Queen Victoria--Tricia McGill

Find all my books on my BWL author page here.

As we move into a new era after the passing of our beloved Queen Elizabeth who lies in state as I write, prior to her funeral in a few days’ time, my thoughts returned to another long serving Monarch. Until her death in 1901 Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months was longer than that of any previous British Monarch. What was known as the Victorian Era was a period of industrial, political and scientific, not to mention military change within the United Kingdom. This era was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire and in 1876 the British Parliament voted to grant Queen Victoria the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn who was the 4^th son of King George111 and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Raised under the close supervision of her mother and comptroller John Conroy, Victoria did not have a particularly happy childhood. Inheriting the throne at the age of 18 she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. She was identified as having strict standards of personal morality. In later years Victoria described her childhood as melancholy under her mother’s set of rules and protocols devised along with the Duchess by Sir John who was rumoured to be the Duchess’s lover. Their main aim was to render her totally dependent on them.

Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 10^th February 1840 in the Chapel Royal of St James’s Palace and was apparently completely love-struck. She wrote in her diary the evening after their wedding: “I Never, never spent such an evening! My dearest dear Albert—his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before. He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again. His beauty, his sweetness and 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.”

During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Oxford  attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as he later claimed, the guns had no shot. He was tried for high treason, found not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia. 

Her first daughter, also named Victoria, was born in November 1840. The Queen apparently hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought new born babies were ugly. Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.

After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning, avoiding the public. She came to rely increasingly on a Scottish manservant, John Brown. Rumours appeared in print of a romantic connection between the two, and some articles even went as far as calling her Mrs. Brown. Their relationship was the subject of the movie Mrs. Brown. Victoria praised Brown highly in the book she published titled ‘Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.’

After her death in 1901 Victoria was succeeded by her son Edward V11 of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. As a last request, her favourite pet Pomeranian Turi was laid upon her deathbed. Among the mementos that she requested be put alongside her in her coffin was one of Albert’s dressing gowns, plus a plaster cast of his hand. A lock of John Brown’s hair along with a picture of him was placed in her left hand and concealed by a bunch of flowers. There was also a ring owned by John Brown’s mother that was given to her by Brown.

 

More information of her long and eventful life can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria

Tricia McGill Web page