Hello, I'm Lucy Worsley, chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

You're listening to our podcast that explores the history and stories of our six palaces.

These talks are a collection of some of our best live events.

I really hope you enjoy listening.

The Victorian era is defined by great leaps in cultural, technological and scientific innovations.

In this series compiled from our archive, we explore the fast-moving world of Queen Victoria.

Join historian Paula Bartley as she explores the role of Victoria as both a woman and a queen in a politically male domain.

Man must be pleased, but him to please is women's pleasure.

Don't get too many ideas. These lines come from a very popular poem called

The Angel in the House, which was written in the 1850s by Coventry Patmore. The Angel in

the House was an ideal woman. Meek, charming, graceful, self-sacrificing and above all pure. She was a domestic goddess

who was submissive to her husband and selflessly devoted to her children. Indeed, Coventry

Patmore's poem exemplified the Victorian theory of separate spheres,

where the perfect woman was regarded as belonging to the domestic sphere, caring for the house and children.

In contrast, the perfect man was made for the public sphere of work, high politics, war and diplomacy.

Now, these beliefs made it challenging for any woman to take part in politics, let alone for

a woman to be head of the most powerful country in the world.

And indeed, throughout her reign, Queen Victoria remained a solitary female in a male political domain.

Yet Queen Victoria was a wife and mother, as well as a monarch.

So what I want to do this morning is firstly to compare Victoria's domestic

life with the lives of other women, secondly to examine how Victoria managed the political

sphere as a female sovereign, and finally I'll conclude with a look at the Queen's attitude

...