Time for a closer look at the jewels and the history behind episode six of this season of Victoria, “Faith, Hope, and Charity.” (You can catch up on our previous recaps here!)

We open in County Cork. Anglican priests discuss the increasing problems with local potato crops, but they see a silver lining: their churches are opening soup kitchens, and they’re feeding lots of hungry Catholics — but only if they agree to be baptized into the Anglican faith. One clergyman, Dr. Traill, is a little horrified at this baptisms-for-food scheme. He has seen the consequences of the crisis for everyday people.

Traill was a real person: he was the rector of the parish of Schull, and he was known for his efforts to help the hungry during the potato famine. (His descendants included the famous playwright J.M. Synge, as well as Daisy Goodwin, this show’s writer and creator.)

In England, Victoria and Albert attend church, where they hear a timely sermon about pestilence and plague.

They’re surprised when Ernst suddenly shows up again, because they thought they wouldn’t see him until “after the christening” — which means that nearly a year has passed since the last episode, and little Princess Alice has been born. (That happened in April 1843, and Alice was baptized in June.) Albert and Ernst have a private conversation, and Ernst reveals that he’s been in Baden-Baden for health reasons.

Ernst tries to make his illness sound like no big deal, but the servant who unpacks his bags discovers something unusual: a container of white powder marked “calomel.” This common Victorian medicine was often used to treat STDs, and those of you who’ve read these recaps for a while know that Ernst was suffering from one of those. Calomel fell out of favor as a medicine, though, because it’s really mercury chloride, and it causes mercury poisoning.

Victoria hears about candidates for the position of Archbishop of Dublin. Peel and the assistant secretary to the treasury, Charles Trevelyan, explain that there’s a lot of turmoil in the Irish Anglican church at the moment, including disputes over tithes. (Everyone was required to pay tithes to the state church, whether they were Anglican or not, which made Catholics unhappy, to put it mildly.)

Trevelyan steps in it by offering to explain more about Ireland to Victoria — when her child-rearing duties allow her the time. He should have just called her short, too. (The real Trevelyan was, well, awful. He bore much of the responsibility for the horrific government response, or lack thereof, to the potato famine. He literally thought that God starved the Irish on purpose as a moral punishment. Also, on another note, this was a really good moment of physical casting — this actor looks a lot like portraits of the real Trevelyan.)

Victoria gets curious about Ireland. (I really can’t stand how this show makes it seem like Victoria’s just learning about all of the problems in her empire, as if she doesn’t read government paperwork every day.) She asks the Duchess of Buccleuch about her estates in Ireland. Charlotte explains that she never visited, because there’s simply no society on that island, but her husband kept the land for sporting purposes.

Wearing a large brooch, and holding baby Alice, Victoria looks concerned.

Meanwhile, we get Peak Albert during an examination of the palace’s Roman-era sewer systems. Albert points out that their public sanitation is actually worse than it was during the Roman era. He wants to start working on the problem at home, constructing a new system at the palace that can be used as a model for future reform of London’s sewers.

In Ireland, things aren’t improving. Dr. Traill visits a home where a Catholic mother of five has died of starvation. Mrs. Traill isn’t as sympathetic to the Catholic plight; she remembers when the same Catholics protested tithing by trying to burn down the Traill home years ago. But Dr. Traill has had enough. Famine, he declares, has no denomination. The entire potato harvest has been ruined. (The blight arrived in Ireland at the end of 1845.)

Traill writes a letter about the conditions in Ireland, which is published in the newspaper. Victoria reads it and shares it with Peel and the odious Trevelyan, who blames everything on the Irish themselves. Peel reluctantly tells Victoria that it wouldn’t be “desirable” for the government to offer assistance. Trevelyan interrupts to explain that the population of Ireland has grown too much, and this is just nature’s way of handling that issue. Even seeing this in fictional form, more than a century and a half later, it’s hard to watch.

Victoria is visibly disgusted with both of them. She announces that she wants to go to Ireland herself. Peel is, predictably, against this, because he says that they can’t guarantee her safety.

Meanwhile, Ernst, under a pseudonym, has gone to an English doctor for another examination. He confirms it: Ernst has syphilis. He’s willing to fork over a lot of dough for a cure. The doctor prescribes another mercury-based cure, so Ernst is in for more poison. Good times.

Albert wants to talk about his sewage plans for the palace, while Victoria wants to talk about the horrific situation in Ireland. Albert wants her to trust that the government will do the right thing. (Don’t hold your breath, guys.)

