Victoria I of England. He ascended the throne at the age of eighteen and held it longer than any other sovereign in Europe. During his reign, France knew two royal dynasties and a republic, Spain three monarchs and Italy four. In this long period, precisely known as the “Victorian era”, England it became an industrial country and a world-class power, proud of its ability to create wealth and stand out in a world increasingly dependent on scientific and technical advances. In the political arena, the absence of internal revolutions, deep-rooted English parliamentarism, the birth and consolidation of a middle class, and colonial expansion were essential features of Victorianism; socially, its foundations were based on the balance and compromise between classes, characterized by a marked conservatism, respect for etiquette and a rigid Christian morality. All this protected and fostered by the majestic and impressive figure, at the same time maternal and vigorous, of Queen Victoria, the true protagonist and inspiration of the entire 19th century. European.
Biographical synthesis
Queen Victoria was born on 19 of maypole in 1819 , was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, descendant of the German dynasty of Hanover and Princess Marie Louise of Saxe-Coburg. Victoria’s rigid reign lasted 64 years, putting the United Kingdom of Great Britain at the head of the world. William IV had no children, so his niece Victoria came to the throne in 1837, at the age of 18. Queen Victoria restored prestige to the crown and was the living symbol of social and economic successes. Queen Victoria is the great-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her consort Prince Philip of Edinburgh, King Juan Carlos I of Spainand from his wife Queen Sofia of Greece , Queen Margaret II of Denmark, King Charles XVI , Gustavus of Sweden and King Harald V of Norway. He reigned for almost 64 years, his reign being the longest in the history of Great Britain . Victoria’s reign was marked by the great expansion of the British Empire. The Victorian Era – as his reign was called – was characterized by the Industrial Revolution , a period of significant social, economic and technological changes in the United Kingdom ; changes that ended up consolidating the United Kingdom as the leading power of its time.
Victoria, whose ancestry was almost exclusively German (except for her ancestor, Sophia of Hannover , was also descended by female line from James I of England and VI of Scotland), and was the last monarch of the House of Hannover. His son and successor, Edward VII , belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha .
Early years
Alexandrina Victoria was born in the palace of Kensington , London , on 24 of maypole of 1819 , and was the only daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, fourth male son of King George III , and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld . She was baptized in the Dome Room of Kensington Palace on June 24 of the same year by Charles Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury, her godparents being her paternal uncles, the Prince-Regent (later George IV of the United Kingdom ) and Charlotte , Queen of Württemberg , Tsar Alexander I of Russia (in whose honor she received her first name) and her maternal grandmother,Augusta Reuss-Ebersdorf , Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld .
Despite the name with which she was baptized, she ended up being called only Victoria, although she was familiarly known during her early childhood years as Drina (short for Alejandrina).
When he was just 8 months old, his father, the Duke of Kent, died of sudden pneumonia on January 23 , 1820 . Six days later, on January 29 , his grandfather, King George III , died, blind and mad, in Windsor Castle. His uncle and godfather, the Prince-Regent, ascended to the throne as King George IV . Victoria was now third in the line of succession, preceded only by her two uncles, the Duke of York (separated from his wife for three decades, without issue) and the Duke of Clarence. The possibility that Victoria would ascend to the throne one day seemed very close. However, on December 10 That same year, the Duchess of Clarence gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Georgiana , relegating Victoria to fourth in the line of succession. Tragically, 4 of March of 1821 , and with just 3 months old, the little princess died of convulsions. The following year, in 1822 , the Duchess of Clarence gave birth to a pair of stillborn twins, and the difficulty of this delivery left her unable to conceive again. Victoria, 3 years old, was back in the front row of the succession.
Despite her high position in the line of succession, Victoria spoke only German during her early years, the mother tongue of her mother and her governess. However, when it became clear that he would one day occupy the throne, in 1822 , he was taught English.
Possibly learned to speak Italian, Greek, Latin, and French. His educator was the Reverend Jorge Davys and his governess, Luisa Lehzen . The 5 of January of 1827 , died the Duke of York, putting Victoria, 7, nothing less than the second in the line of succession.
