At 63 years and 7 months, her reign lasted longer than that of any other British monarch, and is the longest of any female monarch in history. Her reign is known as the Victorian era, and was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military progress within the United Kingdom.
Victoria was of mostly German descent; she was the daughter of the fourth son of George III, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. Both the Duke of Kent and George III died a year after her birth, and she inherited the throne at the age of 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. She ascended the throne when the United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the king or queen held relatively few direct political powers and exercised influence by the prime minister's advice; but she became the iconic symbol of the nation and empire. She had strict standards of personal morality. Her reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire, which reached its zenith and became the foremost global power.
Her 9 children and 42 grandchildren married into royal families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son King Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Heiress to the throne
Victoria was born at 04:15 am on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. She was the only child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and his wife, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The Duke of Kent was the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. The King's three eldest sons, the Prince Regent (later George IV), the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), had no surviving legitimate children, which placed Victoria fifth in the line of succession after her father and his three older brothers.
She was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace. Her godparents were Emperor Alexander I of Russia (represented by her uncle the Duke of York), her uncle the Prince Regent, her aunt Queen Charlotte of Württemberg (represented by Victoria's aunt Princess Augusta) and Victoria's maternal grandmother the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (represented by Victoria's aunt Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh). On the instructions of the Prince Regent, the infant princess was named Alexandrina, after Emperor Alexander I, and Victoria after her mother.
Victoria's grandfather and father died in 1820, within a week of each other, and the Duke of York died in 1827. On the death of her uncle George IV in 1830, she became heiress presumptive to her next surviving uncle, William IV. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, to act as Regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor. King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be Regent, and in 1836 declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victoria's 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.
Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy". Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumored, probably wrongly, to be the Duchess's lover. The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them. She shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play hours with her dolls and her King Charles spaniel, Dash. The Duchess was scandalized by the mistresses and bastard children of her brothers-in-law, and the public contempt for the royal family that resulted, and wanted her daughter to avoid any hint of sexual impropriety, perhaps prompting the emergence of Victorian morality. As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to make him her personal secretary. Once Queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mother's household.
By 1836, the Duchess's brother, Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry his niece to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Victoria's mother, Albert's father (Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) and Leopold were siblings. Leopold arranged for his sister, Victoria's mother, to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert. William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favored the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange. Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. Some authors have written that she initially found Albert to be rather dull, however according to her diary, she enjoyed his company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same color as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful." Alexander, on the other hand, was "very plain".
Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold, whom Victoria considered her "best and kindest adviser", to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see." However at seventeen, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.
Early reign
On 24 May 1837 Victoria turned 18, and a regency was avoided. On 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen." Drafts of the official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Queen Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.
Under Salic law, however, no woman could be monarch of Hanover, a realm which had shared a monarch with Britain since 1714. Hanover passed instead to her father's younger brother, her uncle the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, who became King Ernest Augustus I. He was her heir presumptive until she married and had a child.
At the time of her accession, the government was led by the Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, who at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice. Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838, and she became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace.
At the start of her reign Victoria was popular, but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumored to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy. Victoria believed the rumors. She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora", because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System. At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to a naked medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually agreed, and was found to be virgin. Conroy, the Hastings family and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumors about Lady Flora. When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumor on her liver that had distended her abdomen. At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".
In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a Bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The Bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery. The Queen commissioned a Tory, Sir Robert Peel, to form a new ministry. At the time, it was customary for the Prime Minister to appoint members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies. Many of the Queen's Ladies of the Bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the bedchamber crisis, Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to the removal of these ladies. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.
Marriage
Though queen, as an unmarried young woman Victoria was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington system and her mother's continued reliance on Conroy. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to meet her. When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's close proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathized but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative". Her letters of the time show interest in Albert's education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock.
Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, London. Albert became not only the Queen's companion, but an important political advisor, replacing Lord Melbourne as the dominant, influential figure in the first half of her life. Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Princess Augusta in 1840, Victoria's mother was given both Clarence and Frogmore Houses. Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.
Assassination attempts
During Victoria's first pregnancy, in the first few months of the marriage, eighteen-year-old Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed. He was tried for high treason and found guilty, but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis. Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought newborn babies were ugly. Nevertheless, she and Albert had a further eight children.
