4. The Governess

Lucy Worsley explores Queen Victoria's reign through significant encounters.

An important event is missing from Victoria's diary entry for 23 September 1842.

It was actually only her mother's diary which tells us that this was the day that Victoria’s old governess, Louise Lehzen, slipped away from Windsor Castle without saying goodbye.

Lehzen, who had been a second mother to Victoria, and who instilled her with her stiff - possibly inflexible - standards, had fallen out with the increasingly powerful Prince Albert, who’d taken over the running of the Royal Household.

'I could pardon wickedness in a Queen but not weakness’, Lehzen had told her princess, and now her former pupil now showed no weakness in dismissing her former governess without a word.

A last, sad glimpse of Lehzen comes from the years of her retirement to her native Germany, where she compiled a scrapbook of memories of the girl she loved. Lehzen even went to the station to wave as Victoria steamed past on a royal tour. The train did not stop.

Readers: Joseph Ayre, Bea Behlen, Sarah Ovens and Sabine Fischer

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.