An eighteen year old queen
The tension in Victoria’s relationship with her mother, which would increase with her arrival to the throne, was already evident in her first act of government, which surprised the encumbered members of the council: she asked them if, as queen, she could do what that it came to him in real win. Considering her too young and inexperienced to calibrate the constitutional mechanisms, they answered yes. She, with a delicious youthful pout, ordered her mother to leave her alone for an hour and locked herself in her room. On the way out he gave another order: that the bed of the absorbent duchess be evicted from her bedroom immediately, since from now on she wanted to sleep without sharing it. The complaints, the maneuvers and even the mother’s veiled breakup could do nothing, her empire had ended and her willful and authoritarian daughter was going to impose hers.And not only in privacy; It would also give an unmistakable stamp to an entire era, the one that has been named after its name.
Beginning of the reign
He lived in Buckingham Palace . The 26 of June of 1830 died King George IV, and was succeeded by the Duke of Clarence as King William IV. As the new monarch had no legitimate surviving offspring, 11-year-old Victoria became the presumed heir to the throne. As the laws of the time were not prepared for the eventual accession to the throne of an infant, the Regency Act of 1831 was promulgated , in which it was stipulated that the Duchess of Kent, mother of Victoria, would be the Regent of the kingdom during the Queen’s minority. Ignoring George IV’s precedent , Parliament did not create a Council to limit the powers of the eventual Regent.
In 1835 , at the age of 16, Victoria met her future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha , who was also her cousin. King William IV disapproved of the union, but his objections did not produce the slightest result on the young. Some historians argue that Alberto was not in love with the young princess at the time, and that the reasons he had for accepting the marriage were to gain a good social status (as he was only an obscure German prince) or a high sense of duty and loyalty to his family (which wanted the link). Whatever the reasons Alberto had for accepting the marriage, he, over the years, proved to be extremely happy.
King William IV died on June 20 , 1837 , being succeeded by Princess Victoria. Since she had already turned 18, a regency was not necessary. Due to the Salic Law prevailing in Hanover, this throne passed to his younger uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, thus ending the union between the United Kingdom and Hanover that had existed since 1714 . While the young queen had no children, the Duke of Cumberland was the presumed heir to the throne. Victoria was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey on June 28 , 1838 .
At the time of his accession to the throne, the Government was controlled by the Whigs, who had been in power, except for a few short intervals, since 1830 . The Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, exerted a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced sovereign from the outset, who came to him constantly for advice and help (the trust between the two became such that some slanderers referred to the queen as the ” Mrs. Melbourne “). The Melbourne ministry, however, would not last long; he was rapidly growing unpopular and incapable of controlling the British colonies. In Canada , the United Kingdom had to suppress a series of rebellions ( 1837 ), and in Jamaica, the local authorities protested against the English measures not recognizing any law passed by Parliament. In 1839 , unable to control these setbacks, Lord Melbourne resigned.
The queen commissioned the Tory Sir Robert Peel the task of forming the new Cabinet, but soon entered into disputes with this one due to Crisis of the Ladies of Camera. By then, the makeup of the royal court was governed by the patronage system (that is, the Prime Minister chose the members who would serve the queen from among his supporters). Many of the queen’s house ladies were Whigs’ wives, and Sir Robert Peel demanded that they be replaced by Tory wives. Victoria steadfastly refused to remove the ladies from their positions, having come to consider them very close friends. Sir Robert Peel felt that he could not rule under the restrictions imposed by the queen and eventually resigned as Prime Minister, leaving the way to Lord Melbourne to return to power.
Opium Wars
The marketing of opium by England and the United States to China generated a conflict of remarkable proportions. The Chinese believed that the West had nothing of value to trade with. But the English and American merchants, strongly rooted with the English Crown, saw in opium the possibility of having exchanges. Opium and its derivatives ( morphine , heroin , etc.) are one of the most addictive drugs. A Chinese worker who became addicted – and by 1839 opium was already within the reach of workers and peasants – was spending 2/3 of his salary on opium and leaving his family destitute.
An epidemic of addicts was thus generated in China , so the emperor had to take action on the matter, commissioning the Mandarin Lin Hse Tsu to stop the opium trade and he burned their drawers and risked a war ( 1839 ). Lin Hse Tsu sent a letter to Queen Victoria asking her not to traffic more opium. Queen Victoria responded by sending him the British Navy. This sparked the Opium Wars ( First and Second Opium Wars ), generating a stimulus for more merchants to go to China from the United States and England.. Many of the fortunes of the United States were based on this drug trafficking, which was covert, since they said it was traded in tea or tobacco. It was called China Trade or Far East Trade.
