BBC - iWonder - Queen Victoria: The woman who redefined Britain’s monarchy Queen Victoria: The woman who redefined Britain’s monarchy 24 May, 1819 Presented byProfessor Kate WilliamsRoyal historian A headstrong head of state Queen Victoria restored the reputation of a monarchy tarnished by the extravagance of her royal uncles. She also shaped a new role for the Royal Family, reconnecting it with the public through civic duties. At just 4ft 11in tall, Victoria was a towering presence as a symbol of her Empire. She and her husband Albert and their nine children came to symbolise a new, confident age. 24 May, 1819 Bridgeman A portrait of Princess Victoria and her mother Victoria, Duchess of Kent in 1824. Alexandrina Victoria was born to the Duchess of Kent. Her father was the fourth son of George III and she was fifth in line to the throne. However, she had three elderly uncles ahead of her in the succession. So when her father died when she was eight months her prospects of becoming queen were good. The princess, known as Victoria, was raised at Kensington Palace.

She was educated by her governess Baroness Lehzen, who taught her languages, arithmetic, drawing and music. Her widowed mother was lonely and depended utterly on John Conroy – a servant of her former husband who was bent on power. As plump as a partridge Baby Victoria described by Baron Stockmar, doctor to her German uncle Prince Leopold 1820-1837 Mary Evans An engraved portrait showing Victoria in 1834. She had a sheltered childhood. After the death of two uncles, the teenage Victoria became heir to her final surviving uncle King William IV. But Victoria's youth was dominated by strict rules known as the 'Kensington System'. These rules included sharing a room with her mother and having no time alone. The system was designed by John Conroy, who hoped to manipulate her to gain further power and influence. When Victoria was 13 she was taken on a tour of the Midlands so that Conroy and her mother could show her off to the public. The princess found it exhausting and became increasingly stubborn. She started writing a diary. The men, women, children, country and houses are all black... I just now see an extraordinary building flaming with fire.

Victoria's first journal entry, a train near Birmingham, 2 August 1832 20 June 1837 Victoria becomes Queen Victoria is welcomed into the City of London for the first time as Queen. Victoria succeeded her uncle William IV, just weeks after her 18th birthday. Her first request was an hour alone, something denied to her until then. Victoria moved to Buckingham Palace making it her official royal residence in London. She began exerting her will by exiling her mother to live in distant rooms. She also banned John Conroy the courtier who made her childhood miserable – from her state apartments. The young Queen was charmed by her first prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who was both fatherly and admiring. She became the richest woman in the world after Parliament granted her an annuity of £385,000. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more… and consequently that I am Queen. Journal entry, 20 June 1837 28 June 1838 He was so kind, so affectionate; oh!

to feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert, was too great delight to describe! Journal entry, 15 October 1839 10 June 1840 Victoria survives an assassination attempt A lithograph depicting the first assassination attempt on Victoria. The Queen – who often rode in an open carriage – was the target of eight attempts to kill or assault her during her lifetime. In the first attempt a teenager called Edward Oxford fired at her as she was out driving with Albert near Buckingham Palace. The gunman was seized by onlookers. The Queen was shaken but managed to smile at crowds on her return trip through Hyde Park. Oxford was later found to be of ‘unsound mind’ and sent to Bedlam (the state criminal lunatic asylum). He was released in 1867 and deported to Australia. All of the Queen’s assailants worked alone and were judged to have mental health conditions. I saw him aim at me with another pistol. I ducked my head, & another shot, equally loud instantly followed.

Journal entry, 10 June 1840 21 November, 1840 We scrambled up to the highest peak, & here we sat down & had our luncheon. The view is truly magnificent, such endless ranges of hills. Journal entry, 24 August 1849 3 February, 1852 A new parliamentary tradition The Irish State Coach has been used for the State Opening of Parliament since 1852. The Queen began new royal traditions when she attended the first State Opening of Parliament in the new Palace of Westminster. The original building had been demolished by fire in 1834. The Queen arrived in the Irish State Coach, which had been built the year before and processed through Parliament before making her speech. The protocols and traditions established then have been followed by every British monarch since. We drove in under the new covered entrance, which is magnificent & had a beautiful effect... Got through the reading of my speech well. Journal entry, 3 February 1842 7 September 1858 Victoria and Albert redefine what it means to be Queen Getty The royal procession on its way to open the new town hall in Leeds. The Illustrated London News.

Victoria, with the assistance of Albert, created a newly visible constitutional monarchy to stem a growing republican movement in Britain. Victoria became patron of 150 institutions, including dozens of charities, while Albert supported the development of educational museums. The couple went on civic visits to industrial towns such as Leeds, and attended military reviews to support the armed forces. Together they helped stem criticism that the Royal Family didn't earn its keep. Nothing could have been more enthusiastic than the reception we met with, or better than the way the people behaved. Journal entry, Leeds, 7 September 1858 29 January, 1856 The Victoria Cross The Illustrated London News reveals the first recipients of the VC. The Victoria Cross was introduced by Queen Victoria to honour acts of great bravery during the Crimean War. It was awarded on merit instead of rank. The Crimean War was fought by an alliance of countries including Britain against Russia. The Queen was suspected of secretly supporting the Russian Tsar. However, she allayed suspicions by taking an interest in the nursing of wounded soldiers. She also awarded the first Victoria Crosses personally to 62 men at a ceremony at Hyde Park in 1857.