And then Lord Alfred comes in with more distressing news: Harriet’s husband, the Duke of Sutherland, has died in a hunting accident. (Except not. The Duke of Sutherland didn’t die until 1861 — the same year that Prince Albert died. And he died at the age of 75 after suffering from an illness, not because of an accident. But, you know, this show is what it is — a soap opera trying to be a prestige historical drama.)

The next day, Ernst can’t hack it while exercising with Albert, who suggests that he should go back and live a healthy lifestyle in Germany. And marry a wife of Uncle Leopold’s choosing, Ernst retorts. (All together now: Ernst married Princess Alexandrine of Baden in May 1842!) Also, Albert tells Ernst that Harriet’s now a widow. Awfully inconvenient time to catch a social disease, Ernie.

Lord Alfred and Drummond bump into each other in the palace and have a hushed, tortured conversation about Ireland, the Queen, why women are so emotional (sure thing, dudes), and Drummond’s fiancee. They’re setting a wedding date. Drummond apologizes.

Sidenote: these two people are real; I’m not sure that their affection for each other was in line with their real orientations, but that’s not really a historical qualm of mine. Romances between people of the same sex were rarely part of public knowledge during this era, in part because men faced serious, terrifying criminal and social consequences for homosexual relationships during Victoria’s reign (and afterward, too). I am kind of surprised that the writers believe that these two men, both in prominent positions in government/at court, would have these kinds of conversations in a hallway in Buckingham Palace. It sort of undermines the real dangers that gay men faced during this time period, doesn’t it?

Anyway. Back in Ireland, Traill gets chewed out for the letter that ran in the Times. The bishop is ticked; he thinks the people (well, the Catholics, mostly) should be in charge of feeding themselves. Traill reminds him that a loaf of bread currently costs as much as an entire year’s rent. Angry Bishop tells Traill that he better like living in rural Ireland, because he’s never going to get a living back in Dublin if he keeps it up.

Peel is grilled in the House of Commons about the potato blight. He argues that he can’t give relief to Ireland. For one, it would make the Irish gentry angry. For another, then every working class person in the country would want some charity, too. At that point, they might as well repeal the Corn Laws, too. (Those laws artificially controlled the price of grain in Britain by making it prohibitively expensive to import foreign grain, whether the Brits produced enough to feed their own people — or not. Peel really did support the repeal of the laws, starting in early 1846.)

Ernst goes back to the doctor, who tells him that the visible signs of his condition are disappearing. Ernst hopes that means he’s been cured. But the doctor is still concerned. He asks if Ernst is married, and Ernst says he’s not (I won’t bother repeating myself AGAIN here). The doctor warns that an innocent party shouldn’t be exposed — and children who have congenital syphilis can be very badly affected, too.

Predictably, Harriet shortly returns to the palace, a spectral figure in black.

Victoria angrily reads Trevelyan’s book, The Irish Crisis. (It was published in 1848.) She decides to write to Traill, telling him how moved she was by his letter to the Times. She asks him to come to Buckingham Palace, so that they can talk about the crisis in person.

He arrives at the palace and describes the conditions in Ireland in stark detail for Victoria. He’s especially bothered by the fact that Irish grain is still being sent to England, when so many of the Irish people are absolutely starving. Albert arrives and asks Traill if the fact that the Irish rely so heavily on one crop isn’t part of the problem. Traill diplomatically replies that the laws that keep many Irish people from owning their own land has also kept them from innovating within their farming practices, because they’re forced to produce a reliable crop to pay their rents. Victoria wants to know how they can help. Traill says that she needs to convince the government to send relief, or the people in his parish will continue to die.

The effects of the famine are being felt by Victoria’s servants, too. Her assistant dresser, Miss Cleary, is Irish, and her family is being threatened with eviction and starvation. The palace chef gives her his expensive gold watch so that she can sell it and send more money to Ireland. Turns out Miss Cleary is from the same small parish as Dr. Traill, and he encourages her to help educate Victoria about the Irish people.

Cleary does just that, taking an opportunity to speak to Victoria about her family — and revealing that she’s a Catholic. Victoria doesn’t care about that, and she inquires about the rest of Cleary’s family. She reveals that it was too late to help her family avoid eviction, but that they’re using the money she sent to sail for America.

