Queen Victoria Essay, Research Paper
Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and she died in 1901.
She was queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901).
Queen Victoria was born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24,
1819, in Kensington Palace, London. Victoria?s mother
was Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Her father was Edward Augustus,
duke of Kent and Strathern, the fourth son of George III
and youngest brother of George IV and William IV, they
were kings of Great Britain. Because William IV had no
legal children, his niece Victoria became inheritor apparent
to the British crown upon his accession in 1830. On June
20, 1837, with the expiration of William IV. Victoria
became queen at the age of 18. Early in her power Victoria
developed a serious concern with goings on of state,
guided by her first prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd
Viscount Melbourne. Melbourne was leader of that wing of
the Whig Party that later became known as the Liberal
Party. He exercised a immovably progressive command on
the political thinking of the sovereign. Marriage In 1840
Victoria married her first cousin, Albert, ruler of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who she had known for about four
years. Although this was a wedlock of state, it was a highly
extravagant and prosperous one, and Victoria was devoted
to her family responsibilities. The first of their nine children
was Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, later queen of
Germany. Their first son, Albert Edward, prince of Wales
and later monarch of Great Britain as Edward VII, was
born in 1841. When the cautious Prince Albert persuaded
her that Liberal policy jeopardized the coming of the
Crown, the queen began to lose her eagerness for the
party. After 1841, when the Melbourne government fell
and Sir Robert Peel became prime minister, Victoria was
an enthusiastic supporter of the Conservative Party. Also
under Albert’s influence, she began to interrogation the
tradition that restricted the British ruling to an advisory part.
In 1850 she challenged the command of Henry John
Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, alien secretary in the
Whig government that had been in command since 1846.
Her post was that the sovereign should at least be
consulted on different policy. Palmerston, independent and
self-assertive, disregarded the request. Their conflict
reached a crucial period in 1851, when the prime minister,
Lord John Russell, who was also unhappy with
Palmerston’s elective methods, removed him from the
foreign office. Their altercations with Palmerston, one of the
most liked political leaders in the country, caused Victoria
and Albert to lose some of the regard of their subjects.
Their popularity dwindled even more in 1854, when they
tried to avert the Crimean War. After the war had started,
however, they gave it their si
shortly before the end of the war, the queen established the
Victoria Cross, the highest British award for wartime
courage. In 1857, Victoria had the title of prince associate
granted on Albert. Four years later he died, and she
remained in implied grieving for much of the rest of her life.
She avoided common appearances, letting the prince of
Wales accomplish most of the royal ritualistic duties. Her
detailed personal interest in the affairs of state protracted,
however. Reign After 1861 Several prime ministers served
during the latter part of Victoria’s reign, but only the
Conservative Party leader Benjamin Disraeli, who held
office in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880, gained her
confidence. He ingratiated himself with the queen by his
skillful personal advance and his gift for compliments. He
also allowed her a free hand in the awarding of church,
army, and some political appointments. She fully affirmed
his policy of strengthening and roaming the British Empire,
and in 1876 Disraeli attained for her the title of empress of
India. She seldom agreed with the brilliant leader of the
Liberal Party, William E. Gladstone, who served as prime
minister four times betwixt 1868 and 1894. Victoria
unaccepted of the democratic reforms he distinct, such as
abolishing the purchase of military commissions and
legalizing trade unions, and his powerful intellectualized
procedure of argument. She was also solidly opposed to
his policy of home law for Ireland. The Conservative pilot
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of
Salisbury, who served as prime minister three times
between 1885 and 1902, more often found favor with the
queen. Like Disraeli, he advocated protecting British
interests and increasing British authority abroad. British Idol
Victoria’s popularity among all classes in British society
reached its prominence in the last two decades of her reign.
Her golden gala in 1887 and her diamond jubilee in 1897
were occasions for great public rejoicing. Her subjects
were then enjoying an unprecedented period of prosperous
complacency, and her eager execution of the Boer War
increased her appeal at home and abroad. Victoria died on
January 22, 1901. Her 63-year reign was the longest in the
archives of England. Her offspring, including 40
grandchildren, married into almost every royal family of
Europe. With her personal example of honesty, nationalism,
and devotion to family life, Victoria became a living symbol
of the solidity of the British Empire. The many years of her
reign, often referred to as the Victorian age, witnessed the
rise of the middle class and were marked by a deeply
conservative morality and intense nationalism. Victoria’s
correspondence was published in three series, Letters,
1837-61 (3 vol., 1907), Letters, 1862-85 (3 vol.,
1926-1928), and Letters, 1886-1901 (3 vol., 1930-32).