It was the first time officers and men had been decorated together. After riding down the Line the ceremony of giving medals, began... with blue ribbons for the Navy, & red, for the Army. Journal entry, 26 June 1857 1860 Royal photographs sold to the public You need to have JavaScript enabled to view this clip. How Victoria and Albert became celebrities. The World's Most Photographed: Queen Victoria (BBC Two, 2014). A set of 14 photos, known as Carte de Visites, was created of the Royal Family. More than 60,000 copies were sold, despite having a hefty price tag of four pounds and four shillings. It marked the beginning of photographic celebrity culture. Women tried to replicate Victoria's fashions while some men copied Albert's hairstyle and moustache. The death of Albert You need to have JavaScript enabled to view this clip. Exploring the close relationship of Queen Victoria and John Brown. The World's Most Photographed: Queen Victoria, BBC Two, 2014 Prince Albert died at the age of 42. The Queen was inconsolable with grief and wore mourning for the rest of her life.

Victoria withdrew from public life after Albert's death, but kept up with her correspondence and continued to give audiences to ministers and official visitors. She decreed that monuments to honour Albert should be built across the country and Empire – including the Albert Memorial. She became very close to John Brown, a servant at Balmoral Castle, even though her children resented him. Victoria was called ‘Mrs Brown’ in the press but despite this she refused to give up her friendship. Have been unable to write my Journal since the day my beloved one left us, & with what a heavy broken heart I enter on a new year without him! Journal entry, 1 January 1862 February 1871 Victoria returns to the public eye Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 The Queen rides with her son to a thanksgiving service after he recovers from typhoid. The Queen was frantic with worry after her son and heir Edward fell ill with typhoid. It came a year after the founding of the French Third Republic, which had provoked anti-monarchist feeling in Britain. When Edward recovered, the Queen used a carefully orchestrated event to boost royal support.

She gave a public thanksgiving service and appeared to crowds on the Buckingham Palace balcony. It marked the queen's gradual return to public life. I went upstairs & stepped out on the Balcony with Beatrice & my 3 sons, being loudly cheered. Journal entry, 27 February 1871 2 January, 1877 The Queen who became an Empress Punch Magazine, Getty My thoughts much to taken up with the great event at Delhi today, & in India generally, where I am being proclaimed Empress of India. Journal entry, 1 January 1877 June 1887 A new favourite from India You need to have JavaScript enabled to view this clip. Victoria and her 'munshi'. Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled (BBC Four, 2014). The Queen received Indian servants to mark her Golden Jubilee year. She promoted one, Abdul Karim, to become her personal teacher or ‘Munshi’. Karim instructed Victoria in Urdu and Indian affairs and introduced her to curry. He was just 24 but Victoria was fascinated by India, the country she ruled but would never visit.

Politicians and members of the royal household resented his position but despite this, Victoria gave him honours and lands in India and took him with her on visits to the French Riviera. To-day is the day on which I have reigned longer, by a day, than any English Sovereign & the people wished to make all sorts of demonstrations. Journal entry, 23 September 1896 20 June, 1887 The Golden Jubilee defines 'brand Victoria' The Queen as she appeared in 1837 and 1887, from a colour supplement. Victoria's Jubilee bolstered her reputation. Her face was emblazoned on products from mugs to jars of mustard to mark the occasion. The Jubilee celebrations focussed on the Queen but also affirmed Britain's place as a global power. Soldiers from the British Empire marched in processions through London. Victoria held a feast, attended by 50 foreign kings and princes, along with the governing heads of Britain's overseas colonies and dominions. 50 years today since I came to the throne. God has mercifully sustained me through many great trials & sorrows.

Journal entry, 20 June 1887 22 June 1897 The Diamond Jubilee celebrates Empire You need to have JavaScript enabled to view this clip. The first moving footage of Queen Victoria in 1896. The World's Most Photographed: Queen Victoria (BBC Two, 2014) (silent footage). A day of global celebrations was planned for Victoria. The elderly Queen presided over a number of events though her mobility was limited. Victoria embraced technology by sending a telegram thanking her subjects across the empire. She attended a procession to St Paul's Cathedral. Street parties were held across Britain, while Sydney Harbour in Australia was lit up with illuminations. In India, 19,000 prisoners were granted a pardon. I started a message which was telegraphed throughout the whole Empire… ‘From my heart I thank my beloved people, May God bless them!’ Journal entry, 22 June 1897 22 January 1901 The end of the Victorian age Getty Victoria's funeral procession leaves Windsor Castle. Victoria died after weeks of ill health. Her son and heir Edward VII and her grandson Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany were at her deathbed.

The Queen ruled over an Empire that covered a quarter of the globe with 400 million subjects, but she never forgot the men who supported her. She requested that Albert's dressing gown and a plaster cast of his hand be placed in her coffin. She also asked for a lock of John Brown's hair and his picture to be put in her hand. Lastly she left orders that Abdul Karim be among the principal mourners at her funeral. She was an indomitable monarch who, even at the end, was adept at getting her own way. Queen Victoria | Information Facts Summary Queen Victoria’s Childhood By M. Foster Farley The plump toddler watering the flowers in the garden of her home at Kensington Palace was to overcome her early difficulties to become Britian’s great Queen-Empress. The name “Queen Victoria” conjures up a picture of a small, plump old lady in a black gown and lace cap, querulous and exacting, “not amused” at the antics of the younger generation, yearning always to be reunited by death with her dear departed Albert. It is hard to visualise her as a child.