Marriage
Victoria married Prince Albert in the Royal Chapel of St. James’s Palace, London, on February 10 , 1840 . Four days earlier, on February 6 , the queen granted her husband the treatment of Her Royal Highness. Albert would generally be known as the “Prince-Consort”, although he only formally obtained the title until 1857 . Of this marriage, exceptionally happy (in which Alberto was an exemplary husband, because as far as it is known he never missed his nuptial vows throughout his marriage, unlike his father, Duke Ernesto I of Saxony -Coburgo-Gotha , who would even get divorced), 9 children were born.
Sons
- Princess Victoria , Princess Royal (n . Buckingham Palace, 21 of November of 1840 . – m Friedrichshof, Germany , 5 of August of 1901 ), created Princess Royal (Princess Royal); married in 1858 to Frederick III , Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia .
- King Edward VII (n Buckingham Palace, 9-11-. 1841 -. M Buckingham Palace , 6 of maypole of 1910 ), successor to his mother.
- Princess Alice (n Buckingham Palace. 25 of April of 1843 -. M Neues Palais, Darmstadt, 14 of December of 1878 ), married in 1862 with Louis IV , Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine His daughter, Alejandra, is. would marry his cousin Tsar Nicholas II , prince Alfredo’s nephew in law.
- Prince Alfred , Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Edinburgh (n Windsor Castle. 6 of August of 1844 -. M Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, 30 of July of 1900 ), Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the succeeding his paternal uncle ( August 22 , 1893 ). Married in 1874 to Maria Alexandrovna , sister of Tsar Alexander III . His daughter Maria would marry Fernando I of Romania .
- Princess Helena (n Buckingham Palace. 25 of maypole of 1846 -. M Schomberg House, London , 9 of June of 1923 ), married in 1866 to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.
- Princess Louise (n Buckingham Palace. 18 of March of 1848 -. M KP, 3 of December of 1939 ), married in 1871 to John Campbell , Duke of Argyll IX.
- Prince Arthur , Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (n Buckingham Palace. 1 of maypole of 1850 -. M Bagshot Park, Surrey, 16 of maypole of 1942 ), created Duke of Connaught, Strathearn and Earl of Sussex ( 1874 ) . Married in 1879 with Luisa Margarita de Prusia .
- Prince Leopold , Duke of Albany (n Buckingham Palace. 7 of April of 1853 -. M Cannes , France , 28 of March of 1884 ), created Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow ( 1881 ). Married in 1882 to Elena de Waldeck-Pyrmont .
- Princess Beatrice (n Buckingham Palace. 14 of April of 1857 -. M Brantridge Park, Balcombe, Sussex, 26 of October of 1944 ), married in 1885 to Prince Henry of Battenberg and mother of the future Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain .
It is because of these conjugal unions of her children and grandchildren with other monarchs of Europe that Victoria has been conferred the popular title of “the Grandmother of Europe “. But this had a negative side since being a carrier of hemophilia transmitted the defective gene to all her descendants (because it was linked to the X chromosome ). The best known carrier of the disease was Tsar Alexis of Russia . Now that she had found an ideal companion, not only in the family aspect, but also in the political one – for Prince Albert would be her closest adviser – Victoria began to distance herself from both Lord Melbourne and his Whig Ladies of the Chamber. Thus, when Lord Melbourne lost the election of 1841 As the Tories emerged victorious under the leadership of Robert Peel, another Crisis of the Ladies of the Chamber was not repeated. Victoria would continue to correspond with Lord Melbourne , although her role as royal adviser would pass to the Prince-Consort.
Political beginnings
Peel’s ministry was soon embroiled in a crisis due to the Grain Laws. Many Tories (by then also known as Conservatives) opposed the repeal, but some Tories (the “Peelites”) and most of the Whigs supported it. Peel resigned in 1846 , after the repeal was narrowly approved, and was replaced by Lord John Russell. Russell’s ministry, though Whig, was not favored by the queen.
Particularly offensive to Victoria was the Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerston , who often acted without consulting the cabinet, the Prime Minister or the queen. In 1849 , Victoria filed a complaint in Parliament, supported by Lord Russell, alleging that Palmerston had sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without their consent. She repeated her accusations in 1850 , but it was all useless. It was not until 1851 that Lord Palmerston was relieved of his position; on that occasion he had announced the British government’s approval of the coup d’état of President Louis- Napoleon Bonaparte in France without previously consulting the Prime Minister.
