All language subtitles for Lucy Worsleys Royal Palace Secrets 1080p

♪♪

-The Tower of London...

Hampton Court...

and Kensington Palace.

These three royal palaces
tell the story

of almost a thousand years
of British monarchy,

from William the Conqueror
to Princess Diana.

They're the jewels in the crown
of Britain's heritage,

and every year,
millions flock to visit them...

[ Indistinct conversations ]

[ Bells tolling ]

...except in 2020,
when the global pandemic

meant their doors were shutand their treasures locked away.

Good morning!

-Good morning, Lucy!
-[ Laughs ]

But my job is chief curator
at historical palaces,

which means I've got the keys!

♪♪

In this program, I'll take you

on a very special tour
of these deserted palaces.

It's ever so creepy here
at night.

I'll discover
how they've evolved

from high-security fortress
to pleasure palace...

Oh, goody! It's my wine.

...royal residence
to family home.

[ Clicks teeth ]

And I'll show them off
at their most spectacular...

Isn't that stunning?

...and their most surprising.

This is like opening the world's
best birthday present.

-This is genuinely exciting.

♪♪

-So come with me
behind the scenes

to reveal the secrets
of Britain's royal residences!

♪♪

♪♪

-The Tower of London is
Britain's oldest royal palace.

♪♪

It's also a fortress,
a prison...

and one of the properties

that I'm lucky enough
to help look after.

♪♪

Normally, they'd be literally
thousands of visitors

all rushing in here,

so to be all alone feels strange

and really quite eerie.

But the upside is
it's a privilege

to have this place to myself.

And it also gives me
the opportunity to take
you

right into the heart
of the fortress.

♪♪

At the castle's very center

stands its oldest building,
the White Tower.

Begun in the 1070s,
its walls bear witness

to nearly a thousand years
of history.

It was built to be
an impenetrable stronghold

surrounded by a ring
of fortifications.

♪♪

Even when
it's closed to visitors,

the tower is still home
to its permanent residents --

the ravens...

and the Yeomen Warders,
or Beefeaters.

[ Man whistling ]

Tonight, Shady Lane
is on dinner duty.

-Right. This is Poppy.
With the red band.

Here you go.

-Ooh!
-There you go.

George. [ Whistling ]

George.

-[ Gasps ]
-[ Laughs ]

♪♪

-He's buried it.
Is that for later?

A little snack?
-Certainly is, yeah. They --

I think they prefer their --

A little on the turn,
they prefer their meat,

and that's why they'll bury it
and they'll come back later on.

-So what's the secret whistle
that tells them to come in?

-It's really simple.

-[ Whistles ]
-[ Imitates whistle ]

-There you go. You got it.

-They're coming!
-[ Laughs ]

-No one knows exactly
how long they've been here.

Perhaps they first came to feast
on the corpses of traitors.

But it's been
at least 400 years.

When Sir Walter Raleigh
the Elizabethan adventurer

was in prison --
just there, actually --

he wrote a letter
to a friend saying,

"I hope the Ravens
don't eat me up."

After all,
they feed on all things.

-Here you go. Good boy.

-Shh.
Don't tell the Beefeaters,

but it's clear
who's
really
in charge

at the Tower of London.

[ Crow cawing ]

Good night, ladies.

Good night, gentlemen.

Enjoy your mice.
See you in the morning.

Take care of the kingdom
overnight.

♪♪

[ Crow caws ]

[ Bell tolling ]

♪♪

It's claimed that if the ravens
ever leave the tower,

then the kingdom
and the tower itself will fall.

It's ever so creepy here
at night.

♪♪

The legend of the ravens
is said to date back

at least as far
as the 17th century,

when this turret
at the White Tower

had a rather unusual purpose.

♪♪

300 years ago, you might
have come across John Flamsteed

bringing his telescopes
up these stairs.

He'd been given permission
by King Charles II

to use this turret
as his observatory.

He'd just been made
Astronomer Royal.

And the White Tower was a
great choice for an observatory

because it was still then

one of the very tallest
buildings in London.

♪♪

Here, Flamsteed set to work
on an all-important mission --

using the positions
of the moon and stars

to calculate longitude.

Solving this mystery was the key
to accurate navigation at sea.

There was just the one problem.

The ravens kept leaving
their droppings

on Flamsteed's telescope.

So he went to Charles II,
and he said,

"Will you please banish
these wretched ravens

out of the Tower of London?"