Yet, of course, she was once young and not always the formidable matriarch and magnificent Queen-Empress of popular legend. In fact, her childhood did not really end until she was 18 years old, when she succeeded to the throne. Victoria was born on a bright spring day, 24th May 1819, at Kensington Palace, in the then quiet suburb of London. “Plumb as a partridge” was her father’s description of the baby, and she certainly bore a marked resemblance to her sturdy and robust Hanoverian ancestors who had ruled Great Britain for little more than a century at the time of her birth. By 1798 Victoria’s grandfather, King George III, had reigned for nearly sixty years, but he was now old and ailing. The symptoms of his terrible illness, porphyria, seemed to his doctors to be those of madness, and for years the King had be confined in Windsor Castle while his eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, ruled in his stead. Victoria’s father, Edward, Duke of Kent, was the old King’s fourth son, but since his three elder brothers were without heirs, there seemed a good chance that he might one day himself become King.

He had married late in life, when he was over 50, to supply an heir to the throne in the younger generation. Between the seven princes and five princesses of the royal family, not one of them had a legitimate child to carry on the succession, until 1819 saw three royal births within two months. The Prince of Wales had one child, the Princess Charlotte, who in time would have become Queen, but she died in childbirth in the autumn of 1817. It was her death which drove her uncles into marriage, to beget heirs to replace her in the line of succession. Indirectly, Charlotte herself had found her uncle Edward his bride: the Princess had married a minor German princeling, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and, deeply in love with him, suggested to the Duke of Kent that he would find an amiable wife in Leopold’s widowed sister, Victoire.

In fact, Edward and Victoire met in 1816, but then there seemed no urgency in the matter of their marriage, and there were too many difficulties in the way at the time for the Duke of Kent to urge his suit — not the least of them being that he was perfectly happy with his French mistress of some quarter of a century’s standing. But soon after Charlotte’s death, Edward proposed to Victoire, and the couple were married the following summer. Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was 31 years old when she married the English Duke, a pretty woman with dark hair and sparking eyes, with a fine figure and lively ways. A German Princess of ancient lineage but little fortune, she had been first married at the age of 17 to Prince Emich Charles of Leiningren, a widower in his late thirties. Together they had weathered the storms of the Napoleonic invasions of Germany, their tiny principality impoverished by the wars. Emich Charles died only a few months after the first defeat of Napoleon, in 1814, leaving his widow with two small children and the manifold demands of noblesse oblige to tax her wits and strength.

Her marriage with the Duke of Kent seemed to promise Victoire a brighter future, taking her away from her narrow existence in the village of Amorbach, with its careful economies and restricted social life, into one of the leading Courts of Europe, with the chance of one day becoming a queen. In the summer of 1818 Edward brought his bride to England, but then, after a few heady months in London “society”, it was back to Amorbach and the familiar daily round, for the Duke was so burdened with debts that he could not afford to keep up appearances as a royal personage in England. But he was determined that his child should be born in his native land, and by dint of borrowing from his long-suffering friends, he managed to bring his wife back to England in time for the baby’s birth. Edward was not disappointed that the baby was a girl and not the long-hoped-for male heir: “I am decidedly of the opinion that the decrees of Providence are at all times the wisest and the best,” he wrote to a friend. A month after her birth, the Kent baby was baptised.

After much debate in the royal family — in which not a little ill-feeling was aroused, she was named “Alexandrina Victoria”, after her chief godfather, the Russian Tsar Alexander, and her mother. The name “Victoria: was then completely unknown in England, though it had long been in use in the forms “Victoire” and “Victoria” on the Continent. For the first few years the child was known as “Drina”, but in one of her first copy-books is limned the name “Victoria” by which she came to be known in later childhood. Despite the fact that the Kents had married “for convenience” their union proved remarkably happy. Edward had never known the comforts of a settled home in England, nor had he ever enjoyed so much approval from his family as this new domesticity brought. For Victoire, the change in her circumstances was delightful: with her new baby, and with a husband who doted on her, she was well content. Unfortunately, however, this happy state of affairs did not last long. The family moved down to Sidmouth in Devon in December 1819, and there, on 23rd January 1820, Edward, Duke of Kent, suddenly died.

He, who had no serious illness in his life, caught a cold and took no special care of himself, so that it turned to pneumonia. In abject grief and almost penniless, the widowed Duchess allowed her brother Leopold to make all the arrangements for her return to London. For months she remained in seclusion, at Kensington or at Leopold’s house at Claremont in Surrey. It was a testing-time for too, in that she had to decide whether to return to the familiar German countryside which had been her home for any or to remain in England, where she was still a comparative stranger. But the fact that her baby was now third in line to the throne (for George III had died only days after his son Edward) steeled her to her duty: for the sake of the baby’s future inheritance, she would stay in England and bring up her child as an Englishwoman, ready to succeed to the throne. The new King George IV had had very little affection for his late brother, so unlike him in character and principles, and he was not enamoured of the idea of having to contribute to the support of his widowed sister-in-law.

Fortunately for Victoire, she had her own brother Leopold at hand, for he had decided to make his home in England after the death of his wife Charlotte, and out of his own allowance he provided most of the Duchess’s income. Many years later, Queen Victoria gathered together her earliest memories. Her infancy was people with kind faces: her mother, always anxious and prudent for the child’s health; her half-sister Feodora, ten years her senior but her constant companion; old Baroness Spath, the Duchess’s German lady-in-waiting; the adoring nurse Mrs. Brock, replaced when Victoria was 4 years old by Fraulein Lehzen, Feodora’s governess. There were numerous aunts and uncles of the Royal family: her favourites were kind Aunt Adelaide, Duchess of Clarence, and her bluff husband William, struggling to hold back, in polite company, those rough seamen’s oath which he had learned in his roistering youth, as well as the devoted Uncle Leopold from Germany.

