Queen Victoria

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Victoria
Empress of India
Reign1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901
Imperial Durbar1 January 1877
PredecessorPosition established
SuccessorEdward VII
BornPrincess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent
(1819-05-24)24 May 1819
Kensington Palace, London, England
Died22 January 1901(1901-01-22) (aged 81)
Osborne House, Isle of Wight, England
Burial4 February 1901
, Windsor
Spouse
(m. 1840; died 1861)
Issue
Protestant[a]
SignatureCursive signature of Queen Victoria

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was

Empress of India
.

Victoria was the daughter of

constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality
.

.

Early life

Birth and ancestry

Victoria as a child with her mother, after William Beechey
Portrait by Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1823

Victoria's father was

king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, Victoria was born at 4:15 a.m. on Monday 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.[1]

Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.[b] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Prince Regent.[2]

At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: George, Prince Regent (later George IV);

William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent.[3] Prince George had no surviving children, and Prince Frederick had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children. William married in 1818, in a joint ceremony with his brother Edward, but both of William's legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. She was fourth in line while William's second daughter, Princess Elizabeth, lived, from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821.[4]

Heir presumptive

Prince Frederick died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; their next surviving brother succeeded to the throne as William IV, and Victoria became

regency could be avoided.[6]

Portrait with her spaniel Dash by George Hayter, 1833

Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy".

Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchess's lover.[8] 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.[9] The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King William's illegitimate children.[10] Victoria 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.[11] Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin,[12] but she spoke only English at home.[13]

In 1830, the Duchess and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the

royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heir presumptive.[16] Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest.[17] She objected on the grounds of the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy and forced Victoria to continue the tours.[18] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary.[20] As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.[21] Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mother's household.[22]

Victoria's sketch of herself
Self-portrait, 1835

By 1836, Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert,[23] the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victoria's mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert.[24] William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange.[25] Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.[26] According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour 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."[27] Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain".[28]

Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser",[29] 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."[30] However at 17, 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.[31]

Accession and marriage

Drawing of Conyngham and Howley on their knees in front of Victoria
Victoria receives the news of her accession from Lord Conyngham (bowing) and the Archbishop Howley (right). Painting by Henry Tanworth Wells, 1887.

Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a

regency was avoided. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom.[c] 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."[32] Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.[33]

Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victoria's heir presumptive until she had a child.[34]

Victoria wears her crown and holds a sceptre.
Coronation portrait by George Hayter

At the time of Victoria's accession, the government was led by the

Lord Melbourne. He at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him for advice.[35] Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure.[36] Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations.[37] She became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace[38] and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as being granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her father's debts.[39]

At the start of her reign Victoria was popular,[40] 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 rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.[41] Victoria believed the rumours.[42] She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora",[43] because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess in the Kensington System.[44] At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin.[45] Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora.[46] When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen.[47] At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".[48]

In 1839, Melbourne resigned after

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 their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.[50]

Painting of a lavish wedding attended by richly dressed people in a magnificent room
Marriage of Victoria and Albert, painted by George Hayter

Though Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she 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.[51] The Duchess was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her.[52] When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative".[53] Victoria showed 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.[54]

Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. They felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor.[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:

I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness—really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before—was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life![56]

Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queen's companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life.[57] Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victoria's aunt Princess Augusta in 1840, the Duchess was given both Clarence House and Frogmore House.[58] Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.[59]

Contemporary lithograph of Edward Oxford's attempt to assassinate Victoria, 1840

During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old

not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia.[61] In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis.[62] Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant,[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,[64] and thought newborn babies were ugly.[65] Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.[66]

The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria[67] and had supported her against the Kensington System.[68] Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughter Victoria's health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended.[69]

Domestic and public life

Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1843

On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along

transportation for life, John William Bean also tried to fire a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco and had too little charge.[70] Edward Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840.[71] Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail.[72] 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.[73] 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 forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation.[74]

Melbourne's support in the House of Commons weakened through the early years of Victoria's reign, 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.[75]

Victoria cuddling her daughter next to her
Earliest known photograph of the Queen, here with her eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, c. 1845[76]

In 1845, Ireland was hit by a

Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the end of the 19th century.[84]

By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the

Victoria's British prime ministers
Year Prime Minister (party)
1835
Whig
)
1841
Sir Robert Peel (Conservative
)
1846
Lord John Russell
(Whig)
1852 (February) Earl of Derby (Conservative)
1852 (December) Earl of Aberdeen (Peelite)
1855 Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)
1858 Earl of Derby (Conservative)
1859 Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)
1865 Earl Russell, Lord John Russell (Liberal)
1866 Earl of Derby (Conservative)
1868 (February) Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative)
1868 (December)
William Gladstone
(Liberal)
1874 Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield (Conservative)
1880 William Gladstone (Liberal)
1885 Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
1886 (February) William Gladstone (Liberal)
1886 (July) Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
1892 William Gladstone (Liberal)
1894 Earl of Rosebery (Liberal)
1895 Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
See List of prime ministers of Queen Victoria
for details of her British and overseas premiers

Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain.

Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances.[92] Victoria's first visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but it had no lasting impact or effect on the growth of Irish nationalism.[93]

Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen.

Victoria, dressed in black, is seated and holding her infant daughter. Prince Albert and their other children stand around her.
Albert, Victoria and their nine children, 1857. Left to right: Alice, Arthur, Prince Albert, Albert Edward, Leopold, Louise, Queen Victoria with Beatrice, Alfred, Victoria, and Helena

In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anaesthetic,

postnatal depression after many of her pregnancies.[66] 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".[99]

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.[100]

Napoleon III, Britain's closest ally as a result of the Crimean War,

Napoleon I's tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honour at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace of Versailles.[103] This marked the first time that a reigning British monarch had been to Paris in over 400 years.[104]

Portrait by Winterhalter, 1859

On 14 January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England.[105] The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister.[106] 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 Navy.[107] Derby's ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office.[108]

Eleven days after Orsini's assassination attempt in France, Victoria's eldest daughter married

Wilhelm, who would become the last German emperor.[66]

Widowhood and isolation

J. J. E. Mayall
, 1860

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;

Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and spent a few days holidaying in Killarney. In November, Albert was made aware of gossip that his son had slept with an actress in Ireland.[116] Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him.[117]

By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell.[118] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated.[119] She blamed her husband's death on worry over the Prince of Wales's philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said.[120] 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.[121] Her seclusion earned her the nickname "widow of Windsor".[122] Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances.[123]

Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement.[124] She did undertake her official government duties, yet chose to remain secluded in her royal residences—Windsor Castle, Osborne House, and the private estate in Scotland that she and Albert had acquired in 1847, Balmoral 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".[125] Her uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her to appear in public. She agreed to visit the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive through London in an open carriage.[126]

Victoria on a horse
With John Brown at Balmoral, 1863. Photograph by G. W. Wilson

Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland,

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.[129]

Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry led by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, Victoria attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since Albert's death.[130] The following year she supported the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which doubled the electorate by extending the franchise to many urban working men,[131] though she was not in favour of votes for women.[132] 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."[133] With the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", he complimented her.[134] Disraeli's 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 is thought to have complained, as though she were "a public meeting rather than a woman".[135]

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the

carbolic acid spray.[138] 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.[139] As the tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, her son's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued.[140] To general rejoicing, he recovered.[141] Mother and son 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.[142]

On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, a great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus O'Connor, waved an unloaded pistol at Victoria's open carriage just after she had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was later sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment,[143] and a birching.[144] As a result of the incident, Victoria's popularity recovered further.[145]

Empress of India

After 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.[146] She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret at the result of this bloody civil war",[147] 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".[148] At her behest, a reference threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom.[148]

Victoria admired Heinrich von Angeli's 1875 portrait of her for its "honesty, total want of flattery, and appreciation of character".[149]

In the

presbyterian Church of Scotland than the episcopal Church of England.[151] Disraeli also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876.[152] The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.[153]

On 14 December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis of Hesse, died of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria noted the coincidence of the dates as "almost incredible and most mysterious".[154] In May 1879, she became a great-grandmother (on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) and passed her "poor old 60th birthday". She felt "aged" by "the loss of my beloved child".[155]

Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to abdicate while pressuring Disraeli to act against Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, but her threats had no impact on the events or their conclusion with the Congress of Berlin.[156] Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. "If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power", she wrote, "we must ... be Prepared for attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY."[157] Victoria saw the expansion of the British Empire as civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from more aggressive powers or cruel rulers: "It is not in our custom to annexe countries", she said, "unless we are obliged & forced to do so."[158] To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister.[159] When Disraeli died the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears",[160] and erected a memorial tablet "placed by his grateful Sovereign and Friend, Victoria R.I."[161]

Victorian farthing, 1884

On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria's refusal to accept one of his poems,[162] shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Gordon Chesney Wilson and another schoolboy from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas, until he was hustled away by a policeman.[163] Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity,[164] 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".[165]