Victoria's household was largely run by her childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria, and had supported her against the Kensington System. Albert, however, thought Lehzen was incompetent, and that her mismanagement threatened the health of his daughter. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended.
On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis leveled a pistol at her but did not fire. The following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to provoke Francis to take a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plain clothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Bean also fired a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco. Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840. Bean's assault, though physically harmless, was still punishable by death. Feeling that such a penalty was too harsh, Albert encouraged Parliament to pass the Treason Act 1842. Under the new law, an attempt to assault or alarm the monarch was made punishable by flogging and up to seven years' imprisonment. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail, but no-one who violated the act was ever flogged.
In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at Victoria's carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London. Hamilton was charged under the 1842 act, pleaded guilty and received the maximum sentence of seven years' penal transportation. In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her face. He received the same sentence as Hamilton.
Early Victorian politics and foreign policy
Melbourne's support in the House of Commons continued to weaken, and in the 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, and the Ladies of the Bedchamber most associated with the Whigs were replaced. By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many Tories-by then known also as Conservatives-were opposed to the repeal, but some Tories (the "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell. Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not favored by the Queen. She found particularly offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen.
Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain. She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the house of Orleans, who were related by marriage through the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I at his château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the first British or English monarch to visit a French one since the meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first French king to visit a British sovereign. Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile in England. At the height of a revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left London for the greater safety of Osborne House, a private estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped. Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances.
Victoria complained to Russell that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and continued to act on his own initiative, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the British government's approval for President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister. The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, by which time Russell's administration had been replaced by a short-lived minority government led by Lord Derby.
In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anesthetic, chloroform. Victoria was so impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and final child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, and members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous. Victoria may have suffered from post-natal depression after many of her pregnancies. Letters from Albert to Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of self-control. For example, about a month after Leopold's birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".
In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean war. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston as prime minister.
Napoleon III visited London in April 1855 and from 17 to 28 August the same year Victoria and Albert returned the visit. Napoleon III met the couple at Dunkirk and personally accompanied them to Paris. They visited the Exposition Universelle (successor to Albert's 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honor at a 1,200-guest ball at the Château de Versailles.
In January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England. An ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilized the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister. Victoria and Albert attended the opening of a new basin at the French military port of Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military preparations were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor state of the Royal Navy in comparison to the French one. Derby's ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office.
Victoria's British Prime Ministers
* 1835 - Lord Melbourne (Whig)
* 1841 - Sir Robert Peel (Conservative)
* 1846 - Lord John Russell (Whig)
* 1852 (Feb.) - Lord Derby (Conservative)
* 1852 (Dec.) - Lord Aberdeen (Peelite)
* 1855 - Lord Palmerston (Liberal)
* 1858 - Derby (Conservative)
* 1859 - Palmerston (Liberal)
* 1865 - Russell (Liberal)
* 1866 - Derby (Conservative)
* 1868 (Feb.) - Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative)
* 1868 (Dec.) - William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)
* 1874 - Disraeli (Conservative)
* 1880 - Gladstone (Liberal)
* 1885 - Lord Salisbury (Conservative)
* 1886 (Feb.) - Gladstone (Liberal)
* 1886 (July) - Salisbury (Conservative)
* 1892 - Gladstone (Liberal)
* 1894 - Lord Rosebery (Liberal)
* 1895 - Salisbury (Conservative)
Ireland
In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight that over four years cost the lives of over a million Irish people and saw the emigration of another million. In response to what came to be called the Great Famine, the Queen personally donated £2,000 to famine relief, more than any other individual donor. However, myths were generated towards the end of the 19th century that she had donated a maximum of £5 in aid to the Irish, and on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dog Shelter. Victoria also supported the Maynooth Grant to a Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland.
Victoria's first visit to Ireland, in 1849, was specifically arranged by Lord Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland-the head of the British administration-to try to both draw attention from the famine and alert British politicians through the Queen's presence to the seriousness of the crisis in Ireland. She became known in Ireland as "The Famine Queen". In 1853 she visited the Great Industrial Exhibition which was the biggest international event held to date in Ireland. Over one million attended and Victoria knighted the architect of the exhibition, John Benson.
Queen Victoria felt deeply hurt when Dublin Corporation returned a bust of her beloved late husband Albert, which she sent as a gift to the people of Dublin. In addition, she felt hurt by Irish indignation at the suggestion to place a statue of Albert on St. Stephen's Green in Dublin, and to rename it 'Albert Green'. It has been theorised that these perceived 'insults' to her beloved Albert's memory hardened her views of the Irish people.
