← Harold's Old Time Radio
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Narrator
Now the rest of the story. Queen Victoria. She was among the most popular rulers in all British history. The Victorian era was named for her. She called many mansions home. Kensington, where she was born. Buckingham, where she ruled. But of all of the Queen's mansions, one was by far the most curious and the most chilling. That was the place where she died. Osborne House. Osborne House was the Queen's winter home on the Isle of Wight. Only Queen Victoria visited the darkened rooms upstairs. Only she knew what, besides empty silence, was up there. And then she died. And then the few who discovered her secret, aghast, were hesitant to say what they had found. For they had learned. Well, they had learned what you're about to learn. Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Queen of Ireland, Empress of India. The Victorian age, which included the greater part of the 1800s, was hers. It was a time of industrial expansion for England, Imperial expansion for her territories. A period of sentiment and self indulgence was over. The English people became high minded and modest, self righteous and enterprising. And behind it all was Victoria, their Queen. She ruled for 63 years longer than any other British monarch. She took the throne at a time when the throne itself was neither loved nor respected. But Victoria, by being herself above reproach, elevated that royal position to unprecedented heights. And there it is today, because of her. During that eventful reign, Britain fought the Opium War in China, the Crimean War, the South African War. There were numerous small rebellions in Canada, assorted skirmishes with the Chinese and the Abyssinians, the Afghans and the Zulus. But through it all, vict Victoria held her empire and her people together. During the Victorian era, the colonies in British North America and Australia were federated, became self governing. Britain herself became a free trade country. In Ireland, the Anglican Church was disestablished, the land system reformed at home. Parliament passed acts improving labor conditions, making education compulsory, reforming the civil service. And above and behind. And within it all was Queen Victoria. Her marriage to Prince Albert was among history's happiest marriages. Out of it grew nine children, four sons and five daughters. The Prince was a student, a philanthropist, a businessman. He too was well loved, and especially by his queen. In 1861, Prince Albert died. Victoria never recovered from her grief. For many years she, dressed in black, became affectionately known as the Widow of Windsor. She never slept in a bed that did not have his picture by its side until the day she died in the winter of 1901 at Osborne House. The Victorian era had passed away into night. But what at last came out into the light was the secret of those darkened upstairs rooms. The rooms which only she had visited. But now Edward was King Victoria's son. He ascended the stairs of the sprawling estate and threw open the doors. And what he saw made him weak and turned him pale and. And turned him away. For what Edward the King had discovered represented a lifetime of self torment. His mother's private collection of very strange photographs. Hundreds of them. Photographs of four generations of friends and relatives. And each of these photos had one startling similarity. For all the hundreds of faces in the gruesome gallery of Queen Victoria, all of them were corpses photographed at their own funerals. And now you know the rest of the story.