Queen Victoria (born May 24, 1819 - died January 22, 1901) - Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 to 1901. Empress of India from May 1, 1876 (Hanoverian Dynasty).
Victorian era
Queen Victoria was in power for 64 years out of 82 lived, and in this she has no equal. It was she, Victoria, who gave her name to the "Victorian era" - the era of economic development and the formation of civil society, the era of Puritanism, family values and eternal, timeless truths. During the reign of Victoria, Britain experienced an unprecedented economic and political rise. During the Victorian era, architecture, fashion, literature, painting and music flourished.
1851 - the first International Industrial Exhibition was held in London, later the Engineering Museum and the Science Museum were created. At this time, photography was invented and widespread (the queen adored photography), music boxes, toys, postcards. At the same time, an urban everyday civilization took shape: street lighting, sidewalks, water supply and sewerage, the subway. The Empress made her first journey by rail in 1842, after which this mode of transport became traditional for the British.
Education. Ascension to the throne
The fact that she had the honor of being the heir to the British throne, Victoria learned only at the age of 12. She would never have seen the royal crown if the numerous offspring of George III were richer in heirs. However, the daughters and sons of the monarch were either childless, or did not marry at all, having illegitimate children. Despite the fact that in 1818 three sons of George III immediately got married and tried to have offspring, only one of them was "lucky" - Duke Edward of Kent, who had a daughter, Victoria, the future Queen of England.
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The little princess was brought up in great severity: she was never left unattended, she was forbidden to communicate with her peers. Over time, the supervision of her mother, the German princess Victoria-Marie-Louise, and her favorite John Conroy (Victoria's elderly father died 8 months after her birth) increasingly weighed on the heiress. After becoming queen, she alienated this pair from her throne. In addition to her mother, the strict governess Louise Letsen was involved in the upbringing of Victoria, whom the girl listened to in everything and loved very much, despite her severe nature. For a long time, the former educator retained her influence at the throne, until Victoria's legal husband Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha removed her from the young queen.
Queen Victoria. Childhood. Youth
Prince Albert and Queen Victoria
The first time Prince Albert, Victoria's cousin, visited England in 1839. For the 19-year-old queen, his appearance at court was like a thunderbolt. Victoria, touchingly and girlishly, fell in love with the attractive Albert. The son of Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was not only good-looking, but also had many other virtues: he passionately loved music and painting, fenced magnificently, and was distinguished by enviable erudition. In addition, the prince was not a frivolous reveler, a lazy person or a moto. He instantly ousted from the heart of the young queen the 58-year-old prime minister, Lord W. Melbourne - her irreplaceable mentor in the first year of her reign.
In this youthful, imposing socialite and successful politician, Victoria saw a good friend and was a little in love with him. In her diary, she wrote: "I am glad that Lord Melbourne is next to me, because he is such an honest, kind-hearted, good man, and he is my friend - I know that." However, with the advent of a young cousin, the Prime Minister ceased to preoccupy Victoria's thoughts. She did not wait for Prince Albert's favor and explained herself to him. “I told him,” the queen wrote in her diary, “that I would be happy if he agreed to do what I want (to marry me); we hugged, and he was so kind, so gentle … Oh! How I adore and love him …"
Wedding
1840, February 10 - in compliance with all the traditions and rules of centuries-old British etiquette, the magnificent wedding ceremony of Victoria and Albert took place. The married couple lived together for 21 years, they had 9 children. Throughout their life together, Victoria adored her husband, rejoicing in family happiness and mutual love: “My husband is an angel, and I adore him. His kindness and love for me are so touching. It is enough for me to see his bright face and look into my beloved eyes - and my heart overflows with love …”Despite the fact that evil tongues predicted failure for this union, claiming that Albert married only out of cold calculation, the royal marriage turned out to be ideal, serving as a model for the whole nation. The representatives of the bourgeoisie looked with approval at the zeal of the spouses in the service of England.
Prince Albert and Queen Victoria
Governing body. Foreign and domestic policy
Over the long years of Queen Victoria's reign, she managed to completely change the usual opinion of society about the monarchy. Her ancestors, who believed that everything is allowed to kings and queens, did not care much about the reputation of the British dynasty. The family tradition of the English royal house was terrifying: suffice it to say that Victoria became the 57th granddaughter of George III, but the first of the legitimate ones. Thanks to her, the royal dynasty from a den turned into a stronghold of nepotism, stability and unshakable morality, creating a completely new image of the royal family.
Victoria treated her state as a caring mistress of a large house, in which not a single trifle was left without her attention. She was not distinguished by bright intellect or encyclopedic knowledge, but with an enviable skill she fulfilled her mission - from all decisions she chose the only correct one, and from a multitude of advice - the most useful. All this contributed to the prosperity of Great Britain, which, under Victoria, became a powerful empire that had its lands in India, Africa, Latin America.
Successful domestic and foreign policy, victory in the Crimean War, and the economic rise of England formed the cult of the queen among the British. Not being a democrat, she was still able to become a truly "people's monarch". It is no coincidence that her last prime minister, Lord Salisbury, said that "Victoria, in an incomprehensible way, always knew exactly what she wanted and what the people thought." In the successful government of the state, the queen owes a great deal to her husband, who was her indispensable advisor and best friend.