On 17 March 1883, Victoria fell down some stairs at Windsor, which left her lame until July; she never fully recovered and was plagued with rheumatism thereafter.[166] John Brown died 10 days after her accident, and to the consternation of her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, Victoria began work on a eulogistic biography of Brown.[167] Ponsonby and Randall Davidson, Dean of Windsor, who had both seen early drafts, advised Victoria against publication, on the grounds that it would stoke the rumours of a love affair.[168] The manuscript was destroyed.[169] In early 1884, Victoria did publish More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands, a sequel to her earlier book, which she dedicated to her "devoted personal attendant and faithful friend John Brown".[170] On the day after the first anniversary of Brown's death, Victoria was informed by telegram that her youngest son, Leopold, had died in Cannes. He was "the dearest of my dear sons", she lamented.[171] The following month, Victoria's youngest child, Beatrice, met and fell in love with Prince Henry of Battenberg at the wedding of Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine to Henry's brother Prince Louis of Battenberg. Beatrice and Henry planned to marry, but Victoria opposed the match at first, wishing to keep Beatrice at home to act as her companion. After a year, she was won around to the marriage by their promise to remain living with and attending her.[172]

Extent of the British Empire in 1898

Victoria was pleased when Gladstone resigned in 1885 after his budget was defeated.

Lord Salisbury. Salisbury's government only lasted a few months, however, and Victoria was forced to recall Gladstone, whom she referred to as a "half crazy & really in many ways ridiculous old man".[175] Gladstone attempted to pass a bill granting Ireland home rule, but to Victoria's glee it was defeated.[176] In the ensuing election, Gladstone's party lost to Salisbury's and the government switched hands again.[177]

Golden and Diamond Jubilees

The Munshi stands over Victoria as she works at a desk.
With the Munshi Abdul Karim

In 1887, the

Viceroy of India, "the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do."[185] Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice.[186] Abdul Karim remained in her service until he returned to India with a pension, on her death.[187]

Victoria's eldest daughter became empress consort of Germany in 1888, but she was widowed a little over three months later, and Victoria's eldest grandchild became German Emperor as Wilhelm II. Victoria and Albert's hopes of a liberal Germany would go unfulfilled, as Wilhelm was a firm believer in autocracy. Victoria thought he had "little heart or Zartgefühl [tact] – and ... his conscience & intelligence have been completely wharped [sic]".[188]

Gladstone returned to power after the

Lord Rosebery as prime minister.[190] His government was weak, and the following year Lord Salisbury replaced him. Salisbury remained prime minister for the remainder of Victoria's reign.[191]

Seated Victoria in embroidered and lace dress
Official Diamond Jubilee photograph by W. & D. Downey

On 23 September 1896, Victoria surpassed her grandfather George III as the

Wilhelm II of Germany, who, it was feared, might cause trouble at the event.[195]

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession on 22 June 1897 followed a route six miles long through London and included troops from all over the empire. The procession paused for an open-air service of thanksgiving held outside St Paul's Cathedral, throughout which Victoria sat in her open carriage, to avoid her having to climb the steps to enter the building. The celebration was marked by vast crowds of spectators and great outpourings of affection for the 78-year-old Queen.[196]

Declining health and death

Queen Victoria in Dublin, 1900

Victoria visited mainland Europe regularly for holidays. In 1889, during a stay in

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.[198]

Portrait by Heinrich von Angeli, 1899

In July 1900, Victoria's second son, Alfred ("Affie"), died. "Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too", she wrote in her journal. "It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another."[199]

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Pomeranian, Turi, was laid on her bed as a last request.[203] She died aged 81 on 22 January 1901, at half past six in the evening, in the presence of her eldest son, Albert Edward, and grandson Wilhelm II. Albert Edward immediately succeeded as Edward VII.[204]

Poster proclaiming a day of mourning in Toronto on the day of Victoria's funeral

In 1897, Victoria had written instructions for her funeral, which was to be military as befitting a soldier's daughter and the head of the army,[66] and white instead of black.[205] On 25 January, Edward VII and Wilhelm II, together with Prince Arthur, helped lift her body into the coffin.[206] She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil.[207] An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request, by her physician and dressers. One of Albert's dressing gowns was placed by her side, with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of John Brown's hair, along with a picture of him, was placed in her left hand concealed from the view of the family by a carefully positioned bunch of flowers.[66][208] Items of jewellery placed on Victoria included the wedding ring of Brown's mother, which Brown gave Victoria in 1883.[66] Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, at Windsor Great Park.[209]

With a reign of 63 years, seven months, and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history, until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on 9 September 2015.[210] She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover; her son Edward VII belonged to her husband's House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.[211]

