Victoria, Queen; Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and, from 1876, Empress of India

b. 1819; d.1901

Daughter of Edward Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III, by Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg; born in Kensington Palace.

She became queen in 1837. At her accession the ties between Great Britain and Hanover were broken as the crown of Hanover could not pass to a woman. Victoria reigned longer than any previous British monarch, proved herself a model for constitutional monarchy for the age in which she lived, and gave her name to a great period of British history and social life. Princess Victoria was strictly brought up by her mother and her early education was supervised by the Baroness Lehzen. On her accession her closest friend and adviser was Lord Melbourne, the prime minister and a Whig, who gained considerable influence over her. However it soon became clear that the new queen had a mind of her own. One of the minor crises of her reign occurred in 1839 when Melbourne's ministry was defeated. Sir Robert Peel was asked to form a government. Peel stipulated, however, that the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber (all members of Whig families) should be dismissed, to which, against all advice, the Queen refused to agree. She won, and Melbourne returned to office for another two years.

In 1840 Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Queen was devoted to her husband and, after an initial reluctance to allow him to take part in state affairs, she came to rely almost wholly on his judgement. There were nine children: the Princess Royal married the German Crown Prince; the second child and eldest son subsequently succeeded his mother as Edward VII; Alice became duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt; Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, later became duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; Helena married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Louise married the Duke of Argyll; Arthur became duke of Connaught, and Leopold became duke of Albany; Beatrice married Prince Henry of Battenberg. The marriages of Victoria's children, and their immediate descendants, linked the British royal family to practically every royal house in Europe. They also transmitted the disease of haemophilia (from which Victoria's son, Leopold, died) to the royal houses of Russia and Spain. Peel, whom the Queen had grown to like, fell from office, and the Whigs brought in Lord Palmerston, whom Prince Albert disliked and distrusted. The Queen followed his lead and there was constant friction, culminating in Palmerston's dismissal in 1851 because he had acted without first consulting the Queen.

In 1861 Prince Albert died of typhoid. For the rest of her life, that is, for more than half her reign, Victoria mourned him, and although she worked laboriously at affairs of state, refusing to let the Prince of Wales relieve her of anything, for a long time she never appeared in public if she could avoid it. Her three great ministers of this long period were William Ewart Gladstone, whom she detested, saying that he addressed her as if she were a public meeting; Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield), who was the perfect courtier, flattering his royal mistress and making difficult affairs of state appear simple and interesting; and Lord Salisbury, the great Conservative leader.

In 1876 the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India. In 1887 she held her first Jubilee, to be followed ten years later by the Diamond Jubilee. This last period of her life was a sort of apotheosis, in which she was accepted as the living and apparently immortal symbol of British greatness and Empire.

Victoria's influence on British history was considerable. She had immense character and will-power, and a lively intelligence, but no great intellect. As a girl she had received the crown when it was in disrepute. She reigned for 63 years, and she left it as a symbol of public honour and the highest private virtue. Her happy family life, her sympathy with simple people, her tragic widowhood and retirement, all caused her to be regarded with great veneration and have given her a place in history which nothing can belittle. Though the days of personal royal rule were ended beyond revival, Victoria refused to abate her remaining constitutional privileges-amongst them a particular care for foreign policy-there were repeated battles over Palmerston's habit of taking action first and informing his sovereign afterwards. Victoria had also little understanding of party politics, which evolved in their modern form during her reign. But she demonstrated by example the place which the Crown could fill in British political life and as a link between the peoples of the Empire, and established a tradition of work and service to the nation.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com

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