Secrets of the Royal Palaces

-Britain's royal palaces -- historic... -This, a twin-towered Italianate vision by the sea.

-...extravagant... -It just shouts power and richness.

-...and jam-packed with secrets.

-Their floating palace was the only palace that didn't leak.

-In this series, we gain privileged access inside palace walls... -I'm heading for one of the most unexpectedly spectacular and costly parts of the palace -- the roof.

-...and uncover the hidden treasures within.

-It wasn't until the fire that these beautiful paintings were rediscovered.

-We unearth the palace's dark, secret histories.

-Kew Palace had been a secret place of torture.

-And we reveal that the truth behind their most dramatic moments.

-Charles and Camilla probably just had their head in their hands and thought, "What else could go wrong?"

-This was the closest that Hitler got to actually killing the British royal family.

-I sat bolt upright in bed saying, "What fire at Buckingham Palace?"

-The tears almost flowed.

-Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

-This is the all-new "Secrets of the Royal Palaces."

This time, we explore Queen Victoria's paradise by the sea and reveal some surprisingly cutting-edge secrets... -It's the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a house maybe 100 years later.

-...discover the lost paintings of Windsor Castle... -They are hidden in one of the most important rooms in the whole of Windsor Castle, and very few people know that they're there.

-...expose a shocking lack of privacy for new royal brides... -The first time they encountered their palace courtiers was when they were half-naked in a bed, being fondled by their husbands.

-...and reveal how the BBC snubbed the Queen mum on her 100th birthday.

-I was disgusted.

I actually thought it was disgraceful.

I thought that's what they were supposed to do.

[ Cheers and applause ] -But first, the secrets of palace security... [ Gunshots ] ...and the incident that changed everything.

Because when you're royal, you're always a potential target.

-That's why you have guards outside palaces.

You have security networks, closed-circuit TV.

All these systems have evolved because of the very real nature of someone, somewhere, doing something stupid.

-The security at the royal palaces affords members of the royal family to be secure in the knowledge that ultimately, somebody is watching over them whilst they are at home.

-And it's not just behind the palace gates that the royals are safeguarded.

-When a member of the royal family is out and about in a vehicle, they will be in a protected convoy, which will consist of several vehicles with protection drivers, protection officers, and most probably, members of the special escort group who will be escorting that convoy.

-But this extreme level of security is a relatively recent phenomenon, triggered by an astonishing 1974 incident involving Princess Anne.

-So, Princess Anne in the 1970s was a very significant figure in the royal family.

First member of the royal family to wear a mini skirt.

She danced on the stage at the famous musical "Hair."

[ Rock music playing ] And she was seen as in touch with the next generation.

You know, down with the kids, a very modern royal, and was very popular.

She was one of the most famous women in the country and a hugely significant member of the royal family.

-In 1973, at the height of her fame, Anne was provided with a protection officer, Jim Beaton.

-Back in the early '70s, nothing much was expected to happen to the royal family, and the security contingent, if that's the right way to put it, was me being useful, being there.

Making yourself inconspicuous as possible and just in general, being handy, I suppose.

-However, on the 20th of March, 1974, everything would change.

Jim would be forced to put his life on the line to save the princess.

-Anne and her husband, Mark, were on their way back to the palace in their maroon Rolls-Royce.

They'd been at a charity film screening, and everything was very calm and orderly when they were just about a couple of hundred yards from Buckingham Palace, when a white Ford Escort cut in in front of them and stopped them.

-We got overtaken by a white car, which pulled in front, and the driver had no option but to stop.

-Suspecting road rage, Jim got out to speak to the other driver.

-After that, things only got worse.

-The motorist also got out.

His name was Ian Ball.

-As I came around behind the back of the car, there was Ian Ball standing there with a gun, and he just went bang, bang.

[ Gunshots ] And one of the bullets went into my right shoulder, so I thought, "Oh, I must shoot back at him."

I took my gun out and tried to fire at him... [ Gunshot ] ...but I missed him.

So I tried again with two hands this time, and the gun jammed.

[ Gun clicks ] -The one moment you are defending the monarch's daughter, you're defending yourself, you're defending all the other people in the car, your gun jams, you get shot, and what does he do?

He keeps on trying to stop Ball.

-So I came back around the near side of the car again, and Ian Ball was there pointing his gun at Princess Anne.

