The implications for Victoria were enormous: it certainly helps explain why she had to carry so much at the end of her life, why she relied on powerful servants – and her servant John Brown – why she wrote so darkly about childbirth, and perhaps why she was in a foul-mouthed mood most of the time. . When her Diamond Jubilee was celebrated, she was 78, and she remained in her carriage throughout the celebration outside St Paul's Cathedral. It has long been assumed that it was because she was old or had arthritis – but has anyone tried to walk around with advanced prolapse?
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The search for answers to this question, on some level, seemed lustful and intrusive. On the other hand, it explained a lot. That such things were considered a secret, even more than a century after one's death, seemed to confirm the assumption that such things were shameful, or deserving of stigma, something that millions of women do not regularly experience after giving birth.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, nearly half of women ages 50 to 79 have “some degree of uterine or vaginal prolapse, or other form of pelvic organ prolapse.” Victoria gave birth nine times. Carrying extra weight doesn't help, and it will be difficult to shift it if your mobility is poor. No one knew the burden she was carrying.
This wasn't something that needed to be published at the time — imagine her horror at the scientist dissecting the condition of her pelvic organs — but learning about it after her death gives historians a deeper understanding of her struggles. It also helps explain Victoria's hostility toward childbearing, even though she was the embodiment of domesticity and wifehood. She wrote: “All marriages are a lottery – happiness is always an exchange – though she may be very happy – the poor woman remains the husband's physical and moral slave. This is always stuck in my throat.” She wrote to her eldest daughter, Vicky, who was pregnant, in 1858: “What you say about the pride of giving life to an immortal soul is very well, my dear, but I confess I cannot get into it; I think much more about being like a cow or a dog in such moments.
She said the woman walking down the aisle was like a lamb to the slaughter.
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When is confidentiality private and when is it a shame? If more women talked about menopause, endometriosis and uterine prolapse, it would reduce the embarrassment and humiliation that many felt, even if irrationally. If more men talk about prostate problems, heart disease, and depression, more of them will seek medical help when they need it.
It's been encouraging to see William and Harry open up about their struggles with their mental health, to allow us to see them as people.
The Royal Archives tried to pressure me to cut out several parts of my manuscript, including a reference to Victoria's post-natal depression. She spent several months lamenting how depressed she felt after giving birth. Doesn't this matter? It's a very common experience. I kept it in.
But it is a mistake to pressure someone who is currently suffering from a facing diagnosis to talk about it at length. The shock of discovery and the pain of treatment are stressful enough without the burden of public disclosure. Expecting someone to be a pin of pain can be overwhelming when they're screaming into their pillow, or trying to understand their possible end. Sometimes healing requires calm.
Surely it is enough now to know that Charles is ill. Details can wait.
Julia Bird is a book author Victoria: The Queen, an intimate biography of a woman who ruled an empire.