Back home in County Cork, Traill has decided that he’ll take an important step, turning his house into a soup kitchen. When his wife argues against the plan, he asks her to take their children and go stay with her mother. (Traill really did start a soup kitchen in his house during the famine.) Later, he also upsets the bishop when he invites a Catholic priest to a meeting.

But sadly, Traill isn’t long for this world. We see him serving food to hungry parishioners alongside a priest, but we also see him showing signs of illness himself. He died of typhus in 1847, during a major epidemic that happened right in the middle of the Great Famine.

Victoria talks to Peel, Drummond, and Trevelyan again about help for Ireland. Trevelyan is adamant that providing relief for the Irish will turn them into a “country of dependents.”

Victoria abruptly dismisses him, and she tells people that she will not stand by while the Irish die of hunger. This depiction is indeed basically in line with the real Victoria’s attitude toward charity for Ireland, but as always, reality is more complicated than fiction.

A.N. Wilson writes that there “was great unfairness in calling her ‘the Famine Queen,’ as the Irish did, since she was one of the greatest single contributors to famine relief, and she was criticized by the rest of Britain for encouraging others to do the same.” Julia Baird notes that Victoria also “published two letters urging the public to donate to Ireland; rationed bread in her household; ordered swaths of Irish poplin; and agreed to order that days of fasting be observed in support of the poor,” but adds that “she could have done much more for what had become an unpopular cause, and several of her public gestures were made at the insistence of” members of the government.

When Peel doesn’t immediately agree to provide relief, Victoria fairly drags him to the nursery, where baby Alice is squalling. She basically asks Peel if he’d feel comfortable if a baby like Alice starved, and she tells him that she can’t let any of the people of Ireland die from hunger, imploring him to act. But Peel is at a crossroads. He tells Victoria that following his conscience will lead to the destruction of his party. She begs him to follow his conscience.

Peel makes a case in parliament for famine relief, arguing that the country should always be prepared to handle a disaster. (Peel’s reaction to the famine was also much more complicated even than it’s presented here, as you might have expected.)

We end the episode on a particularly sad note, as Victoria learns of Traill’s death. Overall, I think the episode did a decent job of detailing some of the real-life issues surrounding the famine, but I wish the crisis were given more than one episode’s worth of attention. Condensing a crisis that unfolded over years into one episode makes it seem like an isolated thing. It wasn’t — the events depicted here happened over a lengthy period of time, and I wish we’d seen them woven throughout the season rather than just spotlighted here. At least it was covered at all, I guess?

Time for another recap of Masterpiece’s Victoria, magpies! Today, we’ve got a recap of the season’s fifth episode, “Entente Cordiale.” (Catch up on our previous recaps here!)

Wearing some of her little dangling earrings, Victoria shows little Vicky a model of the new royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert. She suggests that they should go see Uncle Leopold in Belgium on the new ship. Albert, still smarting from last episode’s revelations, overhears and scowls.

But there’s a more pressing destination on the docket. Peel shares that the Duke of Montpensier, youngest son of the French king, is courting the young Queen Isabella II of Spain. The Brits are nervous because King Louis Philippe of the French wants to set up an empire in Europe, linking various royal houses to his by marriage, and the Brits, fresh off the Napoleonic wars, don’t like that idea at all. Against Peel’s advice, Victoria decides to write Louis Philippe a letter suggesting that the Spanish marriage is a bad idea.

Peel asks Albert to intervene — he thinks Louis Philippe will misinterpret a letter from Victoria. Plus, he reminds him, Uncle Leopold wants Victoria and Albert’s cousin, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to marry the Spanish queen. Albert bristles at the mention of Leopold. (I know this storyline was engineered for more emotional torture for Albert, but it’s worth mentioning that Ferdinand married Queen Maria II of Portugal in 1836, four whole years before Albert married Victoria.)

Albert tells Victoria that Peel thinks she should cool it with the letter writing. Victoria agrees — she thinks they should go to France, so she can discuss the matter with Louis Philippe in person.

When she tells Peel about this plan, he’s unhappy. He thinks Louis Philippe can’t be trusted, just like his father — the Duke of Orleans — who betrayed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (and then ended up being guillotined anyway). But Victoria is a believer in monarch-to-monarch communication, so the visit is going ahead. (Victoria and Albert visited Louis Philippe at his chateau in Eu in September 1843, three years before all of the angst about the Spanish marriages happened.)

