The Series about Queen Victoria
- While Victoria and Melbourne were indeed very close, he was actually forty years her senior. While that us not in itself a disqualifying factor (especially in the 1800s when such an age gap was not unheard of), historical scholarship suggest they shared a father/daughter relationship, rather than the romantic tension portrayed in the series. The only contemporary observer, diarist Charles Greville (who worked for the monarch's Privy Council), claimed outright stated that Victoria's feelings for Melbourne were sexual though she didn't recognize the fact; Greville greatly hated Queen Victoria and vice versa, and Victoria was extremely upset when his gossipy diaries about her were published. There are are only a couple (such as tabloid journalist A.N. Wilson) who depict their relationship as semi-romantic, though even early biographer Elizabeth Longford calls their relationship "one of the platonic romances of history." Victoria's relationship with Lord Melbourne has also been noted among historians for being politically motivated on his part; he instigated both the Lady Flora affair and the Bedchamber Crisis. Even after he had organized the bodily invasion of Flora, he continued to insist to Victoria she was pregnant. Victoria would later write when thinking of Lord Melbourne, ‘1st October, 1842. Wrote & looked over & corrected my old journals, which do not now awake very pleasant feelings. The life I led then was so artificial & superficial, & yet I thought I was happy. Thank God! I now know what real happiness means.’
- The real Duke of Cumberland left England for Hanover a year before Victoria's coronation and didn't return until the early 1840s.
- The Lady Flora Hastings affair occurred months after the Coronation, not during it. Some historians have implied that Lord Melbourne was as much to blame for it getting out of hand as Victoria; in the series, the blame falls on Victoria, her judgement being clouded by her paranoia about and dislike of Conroy, and it is characterized as a learning moment for the young queen.
- Victoria's coronation is substantially truncated from the real event, and also omits some of the more chaotic moments (such as the archbishop putting a ring on the wrong finger; the only suggestion that the event didn't go smoothly is the fact her gown is placed at a slightly awkward angle and appears close to falling off). The crowning also took place more than a year after she ascended the throne (most British coronations take a year or more to arrange after the death of the preceding monarch, which is why Edward VIII was never crowned), whereas the series makes it appear that it took place not long after she became Queen.
- A major figure in Victoria's early reign, Baron Stockmar, is Adapted Out of the series entirely. In real life, he was King Leopold's physician and acted on his behalf in terms of preparing Victoria to meet Albert and also acted as a mentor to her (in addition to Lord Melbourne). In the series, Stockmar's function is transferred to Leopold himself, and Lord M is depicted as her sole (political) mentor.
- Historically, Victoria considered her uncle Leopold her "best and kindest advisor", not least for setting up her marriage to Albert, whom unlike in the series she was immediately taken with after meeting him a year before becoming Queen. In the series, Leopold is depicted as manipulative and disliked by Victoria, although they finally bond in the final episode of Series 1, though in Series 2 rifts erupt.
- Edward Oxford's assassination attempt occurred in June 1840 when Victoria was four months pregnant. In the series, it happens shortly before Victoria gives birth to her daughter in November 1840. The episode also indicates that Oxford's pistols were not loaded; in reality, they were.
- The Duchess of Sutherland's marriage was a happy one. Also, by 1840, she had seven living children. Her husband makes a brief appearance in Series 2 and the fact she has children is mentioned in brief, but her kids are never seen.
- The show has George Sutherland, Harriet's husband dying from a hunting accident in the 1840s. In real life, he didn't die until 1861, after an illness, at the age of 75.
- In the second series, the Duchess of Buccleuch, Mistress of the Robes, is played by Dame Diana Rigg, who is in her seventies. The real Lady Charlotte Anne Montagu Douglas Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch, was in her thirties when she entered Her Majesty's service.
- The second series has Dash dying at around the same time that the retired Melbourne (apparently) succumbs to his own deterioration. In reality Dash died in 1840 whereas Melbourne died in 1848 (in fact he was still Prime Minister until 1841).
- Victoria's attitude exhibited during the Irish potato famine is at odds with histories of the period.
- Similarly, her attitude towards her children is also at odds with the histories that suggest Victoria was rather resentful of them. The first episode of Series 2 does touch on this, but dismisses it as Victoria exhibiting what would today be called postpartum depression.
- Series 2 strongly suggests that Albert is Leopold's illegitimate son. Although the narrative intentionally leaves the truth of the matter ambiguous, the only historian who notably promoted this idea was David Duff in a 1972 biography, with only circumstantial evidence, and the claim is generally considered to be without merit by historians.
- The timing and circumstances of Edward Drummond's assassination are changed significantly from real life (although he did die shielding Robert Peel from a bullet), while his same-sex relationship with Lord Alfred Paget is pure fiction.
- Victoria and Albert have fewer children at the end of Series 2 (the final episode being set in 1846) than they had in real life by this point.
- Lehzen was dismissed in 1841, which would be near the beginning of Series 2, but the show has her dismissed at the end of Series 2, around 1846. The circumstances are much the same, but the change in chronology means that Princess Victoria is much older. In real life, she was an infant at the time of the incident.
- Averted with Prince George, who appears in the Series 1 episode "Brocket Hall", as a disinterested suitor for Victoria who is pushed forward by the Duke of Cumberland. Some have pointed out that the Duke of Cumberland's son, George, was blind in Real Life, while Prince George in the series can see. However, this Prince George is not the Duke's son, but his nephew, Prince George of Cambridge, who really was considered as a potential husband for Victoria, but, as shown in the series, was not interested in becoming Prince Consort.
- One of Victoria's suitors is the handsome Russian Grand Duke Alexander, who ends up marrying a Danish princess instead. While Grand Duke Alexander did visit Victoria early in her reign there was never any intention of marriage, for the simple reason that Alexander, as the oldest son of Czar Nicholas I, was first in line to inherit the Russian throne. Furthermore, it was not Alexander, but his son, the later Czar Alexander III, who married a Danish princess.
- The main arc of Series 3 revolves around the antagonistic relationship between Victoria and her half sister, Feodora. The show was much criticized for radically changing what was historically a warm and loving sisterly bond.
- During the 1854 cholera outbreak, Florence Nightingale is depicted saying that she doesn't believe in miasma theory. In fact, Nightingale was a strong proponent of miasma theory throughout her life. Furthermore, the show has Nightingale reasoning that miasma theory must be false because she hasn't caught cholera from her patients, but that's exactly what miasma theory would predict. It was the opponents of miasma theory, the "contagionists," who believed that disease was spread from person to person. (Of course, we now know that certain diseases are spread from person to person, but it happens that cholera is not one of them. Not that the miasma proponents had it right either—cholera spreads in water and, while it commonly enters the water supply through fecal matter, the pathogen is in itself odourless.)
- On that note, the episode with the 1854 cholera outbreak features, as a subplot, the 1847 Cambridge Chancellor election. In the show's universe, both events have apparently been relocated to circa 1848-49.
- Nancy Skerrett is shown as being Queen Victoria's principal dresser until 1848, before moving out with Francatelli and dying in the cholera outbreak after drinking from a tainted bottle. Her historical counterpart, Marianne Skerrett, stayed with Victoria until 1861, and died at the age of 94 in 1887.