The King said,
"I cannot do that,

because if the ravens
leave the Tower of London,

then the kingdom will fall."

Instead,
Charles II built Flamsteed

a lovely new observatory
down the river at Greenwich.

♪♪

That link between
the strength of this castle

and the strength of the nation
stretches back 10 centuries

to when the White Tower
was built.

♪♪

In 1066, William the Conqueror

and his Norman army
invaded England.

[ Soldiers shouting ]

After defeating the English army

and killing
the Anglo-Saxon king,

William was crowned
in his place.

He knew that Norman rule
who could only be imposed

by brute force.

Within a few years,

he'd begun work
on the Tower of London.

It would leave his new subjects

in no doubt
about who was in charge.

Some historians used to see
England before the Normans

as primitive, backward,
stuck in the Dark Ages.

It's a bit more complicated
than that.

But it is true
that when the White Tower

went up in the 11th century,

it wasn't just
a formidable building --

it was also
a shockingly modern one.

No one in England had ever seen
anything like it before.

♪♪

In an age of timber
and thatched buildings,

Londoners must have been
shocked and awed

by these monumental
stone walls --

90 feet tall...

and 15 feet thick at their base.

♪♪

But the White Tower
was more than just a statement

of the Normans' military might.

♪♪

It was also a showcase,
for the beauty

and sophistication
of their architecture and art.

♪♪

This chapel is my favorite place

in the whole
of the Tower of London.

♪♪

The chapel
is one of the country's

earliest Norman churches,

and it was probably builtfor the use of the royal family.

What I really love

is the simplicity
of the carvings on the columns.

It's almost minimalism.

And I also like the contrast

between the formidable fortress
outside

and the serenity in here.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

The White Tower was designed
to impress and inspire.

But it also had to meet
more practical needs.

I do love the chapel,

but I also love what's
tucked away in this corner.

This was a very innovative
piece of design,

one of the first of its type
in the country.

It's one of the six
White Tower garderobes,

or toilets!

♪♪

Very simple in design
but very clever.

You keep the White Tower clean

because the poo
goes down the hole.

[ Slide whistle! Ding! ]

But there's a problem --
no drainpipes.

Which meant that all the waste
came running down

the beautiful white walls
of the White Tower,

not the sort of elegant
and sophisticated impression

the Normans wanted to make.

♪♪

The builders of the White Tower,
though, had thought about this,

and they have placed the toilets

on the back side
of the building,

not the side
overlooking the river

or the side
that faces the city of London.

This meant that the conquered
Londoners would not be able

to see the dirty little secrets
of their new Normal rulers.

♪♪

Besides being a palace
and a fortress,

the tower's mighty walls

meant it soon became the most
notorious prison in the land.

Over nine centuries,
everyone

was held here,

from Gunpowder Plotter
Guy Fawkes

to Nazi leader Rudolf Hess.

But the tower's first prisoner
was a Norman bishop,

Ranulf Flambard.

Flambard was described
as eloquent, intelligent,

and handsome.

Medieval bishops were some
of the most powerful people

in England,
and Flambard wormed his way

into the position of top adviser
to King William II.

But he
does
sound like
a nasty piece of work.

He abused his position.

It's said
that he
skinned
the rich

andground

down the poor!

♪♪

When a new king
came to the throne in 1100,

Flambard was stripped
of his position

and led in chains to the tower.

Now, you might think
that being kept prisoner

in the Tower of London musthave been a dreadful experience,

but not necessarily so.

This wasn't an ordinary prison
for criminals.

It was a prison for
important enemies of the state.

You could expect to be
looked after rather well.

This medieval chronicle
tells us that Flambard,

for example, "fed sumptuously"
when he was in here,

and every day he was given
a "splendid table" --

that's a feast -
for himself and his keepers.

Hm!

♪♪

And on the
Feast of Candlemas, 1101,

he arranged a special delivery
to his cell.

Oh, goody! It's my wine.

♪♪

[ Straining ]

♪♪

Flambard invited his guards
to join him

for a particularly good dinner.

He got them so drunk
that they all passed out,

and then he put his plan
into action.

Because what was inside the
barrel wasn't, in fact, wine.

It was a rope that he was
now going to use to escape.

[ Hisses ]

♪♪

Now, this wasn't the most
swashbuckling of escapes.