-The gunman, Ian Ball, managed to get right up to the car and pull on the handle.

He was trying to get the princess out.

Jim Beaton, somehow or other, managed to get back into the vehicle and put himself between Anne and the gunman.

-Well, he fired, and the bullet went into my hand.

[ Gunshot ] -And gunman Ian Ball wasn't done yet.

-He was standing there.

He had a gun in each hand, and he fired the other gun.

And it went into my abdomen.

[ Gunshot ] So that more or less was me, really.

-The chauffeur got out.

He was shot.

[ Gunshot ] A passing journalist from the Daily Mail -- he tried to help.

He was shot.

And a young policeman who was on the scene very quickly, Michael Hills -- he was also shot, so we had four men shot and bleeding and the princess with the man trying to grab her and pull her out of the Rolls-Royce.

I mean, it's unthinkable, really.

-It rapidly became clear when Ball opened the door and tried to grab the princess that it was a kidnap attempt.

-Later, we'll discover how the princess dealt with her armed attacker.

-Ian Ball is explaining to Princess Anne, "I'm going to kidnap you, and there will be a ransom."

I mean, it's extraordinary.

-Whilst kidnappings on the mall are thankfully rare, the royals do find the more everyday stresses of London palace life something of a drag.

Down the years, they've always sought time away from the public eye, which is why in 1840, Victoria and Albert went house-hunting, or more accurately, palace-hunting, for a more secluded home.

-Victoria and Albert needed an escape that was away from London but still within a day's reach, a place where their children could play and where they themselves could have a relationship with nature and commune with the beautiful surroundings.

-They stumbled upon a wonderful location on the Isle of Wight, and here, they built their dream home.

-In 1845, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert found the perfect site for a palace removed from the stir of London.

It was an old square house set by the seaside on the Isle of Wight.

It was too small for their needs, so they transformed it into this -- Osborne, a multi-towered Italianate vision by the sea.

-Having bought the 2,000-acre estate for �28,000, Victoria gave Albert free rein to design and build his perfect palace.

-The one thing that Osborne House did present Albert with early on in the reign was a chance to express himself, his vision.

-In the 1840s, people were building in all kinds of styles.

If you wanted a new royal palace, you could choose something like an old-fashioned castle or maybe the Gothic style, like the Palace of Westminster.

But Victoria and Albert had Central European sensibilities, where there was a rising fashion for the Italian Renaissance.

Just the situation of Osborne reminded Albert, who Victoria called the creator, of his travels to the Bay of Naples, and he and his builder, Thomas Cubitt, produced this vision with two towers to look out toward the sea.

-Between 1845 and 1851, Albert created a house fit for his queen.

And that included a very 21st-century consideration because Albert knew his wife would need to work from home.

So he made sure that Osborne House included a tailor-made office space.

-This is Victoria and Albert's sitting room, where they would work at their desks through correspondence brought in from London.

The two desks look equal for the queen and her consort, working side by side.

Underneath, you can see buttons there with "wardrobe" and "page" that Victoria could pull to get assistance.

There were similar on Albert's desk, but now they've gone.

But while we're here, there's a secret little detail that's worth pointing out.

Albert's desk is slightly higher than Victoria's to accommodate his longer legs.

It's a nice personal touch.

-But different-sized desks are far from the only innovation Albert introduced to Osborne, as we'll discover later.

-You name it, he was pushing the envelope in terms of technology.

-And we'll reveal the astonishing tale of Windsor's secret paintings.

-These pictures are probably the most surreal series in the whole royal collection.

-In 1974, 200 meters away from the safety of Buckingham Palace, Princess Anne was attacked by gun-wielding kidnapper Ian Ball.

[ Gunshots ] Having already shot and injured four people, his plan was to kidnap the princess.

-He'd rented a house, where he was going to keep the princess locked up.

He seriously expected that he was somehow gonna be able to leave the country, having just kidnapped the monarch's daughter.

-The police found a ransom note.

It was demanding �2 million in �5 notes in 20 unlocked suitcases, which had to be delivered to a plane which was bound for Switzerland, and not only that, the queen had to appear onboard the plane to verify this transaction.

-But first, Ball would need to get a very stubborn princess out of her car.

-Anne is very much her father's daughter, and she says what she thinks.

It's legendary that she told the the press on more than one occasion to, um...f-off.

So she doesn't mind using a bit of broad Anglo-Saxon.