Peel wishes he could go along, but asks her to take Drummond instead. He also inquires about Albert, who seems awfully distressed lately. Victoria hopes that a trip to France is just what he needs to lift his spirits after his father’s death. (The French visit took place the year before Albert’s father died.)

Charlotte Buccleuch and Wilhelmina are going along, too, even though Charlotte HATES France. (This is Wilhelmina’s face when she finds out that Lord Alfred is also traveling with them to France.)

After the crossing, the party is greeted by Louis Philippe, who tells Victoria that she’s a cute little monarch. Great start there, Louis. She loves being reminded that she’s short!

Louis Philippe, whose costuming appears to be inspired by his Winterhalter portrait, is accompanied by his youngest son, Antoine, who is the source of all this international matchmaking hullabaloo.

The French are clearly curious about Victoria, who really was the first English/British monarch to visit France since Henry VIII.

Albert, ever the prude, isn’t a fan of the fleshy paintings in the chateau. Louis Philippe introduces him to the “Duchesse du Barry,” asking her to show him Renaissance paintings more to his taste. She appears to be fictional; there was no one in France with that title in 1843. The former Duchesse de Berry was still alive, but she had remarried to an Italian duke by that point. Clearly they’re riffing on the famous Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV, who was executed in the revolution.

Victoria, who sensed that some of the French ladies were silently judging her fashion choices, asks her dresser to come up with an ensemble that’s a little more chic for her next appearance.

Surprise! Someone else has popped in for a visit with Louis Philippe: it’s Ernst! He’s tired of Coburg already.

Ernst was not really present for the visit, but other Coburg family members actually were. Uncle Leopold’s second wife, Queen Louise of the Belgians, was present, which makes sense — King Louis Philippe was her father. Victoria and Albert’s first cousin, Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was there, too. Only a few months before, August had married Louis Philippe’s daughter, Princess Clementine. Another first cousin, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was married to Louis Philippe’s second son, the Duke of Nemours. (I don’t believe they took part in this visit.)

Victoria arrives for the grand banquet. There’s a lot going on here! She’s wearing the production’s replica of the sapphire coronet, this time as a traditional tiara, plus the replica Albert Brooch and an invented necklace. Her dresser has also taken some tips from the French servants at the chateau, and Victoria is wearing makeup. (Ooh la la!) Albert, typically, disapproves of “painted faces.”

We get another good look at the replica tiara during dinner. (According to contemporary press reports, her glam appearance is exaggerated: “Her head dress was very plain, the hair being simply braided, and her jewels were handsome emeralds and diamonds.”) She tries to get Louis Philippe to chat about his matchmaking during the meal, but he refuses to mix business with pleasure.

That evening, Victoria and Albert discuss the visit so far. He’s beyond disgusted with the vulgarity of everyone and everything. He is heading for a full-on emotional breakdown. Victoria’s disappointed that Albert is wasting time on being judgmental instead of getting to the bottom of the Spanish marriage problem.

Victoria tours the chateau’s kitchen gardens with Louis Philippe the next morning, where they chat about monarch things, like assassination attempts and patriotism. She tells him that a marriage between his son and the Queen of Spain would “upset the balance” between Britain and France. He says that an alliance between Spain and the Coburgs would be a problem, too.

Sadsack Albert can’t even find it in himself to be cheerful at a charming French picnic. He’s especially mad because Ernst up to his old tricks, sniffing around the French ladies. Albert ends up being so frustrated that he literally jumps in a lake. (Lord Alfred and Drummond get flirty and follow suit.)

Wilhelmina, wearing her coral earrings, is in a mood, too — she’s finally realized that Ernst is an absolute hound, not a charming prince.

Victoria spies on her husband’s skinny-dipping adventures, and she jokingly admonishes him for his loose morality when he returns to the chateau. And then, of course, canoodling ensues. Turns out Albert isn’t totally averse to pleasure.

Later, we get a good view of Victoria’s famous emerald serpent engagement ring.

And Albert finally tells her what’s been bothering him: the possibility that Uncle Leopold is really his father. Victoria is shocked, but she quickly recovers, and tells Albert that it’s no surprise that Leopold would want to believe he’s Albert’s father. Any man would want him as a son. She doesn’t care who his father is. She loves him no matter what.

That night at dinner, Victoria wears one of the production’s invented diamond tiaras and a brooch with pearl pendants. She gets down to business, telling Louis Philippe why the Spanish marriage is unacceptable to the Brits. He says that the Coburg marriage for the Spanish queen is unacceptable to the French.

