Soldes Ancienne pièce couronne Victoria argent massif 1896 vintage 1ers jeux olympiques LA 2028
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Product Name: Soldes Ancienne pièce couronne Victoria argent massif 1896 vintage 1ers jeux olympiques LA 2028
Sport：Summer Olympics Type：Coin Match Worn：No Event：1896 Period：Pre soldes 1900s Country/Region of Manufacture：United Kingdom
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Sport：Summer Olympics Type：Coin Match Worn：No Event：1896 Period：Pre soldes 1900s Country/Region of Manufacture：United Kingdom
A wonderful item for anyone who loves the Royal Family This once belonged to my Grand Mother and she kept in a display cabinet for many years, but when she died it was placed in a box for storage. "e have decided to sell some of her items to raise money for a Memorial Bench with a plaque Where we can sit and remember her on Summer Days I hope it will find a good home In Very goodconditionfor over 126 Years Old Comes from a pet and smoke free home Sorry about the poor quality photos. Theydontdo the plate justice which looks a lot better in real life My Auctions Bidding starts a a penny with no reserve... if your the only bidder you win it for 1p...Grab a Bargain! Click Here to Check out my Other Antique Items & Coins Bid with Confidence - Check My 100% Positive Feedback from over 1,000 Satisfied Customers I have over10 years of Ebay Selling Experience - So Why Not Treat Yourself? I have got married recently and need to raise funds to meet the costs also we are planning to move into a house together I always combined postage on multiple items Instant Feedback Automatically Left Immediately after Receiving Payment AllItems Sent out within 24 hours of Receiving Payment. Overseas Bidders Please Note Surface Mail Delivery Times > Western Europe takes up to 2 weeks, Eastern Europe up to 5 weeks, North America up to 6 weeks, South America, Africa and Asia up to 8 weeks and Australasia up to 12 weeks Thanks for Looking and Best of Luck with the Bidding!! Also if bidding from overseas and you want your item tracked please select the International Signed for Postage OptionFor that Interesting Conversational Piece, A Birthday Present, Christmas Gift, A Comical Item to Cheer Someone Up or That Unique Perfect Gift for the Person Who has Everything....You Know Where to Look for a Bargain! XXXX - DO NOT CLICK HERE - XXXX Click Here to Add me to Your List of Favourite Sellers If You Have any Questions Please Message me through andI Will Reply ASAP "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for ever" So go ahead and treat yourself! With my free returns there is no risk! Thanks for Looking and Hope to deal soon :) I have sold items to coutries such as Afghanistan * Albania * Algeria * American Samoa (US) * Andorra * Angola * Anguilla (GB) * Antigua and Barbuda * Argentina * Armenia * Aruba (NL) * Australia * Austria * Azerbaijan * Bahamas * Bahrain * Bangladesh * Barbados * Belarus * Belgium * Belize * Benin * Bermuda (GB) * Bhutan * Bolivia * Bonaire (NL) * Bosnia and Herzegovina * Botswana * Bouvet Island (NO) * Brazil * British Indian Ocean Territory (GB) * British Virgin Islands (GB) * Brunei * Bulgaria * Burkina Faso * Burundi * Cambodia * Cameroon * Canada * Cape Verde * Cayman Islands (GB) * Central African Republic * Chad * Chile * China * Christmas Island (AU) * Cocos Islands (AU) * Colombia * Comoros * Congo * Democratic Republic of the Congo * Cook Islands (NZ) * Coral Sea Islands Territory (AU) * Costa Rica * Croatia * Curaçao (NL) * Cyprus * Czech Republic * Denmark * Djibouti * Dominica * Dominican Republic * East Timor * Ecuador * Egypt * El Salvador * Equatorial Guinea * Eritrea * Estonia * Ethiopia * Falkland Islands (GB) * Faroe Islands (DK) * Fiji Islands * Finland * France * French Guiana (FR) * French Polynesia (FR) * French Southern Lands (FR) * Gabon * Gambia * Georgia * Germany * Ghana * Gibraltar (GB) * Greece * Greenland (DK) * Grenada * Guadeloupe (FR) * Guam (US) * Guatemala * Guernsey (GB) * Guinea * Guinea-Bissau * Guyana * Haiti * Heard and McDonald Islands (AU) * Honduras * Hong Kong (CN) * Hungary * Iceland * India * Indonesia * Iraq * Ireland * Isle of Man (GB) * Israel * Italy * Ivory Coast * Jamaica * Jan Mayen (NO) * Japan * Jersey (GB) * Jordan * Kazakhstan * Kenya * Kiribati * Kosovo * Kuwait * Kyrgyzstan * Laos * Latvia * Lebanon * Lesotho * Liberia * Libya * Liechtenstein * Lithuania * Luxembourg * Macau (CN) * Macedonia * Madagascar * Malawi * Malaysia * Maldives * Mali * Malta * Marshall Islands * Martinique (FR) * Mauritania * Mauritius * Mayotte (FR) * Mexico * Micronesia * Moldova * Monaco * Mongolia * Montenegro * Montserrat (GB) * Morocco * Mozambique * Myanmar * Namibia * Nauru * Navassa (US) * Nepal * Netherlands * New Caledonia (FR) * New Zealand * Nicaragua * Niger * Nigeria * Niue (NZ) * Norfolk Island (AU) * Korea * Northern Cyprus * Northern Mariana Islands (US) * Norway * Oman * Pakistan * Palau * Palestinian Authority * Panama * Papua New Guinea * Paraguay * Peru * Philippines * Pitcairn Island (GB) * Poland * Portugal * Puerto Rico (US) * Qatar * Reunion (FR) * Romania * Russia * Rwanda * Saba (NL) * Saint Barthelemy (FR) * Saint Helena (GB) * Saint Kitts and Nevis * Saint Lucia * Saint Martin (FR) * Saint Pierre and Miquelon (FR) * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines * Samoa * San Marino * Sao Tome and Principe * Saudi Arabia * Senegal * Serbia * Seychelles * Sierra Leone * Singapore * Sint Eustatius (NL) * Sint Maarten (NL) * Slovakia * Slovenia * Solomon Islands * Somalia * South Africa * South Georgia (GB) * South Korea * South Sudan * Spain * Sri Lanka * Sudan * Suriname * Svalbard (NO) * Swaziland * Sweden * Switzerland ** Taiwan * Tajikistan * Tanzania * Thailand * Togo * Tokelau (NZ) * Tonga * Trinidad and Tobago * Tunisia * Turkey * Turkmenistan * Turks and Caicos Islands (GB) * Tuvalu * U.S. Minor Pacific Islands (US) * U.S. Virgin Islands (US) * Uganda * Ukraine * United Arab Emirates * United Kingdom * United States * Uruguay * Uzbekistan * Vanuatu * Vatican City * Venezuela * Vietnam * Wallis and Futuna (FR) * Yemen * Zambia * Zimbabwe and major cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, New York City, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Mexico City, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Manila, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, Lagos, Kolkata, Cairo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, Shanghai, Karachi, Paris, Istanbul, Nagoya, Beijing, Chicago, London, Shenzhen, Essen, Düsseldorf, Tehran, Bogota, Lima, Bangkok, Johannesburg, East Rand, Chennai, Taipei, Baghdad, Santiago, Bangalore, Hyderabad, St Petersburg, Philadelphia, Lahore, Kinshasa, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Madrid, Tianjin, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Milan, Shenyang, Dallas, Fort Worth, Boston, Belo Horizonte, Khartoum, Riyadh, Singapore, Washington, Detroit, Barcelona,, Houston, Athens, Berlin, Sydney, Atlanta, Guadalajara, San Francisco, Oakland, Montreal, Monterey, Melbourne, Ankara, Recife, Phoenix/Mesa, Durban, Porto Alegre, Dalian, Jeddah, Seattle, Cape Town, San Diego, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Rome, Naples, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Tel Aviv, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Manchester, San Juan, Katowice, Tashkent, Fukuoka, Baku, Sumqayit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Sapporo, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Taichung, Warsaw, Denver, Cologne, Bonn, Hamburg, Dubai, Pretoria, Vancouver, Beirut, Budapest, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Campinas, Harare, Brasilia, Kuwait, Munich, Portland, Brussels, Vienna, San Jose, Damman , Copenhagen, Brisbane, Riverside, San Bernardino, Cincinnati and Accra |
Crown (British coin)
One crown
Great Britain
United Kingdom
Value
5/— (25p in decimal currency)
£5 (commemorative coins from 1990 and later)
Diameter38 mm
EdgeMilled
Composition
(1816–1919) 92.5% Ag
(1920–1946) 50% Ag
(1947–1970) Cupronickel
Years of minting1707–1981
Obverse
Obverse of the crown of 1891, Great Britain, Victoria.jpg
DesignProfile of the monarch (Victoria "jubilee head" design shown)
DesignerJoseph Boehm
Design date1887
Reverse
Reverse crown 1891, Great Britain, Victoria.jpg
DesignVarious (St George design shown)
DesignerBenedetto Pistrucci
Design date1817
The British crown was a denomination of sterling coinage worth
1
/
4
of one pound, or 5 shillings, or 60 (old) pence. The crown was first issued during the reign of Edward VI, as part of the coinage of the Kingdom of England.
Always a heavy silver coin weighing around one ounce, during the 19th and 20th centuries the crown declined from being a real means of exchange to being a coin rarely spent, and minted for commemorative purposes only. Unlike in some territories of the British Empire (such as Jamaica), in the UK the crown was never replaced as circulating currency by a five-shilling banknote.
"Decimal" crowns were minted a few times after decimalisation of the British currency in 1971, initially with a nominal value of 25 (new) pence. However, commemorative crowns issued since 1990 have a face value of five pounds.[1]
History
The coins origins lie in the English silver crown, one of many silver coins that appeared in various countries from the 16th century onwards (most famously the Spanish piece of eight), all of similar size and weight (approx 38mm diameter, 25g fine silver) and thus interchangeable in international trade. The Kingdom of England also minted gold Crowns until early in the reign of Charles II.[2]
The dies for all gold and silver coins of Queen Anne and King George I were engraved by John Croker, a migrant originally from Dresden in the Duchy of Saxony.[3]
The British silver crown was always a large coin, and from the 19th century it did not circulate well. However, crowns were usually struck in a new monarchs coronation year, from George IV through Elizabeth II in 1953, with the exceptions of George V and Edward VIII.
"Gothic" crown of Queen Victoria (1847). The coin had a mintage of just 8,000 and was produced to celebrate the Gothic revival
The King George V "wreath" crowns struck from 1927 through 1936 (excluding 1935 when the more common "rocking horse" crown was minted to commemorate the Kings Silver Jubilee) depict a wreath on the reverse of the coin and were struck in very low numbers. Generally struck late in the year and intended to be purchased as Christmas gifts, they were generally kept rather than circulated. The 1927 "wreath" crowns were struck as proofs only (15,030 minted) and the 1934 coin had a mintage of just 932.[citation needed]
With their large size, many of the later coins were primarily commemoratives. The 1951 issue was for the Festival of Britain, and was only struck in proof condition. The 1953 crown was issued to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, while the 1960 issue (which carried the same reverse design as the previous crown in 1953) commemorated the British Exhibition in New York. The 1965 issue carried the image of Winston Churchill on the reverse. According to the Standard Catalogue of coins, 19,640,000 of this coin were minted, although intended as collectable pieces the large mintage and lack of precious metal content means these coins are effectively worthless today.[4] Production of the Churchill crown began on 11 October 1965, and stopped in the summer of 1966.
The crown coin was nicknamed the dollar, but is not to be confused with the British trade dollar that circulated in the Orient.
In 2014, a new world record price was achieved for a milled silver crown. The coin was unique, issued as a pattern by engraver Thomas Simon in 1663 and nicknamed the "Reddite Crown". It was presented to Charles II as the new crown piece, but ultimately rejected in favour of the Roettiers Brothers design. Auctioneers Spink & Son of London sold the coin on 27 March 2014 for £396,000 including commission.[5]
All pre-decimal crowns from 1818 on remain legal tender with a face value of 25p.[6]
Decimal crowns
Main articles: British twenty-five pence coin and Five pounds (British coin)
After decimalisation on 15 February 1971, the 25-pence coin was introduced as a replacement for the crown as a commemorative coin. These were legal tender[6] and were made with large mintages.
Further issues continued to be minted, initially with a value of twenty-five pence (with no face value shown). From 1990, the face value of new crown coins was raised to five pounds.[1]
Preceded by
English crown
Crown
1707–1965Succeeded by
Twenty–five pence
Changing values
The legal tender value of the crown remained as five shillings from 1544 to 1965. However, for most of this period there was no denominational designation or "face value" mark of value displayed on the coin. From 1927 to 1939, the word "CROWN" appears, and from 1951 to 1960 this was changed to "FIVE SHILLINGS". Coins minted since 1818 remain legal tender with a face value of 25 pence.
Although all "normal" issues since 1951 have been composed of cupro-nickel, special proof versions have been produced for sale to collectors, and as gift items, in silver, gold, and occasionally platinum.
The fact that gold £5 crowns are now produced means that there are two different strains of five pound gold coins, namely crowns and what are now termed "quintuple sovereigns" for want of a more concise term.[7][8]
Numismatically, the term "crown-sized" is used generically to describe large silver or cupro-nickel coins of about 40 mm in diameter. Most Commonwealth countries still issue crown-sized coins for sale to collectors.
New Zealands original fifty-cent pieces, and Australias previously round but now dodecagonal fifty-cent piece, although valued at five shillings in predecimal accounting, are all smaller than the standard silver crown pieces issued by those countries (and the UK). They were in fact similarly sized to the predecimal half crown (worth two shillings and sixpence).
Composition
For silver crowns, the grade of silver adhered to the long-standing standard (established in the 12th century by Henry II) – the Sterling Silver standard of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. This was a harder-wearing alloy, yet it was still a rather high grade of silver. It went some way towards discouraging the practice of "clipping", though this practice was further discouraged and largely eliminated with the introduction of the milled edge seen on coins today.
In a debasement process which took effect in 1920, the silver content of all British coins was reduced from 92.5% to 50%, with a portion of the remainder consisting of manganese, which caused the coins to tarnish to a very dark colour after they had been in circulation for a significant period. Silver was eliminated altogether in 1947, with the move to a composition of cupro-nickel – except for proof issues, which returned to the pre-1920 92.5% silver composition.
Since the Great Recoinage of 1816, a crown has, as a general rule, had a diameter of 38.61 millimetres (1.520 in), and weighed 28.276 grams (defined as 10⁄11 troy ounce).[9][10]
Modern mintages
MonarchYearNumber mintedDetailComposition*
Edward VIIAs 5/- (60d - quarter sovereign)
1902256,020Coronation0.925 silver
George V192715,030 (proof only)Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19289,034Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19294,994Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19304,847Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19314,056Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19322,395Wreath Crown0.500 silver
19337,132Wreath Crown0.500 silver
1934932Wreath Crown0.500 silver
1935714,769George V and Queen Mary Silver Jubilee0.500 silver
19362,473Wreath Crown0.500 silver
George VI1937418,699Coronation0.500 silver
19511,983,540Festival of BritainCu/Ni
Elizabeth II19535,962,621CoronationCu/Ni
19601,024,038British Exhibition in New YorkCu/Ni
196519,640,000Death of Sir Winston ChurchillCu/Ni
As 25p (quarter sovereign)
19727,452,100Queen Elizabeth II 25th Wedding Anniversary 25pCu/Ni
197737,061,160Queen Elizabeth II Silver JubileeCu/Ni
19809,306,000Queen Mother 80th BirthdayCu/Ni
198126,773,600Charles & Diana WeddingCu/Ni
For crowns minted from 1990, which have a value of £5, see here.
The specifications for composition refer to the standard circulation versions. Proof versions continue to be minted in Sterling silver.
Gallery
Quarter sovereign
In 1853, the Royal Mint had produced two patterns for a gold 5-shilling coin for circulation use, one denominated as five shillings and the other as a quarter sovereign, but this coin never went into production, in part due to concerns about the small size of the coin and likely wear in circulation.[11] The quarter sovereign was introduced in 2009 as a bullion coin.
References
iconMoney portal
Numismatics portal
flagUnited Kingdom portal
"The Royal Mint: Five Pound Coin Designs and Specifications". The Royal Mint. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
"Crown". Royal Mint Museum. Retrieved 17 July 2022. In 1551 Edward VI issued a large silver coin of the value of five shillings and as its currency value was the same as that of the gold crown it took its name from that coin. Both gold and silver crowns continued to be struck concurrently until early in the reign of Charles II, when minting of the gold crown ceased.
Warwick William Wroth, Croker, John (1670-1741) in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, vol. 13
"How Much is a 1965 Winston Churchill Coin Worth?". churchillcentral.com. 17 April 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
"Spink sets new world record for an English silver coin, 27 March 2014". Spink Auctioneers. Archived from the original on 2 April 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
"How can I dispose of commemorative crowns? And why do some have a higher face value than others?". The Royal Mint Museum. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
"Quintuple Sovereigns - Five Pound Gold Coins". taxfreegold.co.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
"British Gold Proof Commemorative Crowns". taxfreegold.co.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
Specifications of British Pre-decimal Coins
Kindleberger, Charles P. (2005). A Financial History of Western Europe. Taylor & Francis. p. 60. ISBN 9780415378673.
OnlineCoinClub Quarter Sovereign pre-decimal
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crown (British coin).
History of Five Shilling Coins on Coins of the UK
Royal Mint Museums history of Crown Coin
Crown, Coin Type from United Kingdom - Online Coin Club
vte
Currency units named crown or similar
Circulating
Czech korunaDanish kroneFaroese krónaIcelandic krónaNorwegian kroneSwedish krona
Defunct
Austrian kroneAustrian Netherlands kronenthalerAustro-Hungarian crownBohemian and Moravian korunaCzechoslovak korunaEstonian kroonFiume kroneHungarian koronaLiechtenstein kroneSlovak korunaSlovak koruna (1939–1945)Yugoslav krone
Proposed
Greenlandic koruuni
As a denomination
British crownEnglish crownKronenthaler
vte
Sterling coinage
Decimal
1
/
2
p1p2p5p10p20p50p£1£2
Pre-decimal
Quarter farthing (
1
/
16
d) (British Ceylon)Third farthing (
1
/
12
d) (Crown Colony of Malta)Half farthing (
1
/
8
d)Farthing (
1
/
4
d)Halfpenny (
1
/
2
d)Penny (1d)Three halfpence (1+
1
/
2
d) (British Ceylon & British West Indies)Twopence (2d)Threepence (3d)Fourpence (4d)Sixpence (6d)Shilling (1/–)Fifteen pence (1/3d) (Australia)Eighteen Pence(1/6d) (British Ireland)Florin (2/–)Half crown (2/6d)Thirty Pence(2/6d) (British Ireland)Double florin (4/–)Crown (5/–)Six Shillings (6/-) (British Ireland)Quarter guinea (5/3d)Third guinea (7/–)Half sovereign (10/–)Half guinea (10/6d)Sovereign (£1)Guinea (£1/1/–)Double sovereign (£2)Two guineas (£2/2/–)Five pounds (£5)Five guineas (£5/5/–)
Commemorative
3p (Tristan Da Cunha)6p25p60p (Isle of Man)70p (Ascension Island)£5£10£20£25£50£100£200£500£1000Maundy money
Bullion
BritanniaQuarter sovereignHalf sovereignSovereignDouble sovereignQuintuple sovereignLunarThe Queens BeastsLandmarks of Britain
See also
SterlingSterling banknotesList of British banknotes and coinsList of British currenciesJubilee coinageOld Head coinageScottish coinageCoins of IrelandList of people on coins of the United Kingdom
Categories: Crown (currency)Coins of Great BritainCoins of the United KingdomQuarter-base-unit coins
Queen Victoria
Victoria
Photograph of Queen Victoria, 1882
Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882
Queen of the United Kingdom (more ...)
Reign 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Coronation 28 June 1838
Predecessor William IV
Successor Edward VII
Empress of India
Reign 1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901
Imperial Durbar 1 January 1877
Successor Edward VII
Born Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent
24 May 1819
Kensington Palace, London, England
Died 22 January 1901 (aged 81)
Osborne House, Isle of Wight, England
Burial 4 February 1901
Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor
Spouse Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(m. 1840; died 1861)
Issue
Victoria, German Empress
Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein
Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany
Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
House Hanover
Father Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
Mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Signature Victorias signature
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her fathers three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Birth and family
Portrait of Victoria at age 4
Victoria at the age of four, by Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1823
Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. Until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower and later the first king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4:15 a.m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.[1]
Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.[a] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kents eldest brother George, Prince Regent.[2]
At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victorias father, Edward, Duke of Kent.[3] The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children. William and Edward married on the same day in 1818, but both of Williams legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. Williams second daughter, Princess Elizabeth of Clarence, lived for twelve weeks from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821, and for that period Victoria was fourth in line.[4]
The Duke of York died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; the throne passed to their next surviving brother, William, and Victoria became heir presumptive. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victorias mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor.[5] King William distrusted the Duchesss capacity to be regent, and in 1836 he declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victorias 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.[6]
Heir presumptive
Portrait of Victoria with her spaniel Dash by George Hayter, 1833
Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy".[7] Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchesss lover.[8] The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her fathers family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them.[9] The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King Williams illegitimate children.[10] Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash.[11] Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin,[12] but she spoke only English at home.[13]
Victorias sketch of herself
Self-portrait, 1835
In 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way.[14] Similar journeys to other parts of England and Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. To the Kings annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops.[15] William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heir presumptive.[16] Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest.[17] She objected on the grounds of the Kings disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy and forced Victoria to continue the tours.[18] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary.[20] As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.[21] Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mothers household.[22]
By 1836, Victorias maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert,[23] the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victorias mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert.[24] William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange.[25] Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.[26] According to her diary, she enjoyed Alberts company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful."[27] Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain".[28]
Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser",[29] to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see."[30] However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.[31]
Early reign
Accession
Drawing of two men on their knees in front of Victoria
Victoria receives the news of her accession from Lord Conyngham (left) and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Painting by Henry Tanworth Wells, 1887.
Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom.[b] In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 oclock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen."[32] Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.[33]
Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her fathers unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victorias heir presumptive until she had a child.[34]
Coronation portrait by George Hayter
At the time of Victorias accession, the government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne. He at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him for advice.[35] Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure.[36] Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations.[37] She became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace[38] and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as being granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her fathers debts.[39]
At the start of her reign Victoria was popular,[40] but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mothers ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.[41] Victoria believed the rumours.[42] She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora",[43] because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System.[44] At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin.[45] Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora.[46] When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen.[47] At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".[48]
In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery.[49] 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 Queens ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.[50]
Marriage
See also: Wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Wedding dress of Queen Victoria
Painting of a lavish wedding attended by richly dressed people in a magnificent room
Marriage of Victoria and Albert, painted by George Hayter
Though Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mothers continued reliance on Conroy.[51] Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her.[52] When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mothers proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative".[53] Victoria showed interest in Alberts education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock.[54]
Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor.[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St Jamess Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:
I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life![56]
Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queens companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life.[57] Victorias mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victorias aunt, Princess Augusta, in 1840, Victorias mother was given both Clarence and Frogmore Houses.[58] Through Alberts mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.[59]
Contemporary lithograph of Edward Oxfords attempt to assassinate Victoria, 1840
During Victorias 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.[60] 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.[61] In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victorias popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis.[62] Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant,[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,[64] and thought newborn babies were ugly.[65] Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward (b. 1841), Alice (b. 1843), Alfred (b. 1844), Helena (b. 1846), Louise (b. 1848), Arthur (b. 1850), Leopold (b. 1853) and Beatrice (b. 1857).
The household was largely run by Victorias childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria[66] and had supported her against the Kensington System.[67] Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughters health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victorias close relationship with her ended.[68]
Married reign
Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1843
On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her, but the gun did not fire. The assailant escaped; the following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to bait Francis into taking a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Franciss death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Bean also tried to fire a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco and had too little charge.[69] Edward Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail.[70] In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at Victorias carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London.[71] In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years transportation.[72]
Melbournes support in the House of Commons weakened through the early years of Victorias reign, and in the 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, and the ladies of the bedchamber most associated with the Whigs were replaced.[73]
Victoria cuddling a child next to her
Earliest known photograph of Victoria, here with her eldest daughter, c. 1845[74]
In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight.[75] In the next four years, over a million Irish people died and another million emigrated in what became known as the Great Famine.[76] In Ireland, Victoria was labelled "The Famine Queen".[77][78] In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent to between £178,000 and £6.5 million in 2016[79]) to the British Relief Association, more than any other individual famine relief donor,[80] and also supported the Maynooth Grant to a Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland, despite Protestant opposition.[81] The story that she donated only £5 in aid to the Irish, and on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the end of the 19th century.[82]
By 1846, Peels ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Peel, some Tories (the free-trade oriented liberal conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell.[83]
Victorias British prime ministers
Year Prime Minister (party)
1835 Viscount Melbourne (Whig)
1841 Sir Robert Peel (Conservative)
1846 Lord John Russell (W)
1852 (Feb) Earl of Derby (C)
1852 (Dec) Earl of Aberdeen (Peelite)
1855 Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)
1858 Earl of Derby (C)
1859 Viscount Palmerston (L)
1865 Earl Russell [Lord John Russell] (L)
1866 Earl of Derby (C)
1868 (Feb) Benjamin Disraeli (C)
1868 (Dec) William Gladstone (L)
1874 Benjamin Disraeli [Ld Beaconsfield] (C)
1880 William Gladstone (L)
1885 Marquess of Salisbury (C)
1886 (Feb) William Gladstone (L)
1886 (Jul) Marquess of Salisbury (C)
1892 William Gladstone (L)
1894 Earl of Rosebery (L)
1895 Marquess of Salisbury (C)
See List of prime ministers of Queen Victoria
for details of her British and Imperial premiers
Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain.[84] She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the House of Orleans, who were related by marriage through the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I at Château dEu in Normandy; she was the first British or English monarch to visit a French monarch since the meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.[85] When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first French king to visit a British sovereign.[86] Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile in England.[87] At the height of a revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left London for the greater safety of Osborne House,[88] a private estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped.[89] Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances.[90] Victorias first visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but it had no lasting impact or effect on the growth of Irish nationalism.[91]
Portrait of the young Queen by Herbert Smith, 1848
Russells ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen.[92] She found particularly offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen.[93] Victoria complained to Russell that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and continued to act on his own initiative, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the British governments approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonapartes coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister.[94] The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, by which time Russells administration had been replaced by a short-lived minority government led by Lord Derby.
Photograph of a seated Victoria, dressed in black, holding an infant with her children and Prince Albert standing around her
Albert, Victoria and their nine children, 1857. Left to right: Alice, Arthur, Prince Albert, Albert Edward, Leopold, Louise, Queen Victoria with Beatrice, Alfred, Victoria, and Helena.
In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was so impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and final child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, and members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous.[95] Victoria may have had postnatal depression after many of her pregnancies.[96] Letters from Albert to Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of self-control. For example, about a month after Leopolds birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".[97]
In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston as prime minister.[98]
Napoleon III, Britains closest ally as a result of the Crimean War,[96] visited London in April 1855, and from 17 to 28 August the same year Victoria and Albert returned the visit.[99] Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne and accompanied them to Paris.[100] They visited the Exposition Universelle (a successor to Alberts 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon Is tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honour at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace of Versailles.[101]
Portrait by Winterhalter, 1859
On 14 January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England.[102] The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister.[103] Victoria and Albert attended the opening of a new basin at the French military port of Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military preparations were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor state of the Royal Navy in comparison to the French Navy.[104] Derbys ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office.[105]
Eleven days after Orsinis assassination attempt in France, Victorias eldest daughter married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in London. They had been betrothed since September 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 years old; the marriage was delayed by the Queen and her husband Albert until the bride was 17.[106] The Queen and Albert hoped that their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state.[107] The Queen felt "sick at heart" to see her daughter leave England for Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in one of her frequent letters, "when I look round to all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too – one by one."[108] Almost exactly a year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queens first grandchild, Wilhelm, who would become the last German Emperor.
Widowhood
Victoria photographed by J. J. E. Mayall, 1860
In March 1861, Victorias mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mothers papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply;[109] she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother.[110] To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief,[111] Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble.[112] 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 an actress in Ireland.[113] Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him.[114] By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell.[115] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated.[116] She blamed her husbands death on worry over the Prince of Waless philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said.[117] 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.[118] Her seclusion earned her the nickname "widow of Windsor".[119] Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances.[120]
Victorias self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement.[121] 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 occupants declining business".[122] 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.[123]
Victoria and John Brown at Balmoral, 1863. Photograph by G. W. Wilson.
Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown.[124] Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, and some referred to the Queen as "Mrs. Brown".[125] 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.[126]
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 Alberts death.[127] 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,[128] though she was not in favour of votes for women.[129] 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."[130] With the phrase "we authors, Maam", he complimented her.[131] Disraelis 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 Gladstones 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".[132]
In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queens seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the Third French Republic.[133] A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victorias removal, and Radical MPs spoke against her.[134] In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an abscess in her arm, which Joseph Lister successfully lanced and treated with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray.[135] In late November 1871, at the height of the republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die.[136] As the tenth anniversary of her husbands death approached, her sons condition grew no better, and Victorias distress continued.[137] To general rejoicing, he recovered.[138] Mother and son attended a public parade through London and a grand service of thanksgiving in St Pauls Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.[139]
On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur OConnor, a great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus OConnor, waved an unloaded pistol at Victorias open carriage just after she had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and OConnor was later sentenced to 12 months imprisonment,[140] and a birching.[141] As a result of the incident, Victorias popularity recovered further.[142]
Empress
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the princes, chiefs, and people of India
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britains 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.[143] She wrote of "her feelings of horror and reg.
Victoria
Photograph of Queen Victoria, 1882
Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882
Queen of the United Kingdom (more ...)
Reign 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Coronation 28 June 1838
Predecessor William IV
Successor Edward VII
Empress of India
Reign 1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901
Imperial Durbar 1 January 1877
Successor Edward VII
Born Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent
24 May 1819
Kensington Palace, London, England
Died 22 January 1901 (aged 81)
Osborne House, Isle of Wight, England
Burial 4 February 1901
Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor
Spouse Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(m. 1840; died 1861)
Issue
Victoria, German Empress
Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein
Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany
Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
House Hanover
Father Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
Mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Signature Victorias signature
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her fathers three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Birth and family
Portrait of Victoria at age 4
Victoria at the age of four, by Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1823
Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. Until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower and later the first king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4:15 a.m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.[1]
Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.[a] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kents eldest brother George, Prince Regent.[2]
At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victorias father, Edward, Duke of Kent.[3] The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children. William and Edward married on the same day in 1818, but both of Williams legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. Williams second daughter, Princess Elizabeth of Clarence, lived for twelve weeks from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821, and for that period Victoria was fourth in line.[4]
The Duke of York died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; the throne passed to their next surviving brother, William, and Victoria became heir presumptive. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victorias mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor.[5] King William distrusted the Duchesss capacity to be regent, and in 1836 he declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victorias 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.[6]
Heir presumptive
Portrait of Victoria with her spaniel Dash by George Hayter, 1833
Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy".[7] Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchesss lover.[8] The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her fathers family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them.[9] The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King Williams illegitimate children.[10] Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash.[11] Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin,[12] but she spoke only English at home.[13]
Victorias sketch of herself
Self-portrait, 1835
In 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way.[14] Similar journeys to other parts of England and Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. To the Kings annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops.[15] William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heir presumptive.[16] Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest.[17] She objected on the grounds of the Kings disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy and forced Victoria to continue the tours.[18] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary.[20] As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.[21] Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mothers household.[22]
By 1836, Victorias maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert,[23] the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victorias mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert.[24] William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange.[25] Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.[26] According to her diary, she enjoyed Alberts company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful."[27] Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain".[28]
Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser",[29] to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see."[30] However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.[31]
Early reign
Accession
Drawing of two men on their knees in front of Victoria
Victoria receives the news of her accession from Lord Conyngham (left) and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Painting by Henry Tanworth Wells, 1887.
Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom.[b] In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 oclock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen."[32] Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.[33]
Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her fathers unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victorias heir presumptive until she had a child.[34]
Coronation portrait by George Hayter
At the time of Victorias accession, the government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne. He at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him for advice.[35] Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure.[36] Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations.[37] She became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace[38] and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as being granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her fathers debts.[39]
At the start of her reign Victoria was popular,[40] but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mothers ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.[41] Victoria believed the rumours.[42] She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora",[43] because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System.[44] At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin.[45] Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora.[46] When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen.[47] At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".[48]
In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery.[49] 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 Queens ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.[50]
Marriage
See also: Wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Wedding dress of Queen Victoria
Painting of a lavish wedding attended by richly dressed people in a magnificent room
Marriage of Victoria and Albert, painted by George Hayter
Though Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mothers continued reliance on Conroy.[51] Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her.[52] When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mothers proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative".[53] Victoria showed interest in Alberts education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock.[54]
Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor.[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St Jamess Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:
I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life![56]
Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queens companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life.[57] Victorias mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victorias aunt, Princess Augusta, in 1840, Victorias mother was given both Clarence and Frogmore Houses.[58] Through Alberts mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.[59]
Contemporary lithograph of Edward Oxfords attempt to assassinate Victoria, 1840
During Victorias 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.[60] 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.[61] In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victorias popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis.[62] Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant,[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,[64] and thought newborn babies were ugly.[65] Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward (b. 1841), Alice (b. 1843), Alfred (b. 1844), Helena (b. 1846), Louise (b. 1848), Arthur (b. 1850), Leopold (b. 1853) and Beatrice (b. 1857).