Flambard did go down his rope

with his bishop's crozier
in his hand. [Chuckles]

But silly guy forgot his gloves,

and his hands
got all rubbed raw.

Ouch! [Inhales sharply]

♪♪

[ Boing! ]
Ooh! Ahh!

And when he got to the bottom,

the bishop realized
that his rope was too short.

That medieval chronicler
tells us that the portly bishop

lay bruised on the ground,
groaning piteously.

But the main thing
was that he was out,

and his accomplices
took him away by boat.

So Bishop Flambard

was the first prisoner
at the Tower of London,

and he was also
the first to prove

that the security
at the mighty fortress

wasn't always quite
what it should have been.

♪♪

Over the years, thousands of
prisoners have been held here,

but just 40 have escaped
these walls.

♪♪

♪♪

More than 400 years
after it was built,

the tower remains
the centerpiece

for some of the most important
moments in royal history.

In 1509, King Henry VIII
followed royal tradition

by staying at the tower
before his coronation.

And in spring 1533,
his second wife, Anne Boleyn,

also came to the tower
before being crowned queen.

On the 29th of May, 1533,

Anne traveled up the river
from Greenwich by barge,

and she landed
right here at these steps,

and her arrival was greeted

by the firing
of a thousand cannon.

[ Cannon fires ]

♪♪

Anne entered the tower through
the
special
royal entrance.

♪♪

Then, as now,

it was out of bounds
to ordinary mortals.

♪♪

Next, she came
through these gates.

The wood's been tested,

and we know
that they're very same ones

that she passed through
nearly 500 years ago.

Then she was welcomed to the
tower by her husband, Henry,

and it's said that he cupped
and stroked her pregnant belly.

[ Choir singing ]

♪♪

All this pomp and ceremony
was part of Henry's bid

to legitimize Anne
as England's rightful queen

and to establish her unbornchild as his rightful successor,

his longed-for son and heir.

Henry had had the tower done up
for Anne's coronation,

adding those pepperpot domes

onto the turrets
of the White Tower.

Now, with all of this fanfare

and all of this fuss
being made about her arrival,

for Anne, this must have been
a real moment of triumph.

But less than three years later,

Anne's triumph
would turn to disaster.

In May 1536,
she returned to the tower.

She entered
by the same royal gate,

but what had been her palace
was now her prison.

After Anne failed
to bear Henry a son,

he was desperate
to end their marriage.

He had her arrested
and charged with adultery,

incest, and high treason.

The constable at the tower,
Sir William Kingston,

reported everything
Anne said and did

to Henry's chief minister,
Thomas Cromwell.

The day after
Anne arrived at the tower,

Kingston wrote a letter
to Cromwell

describing her strange
and hysterical behavior.

One minute, he said,
she was weeping,

the next, she'd fallen
into what he described

as a fit of great laughing.

Anne was tried and found guilty.

Her sentence was death.

This is Kingston's last letter
about Anne,

written on the very day
that she was to die.

He reports that she'd said
she'd heard

that the executioner
was very good

and that, in any case,
she had just a little neck.

And then she put her hand
about it, laughing heartily.

[ Shudders ]

Then he finishes -- and this
is the really macabre bit --

that, "This lady has much joy
and pleasure in death."

♪♪

♪♪

Anne may have resigned herself
to her fate,

but she still chose the clothes
in which she was to die

with great care.

They spoke of her innocence.

On her gown,
she wore the ermine,

which was a marker
of her royal status.

And her skirt was crimson,
the color of martyrdom.

[ Bell tolling ]

On the 19th of May, 1536,

a temporary scaffold was erected
close to the White Tower

for Anne's execution.

Anne made a final speech
from this scaffold,

and in it she expressed
her loyalty to her husband.

She said that, towards her,
the king had ever been

a good, a gentle,
a sovereign lord.

An expert French executioner
had been brought in for Anne,

and instead of the usual acts,

he sliced off her headwith a single blow of his sword.

In her last days, the tower
became Anne's entire world --

her prison,
her place of execution...

and then her final
resting place.

♪♪

She was buried
in the tower's second church,

the Chapel Royal
of St. Peter ad Vincula.

Anne was laid to rest,
not in a proper coffin,

but just in an old chest
that had contained arrows.

And her burial place
wasn't marked,

perhaps so that it wouldn't
become a place of pilgrimage

for people who felt
she'd been unjustly killed.