Widowhood
Albert, endowed by nature with intelligence and will, helped his wife in every possible way in solving state problems. Although at first his duties were very limited, he gradually gained access to all government securities. With his light hand, market relations developed more and more rapidly in England. Very efficient, Albert worked tirelessly, but his life was very short.
In early December 1861, the "sweet angel", as his wife Victoria called, fell ill with typhoid fever and died. At 42, Queen Victoria became a widow. Grieving the death of her beloved, she closed within four walls for a long time, refusing to participate in public ceremonies. Her position was greatly shaken, many condemned the poor widow: after all, she is a queen and must fulfill her duty, no matter what it costs her.
No matter how inconsolable Victoria's grief was, after a while she was able to take up government affairs again. True, the former energy did not return to the queen, and many events in the domestic and international life of those years passed her by. Queen Victoria managed to deftly maneuver in difficult political situations, gradually she returned to "big politics".
Queen Victoria's family - 1846 year
The heyday of rule
The real heyday of her rule came in the mid-1870s, when the leader of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli, came to power. This man, who first became the head of the Conservatives in 1868, held a special place in the fate of Victoria. The 64-year-old prime minister conquered the queen with his respectful remarks about the late Albert. Disraeli saw in Victoria not only the Empress, but also a suffering woman. He became the person thanks to whom Victoria was able to recover after the death of her husband and end her seclusion.
Disraeli informed her about everything that was happening in the cabinet of ministers, and she, in turn, provided him with "the desired aura of special closeness to the throne." At the beginning of his second premiership (1874-1880), he was able to gain British control over the Suez Canal and presented the Queen with this lucky acquisition as a personal gift. With his direct assistance, a parliamentary bill was also passed granting Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India. Disraeli, who could not be proud of his noble birth, received from her the title of count as a token of gratitude.
Mysterious connection
In addition to him, there were other men who sought the empress's special favor and who played a significant role in her life. The relationship of the queen with her servant and confidant, the Scotsman John Brown, however, like her entire personal life during the widowhood, is shrouded in mystery. It was rumored at court that Brown could enter the queen's bedroom without knocking and stay there for many hours. The possibility was not excluded that Victoria and her servant were connected not only by love relationships, but also by the bonds of a secret marriage. There were others who explained what was happening by the fact that Brown was a medium and with his help the Empress communicated with the spirit of Prince Albert. When John died of erysipelas, Victoria commissioned a statue of a Scotsman in national costume in memory of him.
In 1887 and 1897. In England, magnificent celebrations took place on the occasion of the Queen's gold and diamond jubilee - the 50th and 60th anniversary of her reign.
Victoria Queen of Great Britain
Assassination attempts
Victoria's authority as a constitutional monarch in the country grew steadily, although she had less and less real power. The subjects respected their queen as before, and the attempts on her life caused even greater outbursts of popular love.
The first of them happened in 1840, then Prince Albert was able to save the empress from the shot of the criminal, the second - in 1872, this time the queen was saved thanks to the servant John Brown. Subsequently, Queen Victoria was shot 4 more times, and the last assassination attempt in March 1882 was especially dangerous. But then, at the Windsor railway station, a boy, a student of Eton College, managed to hit the criminal who was aiming at the empress with a pistol with an umbrella.
last years of life
Queen Victoria was getting old, at the age of 70 she began to go blind from cataracts, because of her sore legs, it was difficult for her to move independently. But the empress still continued to reign in the world that had always completely belonged to her - in her family. All her children, except her daughter Louise, had heirs. Not without Victoria's participation, many of her grandchildren became related with representatives of the royal houses of Europe, including Russia (she married her beloved granddaughter Alice to the heir to the Russian crown Nicholas, and she became the last Russian empress Alexandra Feodorovna). No wonder Victoria was called the grandmother of European monarchs.
In the last years of her life, the empress continued to deal with state affairs, although her strength was already running out. Overcoming her infirmities, she traveled around the country, speaking before the troops that took part in the Boer War. But in 1900, Victoria's health deteriorated, she could no longer read papers without assistance. To her physical suffering was added the mental, caused by the news of the death of her son Alfred and the incurable illness of her daughter Vicky. “Again and again, blows of fate and unexpected losses make me cry,” she wrote in her diary.
Death of Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria passed away after a short illness on 22 January 1901. Her death was not unexpected for the people, but nevertheless, it seemed to millions of subjects that the death of the queen at the turn of the century entailed a global catastrophe. This is not surprising, because for many Englishmen Victoria was the "eternal" queen - they did not know others in their long life. “It seemed that the column that held the firmament had collapsed,” wrote the British poet R. Bridge about those days. According to the will, Victoria was buried according to the military rite. At the bottom of her coffin lay an alabaster cast from Prince Albert's hand and his quilted robe, next to them was a photograph of John Brown's servant and a lock of his hair. Queen Victoria carried away the secrets of her personal life …
In the memory of her people, this empress forever remained a monarch, the period of whose reign became one of the brightest pages in the history of England. Queen Victoria rightfully belongs to those few rulers who were not only loved and appreciated by their contemporaries, but also whom historians have never denied respect.
V. Sklyarenko