Victoria (15 page)

Historical note

Queen Victoria's sixty-three-year reign was the longest in England's history.

When Victoria was a child, the American and French revolutions and the Napoleonic wars were recent history. Gaslights, steam engines, and railways were new inventions. Photography was not introduced until 1839, and the first telegraph line in England, not until 1844.

Working-class men and women could not participate in elections; neither could Roman Catholics, Jews, or members of other religious minorities. The fast-growing new industrial cities could not send their own representatives to Parliament. There were no laws to protect children from being forced into mining or factory labour, or to guarantee them adequate food, shelter, or schooling. Slavery was still legal in the United Kingdom until 1833.

By the time of Victoria's death in 1901, the first telephones, electric lights, typewriters, automobiles, and radios had been introduced – not to mention matches and coat hangers! Religious and racial bigotry was not extinguished, but it was not so firmly supported by the law. It would be only a couple of years until the Wright brothers' first airplane took to the sky, and twenty-seven years until all British women won the vote.

Many of the “classic” authors, composers, and artists were created by the Victorian era, and many worked and taught as Her Majesty's subjects and admirers. Queen Victoria herself was an avid fan of the music of Rossini, Bellini, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. She adored the ballerina Maria Taglioni, and, while visiting the French Empress Eugenie on the Riviera, was pleased to meet the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. By the end of the century, the theatre was enlivened by Gilbert and Sullivan, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde.

Some Victorian painters are still sometimes noted for the sentimentality of their work, but the country landscapes of John Constable are clear and natural, while J M W Turner used light and colour in ways that opened the eyes of the Impressionists to come. And although nostalgia for the pre-industrial past popularized the Gothic and pre-Raphaelite styles, progress could not be turned back. Crowded cities and disappearing countrysides demanded buildings that could expand upward. Architecture changed forever with the Victorians' development of iron – and later, steel – beams, and the ability to make larger, stronger sheets of window glass. Prince Albert's Great Exhibition, an amazing showcase for all these arts and technological advances, was held in the Crystal Palace, a giant “greenhouse” that enclosed full-grown trees.

Before Victoria's time, very few books had been written for – or about – child readers, but that was to change. Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre
came out in 1847, Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and
Through the Looking-Glass
were published in 1865 and 1871, respectively. His friend George Macdonald's
The Princess and the Goblin
(1872) is a fairy story about a royal child not unlike Victoria – surrounded by dangers but protected by the love of loyal common folk. Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island
(1883) is as thrilling now as ever, his
A Child's Garden of Verses
(1885) still one of the most popular poetry collections. Charles Dickens's wry and compassionate
Oliver Twist
(1838) and
A Christmas Carol
(1843), and Charles Kingsley's
The Water-Babies
(1863) appealed for better living conditions for the poor.
The Blue Fairy Book
by Andrew Lang (1889) began a long series of “colour fairy” retellings of tales from many lands. And the success of the late-Victorian Rudyard Kipling's
Jungle Books
(1894 and 1895) and
Just So Stories
(1902) celebrated British imperialism in India and Africa.

Children of all classes led lives far different from what is usual nowadays. Even those who did not have to go to work spent their early years in the “nursery” and home schoolroom under the care of a governess, and saw little of their own parents. Not all homes had running water. Though flush toilets had already been invented, they were not common at this time. Coal fires provided rather unreliable heat – and a great deal of polluted air.

Medical knowledge was greatly improving public health, though. When Victoria was a child, conservative physicians were still reluctant to accept the idea that the blood circulated through the body, and they thought fevers were caused by patient's having too much blood. Then, Louis Pasteur discovered that many diseases were actually bacterial infections, an observation that revolutionized hygiene and surgery. The Duke of Kent saw to it that his precious child was inoculated against smallpox. Joseph Lister proved that sterilizing instruments and operating rooms with heat or carbolic acid dramatically reduced the post-surgical death rate. Queen Victoria herself helped popularize the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic – her doctors gave it to her during the births of her younger children. Even the use of plaster casts on broken bones was a Victorian innovation.