-Ian Ball is explaining to Princess Anne, "I'm going to kidnap you, and there will be a ransom for this."

And her brilliant one-liner is, "Not bloody likely."

I mean, it's extraordinary.

-She was incredibly cool in the most... dreadful, you know, terrifying situation.

-You have moments within incidents whereby you can kind of turn the tide, you know, and that may have been quite a pivotal moment because he may have fully expected her to do as she's told and get out of the car.

But she actually challenged him, and certainly, that wasn't what he was expecting.

-As the distracted Ball contemplated his next move, it was his bad luck that an ex-professional boxer named Ron Russell happened to be walking past.

-Ron Russell actually punched Ball in the head, rendered him unconscious.

-Russell's timely intervention had brought the incident to a sudden close.

Ian Ball was later found guilty of attempted kidnapping and attempted murder and was sentenced to 41 years.

The kidnapping may have been a failure, but it changed the way the royal family were protected forever.

-It was certainly the last time that a member of the family just went out with no outriders and with just with one detective with a faulty gun.

-The training changed.

The vehicles changed.

The convoy structure changed.

You're now looking at a scenario whereby you have a protected convoy, several vehicles, including the principal's vehicle, and indeed, members of the special escort group will escort those vehicles from "A" to "B."

[ Siren wails ] -As for the royal protection officer who took three bullets for Anne, he was back working for the princess six months later.

-I was just very lucky that nothing was too vital, and I had a very, very good surgeon.

And he tidied me up quite well.

-And Jim finally made it to Buckingham Palace, but this time, as the guest of honor to receive the highest award for bravery, the George Cross.

-It's obvious that Jim Beaton displayed extraordinary courage.

He put himself in danger again and again.

It was an act of extraordinary bravery, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, you know, he did save the princess' life.

-I think the queen said when she gave it to Jim, "Yes, I'm giving this to you as the queen, but also as a grateful mother."

-It was just one of these things.

This was a highly unexpected incident, of course, so...I think it was a case of muddling my way through.

And luckily, it turned out to be okay.

-And as for Princess Anne, what did she make of the incident?

-As she told her biographer afterwards, what made her really cross was that Ball had ripped her dress as he tried to drag her out of the car, and she said it was a very nice dress.

-70 miles away from Buckingham Palace, on the Isle of Wight, lies Osborne House, Victoria and Albert's family home.

The design was inspired by Italian palaces, or palazzo, built centuries earlier.

But inside, Albert ensured Osborne was anything but backward-looking.

-The Victorian period is the great era of science.

You know, what man could achieve through science, they believed, was almost limitless.

-Albert was very interested in science and technology and engineering, and at Osborne, he had free rein to indulge himself.

-Prince Albert incorporated materials and technologies into the building of Osborne that were quite unusual for their age.

In a cast-iron frame, he managed to conceal an underfloor heating system, which must have taken the chill off of those winter nights.

In his own bathroom here, it's a mile away from the normal picture of Victorian tin baths filled by buckets brought into a room.

Instead, his is plumbed in, and there are three natty handles there with hot, cold and waste.

It's the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a house maybe 100 years later.

-This was conceived as a dream home for Victoria and Albert, but in 1861, that dream was shattered.

-Victoria was devastated when Albert died, and she retreated to Osborne and spent many a month there, mourning in private.

Osborne provided that solitude that she craved in order to get over this enormous loss.

-But one way in which she could respect Albert's memory was to continue his legacy of welcoming new innovations to Osborne House, including another invention ahead of its time.

-People think, I think unfairly, really, of Queen Victoria as this little sort of potato in a hood because she became, after so many babies -- nine babies -- sort of as wide as she was high, and she was pretty immobile by the end.

She really didn't get out of her carriage.

So what better way to make sure that your queen can enjoy both floors of her Osborne House than by installing a lift?

-Osborne's lift was installed in 1893, when she was in her early 70s, and it's a fine thing.

It's got a glazed ceiling and tropical hardwood paneling and a velvet padded seat over carpet, and she was wheeled in here in a wheeled chair.

So while this was an innovation, it was a 19th-century one.

We're not yet in the 20th century, so it isn't a fully swish electrical lift yet.

Her convenience of going between the ground floor here and the first floor above depended on the raw muscle power of some poor servants who used these ropes and a winch up there to pull her up and down.

