Victoria Becomes Queen, 1837 Victoria Becomes Queen, 1837 She became England's longest reigning monarch, her offspring governed Europe, she gave her name to an era, but she was only a teenager when she ascended the throne of the world's mightiest empire. Victoria with son Edward (the future King) and daughter Vickie (the future mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany) The British monarchy had suffered bad times, discredited by the madness of George III (1760-1820), the excesses of George IV (1820-1830), and the unimpressive reign of William IV (1830-37). Victoria was William's niece and had been designated the heir to the childless king from her birth. On Tuesday June 20, 1837 the king died of pneumonia. Awakened at dawn Victoria lived with her mother in Kenningston Palace, London (the same palace Lady Di lived in before her death). It was there that the eighteen-year-old was told of her Uncle's death. Victoria refers often in her diary to seeing her visitors "alone" or "quite alone".

This is an indication of the teenager establishing her independence with her ascendancy to the throne. Victoria's mother (the Duchess of Kent) had raised Victoria in a cloistered and highly controlled environment (the two in fact shared the same bedroom). The mother had hoped to extend her control once her child became Queen and had lobbied unsuccessfully to be named Regent. Victoria's pointed references to seeing her visitors "alone" reveal that the young girl will be charting her own course as Queen. We can only imagine her mother's chagrin when Victoria tells her that her presence will not be required during her various meetings that day. Victoria recorded the day in her diary: ADVERTISMENT "Tuesday, 20th June 1837 I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me that 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 (the Lord Chamberlain) 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. Lord Conyngham knelt down and kissed my hand, at the same time delivering to me the official announcement of the poor King's demise. The Archbishop then told me that the Queen was desirous that he should come and tell me the details of the last moments of my poor good Uncle; he said that he had directed his mind to religion, and had died in a perfectly happy, quiet state of mind, and was quite prepared for his death. He added that the King s sufferings at the last were not very great but that there was a good deal of uneasiness. Lord Conyngham, whom I charged to express my feelings of condolence and sorrow to the poor Queen, returned directly to Windsor. I then went to my room and dressed.

Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfill my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good-will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have. Breakfasted, during which time good, faithful Stockmar [Baron Stockmar - a friend] came and talked to me. Wrote a letter to dear Uncle Leopold [King of the Belgians] and a few words to dear good Feodore [Victoria's stepsister]. Received a letter from Lord Melbourne [the Prime Minister] in which he said he would wait upon me at a little before 9. At 9 came Lord Melbourne, whom I saw in my room, and of course quite alone, as I shall always do all my Ministers. He kissed my hand, and I then acquainted him that it had long been my intention to retain him and the rest of the present Ministry at the head of affairs, and that it could not be in better hands than his. He again then kissed my hand.

He then read to me the Declaration which I was to read to the Council, which he wrote himself, and which is a very fine one. I then talked with him some little time longer, after which he left me. He was in full dress. I like him very much and feel confidence in him. He is a very straightforward, honest, clever and good man. I then wrote a letter to the Queen. At about 11 Lord Melbourne came again to me, and spoke to me upon various subjects. At about half-past 11 I went downstairs and held a Council in the red saloon. Victoria in the 1880s I went in of course quite alone and remained seated the whole time. My two Uncles, the Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex, and Lord Melbourne conducted me. The Declaration, the various forms, the swearing in of the Privy Councillors of which there were a great number present, and the reception of some of the Lords of the Council, previous to the Council, in an adjacent room (likewise alone) I subjoin here. I was not at all nervous and had the satisfaction of hearing that people were satisfied with what I had done and how I had done it.

Received after this, audiences of Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Albemarle (Master of the Horse), and the Archbishop of Canterbury, all in my room and alone. Saw Stockmar. Saw Clark, whom I named my Physician. Saw Mary. Wrote to Uncle Ernest. Saw Ernest Hohenlohe, who brought me a kind and very feeling letter from the poor Queen. I feel very much for her, and really feel that the poor good King was always so kind personally to me, that I should be ungrateful were I not to recollect it and feel grieved at his death. The poor Queen is wonderfully composed now, I hear. Wrote my journal. Took my dinner upstairs alone. Went downstairs. Saw Stockmar. At about twenty minutes to 9 came Lord Melbourne and remained till near 10. I had a very important and a very comfortable conversation with him. Each time I see him I feel more confidence in him; I find him very kind in his manner too. Saw Stockmar. Went down and said good-night to Mamma, etc.