Victoria resisted pressure, especially from Gladstone, to establish a royal residence in Ireland. Unionist Lord Midleton described this decision as disastrous to the monarchy and the union.
Widowhood
In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply; she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother. To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief, Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble. In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and spent a few days holiday in Killarney. In November, Albert was made aware of gossip that Edward had slept with an actress in Ireland. Appalled, Albert travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him. By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell. He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria, still affected by the death of her mother, was devastated. She blamed her husband's death on worry over her son Edward's philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said. She entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances, and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the name "Widow of Windsor".
Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement. She did undertake her official government duties, yet she also chose to remain secluded in her royal residences-Balmoral Castle in Scotland, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and Windsor Castle. In March 1864, a protester stuck a notice on the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant's declining business". Her uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her to appear in public. She agreed to visit the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society and take a drive through London in an open carriage.
Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown. Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, with the Queen referred to as "Mrs Brown". The story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 movie Mrs. Brown. A painting by Edwin Landseer depicting the Queen with Brown was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and Victoria published a book, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, which featured Brown prominently and in which the Queen praised him highly.
Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry led by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, she attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since Albert's death. The following year she supported the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which extended the franchise and doubled the electorate. Derby resigned in 1868, to be replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. "Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." His ministry only lasted a matter of months, and at the end of the year his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour far less appealing; he spoke to her, she complained, "as though she were a public meeting rather than a woman".
In 1870, republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the Third French Republic. A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victoria's removal, and Radical MPs spoke against her. In late November 1871, at the height of the republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die. As the tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, Edward's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued. To general rejoicing, Edward pulled through. Victoria and Edward attended a public parade through London and a grand service of thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.
On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor (great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus O'Connor) waved an unloaded pistol at Victoria's open carriage as it drove through the gates of Buckingham Palace. He was grabbed by Brown, who was attending the Queen, and later sentenced to 12-months' imprisonment. As a result of the incident, Victoria's popularity recovered further.
Empress of India
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent were formally incorporated into the British Empire. The Queen had a relatively balanced view of the conflict, and condemned atrocities on both sides. She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret at the result of this bloody civil war", and insisted, urged on by Albert, that an official proclamation announcing the transfer of power from the company to the state "should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence and religious toleration". A reference to the "undermining of native religions and customs" was, at her behest, replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom.
In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned to power. He passed an act removing Catholic rituals from the Anglican liturgy, which Victoria strongly supported. She preferred short, simple services, and personally considered herself more aligned with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland than the Episcopalian Church of England. He also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876. The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.
To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister. She thought his government was "the worst I have ever had", and blamed Gladstone for the death of General Gordon at Khartoum. She was pleased when Gladstone resigned in 1885 after his budget was defeated; he was replaced by Lord Salisbury. Salisbury's government only lasted a few months, however, and Victoria was forced to recall Gladstone, who she referred to as a "half crazy & really in many ways ridiculous old man". Gladstone attempted to pass a bill granting Ireland home rule, but to Victoria's glee it was defeated. In the ensuing election, Gladstone's party lost to Salisbury's and the government switched hands again.
Later years
On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria's refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Two schoolboys from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas, until he was hustled away by a policeman. Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was so pleased by the many expressions of loyalty after the attack that she said it was "worth being shot at-to see how much one is loved".
Brown died in 1883, and to the consternation of her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, Victoria began work on a eulogistic biography of Brown. Ponsonby and Randall Davidson, who had both seen early drafts, advised Victoria against publication, on the grounds that it would stoke the rumours of a love affair. The manuscript was destroyed. Victoria did publish More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands, a sequel to her earlier book, and dedicated it to her "devoted personal attendant and faithful friend John Brown".
Golden Jubilee
In 1887, the British Empire celebrated Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Victoria marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on 20 June with a banquet to which 50 European kings and princes were invited. The following day, she participated in a procession that, in the words of Mark Twain, "stretched to the limit of sight in both directions" and attended a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey. By this time, Victoria was once again extremely popular. Victoria, impressed by the Indian princes who had attended the celebrations, engaged two Indian muslims as waitors, one of whom was Abdul Karim. He was soon promoted to "Munshi": teaching her Hindustani, and acting as a clerk. Her family and retainers were appalled, and accused Abdul Karim of spying for the Muslim Patriotic League, and biasing the Queen against the Hindus. Equerry Frederick Ponsonby (the son of Sir Henry) discovered that the Munshi had lied about his background, and reported to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India, "the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do." Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice. Abdul Karim remained in her service until he returned to India with a pension on her death.
