Victoria's margarida Goodwin: "I'm trying to challenge people's perspectives of the Victorian period" 

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Christmas Special will include the remarkable true story of Queen Victoria\'s goddaughter Sarah Bonetta – the young Yoruba princess who was captured and enslaved during intertribal warfare, before being offered to Her Royal Highness as a \'gift\'.

Sarah, who was just 5 years old at the time, was rescued by Royal Navy Commander Fredrick Forbes during negotiations with King Ghezo – whose army had been responsible for murdering Sarah\'s parents.

Forbes convinced Ghezo to give Sarah to Victoria as a \'gift\' from one royal family to another. Victoria instead paid for her education and became Sarah\'s godmother – events which will feature in the ITV show\'s festive episode \'Comfort and Joy\'.

Sarah is played by Zaris-Angel Hator, while Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes return as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

"We often think of the Victorians as having different attitudes, but in fact Victoria was remarkably broadminded – she wasn\'t a racist," the ITV show\'s creator and executive producer Daisy Goodwin told Digital Spy.

"I think that\'s one of the most attractive things about her. I think because of Britain\'s relationship with the empire, there probably was more diversity than you imagined.

"There\'s an interesting parallel with something that happens to another character who comes into a legacy which they find out is a number of slaves," Goodwin continued.

"So they have to make moral choices, and I\'m trying to bring some of the greater things going on in the world into this story."

In August 1862, Queen Victoria gave Sarah permission to marry businessman and philanthropist Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies at St Nicholas\' Church in Brighton, according to Camille Silvy\'s profile of Sarah for Black History Month 2015.

©  Getty Images Camille Silvy/Hulton Archive

After the couple married, Sarah worked as a teacher, and they eventually moved to Lagos and had three children – Victoria Davies (1863), Arthur Davies (1871), and Stella Davies (1873). A number of Sarah and James\' descendants still live in and around Lagos in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Goodwin also reflected on Edward Drummond and Lord Alfred\'s heartening yet doomed romantic relationship in

"I\'m just trying to show that the Victorian people had the same desires and needs as we do now, and just have difficulties going about it," Goodwin added.

"I\'m trying to challenge people\'s perspectives of what the Victorian period is."

\'s Christmas special \'Comfort and Joy\' airs on Christmas Day at 9pm on ITV.

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