Changes

==Key Events==

Season 1 begins with the death of King William, who was Victoria's uncle. As the king did not have any legitimate children through his marriage, the succession passed down to Victoria. The first few episodes focused on Victoria's inexperience, her sometimes naivety, as she was only 18 years old at the time she became queen in 1837. Key events focused on her mother (Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) and John Conroy, her mother's secretary and friend. Rumors, as suggested by the show, had it they were possible lovers, but this was unclear. In both reality and the series, Conroy and Victoria's mother caused difficulties for Victoria, where Conroy was portrayed as controlling and he even was shown as attempting to rule in a regency. However, his attempts at a regency likely did not happen, although he did try to have greater influence in court. One early controversy was Victoria having accused Lady Flora, a lady-in-waiting close to Conroy, of being pregnant, which would have been scandalous as she was unwed. However, after physical examination by a doctor, it was determined that Lady Flora had a terminal liver tumor, causing Victoria embarrassment and public anger at falsely accusing Lady Flora. This made Victoria look insensitive and loose popularity given how she treated the dying Lady Flora. There is truth Victoria's sheltered life, as Victoria was brought up in a system called the Kensington system, which greatly controlled who Victoria could talk to and interact with. The system was intended to have greater control of her. This also made her have few true friends and Victoria did describe that she had a melancholy childhood (Figure 1).<ref>For more on Victoria's early reign, see: Williams, K. (2009) OCLC: 276647568. <i>Becoming queen.</i> London, Arrow.</ref>

As Victoria struggled to break free from the grips of Conroy, and to some extent her mother, she forms a close relationship with Lord Melbourne, or William Lamb, who was the Prime Minister at the time. He became a close confidant of Victoria, which was accurate. The series also indicates a very close relationship formed between them, which is also likely ture. It even suggests Victoria had a romantic interest in Lord Melbourne, where she eventually proposes to him (the queen had to propose in order to get married). This marriage proposal was unlikely to have occurred, as Lord Melbourne was 58 years old at the time that Victoria came to power and, given the fact that Victoria never knew her father, likely treated Melbourne as a surrogate father figure. The show focuses on political rivalries that were occurring at the time in the late 1830s between the Tories and Whigs, the two primary parties. There was even a crisis, the so-called Bedchamber crisis, where the Tory leader Robert Peel was to be given the Prim Minister role. However, he insisted that Queen Victoria remove some of her ladies of the bedchamber, as they had husbands who were Whig politicians, suggesting to Peel that Victoria was too heavily biased toward the Whigs. However, as these were Victoria's friends, she refused, causing a crisis since Peel would have normally taken the role of Prime Minister as his party now controlled parliament. Eventually, Melbourne was again asserted as Prime Minister, where the events depicted are mostly accurate in the series.<ref>For more on early controversies in Victoria's reign, see: Rappaport, H. (2003) <i>Queen Victoria: a biographical companion.</i> ABC-CLIO biographical companions. Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO.</ref>