♪♪

300 years later,

the Victorians did finally
create a memorial to Anne

on the place where we think
that her body must be.

But...it's a fairly modest
tribute to this queen

who looms so large
in English history.

♪♪

But in some ways,
the tower itself

is Anne's memorial.

It was her palace
and then her prison,

the place that saw
the very beginning of her reign

and its very end.

♪♪

Over four centuries
after the Normans

built the Tower of London,
King Henry VIII's reign

would witness the birth
of a
new
kind of royal palace.

♪♪

♪♪

Hampton Court,
12 miles southwest of London,

was Henry's favorite home.

Like the tower, it proclaims

the monarch's
might and magnificence,

but
unlike
the tower, it wasn't
an impenetrable fortress.

♪♪

Hampton Court's been my office
for 15 years now,

but I still get a thrill
every single time I come here,

especially when I get to use
the front door.

[ Door creaks ]

♪♪

Hampton Court didn't start life
as a royal residence,

but when Henry VIII moved in
in 1528,

he set about transforming it
into a palace fit for a king.

♪♪

I'm climbing up
to the big, spooky attic.

Visitors don't normally
get to see it,

but I think it's one of the mostatmospheric parts of the palace.

There's some Tudor plumbing.

There's some Georgian woodwork.

And look -- we've got
a profusion of antlers!

♪♪

We may have to climb
through a window now,

but I promise you
that the view is worth it.

♪♪

Isn't that stunning?

♪♪

The king was a man
of huge appetites,

and when he began
renovating the palace,

one of his most pressing
concerns

was keeping his vast court
well-fed.

Just look at this forest
of Tudor chimneys.

This whole area is the kitchens.

When Henry was in residence,

he had up to 800 servants
with him,

all of them expecting dinner.

There's a Tudor record
that says that these kitchens

in one single day
required 80 sheep,

a dozen fat cows,
18 little calves,

and that's not to mentionthe poultry, the game, the deer,

the boars, and the rabbits
on top of that.

This was catering
on a gargantuan scale.

Henry's improvements
didn't end with the kitchens,

and for much of his reign,

Hampton Court
was a building site.

The king treated it
as a fabulous stage set

that he changed the scenery

as often as he changed
his wives.

When Henry took over the palace,

he was still married
to his first wife,

Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon was known
for wearing the gable hood

with its pointed gable
like the gable of a house,

and her personal badge
was the pomegranate.

♪♪

And here is one of Catherine's
personal pomegranates

carved into the stone archway.

It's one of the few traces
of Henry's first wife

to survive at Hampton Court.

Now, the tragic irony is
that Catherine's pomegranate

was the ancient symbol
of fertility --

all these little seeds
inside it.

But it was her infertility,

in the sense that
she wasn't able to bear Henry

the son he wanted,

that in 1533
meant that he divorced her.

After that,
like Catherine herself,

the gable hoods
and the pomegranates

were banished from court.

♪♪

In 1533,
Henry married his second wife,

the doomed Anne Boleyn,

in the same year he started work

on Hampton Court's
spectacular great hall.

Now, Anne Boleyn, by contrast,

she wore
the glamorous French hood.

Ooh. It's quite sexy.
It shows a bit more hair.

And her badge
was the aggressive falcon.

[ Growls ]

♪♪

Now, there was once a time

when if you'd have come
into this room,

you would have found
Anne's falcons

and the letter "A"
and "H" for Henry

intertwined all over the place.

But when Henry and Anne's
relationship soured,

he had all of these symbols
taken down.

Up here in the paneling,

you'll see
some strangely blank areas.

The workmen who had to do this
job of removing Anne's symbols

had to do it so quickly
under such pressure

that the accounts tell us theywere eligible to claim overtime.

And they did it in such a rush
that they made mistakes.

If you look at the palace
really well,

you can find an "A" and an "H"
for Anne and Henry

that they missed.

Henry wasted no time.

He got engaged to wife
number three, Jane Seymour,

the day after Anne's execution.

♪♪

Now, Queen Jane wanted to make
a complete break with the past,

and one of the ways
that she did this was to reject

the French hood of Anne Boleyn

and to go back to the gable hood
of Catherine of Aragon.

And her badge was the phoenix,
the symbol of rebirth.

You can see the phoenix in here

still very prominently visible
on the ceiling.

And the reason
it's still up there,

the reason it survived,

is that although Jane was only
wife number three of six,

she was the one Henry always
said that he loved the most.

