Jane Ridley

Forty years of comfort-eating

After Prince Albert’s death, she ballooned through comfort-eating — which was partly the reason she shunned the public

issue 27 May 2017

  • The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria

    Annie Gray

    Profile, pp. 390

In 2015 a pair of linen drawers belonging to Queen Victoria sold at auction for over £12,000. In old age Queen Victoria swathed herself in wraps and loose gowns which artfully concealed her figure, and her official photographers were ordered to photoshop her outline. But these knickers with their 45” waistband make plain that the 5’-queen was borderline obese.

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