Vikki of Windsor

That Queen Victoria eh? Phwoar - bit of a goer, wasn't she? Yet again - prompted on this occasion by the release of the movie Young Victoria - we are being told to tear up all our preconceptions about Victoria being a straitlaced old bird, a miserable asexual killjoy, the gloomy Widow of Windsor, not amused, etc, etc. Well excuse me, but is there anyone alive who actually has these preconceptions any longer? For decades - since well before Mrs Brown - we've been told all about Victoria's happy sex life with Albert and her close, on this account at least quasi-sexual, relations with a succession of important men in her life. Indeed, the dear old Queen's popular image is now - following a string of books, documentaries and journalism ramming the message home - that of a near-nymphomaniac, incapable of living without male attention. The man or woman in the street is more likely now to think she had a succession of torrid affairs with all comers, up to and including John Brown and her Indian manservant. All of which is rather more of a caricature than the previous grim image. A truly revisionist view of Victoria now would be one that emphasised her gloomy killjoy side - and we'll probably be getting it in the course of time: tear up all your preconceptions about Victoria being a sex maniac, up for anything in trousers, etc, etc.
Maybe the problem is our compulsion to sexualise great figures from the past. The same thing has been done ad nausem with that most tempting of targets, the Virgin Queen - though oddly, with Cleopatra, a reverse process is under way, playing down the sensuality, playing up the hardheaded politics. Ah well, that's history...