♪♪

The palace's grand state rooms

paint a magnificent picture
of the Tudor court,

but for Henry and Jane's
full story,

we need to explore
a part of the palace

that's off the beaten track.

Come
this
way.

♪♪

I really love the name
of these stairs.

This is called
the Silver Stick Staircase.

It goes to a room
that's off limits to visitors.

♪♪

If I show you what's in here,

you'll understand
why it's not on display.

It's just a room that we use
for staff training sessions.

But 483 years ago,

this was Jane Seymour's bedroom.

And before that,
it was Anne Boleyn's.

And before that, it was
Catherine of Aragon's.

It's extraordinary to think that
all three of them slept here.

♪♪

On the 12th of October, 1537,

it was in this room
that Jane Seymour

finally gave birth to a son,

the heir that Henry had been
craving for nearly 30 years.

This was a moment of rejoicing
and relief for Henry,

and I'm sure for Jane, too.

She'd done her job.

But here's the poignant thing.

Just two weeks
after the birth of her son,

Jane fell sick,

and it was also in this room
that she died.

Centuries on, the memory
of this joyful birth

and tragic death still lingers.

It's said that Jane's ghost
haunts this staircase

and that each night
she comes down these steps

and walks towards the nursery
of the son she scarcely knew.

When it comes to ghosts,

I must admit,
I'm
not
a believer,

but I do think that
the ghost of Jane Seymour

has an interesting story.

Sightings of Jane, and the other
spooks at Hampton Court,

really took off
in the 19th century

when the palace had become
a visitor attraction.

You could even buy a postcard
like this one

showing Jane's ghost...
[Chuckles]

...looking almost as convincing
as I am at this moment.

And, as it says here,
"As seen nightly."

The cynical might say
that the ghosts of the palace

had been invented in order
to be a draw for tourists.

[Woman screams

]

♪♪

At first glance,
Hampton Court looks like

a perfectly preserved vision
of the Tudor past.

♪♪

But look again, and it's
really two palaces in one.

150 years after Hampton Court
was home to Henry VIII,

half of the old Tudor palace
was completely rebuilt.

Come this way...

and we can travel in time

from the 16th-century world
of the Tudors over there

to the late-17th-century world
of the Stuarts over here.

♪♪

♪♪

When building works
began here in 1689,

ambitions
couldn't have been higher.

♪♪

This side of Hampton Court

was redesigned
in the latest baroque style,

taking inspiration
from the order and symmetry

of classical architecture.

Stuart monarchs
William and Mary

wanted their new palace
to rival King Louis XIV's

spectacular Versailles.

But this impression
of "Versailles on Thames"

is only skin-deep.

William and Mary wanted
to rebuild the whole palace

in that glittering
white Portland stone,

but they couldn't afford it.

♪♪

Now, tucked away here
is something

that William and Mary
didn't want you to notice,

This should be lovely
white Portland stone.

But instead it's --
Look. It's yellow.

This is Oxfordshire stone.

A lot cheaper,
but it doesn't match.

And this --
this is terrible stone here!

It's all crumbly!

This is Reigate stone,

reused from
the old Tudor palace.

This is corner cutting.
And there's a reason for this.

Unlike Louis XIV in France,

William and Mary
weren't absolute monarchs.

They only reigned with
the consent of parliament,

which meant that, unlike Louis,

they didn't have
a bottomless royal budget.

♪♪

So much for these fancy facades.

To me, the nooks and crannies
hidden behind them

are just as fascinating.

If you want to explore

the seamier side of life here
300 years ago,

then I think we need to explore

the little passageways
of Hampton Court.

♪♪

Look at these funny little
railings in the corner.

What could they be for?
[ Chuckles ]

Well, a "court"
is a large body of men.

There aren't
too many proper toilets.

And these railings have been
put here to stop the courtiers

from taking a leak
in the corner.

Obviously,
it's not 100% effective,

but it does give you a bit less
privacy than would be ideal.

Now, when you come
to Hampton Court today,

everything is clean and lovely.

And I have to admit,
it's a sanitized version

of a dirty, smelly past.

♪♪

And the traces of this
underbelly of court life

are absolutely everywhere...

if you know where to look.

Now, this is the palace's
dedicated chocolate kitchen,

hot chocolate being
the breakfast drink of choice

in the Stuart period.

Queen Anne
couldn't get enough of it.

But what I really want
to show you is in here.