-Later, we'll discover that installing a new lift was nothing to the unique banqueting hall she built, inspired by her most controversial servant.

Osborne House, like all royal residences, was packed to the rafters with important works of art.

The royal collections boast portraits of famous royals, depictions of great military victories, and works by the most revered artists on earth.

But hidden on the walls at Windsor Castle are some royal paintings unlike any others.

-These pictures are probably the most surreal series in the whole royal collection.

-They are completely different from all of the other things that you are going to find.

-This is the story of Windsor's secret pantomime paintings.

-They are hidden in one of the most important rooms in the whole of Windsor Castle, and very few people know that they're there.

-For 200 years, Windsor's Waterloo Chamber has been the monarch's entertainment venue of choice, with guests watched over by the historic worthies portrayed on its walls.

-The Waterloo Chamber is one of the most important rooms in the whole of Windsor Castle.

It is packed full of Thomas Lawrence paintings.

The paintings were commissioned to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon.

These portraits are quite serious.

They're quite austere.

They're very much a reminder to all of the dignitaries and politicians who would go into the Waterloo Chamber that Britain was at the forefront of success.

-But when, in 1940, the Nazis began the aerial bombardment of Britain, the royal palaces and their priceless contents were sitting ducks.

-Many of the treasures were taken away for safe keeping.

This included Lawrence's famous series of Napoleonic paintings, but that left the walls of the Chamber looking very dreary, very empty, very drab.

-In 1941, the king's two young daughters were secretly evacuated to Windsor, and they found a good use for the very empty Waterloo Chamber.

-Elizabeth and Margaret decided to use the Waterloo Chamber as their own secret theater room.

There, they were gonna put on their own royal pantomimes.

-The resourceful princesses recruited help from pupils at the local Royal School and employed the theater-loving headmaster, Hubert Tannar, as director.

-And the very first pantomime they put on was "Cinderella."

Princess Margaret acted Cinderella, and Princess Elizabeth was Prince Florizel.

-But the walls of their theater needed brightening up, so Mr. Tannar commissioned some artwork from a 14-year-old evacuee from Manchester named Claude Whatham.

-Claude Whatham was an art student.

He'd been asked to add some color and brightness and energy to the Waterloo Chamber.

-To me, this is amazing.

He's a teenager, and he has been commissioned to paint a room for princesses.

And it was this young boy who came up with these stunning pantomime pictures.

-Based inside Windsor Castle, the young art student used whatever he could find to paint his royal creations.

-They're actually painted in poster paints, you know, those brightly colored pots that you have in schools and nurseries.

-And then they're not even painted on canvas.

They're painted on bits of wallpaper.

-That has then been stuck deliberately onto the wall.

-Claude painted a series of 16 life-size pantomime characters.

-The paintings are very simple.

They're bold, they're bright, they're colorful.

They're full of energy and movement, representing these different pantomime figures in really striking, bright ways.

You've got all of the greats in there -- Aladdin, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Mother Goose, Little Red Riding Hood.

The list goes on and on.

-I love them.

I love their color.

I love their shape.

I think they are just the most magnificent images.

-But in 1945, after the war ended, the princess' theater was packed away, and Sir Thomas Lawrence's classic paintings were returned to their rightful place.

-The original paintings were not stripped off the wall.

They were simply covered over and forgotten about.

-For almost half a century, Claude's pantomime paintings remained hidden behind the famous Napoleonic portraits.

It was only when disaster struck at Windsor that they were rediscovered.

-It wasn't until 1992, when there was a huge fire at Windsor Castle, that artworks were removed from the Waterloo Chamber.

Lawrence's paintings were hiked out of their frames, and suddenly, the Whatham paintings were revealed again.

-Now back behind the famous wall portraits, the pantomime paintings may be hidden, but if you listen carefully, you might just hear the distant call of, "It's behind you."

-But how to choose between the Lawrence masterpieces and the pantomime paintings?

I know which ones I prefer, and it's the pantomime ones.

-Coming up, the secrets to organizing a palace party from the man in the know.

-I did the Silver Jubilee.

I did the Royal Fireworks.

I did the VE day, VJ day.

-And the less-than-appetizing truth of Henry VIII's palace feasts.

-No.

It's awful.

It definitely tastes like pig's foot to me.