Ireland
Young Queen Victoria fell in love with Ireland and to visit her chose a holiday in Killarney , Kerry . Thanks to this visit, the town became one of the first tourist attractions of the 19th century . His love for the island was reciprocated by initial Irish affection for the young queen. In 1845 , Ireland was hit by the devastation of potato crops; In four years, this plague cost the lives of a million Irish and the emigration of another million. In response to the so-called Irish Potato Famine (An Gorta Mor), the queen personally donated £ 5000 and was involved in various charities. However, the fact that Lord John Russell’s ministry policy was widely blamed – for exacerbating the severity of the famine – affected the queen’s popularity. Extremist Republicans called Victoria the “Queen of Hunger”, with mythical stories in which she was said to donate just £ 5 to alleviate the people’s hunger, which were accepted by the Irish Republicans.
Victoria’s first official visit to Ireland , in 1849 , was specifically arranged by Lord Clarendon , the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and head of the British administration, to try to distract attention from the hunger crisis and also to put politicians on alert. British that with the presence of the queen the seriousness of the crisis in Ireland would be more than evident. Despite the negative impact of the famine on the queen’s popularity, she was still loved enough that at the conclusion of the Nationalist party meetings everyone would sing God Save the Queen. However, in the 1870s – 1880s the acceptance of the British monarchy in Ireland had been substantially diminished, in part by Victoria’s resolve to refuse to visit Ireland in protest at the Dublin Corporation’s decision not to congratulate her son, the Prince of Wales (future Edward VII ) , on the occasion of his wedding to Princess Alexandra of Denmark , or of refusing to send his congratulations to the princes of Wales for the birth of their eldest son, Prince Albert Victor .
He repeatedly rejected pressure from Prime Ministers, Lords Lieutenants, and even members of the royal family, to establish a royal residence in Ireland. Lord Midleton , the former head of the Irish Unionist Party, writing his 1930 memoir Ireland : Fool or Heroine ?, described this decision as proven disastrous for the British monarchy and government in Ireland .
He made his last visit to Ireland in 1900 , when he came to petition the Irish to join the British Army and fight in the Second Boer War. The nationalist opposition to his visit was led by Arthur Griffith, who founded an organization called Cumann na nGaedhael to unite the opposition. Five years later Griffith used the contacts established in his campaign against the Queen’s visit to form a new political movement, Sinn Féin.
Maturity
In 1851 the first World’s Fair was held , known as the Great Exhibition of 1851 . Organized by Prince Albert, the exhibition was officially opened by the Queen on May 1 , 1851 . Despite the fear of many, it was incredibly successful. The inventions and novelties displayed there were later used to found the South Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum).
Lord John Russell’s cabinet fell in 1852 , when the Whig Prime Minister was replaced by a Conservative, Lord Derby . Lord Derby would not remain in power for long, unable to maintain a majority in Parliament, and resigned less than a year after taking office. By then, Victoria was impatient to put an end to this period of weak ministers. The queen and her husband vigorously encouraged the formation of a strong coalition between the Whigs and the Tories Peelites . Such a ministry managed to be formed with the Peelite Lord Aberdeen at the head.
One of the most significant acts of the new ministry was to involve the United Kingdom in the Crimean War in 1854 , fighting alongside the Ottoman Empire against Russia . Immediately before the UK went to war, rumors that the Queen and Prince Albert preferred the Russian side diminished the popularity of the royal couple. Nonetheless, Victoria publicly declared her unequivocal support for the troops. After the war ended, the queen instituted the Victoria Cross, a decoration for valor.
When his work was questioned by many during the Crimean War , Lord Aberdeen resigned in 1855 , being replaced by Lord Palmerston, with whom the queen had reconciled. However, Palmerston was also forced to resign from office due to his unpopular conduct during a military conflict, the Second Opium War , in 1857 . Lord Derby replaced him. One of the most notable events during the Derby administration was the Sepoy Revolt against the rule of the British East India Company over India . After the riot was crushed, India it was placed under the direct rule of the crown (although the title of “Empress of India” was not immediately instituted). Derby’s second ministry was no better than the first; he resigned in 1859 , allowing Palmerston to regain power.
Widowhood
The year 1861 was tragic for the queen: on March 16 her mother, the Duchess of Kent, died , and on December 14 her husband Albert, the Prince-Consort, died. The loss of her former partner, friend, and advisor devastated Victoria, who maintained a semi-permanent state of mourning and wore black in her dresses for the rest of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London for the next several years, earning her the nickname “The Widow of Windsor”. She considered her son, the Prince of Wales, an indiscreet and frivolous young man, as the culprit of his father’s death.
