{"id":291003,"date":"2025-07-25T16:15:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291003\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T16:15:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:15:26","slug":"queen-victoria-her-secret-love-child-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291003\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Victoria, her \u2018secret love child\u2019 and me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angela Webb-Milinkovich would be the first to admit that her look is not regal: the care worker from Minnesota has tattoos, a mullet and a nose piercing, but she may play an extraordinary part in royal history.<\/p>\n

This Midwesterner has a story that suggests she may be a secret descendant of Queen Victoria and her devoted manservant John Brown.<\/p>\n

It sounds sensational, but Fern Riddell, a respected historian, believes it may be true. She has delved deep into the relationship between Victoria and Brown, uncovering reams of material indicating that the two were more than friends.<\/p>\n

Riddell\u2019s book Victoria\u2019s Secret and Channel 4 documentary Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage, Secret Child? will prompt debate about the nature of the couple\u2019s love, but Webb-Milinkovich may be the coup de grace. <\/p>\n

\"Angela<\/p>\n

Webb-Milinkovich with the historian Fern Riddell<\/p>\n

ROBERT PERRY FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n

Her family\u2019s story is that they are descended from Victoria and Brown\u2019s secret child, and Webb-Milinkovich is willing to test its veracity. \u201cI feel pretty confident that there\u2019s some legitimacy to it. It\u2019s not something that I myself would ever be able to confirm. It was just a fun thing for my family to share,\u201d she said. \u201cI think I would definitely rock a tiara.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riddell says her search has unearthed so much evidence that she feels it is hard to deny that the pair had a romance. To evaluate that claim, we ought to start at the beginning.<\/p>\n

Victoria admitted, years after meeting Brown, that she had been \u201cirresistibly drawn to him\u201d. The young and handsome servant was among the staff at Balmoral when Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, first arrived in 1848. <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Victoria and Prince Albert in 1854<\/p>\n

ROGER FENTON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

He worked closely with the royal couple and was a familiar presence when Victoria suddenly found herself a widow in 1861. She entered a long period of seclusion, during which she came to depend on Brown and he became her favourite.<\/p>\n

\"Queen<\/p>\n

Brown and Victoria at Balmoral, circa 1868<\/p>\n

W&AMP;D DOWNEY\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

She commissioned medals for him, increased his salary, insisted that he be close by and included him in portraits:<\/p>\n

\"Painting<\/p>\n

An oil painting of the pair, said to have been a gift from Victoria to Brown to mark his 50th birthday in 1876<\/p>\n

CHARLES BURTON BARBER<\/p>\n

His death was even noted in the Court Circular, printed in The Times<\/a>. It was described as a \u201cmelancholy event\u201d that caused \u201cthe deepest regret\u201d to the Queen; Brown was said to have had \u201cthe real friendship\u201d of Victoria and that \u201cto Her Majesty the loss is irreparable\u201d. <\/p>\n

Victoria dismissed rumours about them as \u201cill-natured gossip in the higher classes\u201d, but the evidence Riddell has amassed suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

Chief among the discoveries is a piece of physical evidence. The John Brown Family Archive has a photograph of a cast of his hand, made on Victoria\u2019s orders in the days after he died in 1883. <\/p>\n

\"Marble<\/p>\n

She had done exactly the same with Albert. The cast of Albert\u2019s hand would be buried with her, but so would a picture of Brown, a lock of his hair and his mother\u2019s ring, which Victoria had worn.<\/p>\n

Alongside this are reams of documentary evidence through which Riddell has trawled to make her case. This includes a never-before-seen family history of Brown which Victoria had commissioned \u2014 an odd thing to do for someone who was just a servant. However, perhaps the most telling is a rare journal entry in the Brown family archive. <\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s diaries were edited heavily on her instruction after she died. Her daughter Beatrice did the bowdlerisation and destroyed originals. However, Victoria had made a copy from her own diary after Brown died and gave it to his brother Hugh. It tells of how she and her \u201cbeloved John\u201d confessed their love for each other: <\/p>\n

Victoria is often tender, using terms such as \u201cbeloved John\u201d and \u201cdarling one\u201d. A short poem refers to Brown as \u201cmy heart\u2019s best treasure\u201d and implores that his answer \u201cloving be, and give me pleasure\u201d.<\/p>\n

A notecard from Victoria to Brown also expresses her love for him: <\/p>\n

\"Notecard<\/p>\n

Riddell notes that in a letter after Brown\u2019s death, discovered by the art historian Bendor Grosvenor in 2004, Victoria paralleled the loss of Albert. She wrote, referring to herself in the third person: \u201cThe Queen feels that life for the second time is become most trying and sad to bear deprived of all she so needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics will be quick to point out that Victoria often referred to herself and to Brown as a \u201cfriend\u201d. Many will argue that this was meant literally and that Victoria knew to stay on the dutiful side of the line. Riddell argues that the word \u201cshouldn\u2019t blind us to the depths of feelings\u201d between the pair, which Victoria\u2019s language makes plain.<\/p>\n

