Dear John
Bendor Grosvenor reveals for the first time a letter by Queen Victoria, which sheds light on the true nature of her relationship and feelings for her man-servant John Brown.
At 10.40pm on March 27th, 1883, Queen Victoria’s highland servant John Brown died at Windsor Castle. The unconventional, hard-drinking, good-looking Scot, who had for the last twenty years been Victoria’s ‘constant companion’, succumbed painfully to erysipelas, a debilitating skin condition. Given the intense speculation over Victoria’s relationship with Brown, we might look to her reaction to his death for confirmation or otherwise that Brown was, as Victoria’s daughters joked, ‘Mama’s lover’. During research for my doctorate I discovered, in a letter written by the Queen just two days after Brown’s death, evidence that allows us to reinterpret their famous relationship.
Until now, our record of Victoria’s reaction to Brown’s death has centred on her diary. On March 28th, she wrote:
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