-Throughout our history, Britain's royal palaces have hosted countless extravagant celebrations and flamboyant festivities, with thousands of patriotic subjects flocking to the gates of the palace to witness the pomp and ceremony.

-So, for hundreds of years, if you wanted to partake in a national celebration of the royals, you would have to physically go to them, and more often than not, that would be heading to Buckingham Palace and hoping to get a glimpse of a royal on a balcony.

-Then, in 1952, everything changed thanks to the advent of television and the crowning of a new monarch.

-The young queen's coronation was a huge moment in television history, as well as royal history.

20 million people watched that event.

-The televising of the coronation was just the start.

From that point on, all the big royal parties were must-see TV events.

And staging these huge occasions involved a mammoth behind-the-scenes operation, and for that, the royals would come to rely on the best palace party organizer in town, Major Sir Michael Parker.

-So I did the Silver Jubilee.

[ Cheers and applause ] I did the Royal Fireworks.

I did the VE Day and VJ Day.

-Of all the events Sir Michael Parker organized, his most famous were those involving the nation's favorite grandmother.

-The Queen Mother was hugely popular, really, from the moment she became the Queen Mother.

She didn't actually like the title.

She was only given it because she was Queen Elizabeth when the king was alive, and obviously, there was a new Queen Elizabeth on the throne.

So she was given this title, and as she got older and older, she just became the nation's favorite granny.

-Poll after poll would show she was one of, if not the most popular member of the royal family.

-In the media, we'd seen the Queen Mother age gracefully as we celebrated her landmark birthdays.

-So, her 90th birthday is a major national celebration, and the idea of her having 100th, of anyone having 100th, this was going to be a very big thing.

-And, of course, the person they turned to organize the event was Sir Michael Parker.

-I did the Queen Mother's 90th birthday, and so therefore, I would have been disappointed if I hadn't been asked to do the 100th.

But as it was, I came forward with an idea for the 100th, which was bigger and better in every way than the 90th.

-And it was only natural to expect the BBC to cover her centenary celebrations.

- Happy birthday to you -The BBC had televised the 90th very successfully, actually.

[ Canons firing ] And it never occurred to me when we got to the 100th... that they wouldn't televise it.

-But three months before the event, the BBC declared it would not broadcast the birthday parade.

-I think there's always been an expectation the BBC, as the national broadcaster, will be there to do the big events.

But this was absolute peak Cool Britannia, and so this sudden decision by the BBC to sort of say, "Actually, we're not really very interested in the birthday party for this 100-year-old last empress," was a vote of no confidence, if you like, in the old way of doing things.

And the palace were -- they were upset.

[ Cheers and applause ] -I was disgusted.

I actually thought it was disgraceful.

I thought that's what they were supposed to do.

-And the reason given by the BBC for opting out would only add salt to the palace's wound.

-They chose publicly to show an episode of the Australian soap "Neighbours" that's on every bloody day, twice a day, instead of showing the 100th birthday celebration of the beloved Queen Mother.

The BBC couldn't have got this more wrong.

-Without TV coverage, millions around the country, and indeed, the world, would miss out on a unique royal celebration.

However, ITV spied an opportunity.

-ITV realized actually, there's no God-given rule that the BBC should always be covering state occasions.

-The scene was set for an epic ratings battle.

But who would win -- "Neighbours" or the Queen Mum?

Palace pageants are laid on to entertain the masses, but for palace insiders, it's all about the banquet.

And there's no better-known banquet thrower than Henry VIII.

His court was legendary for enjoying spit-roasted whole animals, from deer to hogs or swan to porpoise, but grandiose roasts were only part of the menu, as food historian Marc Meltonville explains.

-So this is what I'll be eating at Hampton Court -- some ears, some... -A heart.

-A heart.

-Some stomach, which we call -- -Oh, yummy.

-We think of this as almost throwaway food, all of the offal, but actually it's one of the great levelers.

You'd get all those bits in the cottage of a little field worker, but you'll also see them on the royal table.

It's one of those little secrets that people don't think of.

There's offal everywhere because no one wants to waste, and it can be really tasty.

And hopefully, we can prove that to you.

-Right?

And these are...?

-Pettitoes -- pig's feet.

-Along with offal and pig's feet, Henry was also partial to a few snails.

-We normally associate snails with France, but you're telling me that the English were eating snails way back when.

-Well, the snails we have in the bowl, they're often known as Roman snails.

So, we've been eating them for 2,000 years.