Gladstone returned to power aged over 82 after the 1892 general election. Victoria objected when Gladstone proposed appointing the Radical MP Henry Labouchere to the Cabinet, and so Gladstone agreed not to appoint him. In 1894, Gladstone retired and, without consulting the outgoing prime minister, Victoria appointed Lord Rosebery as prime minister. His government was weak, and the following year Lord Salisbury replaced him. Salisbury remained prime minister for the remainder of Victoria's reign.
Diamond Jubilee
On 23 September 1896, Victoria surpassed George III as the longest-reigning monarch in English, Scottish, and British history. The Queen requested that any special celebrations be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee, which was made a festival of the British Empire at the suggestion of Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain.
The prime ministers of all the self-governing dominions were invited, and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession through London included troops from all over the empire. The parade paused for an open-air service of thanksgiving held outside St Paul's Cathedral, throughout which Victoria sat in her open carriage. The celebration was marked by great outpourings of affection for the septuagenarian Queen.
Victoria visited mainland Europe regularly for holidays. In 1889, during a stay in Biarritz, she became the first reigning monarch from Britain to set foot in Spain when she crossed the border for a brief visit. By 1900, the Boer War was so unpopular in mainland Europe that her annual trip to France seemed inadvisable. Instead, the Queen went to Ireland for the first time since 1861, in part to acknowledge the contribution of Irish regiments to the South African war.
Death and succession
Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt "weak and unwell", and by mid-January she was "drowsy ... dazed, [and] confused". She died from a cerebral haemorrhage on Tuesday 22 January 1901 at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son, the future King, and her eldest grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. On 25 January, Edward VII, the Kaiser and Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, helped lift her into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request. One of Albert's dressing gowns was placed by her side, with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of Brown's hair, along with a picture of him, were placed in her left hand. Items of jewellery placed on Victoria included the wedding ring of John Brown's mother, given to her by Brown in 1883. The coffin was draped with the Royal Standard that had been flying at Osborne House; it was later given by Victoria's grandson, George V, to Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park. Victoria requested a white funeral instead of the usual black. When she was laid to rest at the mausoleum, it began to snow.
Flags in the United States were lowered to half-mast in her honor by order of President William McKinley, a tribute never before offered to a foreign monarch at the time and one which was repaid by Britain when McKinley was assassinated later that year. Victoria had reigned for a total of 63 years, seven months and two days-the longest of any British monarch-and surpassed her grandfather, George III, as the longest-lived monarch (since surpassed by Elizabeth II) only three days before her death.
Victoria's death brought an end to the rule of the House of Hanover in the United Kingdom. Her husband belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and her son and heir Edward VII was the first British monarch of this new house. Later, in 1917, her grandson King George V changed the house name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the (currently serving)
House of Windsor.
Victoria outlived three of her nine children. Alice died in 1878, Leopold in 1884, and Alfred in July 1900, just six months before his mother. Her eldest daughter, Victoria, narrowly outlived her, and died in August 1901. The Queen outlived 11 of her 42 grandchildren (two were stillborn; six died as children, and three as adults).
Legacy
According to one of her biographers, Giles St Aubyn, Victoria wrote an average of 2500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, and burned the originals in the process. Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist. In addition to Beatrice's edited copy, Lord Esher transcribed the volumes from 1832 to 1861 before Beatrice destroyed them. Part of Victoria's extensive correspondence has been published in volumes edited by A. C. Benson, Hector Bolitho, George Earle Buckle, Lord Esher, Roger Fulford, and Richard Hough among others.
Victoria was physically unprepossessing-she was stout, dowdy and less than five feet tall-but she succeeded in projecting a grand image. She experienced unpopularity during the first years of her widowhood, but was well-liked during the 1880s and 1890s, when she embodied the empire as a benevolent matriarchal figure. Only after the release of her diary and letters did the extent of her political influence become known to the wider public. Biographies of Victoria written before much of the primary material became available, such as Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria, are now considered out of date. The biographies written by Elizabeth Longford and Cecil Woodham-Smith, in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired. They, and others, conclude that as a person Victoria was emotional, obstinate, honest, and straight-talking.
