was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.
In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by two men: her first
Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and her husband, Prince Albert, whom she
married in 1840. Both men taught her much about how to be a ruler in a
'constitutional monarchy' where the monarch had very few powers but could
use much influence. Albert took an active interest in the arts, science,
trade and industry; the project for which he is best remembered was the
Great Exhibition of 1851, the profits from which helped to establish the
South Kensington museums complex in London.
Her marriage to Prince Albert brought nine children between 1840 and
1857. Most of her children married into other royal families of Europe:
Edward VII (born 1841, married Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX of
Denmark); Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (born
1844, married Marie of Russia); Arthur, Duke of Connaught (born 1850,
married Louise Margaret of Prussia); Leopold, Duke of Albany (born 1853,
married Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont); Victoria, Princess Royal (born 1840,
married Friedrich III, German Emperor); Alice (born 1843, married Ludwig
IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine); Helena (born 1846, married Christian
of Schleswig-Holstein); Louise (born 1848, married John Campbell, 9th Duke
of Argyll); Beatrice (born 1857, married Henry of Battenberg). Victoria
bought Osborne House (later presented to the nation by Edward VII) on the
Isle of Wight as a family home in 1845, and Albert bought Balmoral in 1852.
Victoria was deeply attached to her husband and she sank into depression
after he died, aged 42, in 1861. She had lost a devoted husband and her
principal trusted adviser in affairs of state. For the rest of her reign
she wore black. Until the late 1860s she rarely appeared in public;
although she never neglected her official Correspondence, and continued to
give audiences to her ministers and official visitors, she was reluctant to
resume a full public life. She was persuaded to open Parliament in person
in 1866 and 1867, but she was widely criticised for living in seclusion and
quite a strong republican movement developed. (Seven attempts were made on
Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 - her courageous attitude towards
these attacks greatly strengthened her popularity.) With time, the private
urgings of her family and the flattering attention of Benjamin Disraeli,
Prime Minister in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880, the Queen gradually resumed
her public duties.
In foreign policy, the Queen's influence during the middle years of her
reign was generally used to support peace and reconciliation. In 1864,
Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the Prussia-Austria-
Denmark war, and her letter to the German Emperor (whose son had married
her daughter) in 1875 helped to avert a second Franco-German war. On the
Eastern Question in the 1870s - the issue of Britain's policy towards the
declining Turkish Empire in Europe - Victoria (unlike Gladstone) believed
that Britain, while pressing for necessary reforms, ought to uphold Turkish
hegemony as a bulwark of stability against Russia, and maintain bi-
partisanship at a time when Britain could be involved in war.
Victoria's popularity grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from
the 1870s onwards. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the government of India
was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown with the position
of Governor General upgraded to Viceroy, and in 1877 Victoria became
Empress of India under the Royal Titles Act passed by Disraeli's
government.
During Victoria's long reign, direct political power moved away from the
sovereign. A series of Acts broadened the social and economic base of the
electorate. These acts included the Second Reform Act of 1867; the
introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, which made it impossible to
pressurise voters by bribery or intimidation; and the Representation of the
Peoples Act of 1884 - all householders and lodgers in accommodation worth
at least Ј10 a year, and occupiers of land worth Ј10 a year, were entitled
to vote.
Despite this decline in the Sovereign's power, Victoria showed that a
monarch who had a high level of prestige and who was prepared to master the
details of political life could exert an important influence. This was
demonstrated by her mediation between the Commons and the Lords, during the
acrimonious passing of the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and
the 1884 Reform Act. It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of
the constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain above political
parties, began to evolve. But Victoria herself was not always non-partisan
and she took the opportunity to give her opinions - sometimes very
forcefully - in private.
After the Second Reform Act of 1867, and the growth of the two-party
(Liberal and Conservative) system, the Queen's room for manoeuvre
decreased. Her freedom to choose which individual should occupy the
premiership was increasingly restricted. In 1880, she tried,
unsuccessfully, to stop William Gladstone - whom she disliked as much as
she admired Disraeli and whose policies she distrusted - from becoming
Prime Minister. She much preferred the Marquess of Hartington, another
statesman from the Liberal party which had just won the general election.
She did not get her way. She was a very strong supporter of Empire, which
brought her closer both to Disraeli and to the Marquess of Salisbury, her
last Prime Minister. Although conservative in some respects - like many at
the time she opposed giving women the vote - on social issues, she tended
to favour measures to improve the lot of the poor, such as the Royal
Commission on housing. She also supported many charities involved in
education, hospitals and other areas.
Victoria and her family travelled and were seen on an unprecedented
scale, thanks to transport improvements and other technical changes such as
the spread of newspapers and the invention of photography. Victoria was the
first reigning monarch to use trains - she made her first train journey in
1842.
In her later years, she almost became the symbol of the British Empire.
Both the Golden (1887) and the Diamond (1897) Jubilees, held to celebrate
the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the queen's accession, were marked with
great displays and public ceremonies. On both occasions, Colonial
Conferences attended by the Prime Ministers of the self-governing colonies
were held.
Despite her advanced age, Victoria continued her duties to the end -
including an official visit to Dublin in 1900. The Boer War in South Africa
overshadowed the end of her reign. As in the Crimean War nearly half a
century earlier, Victoria reviewed her troops and visited hospitals; she
remained undaunted by British reverses during the campaign: 'We are not
interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.'
Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1901
after a reign which lasted almost 64 years, the longest in British history.
She was buried at Windsor beside Prince Albert, in the Frogmore Royal
Mausoleum, which she had built for their final resting place. Above the
Mausoleum door are inscribed Victoria's words: 'farewell best beloved, here
at last I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again'.
SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA
The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha came to the British Royal Family in 1840 with
the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, son of Ernst, Duke of
Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. Queen Victoria herself remained a member of the House
of Hanover.
The only British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was King
Edward VII, who reigned for nine years at the beginning of the modern age
in the early years of the 20th century. King George V replaced the German-
sounding title with that of Windsor during the First World War. The name
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha survived in other European monarchies, including the
current Belgian Royal Family and the former monarchies of Portugal and
Bulgaria.
SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA
1837 - 1917
THE WINDSORS
1917 – PRESENT DAY
VICTORIA = m. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg &
Gotha
(1837-1910) (Prince Consort)
EDWARD VII = m. Princess Alexandra, dau.
of CHRISTIAN IX, King of
(1910 – 1936) Denmark
DUKE OF WINDSOR
GEORGE VI = m. Lady Elizabeth
EDWARD VIII
1936-1952 Bowes-Lyon, dau. of Earl of
(abdicated 1936)
Strathmore and
Kinghorne
(Queen
Elizabeth
The
Queen Mother)
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
(1952 – present day)
EDWARD VII (1901-10)
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