Queen Victoria - A Brief Biography

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria), 1819-1901, queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901). Alexandrina Victoria was the only child of the fourth son of King George III: Edward, duke of Kent. Her mother was Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg, sister of King Leopold of the Belgians.

The name "Queen Victoria" conjures up a picture of a small, plump old lady in a black gown and lace cap, querulous and exacting, "not amused" at the antics of the younger generation, yearning always to be reunited by death with her dear departed Albert. It is hard to visualise her as a child. Yet, of course, she was once young and not always the formidable matriarch and magnificent Queen-Empress of popular legend. In fact, her childhood did not really end until she was 18 years old, when she succeeded to the throne.

Victoria was born on a bright spring day, 24th May 1819, at Kensington Palace, in the then quiet suburb of London. "Plumb as a partridge" was her father's description of the baby, and she certainly bore a marked resemblance to her sturdy and robust Hanoverian ancestors who had ruled Great Britain for little more than a century at the time of her birth.

Early Reign

Victoria's father died before she was a year old. Upon the death (1830) of George IV, she was recognized as heir to the British throne, and in 1837, at the age of 18, she succeeded her uncle, William IV, to the throne. With the accession of a woman, the connection between the English and Hanoverian thrones ceased in accordance with the Salic law of Hanover. One of the young queen's advisers was Baron Stockmar, sent by her uncle, King Leopold I of the Belgians.

Her first prime minister, Viscount Melbourne, became her close friend and adviser. She tested the limits of her royal powers when the government of Lord Melbourne, the Whig who had been her mentor, fell. She refused to follow precedent and dismiss her ladies of the bedchamber so that the Tory government could replace them. Her refusal brought back the Whigs until 1841as the Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel, declined to form a cabinet, and Melbourne remained in office.

Marriage to Albert

She'd met her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when they were both seventeen. When they were twenty, he returned to England, and Victoria, in love with him, proposed marriage. They were married on February 10, 1840. Albert, with whom she was very much in love, became the dominant influence in her life. Her first child, Victoria, later empress of Germany, was born in 1840, and the prince of Wales, later Edward VII, in 1841. Victoria had nine children. Their marriages and those of her grandchildren allied the British royal house with those of Russia, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Romania, and several of the German states. (The marriage of her daughters into other royal families, and the likelihood that her children bore a mutant gene for hemophilia, both affected the following generations of European history.

Through Albert's efforts, Victoria was reconciled with the Tories, and she became very fond of Peel during his second ministry (1841-46). She was less happy with the Whig ministry that followed, taking particular exception to the adventurous foreign policy of Viscount Palmerston. The resulting friction was a factor in Palmerston's dismissal from office in 1851. The queen and Albert also influenced the formation of Lord Aberdeen's coalition government in 1852. Royal popularity was increased by the success of the Crystal Palace exposition (1851), planned and carried through by Albert.

It began to wane again, however, when it was rumored on the eve of the Crimean War that the royal couple was pro-Russian. After the outbreak (1854) of the war, Victoria took part in the organization of relief for the wounded and instituted the Victoria Cross for bravery. She also reconciled herself to Palmerston, who became prime minister in 1855 and proved a vigorous war leader.

Widowhood and Later Years

In 1861, Albert (who had been named prince consort in 1857) died. Victoria's grief was so great that she did not appear in public for three years and did not open Parliament until 1866; her prolonged seclusion damaged her popularity. Her reappearance was largely the work of Benjamin Disraeli, who, together with William Gladstone, dominated the politics of the latter part of Victoria's reign.

Disraeli, adroit in his personal relations with Victoria, became the queen's great favorite. In 1876 he secured for her the title empress of India, which pleased her greatly; she was ardently imperialistic and intensely interested in the welfare of her colonial subjects, particularly the Indians. Victoria's relations with Gladstone, on the other hand, were very stiff; she disliked him personally and disapproved of many of his policies, especially Irish Home Rule.

In her old age, Victoria was enormously popular. Jubilees were held in 1887 and 1897 to celebrate the 50th and 60th years of the longest English reign. The queen was not highly intelligent, but her conscientiousness and strict morals helped to restore the prestige of the crown and to establish it as a symbol of public service and imperial unity.