On the other hand, there was “Uncle Sussex” who lived next door and who, it was always threatened, would be angry if his niece’s raised voice reached his ears; and the sinister “Uncle Cumberland”, next in line to the throne after the little Victoria, who, it was rumoured, was not incapable of “removing” so irritating a small rival to his aspirations to the crown. “We lived in a very plain manner”, reminisced the Queen later, “breakfast was at half past eight, luncheon at half past one, dinner at seven – to which I came generally (when it was not regular large dinner-party) — eating my bread and milk out of a small silver basin.

Tea was only allowed as a great treat in my later years.” A few pen-pictures of the young Victoria were written by contemporaries: the plump toddler attempting to water the flowers in the Palace gardens but pouring most of the contents of her watering-can over her shoes; a straight backed infant atop an ambling donkey, with a sweet-faced elder sister to guide her; a solemn little girl at church at Esher, so wrapped in her own thoughts that she failed to notice the threatening bumble-bee buzzing inside the rim of her bonnet. Victoria was no model child. She had her fair share of the royal temper, screaming and stamping when she was crossed, throwing a pair of scissors at Lehzen in a right royal rage. “When you are naughty, you make me and yourself very unhappy,” her mother rebuked her on one occasion. “No, Mamma,” corrected the child, “not me, mot myself, but you!” All her life the future Queen would be stubborn and obstinate, but when she became calm after an uncontrolled fit of temper, she would always be contrite and wheedling for forgiveness.

She was bright enough, quick at her lessons and shrewd in personal relationships: when her uncle George IV whisked her off to hear the band at Windsor one day, and gave her choice of a “number”, the artful child requested “God Save the King”. But Queen Victoria’s childhood was not idyllic by any means. As she grew up, she came to realise how narrow the circle admitted to Kensington Palace; she agreed with her half-sister that only at Claremont, on their holiday, had she been completely happy. The darkest shadow over her young life was one John Conroy, the Comptroller of the Duchess’s household at Kensington and the virtual controller of all the Duchess’s attitudes and aspirations. Conroy had been the Duke of Kent’s aid-de-camp, a military man who made more success of his social studies than he ever had of active service. He was a flamboyantly good-looking Irishman, possessed of an ample measure of charm and an overweening ambition. The Duchess of Kent was no simpleton, but she was used to having her life ruled by men and could not accustom herself to having to make independent decisions.

A better guide would have been her brother Leopold but, he, after a few years of carefully supervision of his sister’s affairs, took a mistress of whom she could not approve, which drove a wedge between them; then, as he tired of inactivity in England, he began to travel abroad more frequently. Finally, in 1831, he departed permanently to take up the crown of the newly-created kingdom of Belgium. Left alone in England, daunted by her responsibility as mother of a future Queen, Victoire of Kent relied increasingly on the soothing blandishments of her Comptroller. It was Conroy who insisted that Victoria should be strictly guarded, playing on her mother’s fear of a fatal “accident” at the hands of the Duke of Cumberland. It was Conroy who urged a suitable match for Feodora with a German prince, when it seemed likely that the widower King George IV himself might offer for her hand (thus snatching the little Victoria’s chance of a crown by begetting heirs of his own).

Conroy could see himself as the chief adviser to the future Queen Victoria, the father-figure who would be the girls éminence grise, the “power behind the throne” of her reign, and he did all he could to prepare his glorious future. Having made himself indispensable to the Duchess by his administration of her household and his advice to her as to the care of her child was not averse to a little more personal interest too: Conroy, a married man, never became the Duchess’s lover — she was far to circumspect and he was far too fearful of scandal for such a situation to develop, but he knew hot to make himself agreeable to a lonely widow. The child Victoria once witnessed “some familiarities” between her mother and Conroy and prattled of them to lady-in-waiting Spath. When the horrified Baroness rebuked her mistress, she received short shrift and was sent packing by Conroy, of course, to the safe distance of Feodora’s new home in Germany. Sir John could not risk malicious gossip: if it were ever thought that the Duchess of Kent was an unfit moral influence on her daughter, the child might be swept off to other guardians.

In 1827, the heir to the throne, the Duke of York, died, followed in 1830 by his brother King George IV. Now only the frail life of King William IV, already in his sixties, stood between the Princess Victoria and the Throne. By 1830 the Duchess of Kent — or rather, Conroy — had plans already in train in case the princess should succeed while still a minor. By proving to an invited committee of prelates that her child was well grounded in her education and religion, the Duchess of Kent won wide approval; it was a short step to gaining recognition, a few months later that she, Victoire, should be her daughter’s regent should Victoria come to the throne before she reached the age of eighteen. In fact, by the modern standards of royal training, Victoria’s education was somewhat deficient. Lehzen, and the visiting tutors who were brought in, gave the child a good grounding in English, French and German (though her Latin, which she began at 8 years old, never progressed very far). More interesting to the Princess were her music and dancing lessons, and she actually chose to learn Italian from her passion for the Italian opera.