My dear Lehzen [Victoria's governess as a child] will always remain with me as my friend, but will take no situation about me, and I think she is right." References: Benson, Arthur Christopher and Viscount Eshers, ed. The Letters of Queen Victoria 1837-1861 (1907); Erickson, Carolly, Her Little Majesty: The Life of Queen Victoria (1997) How To Cite This Article: "Victoria Becomes Queen, 1837," EyeWitness to History, (1999). Baron Stockmar, a German nobleman, brokered the marriage between Victoria and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. 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 Queen Victoria The Life & Issue of Queen Victoria by Ilana Miller In 1817, a great calamity befell the British Royal Family. The heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte, was dead after giving birth to a stillborn child. The daughter of the infamous Prinny, soon to be George IV, Charlotte was the hope of the nation. She was married to a handsome prince, Leopold of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld (later King Leopold I of Belgium), and she was extremely well-liked. This kind of popularity was a major accomplishment for the Royal Family, and, unfortunately, the same could not be said for Prinny's eleven other brothers and sisters. More importantly none of these siblings, including seven brothers, had had legitimate issue to succeed to the throne after the death of Charlotte. The race was on. George's middle-aged brothers scrambled to make legitimate alliances, and thence, to produce - mostly so that Parliament would pay their overwhelming debts.

Two years later, the race was just barely won by Edward, Duke of Kent, who, married to Victoria of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld (the sister of Leopold), finally give the nation the much desired heir -- little Alexandrina Victoria, in 1819. Drina, as she was known, grew up in a fatherless household, (Edward died before she was two.) where she was smothered and bullied by her mother, the duchess, but brought up lovingly by Baroness Lenhzen, her nanny/governess. In 1820, George III (The Madness of King George) finally died after a long and tumultuous reign. His son, George succeeded him. Very little marks George's tenure. He was far more interesting when he was the Prince Regent. He is best known for his mistresses, his social life, and his tremendously disastrous marriage (which produced Charlotte) rather than for his governance. The nation actually drew a sigh of relief when George died in 1830. George was succeeded by his brother, William.

William IV was an ignorant, tactless, but good natured man, who had spent most of his life in the navy and had the tattoos and vocabulary to prove it. He also had a mistress, Mrs. Dorothy Jordan (the Mrs. was honorary), and with her, ten little Fitzclarences. In the race to produce an heir, Mrs. Jordan was summarily jettisoned, and William was able to convince Adelaide of Saxe Meiningin, to marry him. Considering the thirty year age difference, the illegitimate children falling out of the bushes, and William's recorded unattractiveness, Adelaide must have been someone more imbued with a sense of royal duty than, even, Queen Mary. Be that as it may, Adelaide tried desperately to have living children - all those Fitzclarences seemed to be a living reproach to her. She never succeeded. Adelaide was a good aunt to Drina. She thought her a nice little girl, and would have loved to see more of her. The Duchess of Kent, however, would have none of this. She was determined to keep sweet little Drina away from the dissolute Hanoverians . . . .

William, whose reign began with great promise (any reign after George's could start with nothing but), ended ignominiously, and without fanfare. He died in 1837, with the country, again, relieved. It was now over and the sons and daughters of King George III, would no longer be the primary worry of the nation. Little Drina, now Victoria, became Queen, and celebrated this milestone by taking her bed out of her mother's room, and announcing that from now on she would sleep alone. She did, when awakened and told of the death of her Uncle, say , "I will be good", but most historians don't think she was speaking about eating her vegetables or getting to bed on time. Rather, they believe she was speaking about the basic fact that she was determined to be a good ruler. A marked contrast, then, to her Uncles and Grandfather. And so she was. Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, the longest reign by a British Monarch. She was also probably one of the most beloved of them, a true symbol of the nation.

