On the 24th of May 1819, at 4:15 am, a girl named Alexandrina Victoria was born into a world that did not expect her to rule. Her father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, was the fourth son of King George III, and her mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was a widowed German princess. At birth, Victoria was fifth in line to the throne, behind her three elder uncles: George, Frederick, and William. The odds were stacked against her. Her father died when she was less than a year old, and her grandfather, King George III, died just a week later. By the time she was eight, her uncle William IV had become king, and she was third in line. Yet, by the 20th of June 1837, at the age of 18, she was Queen of the United Kingdom. Her reign would last 63 years and 216 days, longer than any of her predecessors, and would define an entire era of history.
Victoria's childhood was not one of royal privilege but of isolation and control. Raised under the so-called Kensington System, she was kept in a bubble by her mother and her comptroller, Sir John Conroy. The system was designed to keep her weak and dependent, preventing her from meeting people her mother deemed undesirable. She shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors on a strict schedule, and spent her play hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash. Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin, yet she spoke only English at home. At age ten, she wrote and illustrated a children's story, The Adventures of Alice Laselles, which was eventually published in 2015. The constant round of public appearances, which her mother and Conroy forced upon her, made her tired and ill, and she objected to the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy. By 1836, Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert, the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. She wrote in her diary that Albert was extremely handsome, with large blue eyes and a beautiful nose, and that his expression was most delightful. Alexander, on the other hand, she described as very plain. At 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.
The Crown And The Court
Victoria's accession to the throne was sudden and dramatic. On the 20th of June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary, she wrote, I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen. Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again. Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victoria's heir presumptive until she had a child.
At the start of her reign, Victoria was popular, but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy. Victoria believed the rumours. She hated Conroy, and despised that odious Lady Flora, because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess in the Kensington System. At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin. Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora. When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen. At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered at as Mrs. Melbourne. In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories voted against a bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery. The Queen commissioned a Tory, Robert Peel, to form a new ministry. At the time, it was customary for the prime minister to appoint members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies and their spouses. Many of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the bedchamber crisis, Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.
Although Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mother's continued reliance on Conroy. The duchess was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her. When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's proximity promised torment for many years, Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a schocking alternative. Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. They felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on the 15th of October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. They were married on the 10th of February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary. Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queen's companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life. Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victoria's aunt Princess Augusta in 1840, the duchess was given both Clarence House and Frogmore House. Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.
During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as he later claimed, the guns had no shot. He was tried for high treason, found not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis. Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on the 21st of November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought newborn babies were ugly. Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice. The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria and had supported her against the Kensington System. Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughter Victoria's health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended.
The Widow Of Windsor
In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply. She was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for wickedly estranging her from her mother. To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief, Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble. In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and spent a few days holidaying in Killarney. In November, Albert was made aware of gossip that his son had slept with the actress Nellie Clifden in Ireland. Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him. By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell. He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on the 14th of December 1861. Victoria was devastated. She blamed her husband's death on worry over the Prince of Wales's philandering. He had been killed by that dreadful business, she said. She entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the nickname widow of Windsor. Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances.
Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement. She did undertake her official government duties, yet chose to remain secluded in her royal residences, Windsor Castle, Osborne House, and the private estate in Scotland that she and Albert had acquired in 1847, Balmoral Castle. In March 1864, a protester stuck a notice on the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced these commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant's declining business. Her uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her to appear in public. She agreed to visit the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive through London in an open carriage. Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown. Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, and some referred to the Queen as Mrs. Brown. The story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 movie Mrs. Brown. A painting by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer depicting the Queen with Brown was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and Victoria published a book, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, which featured Brown prominently and in which the Queen praised him highly. Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry led by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, Victoria attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since Albert's death. The following year she supported the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which doubled the electorate by extending the franchise to many urban working men, though she was not in favour of votes for women. Derby resigned in 1868, to be replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. Everyone likes flattery, he said, and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel. With the phrase we authors, Ma'am, he complimented her. Disraeli's ministry only lasted a matter of months, and at the end of the year his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour far less appealing; he spoke to her, she is thought to have complained, as though she were a public meeting rather than a woman.
Empress Of India
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent were formally incorporated into the British Empire. The Queen had a relatively balanced view of the conflict, and condemned atrocities on both sides. She wrote of her feelings of horror and regret at the result of this bloody civil war, and insisted, urged on by Albert, that an official proclamation announcing the transfer of power from the company to the state should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence and religious toleration. At her behest, a reference threatening the undermining of native religions and customs was replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom. In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned to power. He passed the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, which removed Catholic rituals from the Anglican liturgy and which Victoria strongly supported. She preferred short, simple services, and personally considered herself more aligned with the presbyterian Church of Scotland than the episcopal Church of England. Disraeli also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Victoria took the title Empress of India from the 1st of May 1876. The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of the 1st of January 1877.
On the 14th of December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis of Hesse, died of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria noted the coincidence of the dates as almost incredible and most mysterious. In May 1879, she became a great-grandmother on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen and passed her poor old 60th birthday. She felt aged by the loss of my beloved child. Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to abdicate while pressuring Disraeli to act against Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, but her threats had no impact on the events or their conclusion with the Congress of Berlin. Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power, she wrote, we must be Prepared for attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY. Victoria saw the expansion of the British Empire as civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from more aggressive powers or cruel rulers: It is not in our custom to annexe countries, she said, unless we are obliged and forced to do so. To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister. When Disraeli died the following year, she was blinded by fast falling tears, and erected a memorial tablet placed by his grateful Sovereign and Friend, Victoria R.I.