\u201cFriend is always preceded by \u2018beloved\u2019 or \u2018devoted\u2019, \u2018truest\u2019 and \u2018best\u2019, terms many wives called their husbands,\u201d Riddell said. \u201cWhile romantic language often existed between friends of the same sex, we have to remember this is between a widow and an unmarried man, a queen and a servant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Brown\u2019s gravestone, which describes him as \u201cbeloved friend of Queen Victoria\u201d, at Crathie Kirkyard near Balmoral<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

Riddell also argues that historians have too easily assumed that Victoria was a woman of unparalleled reserve. \u201cWe\u2019ve eradicated who Victoria was as a woman in favour of seeing her just as queen,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really, really matters to me that we give her back her womanhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thinks there is a case to be made that the pair had an \u201cirregular marriage\u201d, which was common in Scotland at the time. A deathbed confession by one of the Queen\u2019s chaplains, the Rev Norman Macleod, supposedly expressed his regret at overseeing the ceremony. This confession was recorded indirectly and some years after the fact, but Riddell thinks it has been too quickly dismissed. <\/p>\n

In the 1950s the historian Harold Nicolson said that he had found \u201cmarriage lines\u201d, a form of marriage record, for Victoria and Brown in a book at Balmoral.<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Balmoral Castle in the late 19th century<\/p>\n

THE PRINT COLLECTOR\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Riddell points to Victoria\u2019s insistence on how Brown should be treated. Her children were expected to shake his hand as if he were an aristocratic equal \u2014 when her son Alfred refused to do so, he was expelled from Buckingham Palace \u2014 and Brown\u2019s bedroom was next to Victoria\u2019s. The historian also suggests that a signet ring Brown wore from 1872 may have been a subtle sign of a morganatic marriage, one between people of mismatching social ranks. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn conversations that we\u2019ve had for the documentary, that they were married seems to be the general feeling among some parts of the Balmoral community even today,\u201d Riddell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir relationship has been downplayed and sanitised,\u201d she added. \u201cI hope we give John Brown back his place in history and his legacy, which is that he was Victoria\u2019s de facto royal consort for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The marriage argument will fire up debate, but it\u2019s a storm in a teacup compared to the suggestion that the couple had a secret child. This was not something Riddell was looking for when she contacted Brown\u2019s surviving relatives in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

On paper, she and her sister Annette are the great-great-grandaughters of John Brown\u2019s brother Hugh.<\/p>\n

As well as a small basket of fascinating heirlooms, including a brooch commissioned by Victoria, Webb-Milinkovich told Riddell that her family had a story they \u201ctold at dinner parties\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Hand<\/p>\n

The brooch, commissioned by Queen Victoria for Hugh Brown\u2019s widow, containing a lock of his hair, is among a collection of heirlooms owned by Webb-Milinkovich and her sister<\/p>\n

IMPOSSIBLE FACTUAL<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe story that my family grew up with is that John Brown and Queen Victoria had a romantic relationship. They went on a long boat journey. After that a child was produced and from that child came my family\u2019s lineage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Webb-Milinkovich and Riddell have said they do not know if this is true, but Riddell thinks it is a possibility worth exploring.<\/p>\n

She looked into the idea that the story might have become muddled. Victoria and Brown never took a long boat journey, but Hugh and his wife, Jessie, emigrated to New Zealand in about 1865. Their daughter Mary Ann was registered there, but their family home is not marked as the place of birth.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1874, Victoria paid for Hugh\u2019s family to travel back, housing them at Balmoral. When Victoria moved to Windsor, they followed. <\/p>\n

For Webb-Milinkovich\u2019s story to be true, Mary Ann would have to be the love child. It would be incredible and many would call it improbable, but it is not impossible. <\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s daughter Vicky noted that \u201cMama so longed for another child\u201d after Albert\u2019s death. She was in her forties and, while some thought it meant she could no longer have children, a prolapsed uterus found after her death is in mothers later in life. The Queen\u2019s seclusion would have given some privacy to disguise a pregnancy. Illegitimate royal children by men were frequent and dealt with in a number of ways. Riddell wonders if a woman\u2019s illegitimate children would be so different.<\/p>\n

A DNA test could prove Webb-Milinkovich\u2019s family story. Ideally, several descendants of Victoria \u2014 many are available \u2014 would be needed to give the best chance of identifying a match. Webb-Milinkovich is happy to do a test and accept the result. It may end up being a footnote in this story, or it could be a moment in royal history.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

ROBERT PERRY FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family\u2019s story is something that I\u2019m proud of,\u201d she said. \u201cI would love for this story to get out. Especially if it\u2019s a legitimate story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage, Secret Child? will be broadcast by Channel 4 at 9pm on July 31<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela Webb-Milinkovich would be the first to admit that her look is not regal: the care worker from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-291003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-royal","9":"tag-royal-families","10":"tag-royal-family","11":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114914769378715379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}