It's a piece of
late-17th-century graffiti

scribbled up onto the walls.

It's a picture of a naked lady.

You can see her head at the top
in profile.

Then we come down to her bosoms
that, rather strangely,

are placed
one on top of the other.

Then we have her naked legs,

but she's wearing a ratherbeautifully drawn pair of shoes.

I think we're getting
an insight here

into the life
of a bored page boy

waiting here to pick uphis master's hot-chocolate order

and filling in the time
by scribbling on the walls.

I'm not sure
he was entirely familiar

with the female anatomy,

but from the way
he's done the shoes so well,

I suspect that he may have been
a foot fetishist.

♪♪

[ Birds chirping ]

♪♪

Although the realities
of palace life

could be decidedly down-at-heel,

Britain's 18th-century
kings and queens

hit upon a new way
of keeping up appearances.

♪♪

It's brilliant in here.

These are the storerooms

of the royal ceremonial
dress collection.

These clothes belonged
to kings and queens

and courtiers
going back over 500 years.

My colleague, Eleri Lynn,

is helping me unpack
one of our star pieces.

This has to be my favorite thing

in the whole
of the dress collection.

-Yeah, it's pretty stunning.

-This dress
is over 250 years old.

-What's really striking
about this particular piece

is that it still
shines and sparkles.

Most silver this old
would have oxidized

and been gray and dull.

What you have here
is beautiful French silk

that has actually been woven

with real silver bullion
on the loom,

so the fact this is still
shining is very, very rare.

-You get the sense that
this is supposed to be viewed

by candlelight.
-Absolutely.

-Glinting.
-Yeah.

-Shall we lift?
-Lift.

-The dress belonged
to Lady Rockingham,

wife of an 18th-century
prime minister.

-It's exceptionally
well-preserved,

even down to this lovely bit
of silk lining here,

which has been added
to the back of the train

to absorb the dirt and the dust
from the palace floors.

-Well, we can still see
some Georgian muck

that's become attached to it.

I love that.-Absolutely. It's the real deal.

-And this is the skirt.
It's a whopper!

Would you say
that was six feet across?

-Easily. It's basically worn
as a big rectangle.

-And what can you actually do
in a dress like this,

apart from standing around
looking good?

Because you can't bend over,you can't get through a doorway,

you certainly can't run
to catch a bus.

-This dress is not a dress
for practicality, is it?

But you had to wear
a dress like this to court.

You weren't allowed
into the palaces

to meet the king or queen

unless you were wearing
a dress like this.

So this basically is courtuniform during the 18th century.

-How much money
would a dress like this

have cost, do you think?
-This dress would have cost

as much as
a very substantial house.

We know that a lot of
even members of the nobility

were mortgaging their properties
and mortgaging their land

just to afford a court uniform,
but it's an investment

because you're hoping
that what you're wearing

is going to grab the attention
of the king or queen.

And if they come over
and talk to you

and compliment you
on your clothes,

that way, you might be able

to get a promotion
or position at court.

The obvious equivalent for me
is the red carpet

at an awards ceremony
like the Oscars.

It's all about being seen.

-I think of this dress
as being like the missing link.

If you go into the palace,
it's very splendid,

but it's kind of empty.

And the reason is that it should
have been packed full of ladies

wearing dresses like this,
loads of them!

While court dresses were
becoming ever more enormous,

when it came to their palaces,
the monarchy was
downsizing.

♪♪

Kensington Palace became
a royal residence in 1689.

It's now in the heart
of the city,

just down the road
from the Albert Hall.

But back then, the asthmatic
King William III

chose it as a healthy retreatfrom the polluted air of London.

♪♪

Now, as suburban villas go,
this is obviously pretty nice,

but you've got to admit
it's a bit of a step down

from Hampton Court.

Compared to its predecessors,

Kensington Palace
is positively homey.

♪♪

The palace really came into
its own in the Georgian era,

beginning in 1714.

Parliament was so desperate

to avoid having a Catholic
on the throne

that they imported
protestant King George I

and his readymade royal family
all the way from Germany.

The new king
was in a unique situation.

He was royal by invitation,
not by right,

and that meant
he could be sacked.

When George I
arrived in Britain,

he quickly realized that his
new courtiers didn't like him.

It is true that he was
quite boring company

and his English wasn't great,

but it's also true

that the courtiers
were outrageously xenophobic.