Albert steps in and offers an alternative solution, which he decides to illustrate using a bunch of grapes, for some reason. He thinks that both the French and the Brits should back off and do nothing regarding the Spanish marriage.

Louis Philippe appears to let Victoria and Albert convince him that doing nothing is the right path, and the three celebrate the “entente cordiale” between their two nations. (Louis Philippe really did use that phrase to reference Anglo-French diplomatic relations, though most associate it with agreements brokered between the two countries in 1904, during the reign of Victoria and Albert’s son, King Edward VII.)

Okay, guys, here’s what really happened with Louis Philippe and the Affair of the Spanish Marriages. In 1846, three years after this visit, the French and the British got involved with the Spanish government to try to broker a favorable political marriage for the sixteen-year-old Queen Isabella II. The Brits wanted Prince Leopold (not Ferdinand) of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Victoria and Albert’s cousin. (I’m guessing the show didn’t trust the viewers not to mix up the Leopolds?) The French wanted the Duke of Cadiz, one of Queen Isabella’s Borbon cousins. The Duke of Cadiz won the day, and the diplomatic relationship between France and Britain was severely damaged.

But there was an even more complicated wrinkle: because some people believed (rightly or wrongly) that the Duke of Cadiz was gay, there was a possibility that Isabella would not have any children. Louis Philippe engineered a marriage on the same day between his son, the Duke of Montpensier, and Isabella’s younger sister, Infanta Luisa Fernanda, with the lingering possibility in the air that their children would one day inherit the Spanish throne. Joke was on them, though: Isabella ended up having nine children, though their paternity was often questioned. Also, Louis Philippe ended up losing his throne in 1848. C’est la vie.

ANYWAY. Everybody heads back to Britain, including Charlotte Buccleuch, who has been a party pooper during the entire trip because she absolutely loathes France. In the carriage on the way home, she finally gives a reason: her brother Mungo was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar. (She didn’t have a brother named Mungo. Also, she was thirty-two at the time of this visit. Why didn’t they just make up another fictional character for Dame Diana to play???)

Back at Buckingham Palace, Vic ‘n Al regale everyone with tales of their diplomatic triumph over dinner. Peel is pleased — the last thing they need is another war with France.

But then, the next day, Peel arrives with some disappointing news: Louis Philippe has fooled them all, and his son has officially been engaged to Isabella. (See above: that never happened!)

Victoria and Albert are a little crushed, but at least they’re happy that there aren’t any secrets between them anymore. Except one, that is: Victoria’s expecting again. (That’ll be Princess Alice, who was actually born in April 1843, months before the visit to France. This show, guys.)

Sunday’s airing of Victoria on Masterpiece was a two-parter, and today, we’re recapping the jewels and the history of the second episode shown, “The Sins of the Father.” (Catch up on our previous recaps over here!)

We begin with the birth of Albert and Victoria’s second child, Albert Edward, who will one day become King Edward VII. That means that it’s November 9, 1841.

Albert announces to the officials waiting outside that they have a Prince of Wales. Not quite yet, Albert — the title of Prince of Wales isn’t automatic. When Bertie was born, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. Victoria didn’t make her son Prince of Wales until a few weeks later, on December 8, 1841, when he was just about one month old.

Albert is enamored with his son. Victoria is less so; famously uninterested in babies, she declares that they all “look like frogs to her.” She’s feeling melancholy after having the baby, and she can’t explain why. (Postpartum depression wasn’t really a recognized thing in the 1840s.)

In Coburg, Albert’s randy old dad, Ernst Sr., cavorts with his mistresses. He’s rather seriously cavorting with one of them, in fact, when he up and dies.

The show makes it look as if Albert’s father departed just as his son was born, but that wasn’t the case. Ernst Sr. died in January 1844. By that time, Albert and Victoria had three children (Vicky, Bertie, and Alice), and Victoria was in the early months of her pregnancy with their fourth child, Alfred.

Victoria’s back in her pushchair, listening listlessly to Charlotte Buccleuch express horror about a lady wearing diamonds in the daytime. (Step off, Charlotte!) Victoria says they don’t need to worry about inappropriate diamonds at court, because she’s not ready to go out in public anytime soon.

Her melancholy intensifies, to the point that she’s sadly playing the piano alone wearing no jewelry at all. Albert comes in and sings along in German, but that doesn’t even make her smile. He’s worried.

