With history on our side, we can guess a few things that we’re likely to see in the upcoming second season of Victoria whenever it premieres.
The first season of Victoria came to a close earlier this week. Her Majesty and her consort have a daughter, also named Victoria, and history will march on into the second season. Fortunately, for that very same reason, we also have some very good guesses about what will take place in the second season — even if we assume we’ll only see about three years, as we did with this first season, which spans Victoria’s coronation in 1837 to the birth of her eldest daughter in 1840.
We do know that the second season picks up just six weeks after the first, and that we’ll also see Dame Diana Rigg in the role of the Duchess of Buccleuch, a Mistress of the Robes. In fact, that brings us to our first thing we’ll likely see in the next season.
Sorry, We’re Probably Not Going to See Much of Melbourne Again
As noted when we reported on Rigg’s casting, the Duchess of Buccleuch’s appearance means that we’ll see Sir Robert Peel become Prime Minister, as he historically did in 1841. Now, Lord Melbourne definitely faded from the show once Albert arrived on the scene. Here’s what happened to him, per the Encyclopedia Britannica: in 1841, he stepped down once Peel’s Conservatives won the election. In October of 1842, he suffered a stroke, which Britannica describes as one that “permanently weakened” him. He died in 1850.
So, for those of you who enjoyed the interactions between Victoria and her Lord M, you’ll have to content yourselves with what we saw in the first season. He may get a mention or two in passing, especially since we’ll almost certainly pass that fateful month. However, his time has come and gone, and let’s face it, Albert has already worked his way into that advisory position quite a bit.
More Babies
As you may have noticed in “Young England,” Victoria really disliked being pregnant and didn’t like the idea of breastfeeding her own baby. Britannica backs both of those characterizations up, and even reprints a later quote of the queen’s again dropping a cow reference in relation to having babies.
Unfortunately, as we’ve already noted before, Victoria also thought Albert was very fine. In other words, by 1843, she had two more children, per Britannica: the future King Edward VII in 1841, and then Princess Alice in 1843. If you extend the timeline out to 1844, you can add in a third child and the fourth overall, Prince Alfred.
In other words, you may just want to get used to Jenna Coleman sporting a fake baby bump throughout multiple episodes of the second season, and the queen being very much “not amused” by all of the goings-on and how much time she’s spending pregnant.
A Departure
One of the other plots that appeared often in the first season was the Baroness Lehzen’s clashes with staff and others in the palace, up to and including Albert when he wanted to start looking at the queen’s letters in “Young England.” However, we shouldn’t expect to see her around for much longer. Britannica notes in its above-linked article about Victoria that Lehzen actually left the court in 1842 — a year we’re going to see even if the show continues at its current pace — and returned to her native Germany.
However, that doesn’t mean that Mr. Penge will get to run the downstairs. It looks like Mrs. Jenkins, at least, has moved over to be primarily loyal to the queen, even though she likely won’t run the household. Of course, don’t count Ms. Skerrett out yet either; she may have had her heart broken, but she does still have a position.
Next: 15 Things Victoria Did Differently
What events do you hope to see, historical or otherwise, in Victoria season 2?