Princess Beatrice（在线收听）

BBC Learning English
London Life
Princess Beatrice

Amber: Hello, I'm Amber, and you’re listening to

bbclearningenglish.com.

In London Life today, we travel back in time to hear about

the life of Princess

Beatrice, the youngest of Queen Victoria’s nine children.

Princess Beatrice was born in 1857 at Buckingham Palace in

London. She was Queen Victoria’s fifth daughter, and as we

’ll hear, she ended up devoting her life to her mother.

Matthew Dennison has written the first biography of

Princess Beatrice. He talks about the reasons why the young

princess became her mother’s constant companion, and why

she went on to edit her mother’s diaries after she died.

From the beginning, Queen Victoria adored Beatrice who was

a good-looking child. Matthew says Queen Victoria was

‘always swayed by good looks’ – to be swayed by

something, means to be influenced or persuaded by it. As

you
listen, try to catch one or two of the six adjectives

Matthew uses to describe the young Beatrice!

Matthew Dennison

‘She was a pretty child – bright, pert, bouncy, naughty,

cheeky child! Queen Victoria was

always swayed by good looks.’
 
Amber: So young Beatrice was ‘pretty, bright, pert,

bouncy, naughty and cheeky’! ‘Pert’ means lively, as

well as small, well-shaped and pretty! She was ‘bouncy’

and she often misbehaved – she was ‘naughty’. To be

‘cheeky’ means to be rude and amusing, or funny.
But everything changed for this delightful little girl when

she was just four years old. In 1861, her father, the

Prince Consort, died, and the heart-broken Queen turned to

Beatrice for comfort. Queen Victoria kept Beatrice close to

her all the time – the princess was her ‘constant

companion’.
Matthew says when the Prince Consort died, it was like ‘a

shutter coming down’ – this means that everything was

very different from now on - it was like ‘a shutter coming

down’.
As you listen, try to catch the expression Matthew uses to

explain that Princess Beatrice was never able to get free

of her mother’s overwhelming need to have her close.

Matthew Dennison

‘Yes, the death of the Prince Consort is really like a

shutter coming down and the tone of

family life, court life, royal life, from 1861 onwards is

what will ultimately shape Beatrice, and which she’ll

never really shrug off.’

Amber: Matthew says that Princess Beatrice was never able

‘to shrug off’ her mother’s need to keep her close, and

that Beatrice was changed, or ‘shaped’ by her mother’s

behaviour.
And when Beatrice grew up, Queen Victoria did not want her

to get married. But Beatrice did fall in love with, and

marry, Prince Henry of Battenberg. Yet when he died in 1896

of a fever, Beatrice spent the next 30 years of her life

editing her mother’s journals. This is what Princess

Beatrice is famous for, and most people think she probably

made a lot of changes which Queen Victoria might not have

wanted. But Matthew disagrees. He says the Queen made

Beatrice her ‘literary
 
executor’ – she wanted Beatrice to look after her

property after she died – because she knew Beatrice would

act according to her wishes, and she knew Beatrice would ‘

step into the fray’, she would ‘take up the challenge’

of editing her mother’s papers after her death.

Matthew Dennison

‘My feeling is that she acted in accordance with her

mother’s wishes and that because Queen

Victoria had appointed Beatrice, unofficially, her literary

executor, she made no plans to have her journals and

private correspondence burnt - which she easily might have

done, if she hadn’t known that Beatrice would step into

the fray and eradicate things that perhaps posterity wasn’

t supposed to know.’

Amber: So Queen Victoria trusted Beatrice to remove, or ‘

eradicate’, anything she didn’t want ‘posterity’,

people in the future, to know!
So, over all, it was an astonishing mother-daughter

relationship! Beatrice does not accuse her mother of being

controlling, and she doesn’t create a ‘cycle’ – she

doesn’t go on to treat her children the way she was

treated by her mother.

Matthew Dennison

‘The Queen behaves towards her with astonishing emotional

selfishness and yet Beatrice

returns her love whole-heartedly – with no element of

recrimination – and the relationship that Beatrice has

with her mother doesn’t become a cycle. Beatrice herself

doesn’t inflict that on her own children.’

Amber: Now here again is some of the language from today’

s programme:

swayed by good looks cheeky
a constant companion
 
like a shutter coming down to shrug off
to step into the fray a cycle
More news stories and language explanations next time at

bbclearningenglish.com