Victoria (queen)

I

Introduction

Victoria (queen) (1819-1901), queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901). Her reign was the longest of any monarch in British history and came to be known as the Victorian era.

Queen Victoria was the official head of state not only of the United Kingdom but also of the growing worldwide British Empire, which included Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and large parts of Africa. As the personal embodiment of her kingdom, Victoria was eager to ensure that her country was held in high esteem throughout the world as an economically and militarily powerful state and as a model of civilization. Victoria brought to the British monarchy such 19th-century ideals as a devoted family life, earnestness, public and private respectability, and obedience to the law. During the later years of her reign, the monarchy attained a high degree of popularity among most of its subjects.

II

Childhood

Queen Victoria was born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London. Her parents were Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Edward Augustus, duke of Kent and Strathern, the fourth son of King George III of Great Britain. When Victoria was eight months old, her father died. Victoria’s mother raised her in Kensington Palace with the help of German governesses, private English tutors, and Victoria’s uncle, Prince Leopold (who in 1831 became King Leopold I of Belgium). Victoria learned to speak and write French and German as readily as English. She also studied history, geography, and the Bible. She was taught how to play the piano and learned how to paint, a hobby that she enjoyed into her 60s. Because Victoria’s uncle, King William IV, had no legitimate children, Victoria became heir apparent to the British crown upon his accession in 1830. On June 20, 1837, with the death of William IV, she became queen at the age of 18.

III

Early Reign

Immediately after becoming queen, Victoria began regular meetings with William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the British prime minister at the time. The two grew very close, and Melbourne taught Victoria how the British government worked on a day-to-day basis.

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Britain in the 19th century was a constitutional monarchy, and the king or queen ruled through ministers who were members of, and required the support of, the British Parliament. This meant that the monarch had some influence in government, but not a great deal of real power. In the course of her reign, Queen Victoria played a role in appointing some cabinet ministers (and even a prime minister), as well as particular ambassadors and bishops of the Church of England, and she consulted regularly with her prime ministers by letter and in person. In private, Victoria was never afraid to speak her mind. Much of her time, however, was devoted to ceremonial activities such as the official opening and closing of each year’s session of Parliament.

Victoria was very fond of Melbourne, and because he was the leader of the Whig Party (which later became the Liberal Party), Victoria began publicly to support the Whigs rather than the opposition party, the Tories (later the Conservative Party). The Whigs were sympathetic to freedom of speech and of the press and favored greater religious liberty for those people who did not belong to the official Church of England. The Tories were more concerned with maintaining the country’s established institutions and with making no further legal concessions to religious minorities.

The young queen hoped that the Whigs would continue to keep a majority of seats in the House of Commons (the lower house of the British Parliament) so that Melbourne could remain prime minister. When it appeared in 1839 that he might have to give up the post, the queen successfully used her influence to keep him. In the so-called Bedchamber Crisis, she refused to allow Tory leader Sir Robert Peel to change the ladies-in-waiting of her court, all of whom were Whig sympathizers. Peel then felt unable to form a government, and Melbourne continued as prime minister for two more years. A general election in 1841 resulted in a majority of Tory party members in the House of Commons, however, and Victoria was compelled to accept Peel as prime minister.

IV

Married Life

In 1839 Victoria fell in love with her first cousin, Prince Albert, of the small German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They were married in February 1840, and Albert soon developed a keen interest in the government of his new country. Albert was an unusually studious and serious young man, and he served as his wife’s private secretary. He was an active patron of the arts and sciences, and he was the prime organizer of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first true world's fair, which was held in the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park. Albert also favored the expansion of education, and he served as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He became a great champion of the strengthening and modernizing of Britain's armed forces. Though Albert was respected by most of his new countrymen, he was not loved; many resented him because he was a foreigner, and his heavy German accent did not help.

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