Everything about Victoria Of The United Kingdom totally explained
In 1887, the British Empire celebrated Victoria's
Golden Jubilee. Victoria marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession,
20 June 1887, with a banquet to which 50 European kings and princes were invited. Although she couldn't have been aware of it, there was a plan - ostensibly by Irish anarchists - to blow up Westminster Abbey while the Queen attended a service of thanksgiving. This assassination attempt, when it was discovered, became known as
The Jubilee Plot. On the next day, she participated in a procession that, in the words of
Mark Twain, "stretched to the limit of sight in both directions". By this time, Victoria was once again an extremely popular monarch.
Diamond Jubilee
On
22 September 1896, Victoria surpassed
George III as the longest reigning monarch in English, Scottish, and British history. The Queen requested all special public celebrations of the event to be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her
Diamond Jubilee. The
Colonial Secretary,
Joseph Chamberlain, proposed that the Diamond Jubilee be made a festival of the British Empire.
The Prime Ministers of all the self-governing dominions and colonies were invited. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession included troops from every British colony and dominion, together with soldiers sent by Indian princes and chiefs as a mark of respect to Victoria, the Empress of India. The Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion marked by great outpourings of affection for the
septuagenarian Queen. A service of thanksgiving was held outside
St. Paul's Cathedral. Queen Victoria sat in her carriage throughout the service. Queen Victoria wore her usual black mourning dress trimmed with white lace.
Many trees were planted to celebrate the Jubilee including
60 oak trees
at Henley-on-Thames in the shape of a
Victoria Cross.
Death
Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood Victoria spent
Christmas at
Osborne House on the
Isle of Wight. She died there from a
cerebral hemorrhage on Tuesday
22 January 1901, at the age of 81. At her deathbed she was attended by her son, the future King, and her eldest grandson,
German Emperor William II. As she'd wished, her own sons lifted her into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. Her funeral was held on Saturday
February 2, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in
Frogmore Mausoleum at
Windsor Great Park. Since Victoria disliked black funerals, London was instead festooned in purple and white. Flags in the United States were lowered to half-staff in her honour by order of President
William McKinley, a tribute never before offered to a foreign monarch at the time and one which was repaid by Britain when McKinley was assassinated later that year. When she was laid to rest at Frogmore Mausoleum, it began to snow. Victoria had reigned for a total of 63 years, seven months and two days—the longest of any British monarch.
Succession
Victoria's death brought an end to the rule of the
House of Hanover in the United Kingdom. As her husband belonged to the House of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her son and heir
Edward VII was the first British monarch of this new house.
Legacy
Queen Victoria's reign marked the gradual establishment of modern constitutional monarchy. A series of legal reforms saw the House of Commons' power increase, at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarchy, with the monarch's role becoming gradually more symbolic. Since Victoria's reign the monarch has had only, in
Walter Bagehot's words, "the right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn".
As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. Victoria's reign created for Britain the concept of the 'family monarchy' with which the burgeoning
middle classes could identify.
Internationally Victoria was a major figure, not just in image or in terms of Britain's influence through the empire, but also because of family links throughout Europe's royal families, earning her the affectionate nickname "the grandmother of Europe". For example, three of the main monarchs with countries involved in the
First World War on the opposing side were either grandchildren of Victoria's or married to a grandchild of hers. Eight of Victoria's nine children married members of European royal families, and the other,
Princess Louise, married the Marquis of Lorne, a future
Governor-General of Canada.
Victoria was the first known carrier of
haemophilia in the royal line. Since no haemophiliacs were among her known ancestors, hers was quite possibly an instance of spontaneous mutation, which account for about 33% of all haemophilia A and 20% of all haemophilia B cases. The sudden appearance of
hæmophilia in Victoria's descendants has led to suggestions that her true father wasn't the Duke of Kent but a haemophiliac. This belief is dismissed by geneticists, who consider it more likely that the mutation arose because Victoria's father was old (haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers). There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac man having access to Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always suffer the disease, even if such a man had existed he'd have been seriously ill. Evidence indicates Victoria passed the gene on to two of her five daughters:
Princess Alice and
Princess Beatrice. Her son,
Prince Leopold was affected by the disease. The most famous haemophilia victims among her descendants were her great-grandson,
Alexei, Tsarevich of Russia and
Alfonso, Prince of Asturias and
Infante Gonzalo of Spain, the eldest and youngest sons of King
Alfonso XIII of Spain and Queen
Victoria Eugenie (Victoria's granddaughter).