They're waving at us, and they are a little bit off-putting.

But once it's cooked down into a pottage, I think it's gonna be worth a try.

-Well, let's find out.

Here are a few dishes Tudor chefs prepared earlier -- centuries earlier.

-And there we go.

-So this is the trotters, right?

-Yes.

-And this is the snails.

-Yeah.

-'Cause actually, they look pretty good.

They actually smell pretty good.

-So there's currants in there, cinnamon, a little nutmeg, some mace.

So it's quite spiced in the background.

-I can definitely smell the spice.

-We have a napkin here for you, and if you're eating with your fingers, as you probably will be, putting it on your lap doesn't do any good.

-No.

-It needs to be on your shoulder so that you can wipe your fingers on it.

Pick up a tasty morsel.

-Get a bit of trotter.

-Mm-hmm.

And then that's yours to pick up with your fingers.

-That's my meat.

-It is.

-Mm.

No.

It's awful.

It definitely tastes like pig's foot to me.

-Okay.

Moving swiftly along to the snail pottage, then, if that's not your taste.

-Oh.

-I think it's not to madam's taste.

[ Chuckles ] -The sauce is good, but the snail is really slimy.

-"Gelatinous" is the cook's word for "slimy."

-Mark, you've taken me to Henry VIII's table.

I'm a bit dubious.

I'm not really sure about either the pig's trotters or the snail pottage, but I admire the idea of using all the animal.

-Palace feasts have always revealed a great deal about the monarchs behind them.

At Osborne House, Queen Victoria would create a banqueting space that reflected a late life obsession.

-In 1890, this wing was begun to create a new state reception room.

The outside of it blends with the rest of the building, but the inside is something else altogether.

It's called the Durbar Room, after the Indian word for a state reception, or at least the space in which one is held.

And that gives us a hint of what we'll find inside.

-Victoria commissioned this room to reflect her recently acquired status as Empress of India.

-The Durbar Room has the layout of a traditional medieval hall, but the fantastic interior decoration transports us to the Indian subcontinent.

It was designed by John Lockwood Kipling, director of an art school in the Punjab, and father of Rudyard Kipling, who wrote "The Jungle Book," and he brought over from India Ram Singh, a master craftsman who did the carving work and provided the molds for this incredible plaster ceiling.

The whole effect is like a shrine to India, a place Queen Victoria never went to as Empress.

Instead, she brought India to Osborne.

-It took just two years to design and construct the entire Durbar wing, an incredible achievement, considering it took 26 craftsmen 500 hours just to carve the peacock above the central mantelpiece.

-The room is magnificent for the sheer detail of intricate Indian carving, which covers just about every part of the inside of this room.

It was meant to dazzle the visiting dignitaries, and large official functions were conducted there.

-The Durbar Room hosted all the key politicians and dignitaries of the day, but hanging in the corridor outside the room is a portrait that reveals a secret of division within the palace walls.

-This is a portrait of Abdul Karim, one of a number of Indian subjects brought over to England in 1887 by request of the Queen in the year of her Golden Jubilee.

By his title Munshi, he was renowned as a teacher, and you can see that he's clutching a book, showing his scholarship.

And he had a particularly close relationship to Queen Victoria, something that her family weren't entirely happy about.

-In the form of Abdul Karim, you have arguably her most famous manservant.

He comes as part of a sort of entourage from the subcontinent to show off our empire for the Golden Jubilee of 1887, and he doesn't go home.

He stays.

But he ends up being firmly ensconced, ultimately as the royal favorite.

-Victoria's fondness for Abdul was very much out of step with the attitudes of those around her.

-He became her constant companion and her confidante, who spent many an hour one-on-one with the queen, and this created a great deal of political consternation in Osborne, but also back in London.

People didn't like Abdul Karim, but Victoria would have none of it.

When they tried to get rid of him, she insisted that he'd stay.

-Abdul Karim and the Durbar Room were two of many reasons Victoria adored Osborne House.

But above all, this was the place where she felt closest to her beloved Albert, so it came as no surprise that Victoria chose to end her days here.

-Osborne House had gathered the influences from the Victorian world for its architecture and interior decoration.

And it was here, at her private seaside palace, that Victoria left that world when she slipped away on the 22nd of January, 1901, and her passing marked the end of an era.

-Coming up, the palace pulls out all the stops to beat the BBC.