She had only just reached her majority when she became queen, and was, naturally, seeking advice outisde the confines of her smothering "handlers". That advice came in the form of Victoria's first romantic attachment, Lord Melbourne. Lord M., the unhappy husband of Lady Caroline Lamb, was Victoria's first prime minister. Almost from the beginning, dear Lord M. took the job of molding the young Queen, and it was, for him, a labor of love. Many compare it to the role that Winston Churchill played for the young Queen Elizabeth II. Lord M., however, was more attached, and stepped back regretfully when dear Albert came on the scene. She married her beloved Albert (also of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, and who was her first cousin) in 1840. Unlike her predecessors, Victoria had no problem producing the heir and many spares. She and Albert had nine children and more than forty-four grandchildren. The Queen's first child was the Princess Royal, Victoria (1840-1901). She was an incredibly brilliant child, the apple of her father's eye, who far outshone her brothers and sisters.

She was given a liberal education under the benign care of her father and excelled in all her lessons. A difficult act for the rest of the children to follow. She married Prince Frederick of Prussia in 1858 and had eight children of her own - the most significant of which was William II), the infamous Kaiser Wilhelm who led his country and the world into the Great War of 1914. Vicky, as she was known, eventually became Empress, herself, in 1888 - for three months. After Fritz's death, Vicky was continually badgered by Willy, who had a love-hate relationship with his mother. She eventually died the same year as her mother, from cancer of the spine. The second child was the wished for heir, Albert Edward (1841-1910). Bertie, later Edward VII, was not as brilliant as his sister. Although bright enough, he was a continual disappointment to his father. His mother worried constantly that he was a throw-back to his Hanoverian Uncles.

It seemed a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Bertie lived, if not a dissolute life, a highly social one, full of mistresses, parties, and very little statecraft. (This last was not entirely his fault since Victoria would never consent to let him see state papers, nor would she give him any useful job.) He married the beautiful Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and they had five children, two boys and three girls. The first son, Prince Albert Edward, known as Eddy, died as a young man - to the relief of the nation. Not only was Eddy slow (his tutors said he seemed to barely know the meaning of the word "read"), but he was involved in several homosexual scandals that were immediately hushed up. He was, poor man, even suspected as the serial murderer, Jack the Ripper. Frankly, he was much too stupid to have committed these crimes. The second son was George - a nice, healthy young man, who took over the succession when his brother died, and also his brother's fiancee - Princess Mary of Teck, later Queen Mary.

The next child in the Wettin family, (this was actually Albert's family name) was a girl - Alice (1843-1878). A bright child, she would have shone in any family who didn't have the brilliant Vicky as a sibling. She was married to the heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Louis, and had five children that grew to adulthood. The princesses of Hesse, Victoria, Elizabeth and Irene, were renowned for their beauty and called "the Three Graces". A much younger fourth sister was also an incredible beauty - the future doomed Empress Alexandra of Russia. The oldest sister, Victoria, is significant as the mother of Lord Mountbatten and grandmother of the present Duke of Edinburgh. Alice, a tireless social reformer and follower of Florence Nightingale, had the sad distinction of the being the first of Queen Victoria's children to die at the age of 35. Following Alice, came Alfred ("Affie") (1844-1900), later Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg Gotha. Affie married the only daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia, the Grand Duchess Marie, the richest princess in the world.

They had four daughters and one son. One of their daughters, Marie ("Missy"), eventually became Queen of Romania. She thought herself the most beautiful queen in Europe, and she was probably right. She also wrote perhaps the most entertaining and best written set of royal memoirs. Her sister, Victoria Melita ("Ducky"), became the Grand Duchess Kyril of Russia, and it is her great-grandson that is one of the foremost contenders to the Romanov throne. Helena was born in 1846 and died in 1923. She had four children, none of which produced any legitimate issue. She was married to the much older and very bald Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Her life was spent alternating with her younger sister, as companion to her mother, the Queen. Louise followed in 1848. She had the distinction of marrying a commoner - John Campbell, the Duke of Argyll. The marriage, unfortunately, was not a success. It is implied in many sources that the Duke was homosexual, and there was no issue to the marriage. Louise was probably the prettiest of Queen Victoria's daughters and wasn't above making mischief in the family.