As of 2008, the European monarchs and former monarchs
descended from Victoria are: Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (as well as
her husband), King
Harald V of Norway, King
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Queen
Margrethe II of Denmark, King
Juan Carlos I of Spain (as well as
his wife), and the deposed Kings
Constantine II of Greece (as well as
his wife) and
Michael of Romania. The
pretenders to the thrones of
Serbia,
Russia,
Prussia and Germany,
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,
Hanover,
Hesse,
Baden and
France (Legitimist) are also descendants.
Queen Victoria experienced unpopularity during the first years of her widowhood, but afterwards became extremely well-liked during the 1880s and 1890s. In 2002, the
British Broadcasting Corporation conducted a poll regarding the
100 Greatest Britons; Victoria attained eighteenth place.
Innovations of the Victorian era include
postage stamps, the first of which—the
Penny Black (issued 1840)—featured an image of the Queen, and the
railway, which Victoria was the first British Sovereign to use.
Several places in the world have been named after Victoria, including two Australian States (
Victoria and
Queensland), the capitals of British Columbia (
Victoria, British Columbia), and Saskatchewan (
Regina), the
capital of the Seychelles,
Africa's largest lake, and
Victoria Falls.
See also List of places named after Queen Victoria.
Victoria Day is a
Canadian statutory holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on May 24 in honour of both Queen Victoria's birthday and the current reigning Canadian Sovereign's birthday. While Victoria Day is often thought of as a purely Canadian event, it's also celebrated in some parts of Scotland, particularly in
Edinburgh and
Dundee, where it's also a public holiday.
Queen Victoria remains the most commemorated British monarch in history, with statues to her erected throughout the former territories of the
British Empire. These range from the prominent, such as the
Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, which was erected as part of the remodelling of the façade of the Palace a decade after her death, to the obscure: in the town of
Cape Coast,
Ghana, a bust of the Queen presides, rather forlornly, over a small park where goats graze around her. Many institutions, thoroughfares, parks, and structures bear her name.
See also Victoria (disambiguation).
Post-colonial sensitivities have led to the removal of Victoria's image and name from some of these legacies. For instance, probably the grandest train station and terminus in
Mumbai (formerly Bombay)
India, Victoria Terminus, has been renamed after the seventeenth century
Maratha King Chhatrapati
Shivaji. A famous engineering college in the same city, Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (
VJTI) has been cleverly renamed after the queen mother of king
Shivaji, Jijabai: the new name Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute conveniently retains the same well known abbreviation,
VJTI. The statue of Queen Victoria sculpted by Irishman
John Hughes, erected in front of
Leinster House in
Dublin in 1924, was removed in 1947 after years of criticism that it was inappropriate to have the British Queen's likeness stand in front of the
Oireachtas, the parliament of the
Irish Free State. After decades in storage the statue was given by
Ireland to
Australia and unveiled on
20 December 1987 to stand outside the
Queen Victoria Building in the centre of
Sydney, capital city of the Australian state of
New South Wales.
There is a statue of Queen Victoria in Victoria Square in
Adelaide, capital city of the Australian state of
South Australia; in Queen's Square in
Brisbane, capital city of the Australian state of
Queensland; and in the Domain Gardens in Melbourne, the capital of the Australian State of Victoria. A bronze statue of Queen Victoria stands in the main street of the city of Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. At Bangalore, India, the statue of the Queen stands at the beginning of MG Road, one of the city's major roads. Statues erected to Victoria are common in Canada, where her reign was coterminous with the
confederation of the country and the creation of several new provinces. A bas-relief image of Victoria is on the wall of the entrance to the
Canadian Parliament, and her statue is in the Parliamentary library as well as on the grounds.
Queen Victoria invited
Martha Ann Ricks, on behalf of Liberian Ambassador
Edward Wilmont Blyden, to Windsor Castle on
16 July 1892. Martha Ricks, a former slave from Tennessee, had saved her pennies for more than fifty years, to afford the voyage from
Liberia to England to see the Queen and thank the Queen for sending the British navy to patrol the coast of West Africa to prevent slavers from exporting Africans for the slave trade. Martha Ricks shook hands with the Queen and presented her with a Coffee Tree quilt, which Queen Victoria later sent to the
1893 World's Columbian Exposition for display. A mystery remains as to where the Coffee Tree quilt is today.
Titles, styles, coat of arms and cypher
Titles and styles
As the male-line granddaughter of a King of Hanover, Victoria also bore the titles of Princess of Hanover and Duchess of Brunswick and Lunenburg. In addition, she held the titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony, etc, as the wife of Prince Albert.
