American claiming to be the result of a long love affair between the monarch and her Scottish ghillie hopes that science will prove the findings put forward by social historian Dr Fern Riddell
Ang, from Minnesota, now believes the long family ‘myth’ suggesting they are a new branch of royalty
A woman who believes she could be the illegitimate great, great grand-daughter of Queen Victoria says her ultimate goal is to gain recognition from King Charles.
Angela Webb – Milinkovich, from Minnesota, thinks she and her sister have lineage which stems from Victoria’s long, romantic relationship with her loyal manservant John Brown.
New research from historian Dr Fern Riddell suggests that while on paper Angela’s great grandmother Mary Ann was the only child of John’s brother Hugh, and his wife Jessie, there is evidence suggesting the baby could actually have been the result of his love affair with the monarch, during which they were secretly married.
Angela and Dr Fern Riddell are convinced that not only were Victoria and John lovers, they had a secret baby daughter
Angela, 47, is now planning to have a DNA test as the ultimate proof of her royal heritage. She says she has no interest in making money out of the story, only in ensuring that her family’s place in history gets the recognition it deserves.
“My main goal is to have the story acknowledged – I want their relationship to be recognised and for the royal family to stop saying it didn’t happen,” she explains.
“If I’m going to reach for the top, it would have to be from King Charles,” she adds, when asked who she’d most like to hear from. “I mean, it’s a great story and it has his family involved, too. So he would be interested in it.” Or Prince William perhaps? “That’d be great. That’s acceptable,”she laughs.
John Brown was loyal, dashing and handsome but his close relationship with Victora made him unpopular with other members of the royal household(Image: Getty Images)
Angela grew up believing her family was descended from the royal line stemming from baby Mary Ann. She doesn’t remember precisely when she was told this, just that they were aware of a story involving “a big boat trip… and a baby given to the family.”
Dr Riddell contacted Angela during her four years of research for new book Victoria’s Secret and told her she’d discovered that childless Jessie and Hugh had emigrated to New Zealand in 1865, registering Mary Ann’s birth there soon after – which might explain the boat trip.
Speaking on Channel 4 in the accompanying documentary, Dr Riddell argued that widowed Victoria could easily have concealed a pregnancy in the 1860s, and then had the baby – her tenth child – spirited away to the other side of the world to avoid a scandal.
A card that proves there was more than friendship between Victora and her servant John Brown
It is recorded that, in 1874, Victoria paid for the trio to be brought back home to Scotland, even giving them a large house to live in on the Balmoral estate. After John’s death, she also moved Hugh’s family to be near her at Windsor.
Angela was able to provide Dr Riddell with access to a treasure trove of new evidence from the Brown family archive, containing items and documents that have been in their possession for decades. Some of it comes from a safety deposit box opened around five years ago by Angela and her sister, who wishes to remain anonymous, following the death of their father. “We didn’t know what we had, just that they were items from John Brown and Queen Victoria,” she says now. “It was always something in the back of our heads – we should probably get these looked at.”
Despite long-held family suspicious that they were related to Queen Victoria, Angela was still shocked when Dr Fern got in contact. “I believed my family was being truthful with it, but we could never prove it. Once she sent that message, I thought ‘What the heck? Is there actually validity to this?’
Victoria was buried with items from Prince Albert and also John, including a lock of his hair and his mother’s wedding ring(Image: Bettmann Archive)
Angela, who works as a mental health care worker, said her goal is for the love affair, which was covered-up both during and after Victoria’s lifetime, to be acknowledged as the truth. “It’s something that I’m very proud of,” she said. “I want the vindication essentially for John Brown and just for my lineage, because they were not able to talk about it. It was something that just became that secret that we couldn’t really share, but we knew.”
If Dr Riddell’s version of events is to be believed, and there is plenty of evidence to support it, Victoria and John enjoyed a romantic relationship lasting the best part of 20 years, until his death in 1883.