Within Britain
Queen Victoria's reign continued the gradual establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the House of Commons at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarchy. In Victoria's reign, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch only retained "the right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn". As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. Victoria's reign created for Britain the concept of the "family monarchy" with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify.
One of Victoria's children, her youngest son, Leopold, was affected by the blood-clotting disease haemophilia B and two of her five daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Royal haemophiliacs descended from Victoria included her great-grandsons, Tsarevich Alexei of Russia, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, and Infante Gonzalo of Spain. The presence of the disease in Victoria's descendants, but not in her ancestors, led to speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent but a haemophiliac. There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac man in connection with Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always suffer the disease, even if such a man had existed he would have been seriously ill. It is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was old at the time of her conception and haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers. Spontaneous mutations account for about 30% of cases.
Queen Victoria experienced unpopularity during the first years of her widowhood but, afterwards, became extremely well liked during the 1880s and 1890s. In 2002, the BBC conducted a poll regarding the 100 Greatest Britons; Victoria attained the eighteenth place.
The design of the Queen's head on the first postage stamp was based upon the 1837 Wyon City medal engraved by a famous coin engraver William Wyon. The design of Queen Victoria's head is based on a sitting when she was a princess aged 15. Victoria also started the tradition that a bride wears a white dress to her wedding. Before Victoria's wedding a bride would wear her best dress of no particular colour.
International Legacy
Internationally Victoria was a major figure, not just in image or in terms of Britain's influence through the empire, but also because of family links throughout Europe's royal families, earning her the affectionate nickname "the grandmother of Europe". Victoria and Albert had 42 grandchildren. Their hundreds of descendants include Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Harald V of Norway, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Margrethe II of Denmark, and Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain.
Queen Victoria remains the most commemorated British monarch in history. Around the world, places and memorials are dedicated to Victoria, especially in the Commonwealth nations. Places named after Victoria, include the capital of the Seychelles, Africa's largest lake, Victoria Falls, the capitals of British Columbia (Victoria) and Saskatchewan (Regina), and two Australian states (Victoria and Queensland). Australia went through a period of rapid growth and great prosperity during her reign due primarily to the Australian gold rushes.
Queen Victoria invited Martha Ann Ricks, on behalf of Liberian Ambassador Edward Wilmot Blyden, to Windsor Castle on 16 July 1892. Martha Ricks, a former slave from Tennessee, had saved her pennies for more than fifty years, to afford the voyage from Liberia to England to personally thank the Queen for sending the British navy to patrol the coast of West Africa to prevent slavers from exporting Africans for the slave trade. Martha Ricks shook hands with the Queen and presented her with a Coffee Tree quilt, which Queen Victoria later sent to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition for display. A mystery remains as to where the Coffee Tree quilt is today.
The Victoria Cross was introduced in 1856 to reward acts of valour during the Crimean War, and it remains the highest British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand award for bravery. Victoria Day is a Canadian statutory holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May in honour of both Queen Victoria's birthday and the current reigning Canadian Sovereign's birthday. While Victoria Day is often thought of as a purely Canadian event, it is also celebrated in some parts of Scotland, particularly in Edinburgh and Dundee, where it is also a public holiday.
Titles, styles, coat of arms and cypher
* 24 May 1819 - 20 June 1837: Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent
* 20 June 1837 - 22 January 1901: Her Majesty The Queen
* 1 May 1876 - 22 January 1901: Her Imperial Majesty The Queen-Empress
As the male-line granddaughter of a King of Hanover, Victoria also bore the titles of Princess of Hanover and Duchess of Brunswick and Lunenburg. In addition, she held the titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony etc. as the wife of Prince Albert.
At the end of her reign, the Queen's full style and title were :
- "Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India".
Royal Cypher
Victoria's Royal Cypher was the first to be used on a postbox. The letters are VR interlaced, standing for "Victoria Regina". Victoria eventually used the cypher VRI ("Victoria Regina Imperatrix") when she became Empress, but this never appeared on postboxes. Victoria's cypher was the only one to appear on postboxes without a crown above it.
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_of_the_United_Kingdom
Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License
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