Her reading in history, however, was prodigious: at 15 she was immersed in Clarendon’s dry History of the Rebellion and Sully’s Memoirs, so that though she was taught no political theory or philosophy, Victoria came to have a good appreciation of the mistakes and achievements of past rulers. Apart from her tutors, Victoria’s contacts with the outside world were few in her early years. Conroy induced the Duchess of Kent to discourage visits from the royal family, who might, he feared, either woo Victoria’s affections away from her mother or enquire too closely of his own influence. Occasionally, the Princess might be allowed to attend a children’s ball or a little girl might be brought in to play with her (“You must not touch those, they are mine,” declared the Princess to a child who wanted to play with the royal toys, “and I may call you Jane, but you must not call me Victoria!”) but usually she had only the company of the Conroy girls, Jane and Victoire, and so much had she come to hate their father that they never became her friends. How soon Victoria realised how baneful was the influence of Sir John Conroy in her life is hard to say.

But certainly, once she had come to realise her own significance and her destiny, it would not be too difficult for even a child to see through his wiles. It has often been affirmed that she never knew for years that she would one day be Queen, and did not understand why men stared at her in the Park, sweeping off their hats and bowing. If so, there could well be a good deal of truth in the oft-told story of Lehzen’s slipping a family tree of the royal dynasty into the child’s history book in 1830: when Victoria realised the significance of her own place in the royal family, she pondered “I am nearer to the throne than I thought.” Then she said the memorable words, “I will be good.” As presumptive heir to William IV from 1830, Victoria became an important personage in the Kingdom. Her mother (that is, Conroy) was careful to keep the Princess’s name totally disassociated from that of the King; while William IV was reviled throughout the nation for his opposition to the Parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832, the Duchess, via Conroy, courted the Radical and Whig politicians of the Opposition.

While stones were thrown at the royal carriage in London streets, Victoire and Victoria were everywhere cheered as they made a summer “progress” through the provinces. As these journeys continued, every summer, the King became increasingly resentful. In petty spite, he forbade the firing of gun salutes at the appearances of his niece and her mother. At first Victoria found these journeys enthralling, a wonderful escape from Kensington. When she first left London for a tour of Wales in 1982, she began a journal in a book which the Duchess had given her. So fascinating was the coach ride and so tempting the blank pages of the diary that for the first few days she would record the exact time of her arrival and departure at the stages along the route: “Twenty minutes to nine. We have just changed horses at Barnet, a very pretty little town. Five minutes past half past nine. We have just changed horses at St. Albans. The situation is very pretty and there is a beautiful old abbey there. Five minutes past ten. The country is beautiful here: they have begun to cut the corn; it is so golden and fine that I think they will have a good harvest . . . A quarter to eleven.

We have just changed horses at Dunstable . . .” With these naive beginnings, the future Queen instituted the great disciplined life-work of her journals, in which, for the first time, a British monarch recorded conversations, impressions and feelings to the eternal benefit of her biographers. But by 1835 the strenuous journeys had lost their appeal. Conroy had planned a series of visits to the great houses of the aristocrats very much to the advantage of the Duchess’s popularity. Victoria balked at the idea. So violent was the quarrel between the Princess and her mother over this issue that the Duchess had to resort to writing a letter to her daughter, for she could not control her anger in conversation. She demanded that Victoria recognise her responsibilities to show herself to “the people”: “I must tell you, dearest love, if your conversation with me could be know, that you had not the energy to undertake the journey, or that your views were not enlarged enough to grasp the benefits arising from it, then you would fall in the estimation of the people in this country.” Victoria conceded the victory, but throughout the “progress” she complained vehemently of head-ache and back-ache and other ailments.

Only a few weeks after the family settled at Ramsgate to recuperate from the journey, Victoria fell really ill, most probably of a severe case of tonsillitis. Having recovered from a fever, she was still very week for more than a month, losing a good deal of weight and continually complaining of cold, through bad circulation. Sir John Conroy was not the man to miss such a chance of taking advantage of the girl’s debility. The Princess’ antipathy to him was becoming ever more apparent, and he had by then given up the hope of obtaining future power through her affections. While Victoria was still weak from her illness, he put before her the demand that he should become her secretary when she succeeded to the throne. He actually produced a document for her to sign, binding her to the promise. Victoria firmly resisted. Despite her physical frailty, she had the strength of her hatred of Sir John to give her resolution. At the same time, she had the encouragement of Baroness Lehzen, her governess, who was always her ally against Conroy. For years this woman had attempted to shield her charge from him and to open the Princess’s eyes to the scope of his enormities.

Despite Lehzen’s power over Victoria, which was grounded on sincere affection and bulwarked on common cause against the enemy, Conroy dare not act against the governess, to oust her as he had the lady-in-waiting Spath. He knew only too well that Lehzen enjoyed the confidence of both King William IV and King Leopold of the Belgians, the Duchess’s brother. Infuriated by this impotence, he only made matters worst by continually sniping at Lehzen in Victoria’s presence. Nevertheless, the girl’s life was not completely unhappy, and for quite long periods Kensington Palace could be free of raised voices and sudden bursts of tears. Victoria would spend many quiet hours with Lehzen, dressing her large collection of dolls as characters from history or fabricating tiny trinket boxes from odds and ends of silk and coloured beads. There was a stream of letters from Feodora to cheer Victoria, with news of her growing family, or the screeds of advice from her Uncle Leopold, who fancied himself as mentor to the future Queen.