She died in 1939. Queen Victoria's favorite son, Arthur was born in 1850 and died in 1942. He was married to Princess Louise of Prussia producing two daughters and a son. His daughters, like the Hesses and the Edinburghs, were quite beautiful. Princess Margaret ("Daisy") went on to become Crown Princess of Sweden, while Princess Patricia ("Pat") married a commoner, Sir Alexander Ramsay and enjoyed a long and happy marriage. Leopold (1853-1884) was the Queen's last son. It was here that the infamous strain of hemophilia appeared. There are many theories as to how and where the gene originated, none of them conclusive. The Queen, for one, insisted that no one in her family was responsible. Others suggested that it may have come from somewhere in the Prince's family. Many today, however, hypothecate that somehow the gene mutated in the Queen and was then passed on to her son Leopold, and to the progeny of three of her daughters.

Alice of Hesse passed it on to at least two of her daughters - Alexandra, of course, and Irene, who had three boys, two of whom had the disease. Beatrice, the youngest of the queen's children, also passed it on to two of her three sons. Vicky was said to be a carrier, but neither of her living sons had the disease. Leopold, living a very quiet life, was, perhaps, the most intellectual of the Queen's sons, the most cultured and artistic, and more important, a favorite to all. Leopold married Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont, and had two children, Alice, who was the last grandchild to die in 1981, and Charles Edward, who eventually succeeded to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg Gotha - inherited from his Uncle Affie and his grandfather, Albert. Leopold died at the age of 31 after falling down the stairs. Lastly, (and the Queen must have breathed a sigh of relief - she absolutely hated being pregnant and giving birth - she thought it so animalistic), there was Beatrice (1857-1947).

This last child was petted and spoiled and expected to stay home with mama as her lifelong companion. Victoria saw no need for Beatrice to marry, and every need for her to share her eternal mourning of dear Albert, who died in 1861. (If you understand that Victoria kept herself in mourning for forty years, and that her grandson patterned himself after her, rather than his father, you may understand the demeanor of today's Windsors better.) Beatrice, however, defied her mother. When she and Prince Henry of Battenburg met, it was easy to understand. Henry ("Liko") was one of the handsomest princes in Europe - by any standard. It always seems that when a prince or princess is called handsome or beautiful, one can expect them to be passably or even mildly good-looking. However, in the case of the Battenburg Princes, no such dissembling was necessary. They were called the most handsome princes in Europe - and there were four of them (count 'em). One married one of the beautiful Hessian Princesses, Victoria, and was the grandfather of Prince Philip, and Henry was given permission to marry Beatrice, after promising to live with the Queen at Windsor.

The Queen was thrilled with this last son-in-law. He was so good-looking, and the Queen loved good-looking men. In some ways, he took the place of her beloved John Brown, who had died in 1883. She was, therefore, as devastated as her daughter when he died in 1896. (Henry had finally managed to get away from Windsor, going on an expedition to the Gold Coast - he caught malaria and died . . . and was sent home in a barrel of rum.) Here, perhaps, a few words about the somewhat infamous Brown would be in order. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria went into deep Victorian mourning. Looking into mourning of the time, you can only imagine how deep that was. In the Queen's case, some feared for her sanity. Then, in 1864, she brought the gillie, John Brown, down from Balmoral, to be her personal attendant (a gillie is a male attendant on a Highland Chieftain - today it's mostly an attendant on sportsman).

Initially, he was summoned because dear Albert liked him, however, later, he began to play an extremely positive role in slowly pulling the Queen out of seclusion. During Brown's tenure, there were many rumors of romance and marraige. One need only look at the Queen's character more than cursorily to know that this was nonsense. Nevertheless, the aristocracy of the time, bored with no glittering court to attend (except Bertie's Marlborough House Set), maliciously ate up the gossip. It was true that Brown was powerful in the Queen's household and that he spoke to the Queen and members of her family any way he wished. It was also true that Victoria considered him a close personal friend, as she did her dresser, Annie Macdonald. At his death, she asked Tennyson to immortalize him in verse, and had to be tactfully restrained from publishing her own personal memories of John Brown. After the longest reign in British history, Queen Victoria died in January of 1901, several months shy of her eighty-second birthday. Her contributions to both the public life of Britain and the private lives of the royal families of Europe were immense.

