Queen
Victoria

Queen Victoria reigned for 63
years, the longest reign in the history of England. Those years, from 1837
to 1901, became known as the Victorian age and were marked by the rise of
the middle class and a deeply conservative
morality.

Hulton-Deutsch
Collection

"Queen Victoria," Microsoft(R)
Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.

Victoria (Queen),
(1819-1901)
Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India
(1876-1901).

Born Alexandrina Victoria on May
24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London, Victoria was the daughter of
Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; her
father was Edward Augustus, duke of Kent and Strathern, the fourth son of
George III and youngest brother of George IV and William IV, kings of
Great Britain. Because William IV had no legitimate children, his niece
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.

Early in her reign Victoria
developed a serious concern with affairs of state, guided by her first
prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. Melbourne was leader
of that wing of the Whig Party that later became known as the Liberal
Party. He exercised a strongly progressive influence on the political
thinking of the queen.

Marriage

In 1840 Victoria was married to
her first cousin, Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whom she had known
for about four years. Although this was a marriage of state, it was a
highly romantic and successful one, and Victoria was devoted to her
domestic responsibilities. The first of their nine children was Victoria
Adelaide Mary Louise, later empress of Germany. Their first son, Albert
Edward, prince of Wales and later king of Great Britain as Edward VII, was
born in 1841. When the conservative Prince Albert convinced her that
Liberal policy jeopardized the future of the Crown, the queen began to
lose her enthusiasm for the party. After 1841, when the Melbourne
government fell and Sir Robert Peel became prime minister, Victoria was an
ardent supporter of the Conservative Party. Also under Albert's influence,
she began to question the tradition that restricted the British sovereign
to an advisory role. In 1850 she challenged the authority of Henry John
Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, foreign secretary in the Whig government
that had been in power since 1846. Her position was that the sovereign
should at least be consulted on foreign policy. Palmerston, independent
and self-assertive, ignored the request. Their struggle reached a climax
in 1851, when the prime minister, Lord John Russell, who was also
displeased with Palmerston's arbitrary methods, dismissed him from the
foreign office. Their altercations with Palmerston, one of the most
popular political leaders in the country, caused Victoria and Albert to
lose some of the esteem of their subjects. Their popularity dwindled even
more in 1854, when they tried to avert the Crimean War. After the war had
begun, however, they gave it their wholehearted support. In 1856, shortly
before the end of the war, the queen instituted the Victoria Cross, the
highest British award for wartime valor.
In 1857, Victoria had the title of prince
consort bestowed on Albert. Four years later he died, and she remained in
virtual mourning for much of the rest of her life. She avoided public
appearances, letting the prince of Wales fulfill most of the royal
ceremonial duties. Her detailed personal interest in the affairs of state
continued, however.

Reign After
1861

Several prime ministers served
during the latter part of Victoria's reign, but only the Conservative
Party leader Benjamin Disraeli, who held office in 1868 and from 1874 to
1880, gained her confidence. He ingratiated himself with the queen by his
cultivated personal approach and his gift for flattery. He also allowed
her a free hand in the awarding of church, military, and some political
appointments. She fully endorsed his policy of strengthening and extending
the British Empire, and in 1876 Disraeli secured for her the title of
empress of India. She rarely agreed with the brilliant leader of the
Liberal Party, William E. Gladstone, who served as prime minister four
times between 1868 and 1894. Victoria disapproved of the democratic
reforms he enunciated, such as abolishing the purchase of military
commissions and legalizing trade unions, and his powerful intellectualized
method of argument. She was also strongly opposed to his policy of home
rule for Ireland. The Conservative leader Robert Arthur Talbot
Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who served as prime minister
three times between 1885 and 1902, more often found favor with the queen.
Like Disraeli, he advocated protecting British interests and increasing
British influence abroad.

British
Idol

Victoria's popularity among all
classes in British society reached its height in the last two decades of
her reign. Her golden jubilee in 1887 and her diamond jubilee in 1897 were
occasions for great public rejoicing. Her subjects were then enjoying an
unprecedented period of prosperous complacency, and her enthusiastic
execution of the Boer War increased her appeal at home and abroad.
Victoria died on January 22, 1901. Her 63-year reign was the longest in
the history of England. Her descendants, including 40 grandchildren,
married into almost every royal family of Europe.

With her personal example of
honesty, patriotism, and devotion to family life, Victoria became a living
symbol of the solidity of the British Empire. The many years of her reign,
often referred to as the Victorian age, witnessed the rise of the middle
class and were marked by a deeply conservative morality and intense
nationalism.

Victoria's correspondence was
published in three series, Letters, 1837-61 (3 vol., 1907), Letters,
1862-85 (3 vol., 1926-1928), and Letters, 1886-1901 (3 vol.,
1930-32).

"Victoria
(queen)," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97
Encyclopedia.
(c) 1993-1996 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights
reserved.

Queen Victoria

1837-1901

Victoria was born in 1819, and was
the niece of her predecessor William
IV.

She married Albert, Prince of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Their Children were: Victoria, Edward, Alice,
Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.

Victoria was crowned in 1837 by
William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury on the 28th June 1838
at
Westminster
Abbey, London, a month after she came of
age, and released the country from a
Regency by her
unpopular mother. After marrying Albert, Victoria
settled
down to a
frequently troubled reign, but always had a
knack for survival. She became known as the
Grandmother of Europe after marrying her family into every Royal House in
Europe. She also gained a huge Empire.

The Victorian Era saw numerous
innovations in Science,
Technology and the Humanities. Great Britain became
the
most powerful
nation in the world in terms of both
military and industrial prowess. The fact
that most, if not
all, the members of today's European monarchies
can
trace their
ancestry back to Victoria may well be an
indication of this
power.

Queen Victoria was styled as "By
the Grace of God, of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender
of the Faith," until in 1877 when her style became "By the Grace of God,
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the
Faith, Empress of India".

The composer Felix Mendelsshon
wrote that Victoria had
the finest singing voice of any amateur he'd ever
heard.
Victoria was
a very skilled amateur artist, her sketches
were very detailed and her water colours
were extremely
well
done. Victoria published two books "Leaves from the

Journal of Our Life in the
Highland", in 1868, and "More
Leaves from the Journal of A Life in the Highlands", in
1884.

The desk still used by the
President of the United States
in the White House's Oval Office was a gift from
Queen
Victoria. She
had it carved from the timbers of the H.M.S. Resolute, for presentation to
President Rutherford B Hayes.

Victoria, British Columbia, was
named after the queen, as
were Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories
and
Regina,
Saskatchewan. The Victoria Falls were named after the queen, as was Lake
Victoria. In 1841, explorer James Ross named Victoria Land, Antarctica,
after Queen Victoria. Portrayed by Anna Neagle in the 1937 film, "Victoria
the Great". Anna Neagle also played Victoria in the 1937 sequel "Sixty
Glorious Years". Portrayed by Irene Dunne in the 1950 film, "The
Mudlark".

Victoria died on the 22nd of
January 1901 at the age of
82 from natural causes in Osbourne House, Isle of
Wight,
England.
She is buried at Windsor, Berkshire, England.
Her funeral was attended by Kings, Queens,
Princes, Dukes and Lords from all around the world.

She died after reigning for 63
years, she was the longest
reigning British monarch after ruling over a British Empire
that covered a quarter of the globe.

Titles:
Queen of Great Britain
(1837-1901)
Empress of India
(1876-1901)

Go to Successor

Edward
VII

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