The Duchess of Kent admires her new grandson, but Victoria is pretty much off in her own world.

And then the bad news arrives for Albert from Coburg. He knows it’s not good even before he opens the envelope, because the paper is edged in black. Victoria is finally shaken out of her own depression just a little because of her sympathy for her grieving husband.

The real Albert and Victoria learned of his father’s death on February 3, 1844, via an express that had arrived at 4 AM from King Louis-Philippe of the French, not from relatives in Coburg. (Louis-Philippe’s daughter, Louise, was married to King Leopold of the Belgians, the late Duke’s brother.) The Observer commented, “It is considered as a most extraordinary circumstance, that no direct information relative to this important event should have been received from Germany.” The Coburg court chamberlain did arrive in England shortly afterward to convey the news in person.

Albert tells Lehzen that he’s heading straight to the funeral in Coburg. While he’s gone, he wants her to solve the mystery that’s plaguing the palace: which staff member blabbed to the press about the recent break-in by a boy. He warns her that if they don’t find the mole, every staff member will be fired — including her. (Spoiler: the blabber is a relative of Victoria’s head dresser. Albert decides to let the dresser stay.)

The real Albert, though, didn’t attend his father’s funeral; it took place only about two days after Albert learned of his father’s death. He did go to Germany to see his family after his father’s death, but he didn’t make the trip until the beginning of April 1844.

Victoria finally tracks down Albert and tries to comfort him. She wants to go to Coburg, too — he says she shouldn’t. She points out that they’ve never spent a night apart, which was true. She didn’t go with him to Coburg during the Easter 1844 trip after his father’s death, and it was the first time he and Victoria had been apart since their wedding.

Victoria, who has a teeny bit of sparkle on the neckline of her gown, watches with Lehzen as Albert departs. While no one traveled to Germany for Ernst Sr.’s funeral in real life, the British court went into full mourning.

In Coburg, Albert joins Ernst Jr. to view their father’s body lying in state. A ducal coronet rests on Ernst Sr.’s body, which seems like an interesting choice on the part of the production.

Uncle Leopold shows up to mourn his brother, too.

Back at Buckingham Palace, everyone’s in mourning clothes. Victoria, Charlotte, and Wilhelmina sit in the nursery, sketching the children. Victoria’s irritable, and she’s angry that little Vicky won’t sit still. (In the same scene, Charlotte makes reference to her “late husband.” The 5th Duke of Buccleuch didn’t die until 1884!)

Albert’s beating himself up, feeling guilty about his final interactions with his father. When Ernst tells him precisely how the old duke died, Albert stops feeling quite so bad. “He died doing what he loved,” Ernst says languidly. (Ernst would know. By the way: by 1844, Ernst had a wife, Princess Alexandrine.)

In London, Peel tries to convince Victoria that she should attend the opening of the new Thames Tunnel, one of the projects of famed Victorian innovator Isambard Kingdom Brunel. She resists, but Drummond has brought a visual aide: a model of the tunnel. It intrigues Victoria, but she still says she won’t attend. (The tunnel opened to the public in March 1843.)

Victoire can’t figure out why her daughter is so upset, and she can’t figure out why she isn’t spending all her time with her babies.

In Coburg, the ducal coronet rests atop the coffin at Ernst Sr.’s funeral. There are no women present anywhere in these scenes — not Ernst Jr.’s wife (who hasn’t yet appeared on the show), and definitely not Ernst Sr.’s second wife, Marie of Württemberg, who was also his niece (blech).

After the funeral, Albert gazes at a miniature of his mother — Ernst Sr.’s first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. (That’s a real portrait of her.) Albert’s parents were both unfaithful, and they divorced when Albert and his brother were children. She was only 30 when she died of cancer.

Uncle Leopold finds Albert and talks with him about Louise. Albert’s still angry at the idea that his mother would leave her children behind, fitting right in with the episode’s discussions of the “right” kind of mothering. Leopold explains that it was more complicated than that. And then he drops a big old bomb: after his first wife, Princess Charlotte, died in 1817, and Ernst Jr. was born in 1818, Leopold and Louise “comforted each other.” Without really saying it, he implies that he’s Albert’s real father.

