Victoria is best when it lets the personal get political
Motherhood and monarchy, church and state, upstairs and downstairs, England and Ireland. Worlds collide in “Faith, Hope & Charity” — and Victoria has never been better.
When I watch Victoria, I’m not necessarily expecting to find much in the way of social or political commentary. That’s why I was so blown away by Victoria and Harriet’s ingenuous discussion about motherhood in the season 2 premiere. Victoria is a light drama about a young queen’s charmed life and fairy-tale romance, right? It was designed as a crowd-pleaser, not as a prescient provocateur.
Actually, as it proved with its best installment yet, Sunday’s “Faith, Hope & Charity,” Victoria is successful as both. The episode revolves around the Irish Question, namely whether England should send food and aid to Ireland during a monstrous potato blight. Several distinct spheres begin to overlap, and Victoria’s roles as a monarch and as a person collide. Simply put, the personal quickly gets political and vice versa.
The result is one powerful, effective episode.
Many of the conversations in “Faith, Hope & Charity” sound like they could be straight from a conservative stump speech. An Irish Protestant reverend argues that the Catholics are starving because of their own “improvidence and fecklessness.” He, like series villain Mr. Penge, believe if the Catholic tenants could just “learn to live within their means” everything would be hunky dory (never mind England’s centuries-long oppression of the Irish people). One of Peel’s advisors — whom I’ve nicknamed Fish Lips McGee — bristles at sending Ireland help because it would mean creating “a country of dependents.”
In other words, government aid just encourages laziness and poor people are poor by choice. If you want a good life, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make it happen.
Victoria — being the boss queen she is — is dubious of Peel’s stance on Ireland. From where she’s standing mass starvation isn’t a Tory issue or a Whig issue: it’s a human issue. While this initially draws mockery from Drummond (“Women are so damn emotional!”) and confusion from Albert, it answers the prayers of one Dr. Traill, a member of the Irish Protestant clergy who is adamant that “famine knows no denomination.”
Going with her gut, Victoria writes to Traill after reading his accounts of the situation in the Times. He visits Buckingham Palace and quickly shuts down Albert’s misguided suggestion that the hunger comes down to the Irish’s over-dependence on potatoes. Traill explains:
"The reason the Catholic peasantry are starving is because they have no legal right to the land they farm. If they fall behind in their rent, they are evicted without compensation for any improvements they have made. It’s no wonder they live from season to season. There’s no reason for them to be prudent."
Traill’s candor convinces Victoria once and for all that England needs to do more for the Irish people and, in Albert’s case, transforms the Irish Question from an abstract ideological belief into something relatable, something real. The good doctor makes the personal political.
Victoria does the same as she persuades Peel to send food to Ireland. Summoning the Prime Minister to the nursery, Victoria holds her crying baby daughter, Alice. “Can you imagine what it must be like to be a mother in Dr. Traill’s parish?” she asks. “As a mother, I will not let my people starve.” It might be possible for Peel to set aside his Christian charity when suffering children are just a topic of discussion. But he can’t ignore his conscience when he sees all of Ireland’s starving children in the young princess’ face.
The living embodiment of the personal-political dynamic is Miss Cleary, an Irish ladies’ maid who is terrified for her family back home. As everyone in power debates the Irish Question, Cleary lives it. She sends everything she earns to her family and even begs Penge for an advance so they can avoid eviction. Also, in a rare example of Victoria seamlessly integrating its downstairs plot with its upstairs, Cleary breaks the rules and speaks to Traill, the Queen’s guest, and the Queen herself without being spoken to first. She gives Traill money to take back to her family, and later takes a moment to thank Victoria for her compassion for those starving in Ireland. “You did a splendid thing, sending for Dr. Traill,” Cleary says. She also reveals that she is Catholic.
Cleary’s leap of faith pays off: her story validates Victoria’s actions and, as Traill would say, helps the Queen “understand the country that she reigns over.” As for Victoria’s part, Cleary herself is a constant reminder of what the English government owes Ireland, what it owes its fellow man. “I have no objection to Catholics in the household,” Victoria informs Cleary. “Thank you for confiding in me.”
Next: Dear Prince Albert: An open letter to Victoria’s male lead
As Victoria season 2 progresses, I can only hope we’ll see more episodes like “Faith, Hope & Charity.” The show could settle for being a consistently pleasant costume drama — and I’d still watch it faithfully — but it’s so much better when it allows itself to heighten the stakes. “Faith, Hope & Charity” works because it pushes its characters to think beyond the walls of Buckingham Palace. The Irish Question ends up being so much more than a debate: it’s a line in the sand. There is no separation between everyday life and politics. In fact, nothing could be more personal.
Victoria airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on PBS.