-They saw a million rose petals fluttering down from the sky.

They saw red arrows in the sky.

They saw camels.

They saw corgis.

-It was bonkers, and it was brilliant.

-And a queen's wedding night is the palaces hot ticket.

-But the main event wasn't the feast.

It was the bedding ceremony.

-When the Queen Mother turned 100, in the year 2000, the BBC chose not to screen the party, preferring to air an episode of "Neighbours."

This allowed ITV to grab the broadcasting rights and set up the battle of the broadcasters.

-I think the BBC was trying to change its own image from very establishment, quite fusty.

It was trying to get on the Cool Britannia bandwagon, be more liberal, be more left-leaning, be more Tony Blair, and I think that was a big mistake because it forgot that it has a duty to its audience.

-On July the 19th, 2000, ITV's coverage began as thousands lined the mall to see the Queen Mother make her way from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade for a show masterminded by Major Sir Michael Parker.

-We had something like 14,000 people in the show.

It was pretty full-on stuff.

We had a choir of about 1,000.

We had a full symphony orchestra.

Then we had all these charities, everything you could think of, from the National Trust to the children's homes, and then, of course, all the regiments.

All her regiments were on parade.

You know, all the normal things you have for a small birthday party.

-For over an hour, the Queen Mother watched on and waved as the colorful representation of her life paraded by.

-So you had everything from a depiction of Hillary conquering Everest to nannies, the First World War, lots of soldiers, of course.

I mean, the Queen Mum loved marching bands, so they were very much there.

-They saw a million rose petals fluttering down from the sky.

They saw red arrows in the sky.

They saw camels.

They saw corgis.

They saw 100 doves being released.

-I remember as a royal correspondent sitting over the list going, "I mean, how many more organizations has she been involved with?"

But that was the great thing about it.

I mean, everybody from the Poultry Club to the Black Watch, they had their moment.

I mean, it was bonkers and it was brilliant.

[ Indistinct singing ] -The Queen Mum clearly had a great day, but was anybody else watching?

-More than 7 million people tuned in to watch the pageant, more than double the number that the BBC got for that episode of "Neighbours."

ITV totally nailed it.

-So it serves bloody BBC right.

-It was proof that you know what?

The British public love a royal occasion.

-God bless you all, and thank you.

-All too late, the man in charge of the BBC's decision, Greg Dyke, realized the error of his ways.

-I have to say, when I talked to Greg Dike some time afterwards, he said it was almost the worst decision he'd ever made in his life.

[ Laughs ] -Today, royal palaces are sanctuaries of privacy, but it hasn't always been the case.

In the past, everything was public, even the wedding night.

-In 1486, Henry VII was marrying Elizabeth of York at Westminster.

It was a lavish feast, the celebration of the end of the Wars of the Roses, but the main event wasn't the feast.

It was the bedding ceremony.

The royal couple was stripped by their courtiers, put to bed, and given a concoction of wine and spices to get things going.

And then, this wonderful place will be turned into a giant theatrical spectacle, where everyone had a good, old look at the wedding night taking place.

This is a shocking invasion of privacy, and royal brides found it terrifying.

The first time they encountered their palace courtiers pretty much was when they were half-naked in a bed, being fondled by their husbands, and they knew that everyone was watching to see exactly what went on.

What was crucial was that the royal marriage was consummated because the most important job of a royal bride was to have a child, and so the sexual act had to be confirmed as taking place so that pregnancy could happen swiftly.

For the wedding guests, watching the royal bedding ceremony was a spectator sport.

It was like watching an X-rated movie for entertainment, but this time, it was the king.

The bedding ceremony really showed the royal bride that every part of her body and her life in the palace was public property.

Nothing was private.

-Next time, Harry makes his Buckingham Palace comeback for the Platinum Jubilee, but the royal rift remains.

-Only working royals got to be on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

-At Kensington Palace, there's a cover-up that went to the very top.

-It was in this room that Mary spent the night burning her secret papers.

She destroyed letters, taking whatever secrets they held between them to the grave.

-The gruesome fate of a 17th-century prince at Saint James's Palace.

-After the attentions of these doctors, he was not just seriously ill.

He was also bald, weakened, dehydrated, and completely incontinent.

-And the mystery behind one of the weirdest items ever to pass through palace gates.

-I mean, it looks like something that's come out of a rather bad horror movie.