English Original
Widowed queen's devotion to manservant and grief at his death revealed by letter in which she tells of 'so warm and loving a friendship'.
The extent of Queen Victoria's love for John Brown, her Highland manservant, is revealed in a letter published today in which she likens her feelings at his death to becoming a widow for the second time.
Victoria's relationship with the unconventional Scot was the subject of profound gossip in the Royal Family and court circles from the time that he began to console her after the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861.
Her daughters referred to Mr Brown as "Mama's lover" and he was also known in the royal household as her "stallion", while her popular nickname became Mrs Brown after a rumour that she had secretly married the man who had been her husband's favourite ghillie.
Until now nothing substantiated the rumours. The Queen's own journal described her reaction to Brown's death in March 1883 merely as being "terribly upset by this loss".
But in the recently discovered letter, written to Viscount (later Earl of) Cranbrook, a close friend and former Secretary of State for India, she wrote of "her present unbounded grief for the loss of the best, most devoted of servants and truest and dearest of friends". Victoria, who usually wrote about herself in the third person, went on: "Perhaps never in history was there so strong and true an attachment, so warm and loving a friendship between the sovereign and servant as existed between her and her dear faithful Brown."
It is thought the phrase "between the sovereign and servant" was added as an afterthought.
The letter goes on to praise Brown in a most personal way: "Strength of character, as well as power of frame - the most fearful uprightness, kindness…combined with a tender warm heart…made him one of the most remarkable men who could be known." It adds: "And the Queen feels that life for the second time is become most trying and sad to bear deprived of all she so needs... The shock too was so sudden that the Queen is quite stunned."
The letter, written two days after Brown died from an attack of the skin disease erysipelas, is published in the latest edition of History Today magazine.
It was discovered in the Suffolk Record Office by Bendor Grosvenor, a PhD student at the University of East Anglia, while writing a thesis on Disraeli's government. It had been lent to the archive by the current Earl of Cranbrook. "In terms of evidence of a sexual relationship between them from her own pen, I think this is as close as we are going to get," Mr Grosvenor said.
"It's not a billet doux which says 'Darling, you were marvellous last night', but it is a letter to a very close friend of hers in which she compares the death of someone to the death of her husband. I suspect that there was a sexual side to their relationship. We know that she had oodles of children with Albert and, according to her own account, lots of sex, and she was a young widow (at 42)."
中文翻译
一封新近公开的信件揭示了维多利亚女王对其男仆约翰·布朗的深厚情感。在这封信中，这位寡居的女王将布朗的离世比作自己“第二次成为寡妇”，并称他们之间是“如此温暖而充满爱意的友谊”。
1861年，女王的丈夫阿尔伯特亲王去世后，来自苏格兰高地的男仆布朗开始安慰女王。自此，女王与这位不拘一格的苏格兰人之间的关系，便成为王室和宫廷圈子中热议的话题。
女王的女儿们称布朗为“妈妈的情人”，在王室内部，他也被称为女王的“种马”。甚至有传言称女王已秘密嫁给了这位她丈夫生前最喜爱的侍从，因此“布朗太太”成了女王一个广为人知的绰号。
然而，此前并无任何证据证实这些传言。女王本人在1883年3月布朗去世时的日记中，仅用“为这一损失感到非常难过”来描述自己的反应。
但在最近发现的这封写给密友克兰布鲁克子爵（后为伯爵，曾任印度国务大臣）的信中，女王写道，她“因失去这位最好、最忠诚的仆人，以及最真诚、最亲爱的朋友而陷入无尽的悲痛”。习惯用第三人称描述自己的维多利亚继续写道：“历史上恐怕从未有过君主与仆人之间存在如此强烈、真挚的依恋，如此温暖、充满爱意的友谊，就像她与她亲爱的、忠诚的布朗之间那样。”据信，“君主与仆人之间”这个短语是后来补充的。
信中，女王以极其私人的方式赞扬布朗：“性格的力量，以及体格的力量——最令人敬畏的正直、善良……结合一颗温柔温暖的心……使他成为人们所能认识的最非凡的人之一。”信中还说：“女王感到，生命中第二次被剥夺了她如此需要的一切，生活变得如此难以忍受和悲伤……打击来得如此突然，令女王完全不知所措。”
这封信写于布朗因皮肤感染丹毒去世两天后，发表在最新一期的《今日历史》杂志上。
这封信由东英吉利大学的博士生本多尔·格罗夫纳在萨福克档案馆发现，当时他正在撰写关于迪斯雷利政府的论文。信件由现任克兰布鲁克伯爵借给档案馆。格罗夫纳表示：“就女王亲笔提供的关于他们之间存在性关系的证据而言，我认为这是我们能得到的最接近的证据了。这不是一封写着‘亲爱的，你昨晚真棒’的情书，但这是一封写给她的密友的信，在信中她把一个人的死比作她丈夫的死。我怀疑他们的关系中有性的一面。我们知道她和阿尔伯特有很多孩子，据她自己描述，性生活也很频繁，而她当时（42岁）是一个年轻的寡妇。”