Did they or didn’t they? There has been much speculation about whether the close relationship between the Queen and her famous highland servant had a sexual element. The emergence of a small new piece of evidence prompted Alistair Lexden to reflect on the much discussed question in a letter published in The Times Literary Supplement on November 18.
Sir,-- In his engaging review of Julia Baird’s new biography of Queen Victoria (November 11), Mark Bostridge draws attention to an extraordinary attempt by the Royal Archives to prevent the publication of material that is not even in their possession. It is high time that a protocol was established defining the terms and conditions under which the Royal Archives operate. I shall try and find an opportunity in the House of Lords to press for it.
This is not the first attempt by the Palace to prevent historians bringing to light fresh information about the relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown. In 1987, Princess Margaret tried to stop the publication of the instructions included in Victoria’s will that a “plain gold wedding-ring which had belonged to the mother of my dear valued servant and friend Brown…[should] be on my fingers” when she was buried.
The newly discovered reference to a flirtatious episode of 1883(the year of Brown’s death) in the dairy of Sir James Reid, the royal doctor, is just the latest of a number of tantalising but inconclusive comments in the papers of courtiers and politicians that have appeared in print in recent decades. Taken together they show that a very close relationship existed between monarch and attendant without proving that it had a sexual element of any kind. Sir James Reid, a great favourite at court and in constant attendance on the Queen, almost certainly knew the full truth, as the excellent biography Ask Sir James (1987) by Michaela Reid indicates. In addition to what he observed himself, Sir James dealt with a blackmailer who in 1905 was paid from royal funds for over 300 letters about Brown from the Queen to her Balmoral factor, Alexander Profeit. The letters, subsequently destroyed by Edward VII, were described by Reid in his diary as “most compromising”. He summarised the gist of them in a green memorandum book but it was burnt after his death. There can be little hope that a cache of documents will ever be uncovered to put the inevitable speculation to rest.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords