by Anna Kirwan
I am a modern princess. Should I believe what a Gypsy may have said so many years ago?
I simply cannot say.
I think, now, I shall go and practise painting those palm trees. Dear Mr Westall will see that I am trying to improve myself.
Epilogue
Scarcely a month after her eighteenth birthday, on Tuesday, June 20, 1837, Princess Victoria wrote in her real diary:
I was awoke by Mamma who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning and consequently that I am Queen.
Because William IV had outlived her childhood, Victoria never required a Regent to rule for her. The ambitions of Sir John Conroy were dashed, and the young Queen steadfastly held herself apart from his influence from that day forward.
Victoria showed herself to be a poised, confident, energetic ruler. Educated in matters of State by Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, and counselled by King Leopold and his old friend, Baron Stockmar, she became the first modern monarch of the United Kingdom. Political reform was promising to raise the fortunes of the common working people, and Victoria’s personal virtues and idealism helped restore confidence in the Royal tradition. As a single, attractive Queen, she led a life filled, not only with government and world affairs, but also with dazzling social events, art, and music.
Then, when her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, came to visit, Victoria fell in love. Albert had also been a protégé of Leopold and Stockmar. He was well educated, philosophical, interested in science, as passionate about music and art as Victoria herself – and very handsome. They married on February 10, 1840.
As the “Victorian Era” began to blossom, Her Majesty’s lively young family set the fashion for home life rather than courtly elegance. Victoria and Albert had nine children: Victoria (“Vicky”), the Princess Royal; the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward (“Bertie” – later, King Edward VII); Alice; Alfred (“Affie”); Helena (“Lenchen”); Louise; Arthur; Leopold; and Beatrice (“Baby”). The family spent a good deal of time away from London, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands. A visitor wrote of their lives away from Buckingham Palace:
They live not merely like private gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks, small house, small rooms, small establishment. There are no soldiers, and the whole guard of the Sovereign and the whole Royal Family is a single policeman… The Queen is running in and out of the house all day long, and often goes about alone, walks into the cottages, and sits down and chats with the old women…
The Baroness Lehzen had retired from her role as Victoria’s chief confidante once Prince Albert proved himself a strong husband and helpmate. Victoria came to rely on his insight and executive abilities to help her through the hundreds of messages and decisions required of her each day.
Victoria’s early ties to the Whig (Liberal) party gave way, bit by bit, to a sense that the Crown should be a strong, continuous influence for good and stable values, “above” partisan politics, no matter which party was in power. Although always a staunch supporter of the (Protestant) Church of England, Victoria attempted to be fair and realistic about the contributions and rights of other religious groups. In 1837, before she’d ruled for even a year, she dubbed Sir Moses Montefiore the first Jewish Knight of the United Kingdom.
The Corn Laws, against imported grain, caused great harm in Catholic Ireland during the potato famine. When Prime Minister Robert Peel sacrificed his career to obtain their repeal, Victoria backed him. Though preoccupied with her frequent pregnancies and many little children, she had her own opinions. She supposed Ireland ought to be treated more like Scotland, where she and Albert felt quite at home, and she would not abide anti-Catholic preaching.
With all their hard work, Victoria and Albert still made time for art and music. Their frequent gifts to each other of paintings and sculpture “made” many artists’ careers. Victoria took drawing lessons from nonsense poet and artist Edward Lear. The composer Felix Mendelssohn, too, was a guest at the palace. He said afterward that Prince Albert played the organ so “…that it would have done credit to any professional,” and that Her Majesty sang “…really quite faultlessly, and with charming feeling and expression … as one seldom hears it done.”
But sadness was too soon to lay claim to Victoria’s contentment. In the early winter of 1861, Prince Albert, generally healthy but overworked, contracted typhoid fever. (It is now thought he may also have suffered from stomach cancer.) His death, when they were both only forty-two years old, left Victoria changed forever by shock and sorrow. She never entirely recovered from the loss of the friend, husband, partner, and “dearest Master” she would always consider the most perfect of men.
Our most enduring image of Victoria is of Her Majesty in the black mourning clothes she wore for the remaining forty years of her life. For three entire years, in fact, she made almost no public appearances. The genuine grief of her subjects, meanwhile, gave way to impatience and disapproval; the people wanted their Queen to show herself strong despite her loss. Victoria could not do it, until the combined persuasion of her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, and Albert’s and her old friend, their Scottish manservant, John Brown, convinced her that returning to a full and useful life was the best way to honour the dead. From that time on, Victoria earned her reputation as “the Grandmother of Europe” by counselling and arranging marriages for her own children, nieces, and nephews among the Royal Families all across the Continent. She became more engaged than ever in extending British power and influence in international affairs. In 1875, Disraeli managed to have Parliament add to her other official titles, “Empress of India.” With characteristic energy, Victoria took up the study of the Hindustani language, with tutoring from Abdul Karim, her private secretary, or munshi.
From the time she was thirteen, she kept a personal journal, writing sometimes ten pages in a day. She also managed to read and write an enormous number of letters. In 1868 and 1884, selections from her journal were published in book form. Unfortunately, she left instructions that when she died, her daughter, Princess Beatrice, was to go through her private papers and destroy anything inappropriate for publication. The princess, a Victorian of the most discreet and “proper” sort, destroyed a treasure of intelligent, sensitive historical commentary the likes of which we can only imagine.
By the end of her long life, Victoria was beloved and revered, not only in her own realm, but around the world. Her fiftieth anniversary as Queen was celebrated with a Golden Jubilee in 1887, followed by a Diamond Jubilee in 1897 – the only time she ever put off her widow’s black and wore a white gown.
Victoria died on January 22, 1901. The poet Robert Bridges wrote, “It seemed as though the keystone had fallen out of the arch of heaven.” In Parliament, Lord Salisbury said:
She has been the greatest instance of government by example and by love, and it will never be forgotten how much she has done for the elevation of her people, not by … giving any command, but by the simple sight and contemplation of the brilliant qualities she exhibited in her exalted position… She bridged over the great interval separating old England and new England. Other nations have had to pass through the same ordeal, but they seldom passed it so peacefully, easily, and with so much prosperity.
And British statesman, A J Balfour, observed, “She passed away, I believe, without a single enemy in the world, for even those who love not England love her.”
Historical note
Queen Victoria’s sixty-three-year reign was the longest in England’s history.
When Victoria was a child, the American and French revolutions and the Napoleonic wars were recent hi
story. Gaslights, steam engines, and railways were new inventions. Photography was not introduced until 1839, and the first telegraph line in England, not until 1844.
Working-class men and women could not participate in elections; neither could Roman Catholics, Jews, or members of other religious minorities. The fast-growing new industrial cities could not send their own representatives to Parliament. There were no laws to protect children from being forced into mining or factory labour, or to guarantee them adequate food, shelter, or schooling. Slavery was still legal in the United Kingdom until 1833.
By the time of Victoria’s death in 1901, the first telephones, electric lights, typewriters, automobiles, and radios had been introduced – not to mention matches and coat hangers! Religious and racial bigotry was not extinguished, but it was not so firmly supported by the law. It would be only a couple of years until the Wright brothers’ first airplane took to the sky, and twenty-seven years until all British women won the vote.
Many of the “classic” authors, composers, and artists were created by the Victorian era, and many worked and taught as Her Majesty’s subjects and admirers. Queen Victoria herself was an avid fan of the music of Rossini, Bellini, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. She adored the ballerina Maria Taglioni, and, while visiting the French Empress Eugenie on the Riviera, was pleased to meet the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. By the end of the century, the theatre was enlivened by Gilbert and Sullivan, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde.
Some Victorian painters are still sometimes noted for the sentimentality of their work, but the country landscapes of John Constable are clear and natural, while J M W Turner used light and colour in ways that opened the eyes of the Impressionists to come. And although nostalgia for the pre-industrial past popularized the Gothic and pre-Raphaelite styles, progress could not be turned back. Crowded cities and disappearing countrysides demanded buildings that could expand upward. Architecture changed forever with the Victorians’ development of iron – and later, steel – beams, and the ability to make larger, stronger sheets of window glass. Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition, an amazing showcase for all these arts and technological advances, was held in the Crystal Palace, a giant “greenhouse” that enclosed full-grown trees.
Before Victoria’s time, very few books had been written for – or about – child readers, but that was to change. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre came out in 1847, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass were published in 1865 and 1871, respectively. His friend George Macdonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1872) is a fairy story about a royal child not unlike Victoria – surrounded by dangers but protected by the love of loyal common folk. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) is as thrilling now as ever, his A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) still one of the most popular poetry collections. Charles Dickens’s wry and compassionate Oliver Twist (1838) and A Christmas Carol (1843), and Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies (1863) appealed for better living conditions for the poor. The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (1889) began a long series of “colour fairy” retellings of tales from many lands. And the success of the late-Victorian Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books (1894 and 1895) and Just So Stories (1902) celebrated British imperialism in India and Africa.
Children of all classes led lives far different from what is usual nowadays. Even those who did not have to go to work spent their early years in the “nursery” and home schoolroom under the care of a governess, and saw little of their own parents. Not all homes had running water. Though flush toilets had already been invented, they were not common at this time. Coal fires provided rather unreliable heat – and a great deal of polluted air.
Medical knowledge was greatly improving public health, though. When Victoria was a child, conservative physicians were still reluctant to accept the idea that the blood circulated through the body, and they thought fevers were caused by patient’s having too much blood. Then, Louis Pasteur discovered that many diseases were actually bacterial infections, an observation that revolutionized hygiene and surgery. The Duke of Kent saw to it that his precious child was inoculated against smallpox. Joseph Lister proved that sterilizing instruments and operating rooms with heat or carbolic acid dramatically reduced the post-surgical death rate. Queen Victoria herself helped popularize the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic – her doctors gave it to her during the births of her younger children. Even the use of plaster casts on broken bones was a Victorian innovation.
During the same years when civilization was making all these advances, unfortunately, self-righteousness and greed too often combined with “improved” weaponry in the dark side of British success: the glories of the Empire included British invasions around the world. The sun never set on Her Majesty’s Army and Navy. In India, Egypt, Sudan, the Crimea, Burma, China, South Africa, and Central America, native societies resisted in vain. Victorian citizens believed earnestly that they owed it to the world to make war to “improve” conditions for “savage” nations. In the process, they took for themselves the riches of the continents. No wonder that little England was the wealthiest country in the history of the world! In turn, the blood-tainted profits from Asia and Africa helped develop Canada, British Guiana (now Belize), the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Yet it is undeniable: in England and all its dominions, Victorian common sense, efficiency, and conscientious intentions did allow a new stability for agriculture and industry. The Empire was often arrogant, brutal, racist, and blind to the values and rights of other cultures. Still, the order Great Britain embodied during the nineteenth century allowed the world to learn how to feed, clothe, heal, and educate more of its children than ever before. The highest ideals of Victoria’s people are still admired.
The Hanover-Coburg family tree
The Hanover dynasty began with King George I, Victoria’s paternal great-great-grandfather, who was a German descendant of King James I of England. Victoria’s mother belonged to the Saxe-Coburg family of royals who ruled a territory in the German region known as Thuringia. British custom and law provided that members of the royal family could not choose to marry Catholics or commoners, and could not marry at all without the monarch’s consent. Therefore, the most eligible matches were often found among the same few noble houses of Europe. Hence, intermarriage among even first cousins, as with Victoria and Albert, was not uncommon.
The chart illustrates the growth and interconnections of these two family lines. The crown symbol indicates those who ruled. Double lines represent marriages; single lines indicate parentage. Dates of births and deaths (when available) are noted.
KING GEORGE IIII
Victoria’s paternal grandfather; born 1738, crowned 1760, died 1820.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE (“GRANDMA’AM”)
Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; born 1744, married George III. They had fifteen children – six girls and nine boys of whom two (Octavius and Alfred) died as toddlers. She died in 1818.
EDWARD AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF KENT
Fourth son and fifth child of George III and Queen Charlotte; born 1767. In 1799, Prince Edward was made Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Earl of Dublin. In 1818, he married the Dowager Princess Victoire of Leiningen, making her Duchess of Kent. Their child, Princess Victoria, was born in 1819.The Duke died after a brief illness in 1820,when Victoria was only eight months old.
VICTOIRE OF SAXE-COBURG AND SAALFELD, DUCHESS OF KENT
Victoria’s mother, sister of Prince Leopold. Born 1786; married at seventeen to Prince Emich Charles of Leiningen, who was twenty-three years older than she, and when he died, he left her a widow with two children (Charles and Feodora). When she was thirty-two, she married the Duke of Kent and moved to England. She was not popular with her royal in-laws. She died in 1861.
PRINCE CHARLES OF LEININGEN
Victoria’s half-brother; born 1804, died 1856.
PRINCESS FEOD
ORA OF LEININGEN (“FEO”)
Victoria’s half-sister; married Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg; born 1807, died 1872.
ALEXANDRINA VICTORIA
Only child of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, and Victoire of Saxe-Coburg. Born May 24, 1819, she inherited the throne of England at age eighteen from her uncle, King William IV. In February 1840, she married her cousin Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her reign lasted for sixty-three years until her death in 1901.
ALBERT, PRINCE OF SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA
Younger son of Duke Ernest, nephew of Duchess of Kent and King Leopold; born 1819, he married his cousin, Victoria, in 1840, and together they had nine children before his death in 1861.
Glossary of characters
Victoria’s family
QUEEN ADELAIDE: Victoria’s aunt; wife of William IV.
LORD ADOLPHUS FITZCLARENCE: son of William IV.
ADOLPHUS, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: Victoria’s uncle; son of George III.
PRINCE ALBERT OF SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA: son of Ernest I; Victoria’s cousin, whom she married in 1840.
PRINCESS AMELIA: youngest daughter of George III.
AUGUSTA OF CAMBRIDGE: Victoria’s cousin.
PRINCESS AUGUSTA: Victoria’s aunt; daughter of George III.
CAPTAIN AUGUSTUS AND MISS D’ESTE: children of the Duke of Sussex.
AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, DUKE OF SUSSEX: son of George III.
