Heir to the Throne Prince George shocks the Court one day by telling them that he has secretly married twice-widowed, commoner, and Catholic Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert.

The Court tells him he must get rid of her. George says he will only if the Court pays all of his personal debt. The Court agrees and brings in the Princess Caroline of Brunswick from Germany. 

The couple meets for the first time at the wedding at Buckingham Palace, and each is unimpressed with one another and there is no way an annulment can happen. 

When George was legally married he still had affairs at court, one with a mistress named Lady Jersey. 

Caroline starts to act out in retaliation. 

The two rumors were that Caroline had her own separate parties and danced topless in front of guests and that she is having an affair with Napolean's brother. 

Despite their distaste for each other, the pair did end up having a child together named Charlotte. 

Charlotte grows up and later dies in childbirth with her first child. George is so cruel that he does not even tell Caroline about their daughter's death. She learns about it three weeks later in the newspaper. 

While George plans his coronation, he doesn't want Caroline to attend. He bribes her by paying her 50,000 pounds to keep away. She refuses. 

When the coronation happens, Caroline is nowhere to be seen. At Westminster Abbey, she is later found on horseback banging on the door but is closed in her face. 

Humiliated and sick, Caroline dies 19 days later. 

Although she was treated poorly by her husband, the British people loved Caroline and exonerated her. 

George left a debt of 1 million pounds of sterling, which is equivalent to $150 million today, that the court had to pay to cover his debt to marry Caroline. The British people shouldered that tax burden until the First World War. 

Queen Victoria and John Brown

Queen Victoria in mourning after losing her beau, Albert. She has an idea to call John Brown out of retirement to serve her. Brown was her husband's personal butler. 

He is uncouth and arrogant and a heavy drinker, and a Scot, and the Brits were not too keen on him. His job is to be the keeper of the horse, looking after the stables, and being Victoria's companion. The Court had started to resent Brown as he had a high-handed manner with Victoria, but she was used to that type of bullying behaviour in her family. The Court started calling Brown the "Queen's Stallion" and Victoria "Mrs. Brown".  

They had apparently shared adjacent bedrooms, with an interior connecting door. Victoria even gave John a set of books for Christmas with a note  'to my faithful and devoted attendant John Brown from Victoria R.' 

There were rules back then about giving gifts to men. If he wasn't her husband or brother, women weren't ' to be giving gifts to men, unless it was a homemade gift. 

"When a woman gives a man a book to whom she is not married, it suggests she has intimate knowledge of his mind, which is deemed inappropriate," explained Harris. 

Victoria and Albert had nine children together. Daughter Louisa despised John Brown and referred to him as 'Mama's Lover'. 

There was a deathbed confession from the minister who said he performed the secret wedding between Victoria and John and regretted it. 

John Brown died at 56, likely from skin cancer. Victoria followed 18 years later.  

She was buried with a lock of Brown's hair, his photo, his handkerchief, personal letters, John's mother's wedding ring, and Albert's nightgown. 

Why is this important?

Many accused Victoria of being so depressed over Albert and distracted with John that she neglected her role of duty, jeopardized the concept of monarchy itself. This was the rise of the prime minister because she "let the ball drop". 

King Edward and Wallis Simpson

A great romance of unlikely passion. Both were 'political firecrackers' who were dangerous and traitorous who were close to charges of high treason and the reason they weren't is that the Royal family protected them. 

Edward spoke fluent German and visited the German Embassy in the 1920s, and welcomed Hitler's rise to Chancellor in 1933. Hitler was a fan of Edward and entertained the pair on numerous occasions. 

After Hitler met Simpson in 1937, he had an idea to groom her and said "She would have made a good queen." 

Edward wanted Hitler to win the war and told him all the weak spots to bomb in England and in return, Hitler would reinstall Edward as king. 

The Queen Mom hated Wallis, and considered her to be an "American Gold Digger" and knows the couple was involved with the Nazi party.

Edward is selling secrets to the enemy so Hitler can take over. 

Winston Churchill rounded up Wallis and Edward and sent them to the Bahamas to go on a "diplomatic mission" to get them out of the way. They remained there throughout the war and it proved to be successful. 

The couple was forbidden to return to England. Edward remained sympathetic to Hitler after the war ended. 

Why was this important? Edward jeopardized the safety and survival of England during the Second World War as a dangerous meddler and could have changed the fate of England in the course of modern history. 

Princess Diana

Diana was a Spencer and had enough Spencer blood in her to be served as a potential mate for Prince Charles. 

Diana's 4x great grandmother was an Indian servant Eliza Kewark from Bombay/wife of Theodore Forbes. 

Theodore goes to India and joins the East India Trading Company. He did well as a clerk and established a household employing staff, including Kewark, as a housekeeper.  Eliza and Theodore have two daughters and a son together. The oldest was Catherine (Kitty). 

The children were Anglo-Indian, which both cultures would not accept. Because Eliza is a housekeeper, it was against the rules to fraternize with an Anglo. Also, The British were not keen on mixed children, Theodore knew this, and knew success in an English world will be dependent on skin colour. He whitewashed the children by sailing them to Scotland and leaving them with his sister. Hr lies and tells her the children's mother was an Arminian princess. 

The aunt was tasked with giving the children a Scottish education, which Eliza was happy about, but she never gets to see her children again. 

Theodore dies in an accident three years later but leaves Eliza with a widow's pension. 

Catherine (Kitty) has a great-granddaughter who is Diana's mother and marries a member of the Spencer family.  

Diana's first female cousins did a comprehensive DNA test and it was found they carry a specific strand of DNA, mitochondrial, which only seven percent of the Indian population has. 

She noted that it is interesting and ironic that this strand of mitochondria can only be passed from mother to daughter, therefore Diana's two sons William and Harry would break the line. 

Why does this matter?

Such dealings happen all the time and could be affecting our lives, said Harris. "The lies and the coverups and the reinvention of people and lying about our personal history has had to happen to make people acceptable, and these things have rippled down to us changing our opportunities, our families, and our lives."

At the end of the presentation, Harris posed the question 'What stories are in your own family?" and encouraged the participants to ask questions and engage in discussion. 

Every Thursday in June The Elden will be hosting free Zoom presentations for seniors. They have been opening up the events to local seniors groups such as CHATS Day Program and The Danube Seniors Centre and The Bradford Legion. 

  • June 3 - History of D-Day. The Invasion of Normandy by Paul Dias
  • June 10 - Undressed! The History of Hygiene with Lianne Harris
  • June 17- Laugh More and Worry Less with Sue Stephenson
  • June 24 - Back to Nature by Loretta Penny

Anyone interested in attending can RSVP to Jaime at the Elden at [email protected]  or by calling 905-775-1700 X 703.

To learn more about Harris and her historical presentations visit her website here


Natasha Philpott

About the Author: Natasha Philpott

Natasha is the Editor for BradfordToday and InnisfilToday. She graduated from the Media Studies program at The University of Guelph-Humber. She lives in Bradford with her husband, two boys and two cats.
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