As well as making reciprocated declarations of love to him on his deathbed – “I told him no one loved him more than I did and he answered ‘nor you – than me’” – she also had made a cast of his hand, just as she’d done with Albert. When her own death came in 1901, she asked to be buried with a lock of hair and photograph of the man who’d been by her side for two decades since Albert’s death in 1861. Surviving letters see her calling him “my beloved” and “darling one”.
Lawyer Robert Rinder finds the evidence in the programme powerful, but admits it is not conclusive
However, on the others of her eldest son Bertie – about to be crowned Edward VII – the Palace set about erasing John from the record. Victoria’s journals were copied and edited, and the originals destroyed. Bertie, who had often clashed with Brown, also ordered the statues and private memorials that Victoria had created for him to be removed.
Angela’s grandfather died when she was in fifth grade but she remembers him being upset about the way in which the Browns were airbrushed out of existence. “My understanding from my Mum was that he was just really upset and bitter about it,” she explained. “He didn’t like to talk about it. Now, having both my parents and my aunt gone, we don’t have those resources any more. So the bulk of the story I have been learning from Fern, which is amazing, and I’m so grateful.”
Angela is optimistic about the royals eventually having to accept the validity of the claims being made about her ancestors, also shown in a Channel 4 documentary on Thursday. “My gut says it’s going to have to get acknowledged at some point,” she reasons. “Scandals are always very exciting so I’m sure there’ll be a lot of questions for them to answer. If they don’t say anything, that’s their choice. But I’d like them to acknowledge the truth of this love, to recognise that it wasn’t cool to cover up and destroy evidence of the relationship they shared. Let’s be real, Bertie was a bit of a d**k to the Browns.
Angela says she’s the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria(Image: Popperfoto/Getty Images)
“That story deserves to be known, to have its own breath out there in the world. You don’t get that kind of romance every day. It’s what you’d hope for anybody, that you would find another chance at love. So I don’t see why we should look down on that. It’s like an opportunity presented itself and they embraced it, and I think that is beautiful.”
Angela says she’s hoping to have a DNA test to prove her ancestry, but has been warned it may take some time because of the need for perfect source material for testing across the four-generation gap. “I’ll let the scientists do the science,” she says cheerfully. “I’m a supporting character in this journey, and so I will follow wherever the story leads me. I’m totally open to it. So far it’s been so exciting, so cool. I’m just really stoked.”
The tattooed American, who wears a nose-ring, insists that she’s not simply trying to cash in on the royals’ wealth. “Money is the furthest thing from my goal in telling this family story. It has always been to get Queen Victoria and John Brown’s story the truth it deserves.”
She says she cannot think of any other reason why her family would be in possession of precious heirlooms from Victoria and John, including a brooch and lock of hair. “Their relationship was authentic and genuine. They obviously had feelings for each other. It went well beyond a queen and man servant situation.”
The couple spent a huge amount of time together leading to rumour and gossip suggesting they had wed, and had a baby, at the time(Image: Getty Images)
There was plenty of gossip at the time about the pair, played by Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly in the 1997 movie Mrs Brown. In 1865, after Victoria requested John’s transfer to the Royal Household at Windsor, two of her daughters, Helena and Louise, openly referred to him as ‘Mamma’s lover’. And the following year a Swiss newspaper published a story claiming Victoria, then aged 46, had privately married John and become pregnant.
Angela would be happy whether Mary Ann turns out to be John or Hugh’s daughter. “Either John Brown is my great, great uncle or he is my great, great grandpa. My family still played a key role in history with their friendship and closeness to Queen Victoria. I’m proud of their steadfastness in keeping the legacy of John Brown alive and their word to holding the secret close. It’s still a beautiful romance that deserves its moment of recognition in history.”
With her Scottish roots from her mother’s side, Angela loves spending time in the UK whenever she can and admits she sometimes feels more British than American. “I’ve always felt a little disconnected in the sense that I feel more at home over there. Scotland is my happy place. I would move there if I could, for sure.”