Although the Duchess had not encouraged visits from her own German family in the early years, she had made sure that Victoria learned a large measure of devotion to her unseen aunts and uncles to make up for her deprivation of closer ties. When the Princess was in her early teens, several of the German relations were invited to Kensington Palace, including, in the summer of 1836, her cousins Ernest and Albert, sons of Victoire’s eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Victoria was open to teenage enthusiasms (for years she went into raptures of the singing of the young and beautiful Giulia Grisi, who sang her favourite Italian operas so well) and she threw herself whole-heartedly into entertaining her cousins and could not sufficiently praise their looks and accomplishments. However, King William was not so rapturous. He had dark suspicions that the Duchess, or the King of the Belgians (whom he had never liked), was angling for a Coburg match for Victoria, which was certainly not to his tastes. His reception of the Prince of Orange and his eligible sons was timed to coincide with that of the Coburgs.

For once, Victoria did not side with her English uncle against her mother, and she assured her Uncle Leopold that Ernest and Albert were perfectly to her taste while the Oranges were detestable. By the middle of the 1836, relations between the King and his sister-in-law were at breaking point. Matters came to a head in August when William IV openly insulted the Duchess at a public dinner in honour of his birthday: “I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer [when Victoria would gain her majority], after which period, in the event of my death, no regency would take place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the royal authority to the personal exercise of that young lady . . . the heiress presumptive of the crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me [Victoire], who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would be placed.” It was a bombshell. From that moment Conroy became desperate — and Victoria more resolute.

Recognising that the future Queen would never willingly allow in him any power in her future government, Sir John began to make out a case for her unworthiness to govern and need for guardians. He was forever harping on her emotional instability and inciting her mother repeatedly to draw attention to her faults. But though the Princess was certainly unbalanced in her emotions after such years of strain at home, she was by no means unfit to rule. And above all, she had the will to do her duty, to “be good.” On 24th May 1837 Victoria celebrated her 18th birthday. At last she was free of the impending regency. But she had had a narrow escape: by that date her Uncle William was already close to death. Conroy panicked. In the last days of William IV’s life, he stepped up his campaign. He tried to convince Lords Liverpool and Melbourne, the leading politicians of the day, that Victoria was totally unfit to govern — but they were not taken in. He put pressure on the Duchess of Kent and her son Charles of Leiningren, Victoria’s half-brother, to force the Princess into signing away her independence. But already it was too late.

King Leopold, realising now how precarious was his niece’s position, sent over his own trusted adviser, Baron Stockmar, both to report to him on the situation and to attempt to hold it in check. At last Conroy ruined everything. He told the Duchess, “if Princess Victoria will not listen to reason, she must be coerced.” Victoire was already becoming apprehensive: realising that she had lost her daughter’s trust, she was now hesitant to take any more drastic measures. Even Charles Leiningen, formerly a pawn of Conroy’s by his reliance on financial loans, saw that Sir John had gone too far and advised his mother not to obey him. For the last few days of King William’s life, Kensington was in a state of uneasy truce. At 6 o’clock on the morning of 20th June 1837 the Duchess of Kent woke her daughter with the news that William IV was dead. All her life Victoria had been used to receiving visitors in the company of her mother; now, for the first time, she went alone into the room where the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain were waiting.

All through that day of mixed grief and triumph, Victoria undertook her first duties alone, emphasising that word in her account of the day in her journal with immense relish. That night, for the first time, she did not sleep in her mother’s bedroom. Victoria was no longer a child. She was now a woman and a Queen. All her accounts were paid in full: Lehzen became her closest attendant, remaining her confidante; her mother, though treated with deference in public, was shunned at home — often, in reply to the Duchess’s request to see her daughter, Victoria would send a note with the one word “Busy”; Conroy was forbidden access to the Queen’s private rooms at Buckingham Palace. In the years to come, it was obvious to courtiers that Victoria had more regard for her former governess than for her mother, for the Duchess would complain of such treatment to all who would listen. Conroy stayed in her service and, in 1839, was involved in a scandal at Court which seriously threatened the Queen’s popularity in the country.

It was suspected that he had made a young lady-in-waiting pregnant: Victoria hounded the unfortunate woman mercilessly — though in fact Lady Flora Hastings, an old enemy from Kensington days, was suffering from an incurable illness which merely gave her body the appearance of pregnancy. The ensuing furore gave Victoria’s advisers a chance to press for Conroy’s resignation. It was to be many years, however, before the Duchess of Kent regained her daughter’s affection. When the Queen married her Coburg cousin Albert, in 1840, Victoire mourned that now she would never be “all in all” to her daughter. But gradually with her new emotional balance, Victoria would look more kindly on her mother and recognise the good intentions which had prompted her to such unwitting former unkindness. As a doting grandmother, the Duchess found her ideal role, and one which her daughter could grant without loss of dignity. By the time of her death in 1861, Victoire had Victoria’s complete devotion. The Queen mourned her mother in typically hysterical fashion, bitterly regretting the years of their estrangement.

Many Kings and Queens of England have had unhappier childhoods than Victoria; Elizabeth I, for example, when she was repudiated by her father and left to live in poverty, when she first learned to fear the headsman’s axe and the marriage-bed; or Charles II, amid war and political intrigues, with fears for his life at the hands of his father’s enemies. Perhaps it is a prerequisite of a great monarch to have a previous tempering in the fires of adversity. Victoria’s early misfortune certainly did not mar her suitability for the throne. [tabby title=’More Queen Victoria Articles’][srp widget_title=”Queen Victoria Articles” widget_css_id=”testing-grid” post_type=”post” post_content_type=”content” post_content_length=”50″ post_content_length_mode=”words” post_title_length=”12″ post_title_length_mode=”words” post_date=”no” category_include=”148″ post_offset=”2″ string_break=” More…” layout_mode=”multi_column” srp post_limit=”200″ display_thumbnail=”no” vf_everything=”no”][tabbyending] Copyright 2014 British Heritage.