So he decided to win them over
by showing them a good time.

To that end,
he rebuilt Kensington Palace

into a sort of stage set

for a whole succession
of cool gatherings.

He turned this place into...
a party palace.

♪♪

There was no guest list
at court.

In theory, it was open to all,

but in practice, getting in
wasn't so straightforward.

Now, to make it to the top
of this staircase

and into the king's presence
with a bit of an ordeal.

These courtiers
are all painted up here

to remind you that at court

you will be watched
and you will be judged

to see if you belong or not.

And, ultimately,
those Beefeaters up there,

just like the ones
at the Tower of London,

they're armed,
and they will be deciding

whether you're going in
or whether you're going home.

But there were some
well-established techniques

for wheedling your way in.

One, clothes are all-important,

and if you don't have
the right look,

then you should borrow some
better clothes from a friend.

Two, bribery.

Once, a young law student
tried to get in and failed.

He went off to the coffee shop
for half an hour.

He came back, and this time
he gave the footman a shilling,

and it worked!

In like a rocket.

Three, what you do is wait until
you see a posh person coming.

Ooh. Here comes one now.

And then you get in behind them

and you pretend
to be their servant.

You might call it slipstreaming.

After all that, if you
did
make
it into the king's presence,

you might then have wondered

whether it had been
worth the effort.

If you look beyond
the extravagant court outfits

and the elaborate court rituals,
though,

you do get the sense

that this place
no longer really mattered.

Royal palaces had once been

the most important buildings
in the land,

but now the big debates,
the big decisions

were all happening
out there in the city,

in the press, in parliament.

♪♪

By 1830, the Georgian age
was drawing to its close,

and Britain's next monarch would
inaugurate an entirely new era.

♪♪

Now I'm taking you to a
really
exciting room in the palace,

where an event of monumental

historical significance
took place.

Come with me.

♪♪

It was in this room
on a cold autumn day in 2002

that I came for my job interview
to become chief curator

at Historic Royal Palaces,

but
perhaps
the room
is better known to history

for what happened here
on a spring day in 1819.

A baby girl was born.

The future Queen Victoria!

[ Music box playing ]

♪♪

The young Victoria led
a sheltered life at Kensington.

From the age of 5,

her closest companion
and dearest friend

was her German governess,
Baroness Lehzen.

This is a scrapbook,
or an album,

that Lehzen herself
has compiled,

full of little mementos
of her former pupil.

It's such a lovely thing,

and it's a new addition
to our collection,

so it's a treat
to have a good look at it.

On this page, Lehzen's stuck in

snippets of the princess' hair.

Here's one labeled

"Princess Victoria's hair
as a baby."

Here she's growing upand going through her education,

with a sample
of her handwriting.

It's heartbreakingly neat.

And
this
page,
this is really gorgeous.

It's a fragment
of Victoria's wedding dress --

awhite

wedding dress --

because Victoria started off
this great fashion

that still continues for brides
to be dressed all in white.

Now, the really lovely thing
about this little book

is that Lehzen
has clearly made it with love.

And she thought of her pupilas a kind of surrogate daughter.

And when they were in private,

Victoria herself would
call her governess "Mother."

But Victoria's relationship
with her
real
mother,

the Duchess of Kent,
was more troubled,

and Victoria despised

her mother's closest adviser,
Sir John Conroy,

who strictly controlled
every aspect of her upbringing.

♪♪

This is the young Victoria's
traveling bed.

It comes apart so it could go
with her from place to place.

And she needed a bed like this

because her mother
and Conroy decided

that she should
get out of the palace.

They sent her on tour

to go to meet her
future subjects face-to-face.

♪♪

The idea that a royal

would venture out
beyond the palace gates

to meet ordinary people

was a revolutionary one.

Victoria really hated
these tours.

She was put under the scrutiny
of so many people

looking at her, judging her.

But these tours established
an important principle

which stands to this very day,

that royals belonged
not so much in their palaces,

but out there in the public eye.

♪♪

On the 18th of May, 1836,

the 16-year-old Victoria

was beginning to plan a life
for herself beyond the palace.

♪♪

And she was also
awaiting the arrival

of some of her German relatives.

Victoria first set eyes on hercousin Albert on this staircase.

♪♪

Victoria recorded
this first meeting with Albert

in her journal,

and she says that
he is "extremely handsome."

♪♪

"His hair," she says,

"is about the same color
as mine."