Coat of arms
Victoria's coat of arms were:
Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland). This same coat of arms has been used by every subsequent British monarch.
Royal Cypher
Victoria's
Royal Cypher was the first to be used on a postbox. The letters are "VR" interlaced, standing for Victoria Regina. Although Victoria eventually used the cypher "VRI" (Victoria Regina Imperatrix) when she became
Empress, this never appeared on postboxes. Victoria's cypher was the only one to appear on postboxes without a crown above it.
Issue
| Name |
Birth |
Death |
Notes |
| The Princess Victoria, Princess Royal |
21 November 1840 |
5 August 1901 |
Married 1858, Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia; had issue. |
| King Edward VII |
9 November 1841 |
6 May 1910 |
Married 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark; had issue. |
| The Princess Alice |
25 April 1843 |
14 December 1878 |
Married 1862, Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue. |
| The Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh |
6 August 1844 |
31 July 1900 |
Married 1874, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia; had issue. |
| The Princess Helena |
25 May 1846 |
9 June 1923 |
Married 1866, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg; had issue. |
| The Princess Louise |
18 March 1848 |
3 December 1939 |
Married 1871, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll; no issue. |
| The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn |
1 May 1850 |
16 January 1942 |
Married 1879, Princess Louise Margarete of Prussia; had issue. |
| The Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany |
7 April 1853 |
28 March 1884 |
Married 1882, Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont; had issue. |
| The Princess Beatrice |
14 April 1857 |
26 October 1944 |
Married 1885, Prince Henry of Battenberg; had issue. |
Ancestry
Biographical details
Queen Victoria surpassed her grandfather, George III, as the longest-lived British monarch when she reached the age of 81 years and 240 days on
19 January 1901, only three days before her death. She has since been surpassed by her great-great-granddaughter
Elizabeth II on
December 21,
2007. Victoria spent over three-quarters of her life as Queen, the highest ratio of any British monarch since the
Restoration in 1660.
She outlived three of her nine children, and came within seven months of outliving a fourth (her eldest daughter,
Vicky, who died of
spinal cancer in August 1901 aged 60). She outlived eleven of her 42 grandchildren (two stillborn, six as children, and three as adults), and three of her 88 great-grandchildren. Following the death of
Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark on
October 2,
2007, there's just one remaining great-grandchild of Queen Victoria who is still living: Count
Carl Johan Bernadotte of
Sweden.
The Queen and all her female-line descendants are known to be members of
mitochondrial
haplogroup H.
The design of the Queen's head on the first postage stamp was based upon the 1837 Wyon City medal engraved by a famous coin engraver William Wyon. The design of Queen Victoria's head is based on a sitting when she was a princess aged 15.
Queen Victoria was 20 when the Penny Black stamp was issued on 6 May 1840. Her profile on British stamps never aged; the design of her head remained the same for 60 years.
Prince Albert introduced Christmas trees to the court and this was soon copied by Victoria's subjects.
Every day for forty years after the Prince Consort's death, the Queen ordered that his clothes be laid afresh on his bed in his suite at Windsor Castle.
Queen Victoria was known to the Blackfoot Nation as Ninaki or Chief Woman, while the common expression for her was Great Mother.
After one of the attempts on her life, an armoured parasol was designed for her; it had a layer of chain mail between its cover and lining. The armour made it weigh more than three pounds, and it probably didn't see any use.
Queen Victoria was the only world leader to respond positively to messages that were sent to 19th century monarchs by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, inviting them to establish a "Most Great Peace".
Queen Victoria started the tradition of a bride wearing a white dress at her wedding. Before Victoria's wedding a bride would wear her best dress of no particular colour.
Queen Victoria was the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace, in 1837.
Victoria was the great-grandmother of the famous Russian princess Grand Duchess Anastasia. Anastasia's mother, Alexandra Fyodorovna was the sixth child of Victoria's third daughter Princess Alice.Further Information
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