Queen Victoria | Britroyals Born: May 24, 1819 at Kensington Palace Parents: Edward, Duke of Kent (son of George III) and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld Relation to Elizabeth II: great-great-grandmother House of: Hanover Ascended to the throne: June 20, 1837 aged 18 years Crowned: June 28, 1838 at Westminster Abbey Married: Albert, son of Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Children: Four sons including Edward VII, and five daughters Died: January 22, 1901 at Osborne, Isle of Wight, aged 81 years, 7 months, and 29 days Buried at: Frogmore Reigned for: 63 years, 7 months, and 2 days Succeeded by: her son Edward VII Named Alexandrina Victoria but known as Victoria, she was the only child of Edward Duke of Kent and Victoria Saxe-Coburg. Her father died when she was 1 year old and her domineering mother kept her away from her �wicked� uncles Kings George and William.

She had a sheltered upbringing, and came to the throne shortly after her 18th birthday in 1837 on the death of her uncle William IV who had no surviving legitimate children. She was at the time unmarried and not crowned until June 28, 1838. In February 1840 she married her cousin and love of her life Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The British Empire was at the height of its power and she ruled over 450 million people, one quarter of the world�s population and approximately one quarter of the work�s landmass. It stretched so far around the globe from Canada to the Caribbean, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand that it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. India was Jewel in the Crown and in 1876 she was given the title Empress of India. The Victorian era was a time of immense industrial, political, trade, scientific and military progress for Great Britain. In her early years she was dependent on her Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and her uncle King Leopold of Belgium for advice, but increasingly her husband Albert became her main advisor.

He was involved in organising the Great Exhibition in 1851, and persuaded her to take a more constitutional role in leaving the rule of the nation and Empire to Parliament. She was strong willed and her relations with her prime ministers ranged from the affectionate (Melbourne and Disraeli) to the stormy (Peel, Palmerston, and Gladstone). Victoria and Albert had four sons, five daughters and 42 grandchildren who were married to royalty across Europe making her the �grandmother of Europe�. Her daughter Victoria was mother of the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, and her grand-daughter Alexandria was the wife of Nicholas II Emperor and last Tzar of Russia. The death of Albert from typhoid in 1861 plunged Victoria into mourning and she withdrew almost completely from public life spending her time at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Osborne house on the Isle of Wight where she spent time with her favourite Scottish servant John Brown. This encouraged republican sentiments and she was the target of several assassination attempts. However she kept control of affairs, refusing her son Edward, Prince of Wales (who became Edward VII) any active role.

Her golden jubilee in 1887 and diamond jubilee in 1897 regained her popular support and matriarchal role as Queen of the nation and Empire. She died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901, and was buried at Windsor. Her reign lasted 63 years and 7 months which is the second longest of any British monarch.

Queen Victoria's Signature Quotes: �Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves� - Queen Victoria �Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife� - Queen Victoria� (she had 9 children) �The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write or join in checking this mad, wicked folly of �Woman�s Rights� with all its attendant horrors on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety� � Queen Victoria (she was against women�s rights despite being matriarch to nearly a quarter of the world�s population) �The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.� - Queen Victoria Timeline for Queen Victoria Queen Victoria 1837-1901 AD Victoria wearing her small diamond crown Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Victoria, born May 24, 1819, was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

Edward died when Victoria was but eight months old, upon which her mother enacted a strict regimen that, shunned the courts of Victoria's uncles, George IV and William IV. She married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840; the union produced four sons and five daughters. She died at eighty-one years of age on January 22, 1901, after a reign of sixty-three years. She ascended the throne upon the death of William IV. Barely eighteen, she refused any further influence from her domineering mother and ruled in her own stead. Popular respect for the Crown was at low point at her coronation, but the modest and straightforward young Queen won the hearts of her subjects. She wished to be informed of political matters, although she had no direct input in policy decisions. The Reform Act of 1832 had set the standard of legislative authority residing in the House of Lords, with executive authority resting within a cabinet formed of members of the House of Commons; the monarch was essentially removed from the loop. She respected and worked well with Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister in the early years of her reign, and England grew both socially and economically.

Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, who replaced Melbourne as the dominant male influence in Victoria's life. She was thoroughly devoted to him and completely submitted to his will. The public, however, was not enamored with the German prince; he was excluded from holding any official political position, was never granted a title of peerage and was named Prince Consort only after 17 years of marriage. Victoria did nothing without her husband's approval. His interests in art, science and industry spurred him to organize the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, a highly profitable industrial convention. He used the proceeds, some £186,000, to purchase lands in Kensington for the establishment of several cultural and industrial museums. His death from typhoid in 1861 deeply affected Victoria's psyche - she went into seclusion for more than 25 years, not emerging until the Golden Jubilee of 1887, the celebration of her fiftieth year on the throne. An entire generation was raised without ever having seen the face of their Queen. The reform of government allowed England to avoid the politically tumultuous conditions sweeping across Europe in the mid-nineteenth century.

The continent experienced the growing pains of conservatism, liberalism and socialism, and the nationalistic struggle for political unification. England focused on developing industry and trade and expanding its imperial reach; during the reign of Victoria, the empire doubled in size, encompassing Canada, Australia, India and various locales in Africa and the South Pacific. Her reign was almost free of war, with an Irish uprising (1848), the Boer Wars in South Africa (1881, 1899-1902) and an Indian rebellion (1857) being the only exceptions. Victoria was named Empress of India in 1878. England avoided continental conflict from 1815 through 1914, the lone exception being the Crimean War (1853-56). The success in avoiding European entanglements was, in large part, due to the marriage of Victoria's children: either directly or by marriage, she was related to the royal houses of Germany, Russia, Greece, Rumania, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Belgium.