The household was largely run by Victorias childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria[66] and had supported her against the Kensington System.[67] Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughters health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victorias close relationship with her ended.[68]
Married reign
Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1843
On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her, but the gun did not fire. The assailant escaped; the following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to bait Francis into taking a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Franciss death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Bean also tried to fire a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco and had too little charge.[69] Edward Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail.[70] In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at Victorias carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London.[71] In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years transportation.[72]
Melbournes support in the House of Commons weakened through the early years of Victorias reign, and in the 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, and the ladies of the bedchamber most associated with the Whigs were replaced.[73]
Victoria cuddling a child next to her
Earliest known photograph of Victoria, here with her eldest daughter, c. 1845[74]
In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight.[75] In the next four years, over a million Irish people died and another million emigrated in what became known as the Great Famine.[76] In Ireland, Victoria was labelled "The Famine Queen".[77][78] In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent to between £178,000 and £6.5 million in 2016[79]) to the British Relief Association, more than any other individual famine relief donor,[80] and also supported the Maynooth Grant to a Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland, despite Protestant opposition.[81] The story that she donated only £5 in aid to the Irish, and on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the end of the 19th century.[82]
By 1846, Peels ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Peel, some Tories (the free-trade oriented liberal conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell.[83]
Victorias British prime ministers
Year Prime Minister (party)
1835 Viscount Melbourne (Whig)
1841 Sir Robert Peel (Conservative)
1846 Lord John Russell (W)
1852 (Feb) Earl of Derby (C)
1852 (Dec) Earl of Aberdeen (Peelite)
1855 Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)
1858 Earl of Derby (C)
1859 Viscount Palmerston (L)
1865 Earl Russell [Lord John Russell] (L)
1866 Earl of Derby (C)
1868 (Feb) Benjamin Disraeli (C)
1868 (Dec) William Gladstone (L)
1874 Benjamin Disraeli [Ld Beaconsfield] (C)
1880 William Gladstone (L)
1885 Marquess of Salisbury (C)
1886 (Feb) William Gladstone (L)
1886 (Jul) Marquess of Salisbury (C)
1892 William Gladstone (L)
1894 Earl of Rosebery (L)
1895 Marquess of Salisbury (C)
See List of prime ministers of Queen Victoria
for details of her British and Imperial premiers
Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain.[84] She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the House of Orleans, who were related by marriage through the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I at Château dEu in Normandy; she was the first British or English monarch to visit a French monarch since the meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.[85] When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first French king to visit a British sovereign.[86] Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile in England.[87] At the height of a revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left London for the greater safety of Osborne House,[88] a private estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped.[89] Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances.[90] Victorias first visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but it had no lasting impact or effect on the growth of Irish nationalism.[91]
Portrait of the young Queen by Herbert Smith, 1848
Russells ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen.[92] She found particularly offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen.[93] Victoria complained to Russell that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and continued to act on his own initiative, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the British governments approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonapartes coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister.[94] The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, by which time Russells administration had been replaced by a short-lived minority government led by Lord Derby.
Photograph of a seated Victoria, dressed in black, holding an infant with her children and Prince Albert standing around her
Albert, Victoria and their nine children, 1857. Left to right: Alice, Arthur, Prince Albert, Albert Edward, Leopold, Louise, Queen Victoria with Beatrice, Alfred, Victoria, and Helena.
In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was so impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and final child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, and members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous.[95] Victoria may have had postnatal depression after many of her pregnancies.[96] Letters from Albert to Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of self-control. For example, about a month after Leopolds birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".[97]
In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston as prime minister.[98]
Napoleon III, Britains closest ally as a result of the Crimean War,[96] visited London in April 1855, and from 17 to 28 August the same year Victoria and Albert returned the visit.[99] Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne and accompanied them to Paris.[100] They visited the Exposition Universelle (a successor to Alberts 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon Is tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honour at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace of Versailles.[101]
Portrait by Winterhalter, 1859
On 14 January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England.[102] The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister.[103] Victoria and Albert attended the opening of a new basin at the French military port of Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military preparations were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor state of the Royal Navy in comparison to the French Navy.[104] Derbys ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office.[105]
Eleven days after Orsinis assassination attempt in France, Victorias eldest daughter married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in London. They had been betrothed since September 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 years old; the marriage was delayed by the Queen and her husband Albert until the bride was 17.[106] The Queen and Albert hoped that their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state.[107] The Queen felt "sick at heart" to see her daughter leave England for Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in one of her frequent letters, "when I look round to all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too – one by one."[108] Almost exactly a year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queens first grandchild, Wilhelm, who would become the last German Emperor.
Widowhood
Victoria photographed by J. J. E. Mayall, 1860
In March 1861, Victorias mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mothers papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply;[109] she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother.[110] To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief,[111] Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble.[112] 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 an actress in Ireland.[113] Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him.[114] By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell.[115] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated.[116] She blamed her husbands death on worry over the Prince of Waless philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said.[117] 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.[118] Her seclusion earned her the nickname "widow of Windsor".[119] Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances.[120]
Victorias self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement.[121] 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 occupants declining business".[122] 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.[123]
Victoria and John Brown at Balmoral, 1863. Photograph by G. W. Wilson.
Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown.[124] Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, and some referred to the Queen as "Mrs. Brown".[125] 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.[126]
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 Alberts death.[127] 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,[128] though she was not in favour of votes for women.[129] 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."[130] With the phrase "we authors, Maam", he complimented her.[131] Disraelis 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 Gladstones 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".[132]
In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queens seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the Third French Republic.[133] A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victorias removal, and Radical MPs spoke against her.[134] In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an abscess in her arm, which Joseph Lister successfully lanced and treated with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray.[135] In late November 1871, at the height of the republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die.[136] As the tenth anniversary of her husbands death approached, her sons condition grew no better, and Victorias distress continued.[137] To general rejoicing, he recovered.[138] Mother and son attended a public parade through London and a grand service of thanksgiving in St Pauls Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.[139]
On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur OConnor, a great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus OConnor, waved an unloaded pistol at Victorias open carriage just after she had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and OConnor was later sentenced to 12 months imprisonment,[140] and a birching.[141] As a result of the incident, Victorias popularity recovered further.[142]
Empress
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the princes, chiefs, and people of India
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britains 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.[143] She wrote of "her feelings of horror and reg.
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