To the Empire, she brought a dignity, style, and most important, a validation of the monarchy that had not been witnessed since, perhaps, Elizabeth I. She wisely used her powerless position to unite the purposes of much of the political strife that went on during the 19th century - her style of working with her prime ministers, especially Disraeli and Melbourne, and took the Royal Family and put it on the level of the Middle Class. They had the distince impression that she was like them, and her family was, too. One has only to look at the lithographs of the 1840's and '50s to see this "typical" middle class family, imparting and symbolizing middle class values for Britain, although, of course, nothing could be further than the truth. Today it is her great-great granddaughter that rules the United Kingdom, and Elizabeth's consort, Philip, is Victoria's great-great grandson. Whether or not the "normalcy" of Victoria's reign, which was brilliantly illuminated by the late Princess Diana, will ever return to the monarchy, perhaps in the person of Prince William, is debatable, but many in England are hopeful.

Click to email King William IV | Britroyals Born: August 21, 1765 at Buckingham Palace Parents: George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Relation to Elizabeth II: 3rd great-granduncle House of: Hanover Ascended to the throne: June 26, 1830 aged 64 years Crowned: September 8, 1831 at Westminster Abbey Married: Adelaide, daughter of Duke of Saxe-Meinigen Children: Four none of whom survived infancy, plus several illegitimate by Dorothy Jordan Died: June 20, 1837 at Windsor Castle, aged 71 years, 9 months, and 28 days Buried at: Windsor Reigned for: 6 years, 11 months, and 24 days Succeeded by: his niece Victoria William was the third son of George III and not expected to become king. He was sent off to join the Royal Navy at 13 years old, and saw service at the Battle of St Vincent against the Spanish in 1780 and in New York during the American War of Independence.

A supposed plot approved by George Washington to kidnap him was leaked and did not come to fruition. He was later stationed in the West Indies under Horatio Nelson, and left active service in 1790 as a Rear Admiral. He was created Duke of Clarence and from 1791 set up home with Dorothea Bland, an Irish actress known as �Mrs Jordan�. They lived contentedly together for 20 years, and had 5 sons and 5 daughters given the surname Fitzclarence. By 1817 William was in debt but, with the death of Princess Charlotte only daughter of his elder brother, he had become heir to the throne. Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was found for him as a suitable Protestant wife and they married in 1818. The marriage was happy but despite several miscarriages there were no children who survived infancy. His London residence Clarence House was designed for him by John Nash in 1825. William was 64 years old and the oldest person to date to succeed to the throne when he became King on the death of his brother George IV in 1830.

He was nicknamed �The Sailor King�, distrusted foreigners and was noted for his informality. He regularly invited his friends for dinner, and when told that his carriage was not ready to take him to Parliament he is reported to have said �Then I will go by hackney cab�. In 1834 when fire destroyed the Houses of Parliament at Westminster he offered Buckingham Palace to Parliament. They declined and Westminster was rebuilt by Charles Barry in Gothic style. He took his responsibilities seriously but was more used from his naval career to giving and receiving orders than the intrigues of politics. The Reform Act which sought to remove inequalities in the electoral system, including the removal of �rotten boroughs� which returned a disproportionate representation to actual voters, had a stormy passage through Parliament. It was only passed in 1832 after street protests and Lord Grey and his cabinet threatened to resign unless the king supported them against opposition from the House of Lords. He sought to repair Anglo-American relations following the war during his father�s reign but, despite his experience in the West Indies, argued against Wilberforce who was campaigning to abolish the slave trade. The Abolition of Slavery Act was eventually passed in 1833.

William died in 1837 aged 71 of heart failure. He had no legitimate children and was succeeded by his niece Victoria. King William IV's Signature Quotes: �I have my view of things, and I tell them to my ministers. If they do not adopt it, I cannot help it. I have done my duty� � King William IV (he was not a political animal) �Silly Billy� � name said to be given to William when he was Duke of Clarence during a visit to Bedlam hospital. When he became king he gleefully told his councillors �Who�s the Silly Billy now?� "I trust to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer�... I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady, heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed." � King William IV (expressing his hope that his niece Victoria would be over 18 when she succeeded to the throne so her mother The Duchess of Kent would not be regent).

�Whatever his faults may have been �. he was not only zealous but most conscientious in the discharge of his duties as king. He had a truly kind heart and was anxious do what was right� � Queen Victoria (speaking about her uncle King William IV).

Timeline for King William IV Year 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

Question: Whom did Queen Victoria succeed in 1837?
Answer: WILLIAM IV