Nicholas II of Russia was married to Victoria's granddaughter Alexandra, earning him the nickname "dear Nicky", and the dreaded Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was her grandson "Willy". During her seclusion, she ruled her family with the iron hand that was denied her by the English constitutional arrangement. The old political parties of England, the Whigs and the Tories transformed during the reign of Victoria. John Peel's support of the Corn Law Repeal splintered the Tories into two camps. Peel's supporters joined with Whigs to create the Liberal Party and the anti-Peel Tories became the Conservative Party. Unlike most of Europe, English politicians agreed on the larger issues of governmental structure and political ideology, but differed on the smaller issues of policy practicality and implementation. Liberals represented traders and manufacturers, with Conservatives representing the landed gentry. Victoria's role after this political realignment was one of mediation between departing and arriving Prime Ministers (the Prime Minister was chosen by the party in control of the House of Commons). She was particularly fond of Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who, by linking Victoria to the expansion of the empire, garnered respect for the monarchy that had been lacking since Victoria's seclusion.

She despised the other prominent Prime Minister of the day, the Liberal William Gladstone, whose party dominated Parliament from 1846-1874. Even in the throes of grief during her seclusion, Victoria gave close attention to daily business and administration, at a time when England was evolving politically and socially. Legislation passed in the era included the Mines Act (1842), The Education Act (1870), The Public Health and Artisan's Dwelling Acts (1875), Trade Union Acts (1871 and 1876) and Reform Acts in 1867 and 1884 which broadened suffrage. The national pride connected with the name of Victoria - the term Victorian England, for example, stemmed from the Queen's ethics and personal tastes, which generally reflected those of the middle class. The Golden Jubilee brought her out of her shell, and she again embraced public life. She toured English possessions and even visited France (the first English monarch to do so since the coronation of Henry VI in 1431). When she died of old age, an entire era died with her.

Victoria's long reign witnessed an evolution in English politics and the expansion of the British Empire, as well as political and social reforms on the continent. France had known two dynasties and embraced Republicanism, Spain had seen three monarchs and both Italy and Germany had united their separate principalities into national coalitions. Even in her dotage, she maintained a youthful energy and optimism that infected the English population as a whole. Lytton Strachey chronicled her last days with the sentimentality that had developed by the end of her reign, in the biography, Queen Victoria: " By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an effort of will. On January 14, she had at Osbourne an hour's interview with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few days before. She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when the audience was over, there was a collapse.

On the following day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England. But after that there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last optimism of those about her break down. The brain was failing and life was gently slipping away. Her family gathered round her; for a little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, she died." Victoria's was the longest reign in English history. Copyright ©2011 Britannia.com, LLC Questions? Comments! Queen Victoria - Biography of the British Monarch By Robert McNamara The Long Reign of Victoria: Born into the British Royal Family in 1819, the girl christened Alexandrina Victoria was an unlikely successor to the throne. And at the time there was serious doubt about the future of the monarchy itself. As her uncles had no legitimate heir, it became clear that the granddaughter of George III would one day become Queen.

With the death of her uncle, William IV, Victoria became queen at the age of 18. She would go on to rule Great Britain for more than 63 years. She died in 1901, with her lengthy and influential reign having spanned much of the 19th century. Significance in History: It is probably impossible to overestimate Victoria’s importance to the history of the 1800s. Indeed, the age itself has become known as the Victorian era, both for the supremacy of the British Empire during her reign, and because of her personal reputation. “The sun never sets on the British Empire” became a popular saying during the reign of Victoria. continue reading below our video Profile of Queen Victoria Personal Life and Family: Victoria, who was herself primarily of German descent, married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (now part of Germany) in 1840. Victoria and Albert had nine children, but the marriage came to a tragic end when Albert died in 1861, at the age of 42. For many years after Albert’s death Victoria lived in relative seclusion, which alienated her from her subjects.

In later years she did appear more in public, and eventually she became popular. However, she continued to wear the black of mourning for the rest of her life, which no doubt contributed to her reputation of being stern and humorless. Accomplishments: Victoria took an active involvement in the affairs of state, and was far from being a figurehead as queen. She strongly believed that Britain should rule much of the world as an empire. And she worked with two prime ministers of great prominence: Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone . Indicating her role as an imperial leader, her official title as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland was amended in the late 1870s to also include the title Empress of India. Legacy: When Victoria was born the British Royal Family was at a low point, but her successful reign, which corresponded to a time of great power and prestige of the British Empire, restored the monarchy to widespread acceptance in the eyes of the public. The term “Victorian” often refers to a priggish attitude toward sexuality or morality, though it is also applied widely to refer to a period of literature, art, clothing, and even architecture. Victoria is one of the rare people whose very name defines their time.

A Monarch Who Could be Seen: Victoria’s reign corresponded with the dawn of photography, and images of the queen could be seen widely by her subjects for the first time in history. That may have contributed to her popularity. About That Famous Quote: Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Victoria is, “We are not amused.” Numerous accounts have her saying that, usually in response to something indecent being said or done, but there is no proof that she actually ever said it. However, she was known to speak at times in a formal manner, referring to herself and members of her court in the third person, so it is something she may have said.

Question: In which year was British monarch Queen Victoria born?
Answer: 1819