Queen Victoria's Last Love Revealed!

screened on British Channel 4 recently


Diamond Jubilee derailed by Queens "love" for an Indian man


Royal loyal ... Abdul & Queen Victoria in the 1880s

 
By EMILY FAIRBAIRN
Published: 23rd April 2012

Just over a century ago the same celebration for her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, was nearly derailed by her scandalous relationship with an Indian manservant.
In fact Her Majesty became so infatuated with tall, handsome Abdul Karim that senior royal advisers plotted to have her declared insane just days before her Jubilee unless she halted a controversial plan to knight him. 

The young waiter who was just 24 years old had begun serving the Queens table in June 1887 after being sent to London as a 'gift' from the Indian outpost of her empire. 

He soon began bewitching her with romantic tales of mysterious India, & cooking up delicious curries for her in the royal kitchens. 
But royal biographer Jane Ridley believes Abduls striking looks also helped to draw in the Queen. 

She says: Victoria always had a great appreciation of male beauty so when she saw these gorgeous clothes, sashes & turbans kissing her feet, how could she resist? 

Victoria soon promoted Abdul from waiter to her personal teacher or Munshi & after he began to teach her a few words in Hindi the pair grew ever closer. 

She had been starved of affection since the death of her beloved husband Albert in 18 61, & Abdul Karims great-grandson, Javed Mahmood, says it is not hard to see why she fell for his great-granddad.

Together ... Queen Victoria & her manservant, Abdul

He says: Abdul was a very warm man. He was very jolly, entertaining a very human person. Maybe those were the traits that attracted the Queen eventually, because he came across as a man of flesh & blood, & she wasn't used to real people around her. 

But as is revealed in a new Channel 4 documentary  Queen Victoria's Last Love  their growing intimacy did not go down well in the strictly hierarchical world of the royal household. (telecasted on – Wednesday 25th April!)

By 1894, Abdul was elevated to the position of Her Majesty's Indian Secretary  making him an official member of the inner circle. Jane Ridley says: The idea that a servant, an outsider who has none of this pedigree or background, could suddenly leapfrog into a position of great closeness with the Queen is something courtiers found not just threatening but wrong.  It wasn't just Abduls class that troubled the Queens advisers. They were also scandalized by his race. But the more the royal household attacked Abdul, the more the Queen defended him. 
She fired off an angry memo to her Private Secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, saying: As for Abdul Karim, the Queen cannot praise him highly enough. His zealous & attentive, a thorough gentleman.  The royal household hit back by sending investigators to India who came back with alarming information about Abduls origins. 

He was not, as he had claimed, the son of a high-flying Army doctor. In fact, his father was a lowly pharmacist who worked in Agra jail  where Abdul himself had worked as a mere clerk. 

But the revelation only served to push the Queen closer to Abdul. 

She took a stance that was astonishing at the time accusing her household of racial prejudice. 

In a memo to Sir Henry she wrote: To make out the Munshi is low is outrageous. Abdul feels cut to the heart to be thus spoken of. The Queen is so sorry for the poor Munshis sensitive feelings. 

Rumours started to circulate that Abdul was passing Victoria inflammatory advice about India, & that he was a spy leaking secret foreign policy information. 

Bow about that ... gentleman greets Queen Victoria as she stands with Abdul

She responded by becoming even more intimate with him. When he became ill she would spend long periods in his bedchamber, fluffing his pillows & stroking his hand. 

Then in 1897, with just weeks to go until Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the Queen announced she planned to knight Abdul. 

The bombshell was one step too far for her ministers & attendants. 

The Viceroy of India joined forces with the Prime Minister to oppose the move. In response, Victoria threatened to pull out of the Jubilee celebrations. 

With the biggest event that the British monarchy had ever seen under threat, the Queens eldest son, Bertie later Edward VII stepped in. 

He hatched a plan with the Queens doctor, Sir James Reid, who wrote to her, saying: There are people in high places who know your majesty well & say to me the only charitable explanation that can be given is that your majesty is not sane, & that at some time it will be necessary for me to come forward & say so. 

I have seen the Prince of Wales yesterday & he has said he is quite ready to come forward, because it affects the throne. 
Victoria had to admit defeat & Abdul did not get his knighthood. 

But he was constantly by her side for the Jubilee celebrations. For the remaining four years of Victoria's life, she was inseparable from her beloved servant. 

When she finally died in 1901, the protection Abdul had enjoyed came to a sudden end. 

Just days after the funeral, the royal householders marched into Abduls home, seized all items bearing the royal crest & burned all his precious letters from the Queen. 

He was exiled to India where he survived eight years, & died at the age of 46, & only God knows whether he died a natural death or on the instance of the British Raj.  

"Queen Victoria's Last Love"......was screened on British Channel 4 recently.