Prince Ernest / Duke of Coburg

Ernest arrives at Victoria's court alongside his younger brother Albert, the heir to Coburg where Albert is merely a spare. He is easy, charming, and a little reckless, more interested in pleasure than duty, and he watches his brother's careful courtship of a queen with the amused detachment of a man who has never had to try so hard for anything.

David Oakes plays Ernest as Albert's warm, faintly disreputable shadow, the brother whose charisma comes without effort or conscience. The writing uses him to show what Albert isn't - relaxed where Albert is rigid, appetite where Albert has restraint - and Oakes makes that contrast feel like real sibling history rather than a device.