The Life and Legacy of Queen Victoria E-Book

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: British Legends
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 53

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

“Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” – Queen Victoria, 1837

England has had no shortage of influential monarchs, but only Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria had their nation’s age literally named after them. Both the Elizabethan era and Victorian era have come to symbolize a golden age of peace and progress in every aspect of British life, with the long reigns of both queens also providing stability.

Of course, there was a critical difference between those two queens: Elizabeth I still wielded great power in the 16th century, whereas Victoria was a constitutional monarch with limited power over the workings of the British government. But in a way, that made Victoria even more unique, as she still proved able to mold the cultural identity of a nearly 65 year long epoch. Furthermore, Victoria established some of the ceremonial customs of the British monarch and became both the forerunner and role model of subsequent queens, a legacy that continues to endure with her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Though Britain’s longest reigning monarch is now mostly associated with conservative values (particularly strict morality and traditional social and gender roles), Victoria and her era oversaw the cultural and technological progress of Britain and the West in general, architectural revivals, and the expansion of imperialism. While some of these developments have been perceived negatively over a century later, Britons of the 19th century and early 20th century often viewed the Victorian Era as the height of their nation’s power and influence.     

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Queen Victoria chronicles the life and reign of Queen Victoria, while examining the enduring legacy of the era in British history named after her. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in her life, you will learn about Queen Victoria like you never have before, in no time at all.

Leseprobe

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Queen Victoria

By Charles River Editors

Victoria’s Coronation Portrait, by George Hayter

About Charles River Editors

Charles River Editors was founded by Harvard and MIT alumni to provide superior editing and original writing services, with the expertise to create digital content for publishers across a vast range of subject matter. In addition to providing original digital content for third party publishers, Charles River Editors republishes civilization’s greatest literary works, bringing them to a new generation via ebooks.

Introduction

Queen Victoria (1819-1901)

“Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.” – Queen Victoria, 1837

England has had no shortage of influential monarchs, but only Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria had their nation’s age literally named after them. Both the Elizabethan era and Victorian era have come to symbolize a golden age of peace and progress in every aspect of British life, with the long reigns of both queens also providing stability.

Of course, there was a critical difference between those two queens: Elizabeth I still wielded great power in the 16th century, whereas Victoria was a constitutional monarch with limited power over the workings of the British government. But in a way, that made Victoria even more unique, as she still proved able to mold the cultural identity of a nearly 65 year long epoch. Furthermore, Victoria established some of the ceremonial customs of the British monarch and became both the forerunner and role model of subsequent queens, a legacy that continues to endure with her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Though Britain’s longest reigning monarch is now mostly associated with conservative values (particularly strict morality and traditional social and gender roles), Victoria and her era oversaw the cultural and technological progress of Britain and the West in general, architectural revivals, and the expansion of imperialism. While some of these developments have been perceived negatively over a century later, Britons of the 19th century and early 20th century often viewed the Victorian Era as the height of their nation’s power and influence.

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Queen Victoria chronicles the life and reign of Queen Victoria, while examining the enduring legacy of the era in British history named after her. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in her life, you will learn about Queen Victoria like you never have before, in no time at all.

Portrait of Queen Victoria, 1847

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Queen Victoria

About Charles River Editors

Introduction

Chapter 1: Victoria’s Early Years

Chapter 2: Albert

Chapter 3: The Queen’s Children

Chapter 4: Changes in Victoria's Empire

Chapter 5: The Business of Reigning

Chapter 6: Religion and Imperialism

Chapter 7: Celebrating the Queen’s Reign

Chapter 8: Victoria’s Legacy

Chapter 1: Victoria’s Early Years

Princess Victoria at 4 years old. Portrait by Stephen Poyntz Denning

On May 24, 1819, Alexandrina Victoria was born in Kensington Palace, London, to Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent [Edward Kent], and his wife Marie Luise Victoria, of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Princess of Leiningen, Duchess of Kent [Victoria Kent], a German aristocrat. This was Victoria Kent’s second marriage; from her first marriage to Charles, Prince of Leiningen, in the German Empire she had already had two children named Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich, Prince of Leiningen and Princess Anna Feodora Auguste Charlotte Wilhelmine.

In order to understand Queen Victoria's life, it is important to understand the circumstances of her birth and upbringing. Princess Victoria was born into a family at war with itself and everyone else. They had been hemorrhaging power in the United Kingdom since the year 1714, when the German dynasty of the Hanoverians (the lower House of Wettin) succeeded to the British throne through King George I, a direct ancestor to Victoria. Her paternal grandfather King George III, known somewhat impertinently as the Mad King George III (which is still the subject of much historical fiction even in modern times) had gone insane, a possibility that would plague Victoria throughout her life. Especially during Queen Victoria's post-natal depressions, doctors as well as her family would suspect that the genetic disease had got hold of her. Little did they know that George III had had porphyria, whereas Victoria's condition was quite different indeed.

King George III

It might be said that Princess Alexandrina Victoria was even conceived to be Queen; at the time there was a palpable succession crisis in Britain. Victoria's first cousin and heiress presumptive, Princess Charlotte suddenly died in childbirth late in 1817. Charlotte's son was stillborn, and whether out of love for the late Princess or just out of a sense of national loss Britain went into mourning. George III's other sons, who were unmarried, raced to the altar to father an heir to the throne of Great Britain. Since the Prince of Wales, Prince Regent for the incapacitated George III, was separated from his lawful wife, the future Queen Caroline, there was no chance of a legal successor there. In order to incentivize the Georgian brothers to sire an heir, the bribe from Crown and Parliament was that their heavy debts – resultant from their Hanoverian excess – would be cancelled. Of course, from the days of George I the Hanoverian throne was bound up with the British one. The problem now was that Hanover, like most of the Continent at the time, had Salic law, meaning that women could not succeed to the Hanoverian throne. Thus, Victoria’s uncle Ernest Augustus I, a son of George III, became King of Hanover, and the two thrones now diverged.