Hm. Hmm. Funny, that.

"His eyes are blue.

He has a
beautiful
nose."

Oh, yes.

And a nice mouth
with "fine teeth."

Oh, yes!

Tasty.

But I'm afraid
all he had to say about
her

was that she was very amiable.

Huh.
[ Taps book ]

[ "Wedding March" plays ]

[ Door slams ]

Of course,
Albert was eventually won over,

and they married in 1814.

♪♪

When she ascended the throne,

Victoria left Kensington Palace,

and for over a century,
it became a bit of a backwater.

At the beginning
of the Windsor era,

it was lived in
mostly by minor royals.

But when Princess Diana moved in
in the 1980s,

the eyes of the world
were back on the palace.

♪♪

As Diana discovered,
life as a modern royal

meant a life lived in public.

And to face her public,
Diana assembled

one of the world's
most famous wardrobes.

♪♪

This is like opening the world's
best birthday present.

-This is genuinely exciting.
This is the first time

that I've seen it
since we acquired it.

-It's lovely!
-It is.

This is one of myvery favorite dresses, actually,

and so I'm absolutely thrilled
to have it in the collection.

It was designed by

the London-based designer
Victor Edelstein

for Princess Diana in 1985.

And she wore it
to the White House,

and there, very famously,
she danced with John Travolta,

which is why this dress
gets its nickname,

"The Travolta Dress."

-What I love about that picture

of Diana and John Travolta
dancing together

is that in the background
you can see

Ronald and Nancy Reagan
being starstruck!

[ Laughs ]
-Yeah. Absolutely.

I think that --
I think the whole crowd was,

and I think -- To be honest, I
think the
world
was starstruck,

because it made headlines
across the globe.

-How does this dress work?
What makes it look so good?

-Part of what
made this dress look good

was the fact
that Princess Diana wore it.

But this is a very beautifully
constructed dress.

So, it's in
a midnight-blue velvet.

Very artfully ruched all the way
down the bodice to the thigh.

But the real magic of those
photos is that that skirt

is so full
that it twirled up around her.

If she had been wearing
any other dress,

those photos wouldn't
have been nearly as iconic.

And it's that incredible meeting

of Hollywood and royalty
coming together

that just sort of captured
everyone's imagination.

-What do you think
this dress says about Diana's

growing fashion confidence?

-In the early '80s,
Diana was still wearing

lots of very new,
romantic styles.

So lots of frills.
Lots of puffy sleeves.

But in 1985, there's a shift,

and you find her
moving towards designers

and towards designs that are
very sleek and very timeless.

And that's the style
she stuck with then

for the rest of her life,

those very kind of sleek
column dresses.

And it shows a woman, I guess,
finding her own style,

but also a style that worked
on an international stage.

-She sort of becomes herself.

It seems like
the job of being royal

has turned into establishing
what you might call...

a personal visual brand.

And you can see
the Queen does that.

She kind of
always dresses the same

and always looks
very recognizable and good.

And you can see Diana reaching
that moment in this dress.

-I think so. Certainly in terms
of her fashion story,

this is --
this is the beginning.

-It's peak Diana!
-[ Laughs ] It is.

♪♪

-On the 31st of August, 1997,

Diana was killed
in a car crash in Paris.

She was just 36 years old.

♪♪

In the days after her death,

hundreds of thousands
of mourners

left an extraordinary carpet
of flowers

in front of the gates
of Kensington Palace.

This public outpouring
of grief for Diana

was a watershed moment

in our relationship
with the royals.

To the millions of people
who mourned her

as the people's princess,

she wasn't some remote figure
locked up in a palace.

No. She was one of us almost.

There was the sense
of personal connection.

And these golden gates,

almost buried
in a sea of flowers,

became a symbol
of this new royal relationship.

♪♪

The Tower of London...

Hampton Court...

and Kensington Palace

are products of extraordinary
power and privilege.

But they're also unique windows
into the hopes and fears,

the triumphs and the tragedies
of Britain's kings and queens.

I don't think we'll ever tire

of wandering around these
three extraordinary palaces,

marveling at their splendor,

poking into
their hidden corners,

because these buildings,

in parts opulent,
in parts very ordinary,

reveal what it means
to be royal.

♪♪

♪♪

-To order "Lucy Worsley's
Royal Palace Secrets" on DVD,

visit ShopPBS
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

Also available
on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪

♪♪