Victoria began to rely more and more on a Scottish servant, John Brown; It has been alleged that between them there was a romantic relationship and even a secret marriage. A recently discovered newspaper records an alleged deathbed confession of the queen’s private chaplain, who allegedly admitted to a politician that he had presided over a clandestine marriage between Victoria and John Brown. Not all historians trust the authenticity of the diary. However, when Victoria’s body was placed in the coffin, it was accompanied by two reminders according to her wish. On the right side, one of Alberto’s ball gowns, while in his left hand a piece of Brown’s hair was fixed, along with a portrait of him. Rumors of an affair and a secret union earned Victoria the nickname “Mrs. Brown.”
The isolation of Victoria from the public greatly diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and even encouraged the growth of the republican movement. Although she fulfilled her official duties, she did not actively participate in government, remaining confined to her royal residences, Balmoral in Scotland or Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Meanwhile, one of the most important pieces of 19th century legislation – the Reform Act of 1867 – was passed by Parliament. Lord Palmerston had been totally opposed to electoral reform, but his ministry ended with his death in 1865.. Lord Derby took office, being succeeded by Lord Russell. Later, Lord Derby returned to occupy the position of Prime Minister, passing during his ministry the Act of Reform.
Last years
In 1887 , the United Kingdom celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Victoria. Queen celebrated the 20 of June of 1887 – the fiftieth anniversary of his ascension to the throne with a banquet, to which were invited fifty European kings and princes. Although she might not have known about him, there was a plan by the Irish freedom fighters to blow up Westminster Abbey while the queen was there attending a Thanksgiving service. This assassination attempt, when discovered, became known as the Jubilee Plot. The next day, she participated in a parade that, in the words of Mark Twain, “stretched the limit of sight in both directions.” By then, Victoria was an extremely popular monarch. The scandal of a rumored love affair with his servant had died down after John Brown’s death in 1883 , allowing the queen to be seen as a symbol of morality.
Victoria was required to tolerate a ministry from William Ewart Gladstone once more, in 1892 . After the last of his Irish Local Government Laws was rejected, he withdrew in 1894 , being replaced by the liberal imperialist Lord Rosebery. Lord Rosebery was succeeded by Lord Salisbury in 1895 , who served the remainder of Victoria’s reign. The 22 of September of 1896 Victoria surpassed her grandfather King George III as the monarch longer reign in the English, Scottish or British history. According to a request from the queen, all special public celebrations for the event were delayed until 1897 , the year that Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated. Colonies Secretary Joseph Chamberlain proposed that the jubilee be a festival throughout the British Empire .
Thus, they invited the Prime Ministers of all the autonomous colonies together with their families. The parade in which the queen participated included troops from every British colony and dependencies, along with soldiers sent by Indian princes and chiefs (who were subordinate to Victoria, Empress of India ). The Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion marked by the great displays of affection that the people had for the septuagenarian queen, who by then was confined to a wheelchair.
During the last years of Victoria, the United Kingdom was involved in the Second Boer War, which received the enthusiastic support of the queen. Victoria’s personal life was then marked by various personal tragedies, including the death of her son Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha , the fatal illness of her daughter Victoria, Empress of Germany , and the death of two of her grandchildren. His last public performance at a ceremony was in 1899 , when he laid the foundation stone for the new buildings of the South Kensington Museum, later known as the Victoria and Albert Museum . The last trip outside of England was made to Dublin, in 1900 .
Following a custom that she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent her last Christmas at Osborne House (which Prince Albert had designed for himself) on the Isle of Wight. He died there, in the arms of her grandson German Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany , the 22 of January of 1901 , at 81 years of age, after having reigned for 63 years, 7 months and two days, more than any other monarch British; however, her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II has broken the record for longest-lived British monarch, on December 21 , 2007 at 5:00 p.m. (London time). The funeral was held on February 2; after two days of national mourning, she was entombed in the Frogmore Mausoleum next to her husband.
Titles
- Of maypole 24 of 1819 – 20 of June of 1837 : Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria of Kent
- As June 20 as 1837 – 22 January as as 1901 : Her Majesty the Queen
- Of maypole 1 of 1876 – 22 of January of 1901 : His Imperial Majesty the Empress of India