Okay, so I know what you’re all thinking — could this possibly have been true? It’s a fact that there were rumors about Albert’s true paternity even during his lifetime. Because his mother had one documented affair, which reportedly occurred after his birth, Albert was dogged by suggestions that he was the product of another extramarital liaison. (The complicated medical history of the family also raises questions about Albert’s parenthood.) A biography published in the 1970s argues that Leopold could indeed have been Albert’s father. The truth is that we’ll probably never really know.

Back in England, Victoria sneaks up to the nursery in her nightgown to look in on the baby. She spies on him through the slightly-open door, but she can’t make herself go inside.

The next day in Coburg, Ernst (who is now the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) and Albert make family small talk at a gathering. They discuss “Cousin Ferdinand,” whom Uncle Leopold wants to marry off to the Queen of Spain. (I believe they’re referencing Prince Ferdinand, the son of their Uncle Ferdinand, who eventually married Queen Maria II of Portugal and was proclaimed King Ferdinand II of that country.)

Albert expresses surprise that Leopold hasn’t tried to marry Ernst off yet. (Just for fun, let’s suspend disbelief for a second and pretend that Ernst hadn’t already been married for two years by the time his father died. Go ahead, show, let’s see what you’ve got.)

Leopold’s candidate for Ernst, Princess Alda of Oldenburg is a) fictional, and b) a pain in the backside. (Oh, show.) She arrives and immediately begins complaining. Her lady-in-waiting, though, is wearing a ferronniere — maybe she’s more Ernst’s type?

She may be severe and humorless, and she may be imaginary, but at least she’s wearing earrings and a brooch!

In England, Peel arrives with some bad news for Victoria: there’s been an explosion in the armory at the Tower of London, and five men have died. (This really happened in October 1841, about a week before the birth of the Prince of Wales. We are all over the map in this episode.) She wants to send condolences, but he urges her to appear in person.

She finally relents, struggling to decide what accessories to wear. With a cameo pinned to her dress, she admits that she’s nervous.

She sucks it up and goes, and it does make a difference to the people.

Even Charlotte Buccleuch is impressed. She’s the only one who directly ties Victoria’s “low spirits” to the birth of baby Bertie — she has been where Victoria is, and she understands. Charlotte experienced something similar with the birth of her daughter Mary — who wasn’t born until 1851, because this show is so, so strange in its approach to its source material.

Meanwhile, Lord Alfred and Drummond have found a little quiet time for flirtation over drinks — but then they’re unceremoniously uninterrupted by Wilhelmina, who has lost her Chopin. Such timing.

Later, Alfred finds out that Drummond’s engaged to be married, and his fiancee is an aristocrat, the daughter of the Marquess of Lothian. Alfred offers begrudging congratulations.

Back at the palace, Alfred and Wilhelmina take part on a very Victorian courtship ritual: playing glasses. She’s still mopey about Ernst, and he’s mopey about Drummond, so obviously, the answer is to be mopey together. (They’re holding hands openly by the end of the scene, which is an interesting choice for the time!)

In Coburg, Albert is still so distressed about Leopold’s big revelation that goes to a tavern to track down Ernst. Albert! In a bar! Ernst is kind of amused and maybe a little concerned, but they end up drinking in tribute to their late father.

Albert gets sloshed, which is what any sane Victorian prince would do if he learned that his father might have been a king rather than a duke, right? He says he feels like he “has elves around [his] person.” Okay, dude. He tries to tell Ernst about Leopold’s paternity bombshell, but Ernst talks over him.

He’s still so wasted when he gets back to Rosenau in the morning that he tries to put on a suit of armor. Leopold finds him and scolds him for his drunken state.

Albert unloads on him, telling him that his entire life is now a lie, and Victoria is married to a bastard. Leopold warns him that no one else should find out — especially not Victoria.

Albert heads for home, telling Ernst to come visit him in England ASAP.

Back in England, things are looking up for Victoria. She even has a new puppy!

When Albert gets home, he and Victoria are kind of awkward with each other, but a new puppy always helps break the ice.

Soon enough, they’re comfortable with each other again.

But after his trip, it’s Albert’s turn to be depressed. Victoria wants him to come with her to the tunnel opening, but he declines.

She can tell something’s not right, but he isn’t talking.

So she goes on her own, meeting Brunel at the tunnel while wearing the production’s little version of the Albert Brooch.

At home, she’s even getting more comfortable in the nursery.

But Albert’s still in a funk. Victoria finally talks to him about the children, and how she sometimes feels like an imposter, both as a mother and as a queen. He’s glad she’s finally been honest with him.