Legacy

Reputation

Victoria smiling
Victoria amused. The remark "We are not amused" is attributed to her but there is no direct evidence that she ever said it,[66][212] and she denied doing so.[213] Her staff and family recorded that Victoria "was immensely amused and roared with laughter" on many occasions.[214]

According to one of her biographers, Giles St Aubyn, Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life.[215] From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes.[216] 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.[217] 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.[218] 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.[219]

In her later years, Victoria was stout, dowdy, and about five feet (1.5 metres) tall, but she projected a grand image.[220] She was unpopular 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.[221] Only after the release of her diary and letters did the extent of her political influence become known to the wider public.[66][222] Biographies of Victoria written before much of the primary material became available, such as Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria of 1921, are now considered out of date.[223] The biographies written by Elizabeth Longford and Cecil Woodham-Smith, in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired.[224] They, and others, conclude that as a person Victoria was emotional, obstinate, honest, and straight-talking.[225]

Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace
was erected a decade after her death.

Through Victoria's reign, the gradual establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy in Britain continued. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the House of Commons at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarch.[226] In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch only retained "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn".[227] 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. The concept of the "family monarchy", with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify, was solidified.[228]

Descendants and haemophilia

Victoria's links with Europe's royal families earned her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe".

grandchildren of Victoria and Albert, 34 survived to adulthood.[66]

The Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, India

Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, was affected by the blood-clotting disease haemophilia B and at least two of her five daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Royal haemophiliacs descended from Victoria included her great-grandsons, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; Alfonso, Prince of Asturias; and Infante Gonzalo of Spain.[230] The presence of the disease in Victoria's descendants, but not in her ancestors, led to modern speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent, but a haemophiliac.[231] There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac in connection with Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always had the disease, even if such a man had existed he would have been seriously ill.[232] It is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was over 50 at the time of her conception and haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers.[233] Spontaneous mutations account for about a third of cases.[234]

Titles, styles, honours, and arms

Titles and styles

At the end of her reign, the Queen's full style was: "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".[235]

Honours

British honours

Foreign honours

Arms

As Sovereign, Victoria used the

royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. As she could not succeed to the throne of Hanover, her arms did not carry the Hanoverian symbols that were used by her immediate predecessors. Her arms have been borne by all of her successors on the throne.[266]

Royal coat of arms outside Scotland
Royal coat of arms in Scotland

Family

Victoria's family in 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
Left to right: Prince Alfred and the Prince of Wales; the Queen and Prince Albert; Princesses Alice, Helena and Victoria

Issue

Name Birth Death Spouse and children[235][267]
Victoria,
Princess Royal
1840
21 Nov
1901
5 August
Married 1858,
Queen Sophia of Greece
)
Edward VII 1841
9 Nov
1910
6 May
Married 1863,
Queen Maud of Norway
)
Princess Alice 1843
25 April
1878
14 Dec
Married 1862,
Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (1837–1892);
2 sons, 5 daughters (including Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia
)
Alfred,
Duke of Saxe-Coburg
and Gotha
1844
6 August
1900
31 July
Married 1874,
Queen Marie of Romania
)
Princess Helena 1846
25 May
1923
9 June
Married 1866,
stillborn
), 2 daughters
Princess Louise 1848
18 March
1939
3 Dec
Married 1871, John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, later 9th Duke of Argyll (1845–1914);
no issue
Prince Arthur,
Duke of Connaught
and Strathearn
1850
1 May
1942
16 Jan
Married 1879,
Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden
)
Prince Leopold,
Duke of Albany
1853
7 April
1884
28 March
Married 1882,
Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont
(1861–1922);
1 son, 1 daughter
Princess Beatrice 1857
14 April
1944
26 Oct
Married 1885,
Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain
)

Ancestry

Family tree

  • Red borders indicate British monarchs
  • Bold borders indicate children of British monarchs

Notes

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)
  1. ^ As monarch, Victoria was Supreme Governor of the Church of England. She was also aligned with the Church of Scotland.
  2. Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (represented by Victoria's aunt Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh
    ).
  3. ^ Under section 2 of the Regency Act 1830, the Accession Council's proclamation declared Victoria as the King's successor "saving the rights of any issue of His late Majesty King William the Fourth which may be borne of his late Majesty's Consort". "No. 19509", The London Gazette, 20 June 1837, p. 1581

References

Citations

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Bibliography

Primary sources

Further reading

External links

Queen Victoria
Cadet branch of the House of Welf
Born: 24 May 1819 Died: 22 January 1901
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Queen of the United Kingdom

20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Succeeded by
Vacant
Title last held by
Mughal emperor
Empress of India

1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901