Albert, Prince Consort cousins, brothers King Pedro V of Portugal and Prince Ferdinand, died of typhoid fever within 5 days of each other in early November. On top of this news, Albert was informed that gossip was spreading in gentlemen's clubs and the foreign press that the Prince of Wales was still involved with Nellie Clifden. Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son's indiscretion, and feared blackmail, scandal or pregnancy. Although Albert was ill and at a low ebb, he travelled to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales on 25 November to discuss his son's indiscreet affair. In his final weeks
The Queen of Spain's Beard of the Spanish Infanta betrothed to Prince Edmund. Margolyes would later return to play Edmund's Puritan aunt, Lady Whiteadder, in the 1986 episode "Beer" and the part of Queen Victoria in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol" (1988). Margolyes's Infanta is accompanied in "The Queen of Spain's Beard" by an interpreter, played by Jim Broadbent, who would go on to play Albert, Prince Consort opposite her in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol". Broadbent was also intended to play Lord Whiteadder in "Beer", but was unavailable for recording. Although "The Queen of Spain's Beard" was originally broadcast as episode 4 of the series, on later broadcasts