The Golden And Diamond Years
In 1887, the British Empire celebrated Victoria's Golden Jubilee. She marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on the 20th of June with a banquet to which 50 kings and princes were invited. The following day, she participated in a procession and attended a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey. By this time, Victoria was once again extremely popular. Two days later on the 23rd of June, she engaged two Indian Muslims as waiters, one of whom was Abdul Karim. He was soon promoted to Munshi: teaching her Urdu and acting as a clerk. Her family and retainers were appalled, and accused Abdul Karim of spying for the Muslim Patriotic League and biasing the Queen against Hindus and in favour of Muslims. Equerry Frederick Ponsonby discovered that the Munshi had lied about his parentage, and reported to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India, the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do. Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice. Abdul Karim remained in her service until he returned to India with a pension, on her death. Victoria's eldest daughter became empress consort of Germany in 1888, but she was widowed a little over three months later, and Victoria's eldest grandchild became German Emperor as Wilhelm II. Victoria and Albert's hopes of a liberal Germany would go unfulfilled, as Wilhelm was a firm believer in autocracy. Victoria thought he had little heart or Zartgefühl and his conscience and intelligence have been completely.
Gladstone returned to power after the 1892 general election; he was 82 years old. Victoria objected when Gladstone proposed appointing the Radical MP Henry Labouchère to the Cabinet, so Gladstone agreed not to appoint him. In 1894, Gladstone retired and, without consulting the outgoing prime minister, Victoria appointed Lord Rosebery as prime minister. His government was weak, and the following year Lord Salisbury replaced him. Salisbury remained prime minister for the remainder of Victoria's reign. On the 23rd of September 1896, Victoria surpassed her grandfather George III as the longest-reigning monarch in British history. The Queen requested that any special celebrations be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee, which was made a festival of the British Empire at the suggestion of the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. The prime ministers of all the self-governing Dominions were invited to London for the festivities. One reason for including the prime ministers of the Dominions and excluding foreign heads of state was to avoid having to invite Victoria's grandson Wilhelm II, who, it was feared, might cause trouble at the event. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession on the 22nd of June 1897 followed a route six miles long through London and included troops from all over the empire. The procession paused for an open-air service of thanksgiving held outside St Paul's Cathedral, throughout which Victoria sat in her open carriage, to avoid her having to climb the steps to enter the building. The celebration was marked by vast crowds of spectators and great outpourings of affection for the 78-year-old Queen.
The Final Years And Legacy
Victoria regularly holidayed in mainland Europe. In 1889, during a stay in Biarritz, she became the first reigning monarch from Britain to visit Spain by briefly crossing the border. By April 1900, the Boer War was so unpopular in mainland Europe that her annual trip to France seemed inadvisable. Instead, the Queen went to Ireland for the first time since 1861, in part to acknowledge the contribution of Irish regiments to the South African war. In July 1900, Victoria's second son, Alfred Affie, died. Oh God! My poor darling Affie gone too, she wrote in her journal. It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness and horrors of one kind and another. Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her disabled, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt weak and unwell, and by mid-January she was drowsy, dazed, and confused. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid on her bed as a last request. Victoria died at 6:30 pm on the 22nd of January 1901, aged 81, in the presence of her eldest son, Albert Edward, and grandson, Wilhelm II. Albert Edward succeeded immediately as Edward VII.
In 1897, Victoria had written instructions for her funeral, which was to be military as befitting a soldier's daughter and the head of the army, and white instead of black. On the 25th of January, Edward VII and Wilhelm II, together with Prince Arthur, helped lift her body into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request, by her physician and dressers. One of Albert's dressing gowns was placed by her side, with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of John Brown's hair, along with a picture of him, was placed in her left hand concealed from the view of the family by a carefully positioned bunch of flowers. Items of jewellery placed on Victoria included the wedding ring of Brown's mother, which Brown gave Victoria in 1883. Her funeral took place on the 2nd of February, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Following two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, within Home Park, Windsor. With a reign of 63 years, seven months, and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history, until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on the 9th of September 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover; her son Edward VII belonged to her husband's House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Through Victoria's reign, the gradual establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy in Britain continued. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the House of Commons at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarch. In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch only retained the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. The concept of the family monarchy, with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify, was solidified. Victoria's links with Europe's royal families earned her the nickname the grandmother of Europe. Of the grandchildren of Victoria and Albert, 34 survived to adulthood. Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, was affected by the blood-clotting disease haemophilia B and at least two of her five daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Royal haemophiliacs descended from Victoria included her great-grandsons, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; Alfonso, Prince of Asturias; and Infante Gonzalo of Spain. The presence of the disease in Victoria's descendants, but not in her ancestors, led to modern speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent, but a haemophiliac. There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac in connection with Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always had the disease, even if such a man had existed he would have been seriously ill. It is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was over 50 at the time of her conception and haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers. Spontaneous mutations account for about a third of cases.