A Queen and her Diamond
Queen Victoria was featured in Doctor Who’s episode “Tooth and Claw,” which was an episode involving werewolves. On their way to visit 1979, the Doctor and Rose end up in Scotland in 1879, where they run into Queen Victoria. After the Doctor’s psychic paper determines the Doctor to be her protector, she states that she is the queen of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and must travel secretly because of an assassination attempt. The Doctor mentions six attempts of assassination on the Queen, so it appears he is not surprised. She welcomes the Doctor and Rose to join them. Rose makes a bet with the Doctor that she can get the queen to say “we are not amused,” and spends the entire episode trying. When they arrive at the estate, we learn her husband has died. Then. a legend about werewolves has turned out to be true and they must stop them from killing everyone. They use the telescope and Queen Victoria’s Koh-i-Noor diamond to trap the werewolf.
History Today published an article highlighting Queen Victoria’s life. The author Lynne Vallone included important aspects of her life and reign. Queen Victoria was described as simple, traditional, and often appeared very serious. She spent a lot of time helping countries to the East, and would take her attention off of her homeland. The Queen also made efforts to visit British soldiers who were sick or injured. Vallone also explains how the Queen was sorry she could not fight in the war as well, and how honorable a death it is to die during war. When her husband died, she spent several years avoiding public appearances and did not live in London much. She stayed in Scotland attended balls during this time. By 1871, she opened Parliament and participated. In the 1880’s she stood against policies William Gladstone stood for. Vallone also describes Queen Victoria as an optimist. Living until the age of 81, she is also known for having a very long reign as Queen. As Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, she took part in very important events during the 1800’s (Vallone 2002.)
Vallone also mentioned that Queen Victoria is well known for the statement “we are not amused.”. It is not clear where this statement came from, however Vallone notes that the stern look she has in most of her public photographs, which could attribute to this connected quotation. There was actually long in one of her journals when she was a princess, stating how very amused she was (Vallone 2002.) Throughout the episode, Rose tries any chance she gets, to try to make the Queen use this phrase. Throughout the entire episode, not once does Queen Victoria ever say this statement, which would align with the idea that she was never truly known for saying this, but the phrase was still somehow linked to her.
There are several personal facts of Queen Victoria’s life that are presented within this Doctor Who episode. For the most part, the character of Queen Victoria appeared to follow the description Vallone had. It is hard to say the part was played close to how Queen Victoria was seen in reality, but the series did make the attempt to follow the main characteristics. The time frame of the show takes place after her husband dies, and she spends most of her time in Scotland, which also aligns with episode. According to Victorianweb.org, Queen Victoria survived seven assassination attempts (Banerjee 2013.) The Doctor made a comment in the beginning of the episode about this, and so did Queen Victoria near the middle of the episode. When she encounters one of the monks in the episode, he admits to covering the tracks to get her there. After mentioning her survival of six assassination attempts, she pulls out a revolver and shoots. Though it is not exactly stated, Doctor Who could be implying this event as her seventh attempt on her life. However, after looking at the timeline of attempts to kill Queen Victoria, there were none occurring during the year 1879.
The Koh-I-Noor diamond that saves everyone within the episode is also based off the actual diamond. When Queen Victoria presents the diamond, she and the Doctor talk about Prince Albert’s need to cut the diamond to be perfect for her, which decreased the size by about 40%. Although this diamond may have seemed like another one of Doctor Who’s made up words, most of this information is also true. The International Journal of Science and Research credits this diamond as being one of the oldest and famous in the world. When Queen Victoria became the Empress of India, the diamond was presented to her. Prince Albert then had the diamond cut from 186 carats to 108.93 carats, which is about a 41% decrease in size (Kaur 2014.) The Koh-I-Noor is not necessarily a significant part of Queen Victoria’s life, or plays a part in how Doctor Who depicts her, it is still interesting to see how much of the episode is based off of historical content.
Below is a picture of the Koh-I-Noor Diamond placed on top of the crown.
Graham/Alamy, Tim. “Koh-I-Noor Diamond.” National Geographic.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper/science/photos/gems/kohinoor-diamond/
Though Queen Victoria plays a large part in “Tooth and Claw,” the plot does not appear to be part of any real life event. Doctor Who may have featured another very important female figure in history, but there are few parts of this episode that are based off of facts. Because this is a science fiction show, the audience should not use this episode to conclude anything about Queen Victoria. Because such little factual information is presented in “Tooth and Claw,” it is hard to say how similar or different Doctor Who portrays Queen Victoria. There is far more to her history and accomplishments than what is seen within the series.
Resources used for this blog post:
Banerjee, A. “Queen Victoria's Would-Be Assassins: A Review of Shooting Victoria: Madness,
Mayhem and the Modernisation of the Monarchy, by Paul Thomas Murphy.”
Victorianweb.org. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/victoria/murphy.html (retrieved
March 18, 2016).
Doctor Who. “Tooth and Claw.” DVD. Directed by Euros Lyn. Written by Russell T Davies. BBC
Wales, 2006.
Graham/Alamy, Tim. “Koh-I-Noor Diamond.” National Geographic.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper/science/photos/gems/kohinoor-diamond/
Kaur, Satwinder. “Koh-I-Noor “Mountain of Light.” International Journal of Science and Research
3 (2014): 729-731.
Vallone, Lynne. 2002. "Victoria." History Today 52, no. 6: 46. Academic Search Complete,
EBSCOhost (accessed March 30, 2016).