During the same years when civilization was making all these advances, unfortunately, self-righteousness and greed too often combined with “improved” weaponry in the dark side of British success: the glories of the Empire included British invasions around the world. The sun never set on Her Majesty's Army and Navy. In India, Egypt, Sudan, the Crimea, Burma, China, South Africa, and Central America, native societies resisted in vain. Victorian citizens believed earnestly that they owed it to the world to make war to “improve” conditions for “savage” nations. In the process, they took for themselves the riches of the continents. No wonder that little England was the wealthiest country in the history of the world! In turn, the blood-tainted profits from Asia and Africa helped develop Canada, British Guiana (now Belize), the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Yet it is undeniable: in England and all its dominions, Victorian common sense, efficiency, and conscientious intentions did allow a new stability for agriculture and industry. The Empire was often arrogant, brutal, racist, and blind to the values and rights of other cultures. Still, the order Great Britain embodied during the nineteenth century allowed the world to learn how to feed, clothe, heal, and educate more of its children than ever before. The highest ideals of Victoria's people are still admired.

The Hanover-Coburg family tree

The Hanover dynasty began with King George I, Victoria's paternal great-great-grandfather, who was a German descendant of King James I of England. Victoria's mother belonged to the Saxe-Coburg family of royals who ruled a territory in the German region known as Thuringia. British custom and law provided that members of the royal family could not choose to marry Catholics or commoners, and could not marry at all without the monarch's consent. Therefore, the most eligible matches were often found among the same few noble houses of Europe. Hence, intermarriage among even first cousins, as with Victoria and Albert, was not uncommon.

The chart illustrates the growth and interconnections of these two family lines. The crown symbol indicates those who ruled. Double lines represent marriages; single lines indicate parentage. Dates of births and deaths (when available) are noted.

 

K
ING
G
EORGE
IIII

Victoria's paternal grandfather; born 1738, crowned 1760, died 1820.

 

Q
UEEN
C
HARLOTTE
(“G
RANDMA
'
AM
”)

Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; born 1744, married George III. They had fifteen children – six girls and nine boys of whom two (Octavius and Alfred) died as toddlers. She died in 1818.

 

E
DWARD
A
UGUSTUS
, D
UKE
OF
K
ENT

Fourth son and fifth child of George III and Queen Charlotte; born 1767. In 1799, Prince Edward was made Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Earl of Dublin. In 1818, he married the Dowager Princess Victoire of Leiningen, making her Duchess of Kent. Their child, Princess Victoria, was born in 1819.The Duke died after a brief illness in 1820,when Victoria was only eight months old.

 

V
ICTOIRE
OF
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
AND
S
AALFELD
, D
UCHESS
OF
K
ENT

Victoria's mother, sister of Prince Leopold. Born 1786; married at seventeen to Prince Emich Charles of Leiningen, who was twenty-three years older than she, and when he died, he left her a widow with two children (Charles and Feodora). When she was thirty-two, she married the Duke of Kent and moved to England. She was not popular with her royal in-laws. She died in 1861.

 

P
RINCE
C
HARLES
OF
L
EININGEN

Victoria's half-brother; born 1804, died 1856.

 

P
RINCESS
F
EODORA
OF
L
EININGEN
(“F
EO
”)

Victoria's half-sister; married Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg; born 1807, died 1872.

 

A
LEXANDRINA
V
ICTORIA

Only child of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, and Victoire of Saxe-Coburg. Born May 24, 1819, she inherited the throne of England at age eighteen from her uncle, King William IV. In February 1840, she married her cousin Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her reign lasted for sixty-three years until her death in 1901.

 

A
LBERT
, P
RINCE
OF
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
AND
G
OTHA

Younger son of Duke Ernest, nephew of Duchess of Kent and King Leopold; born 1819, he married his cousin, Victoria, in 1840, and together they had nine children before his death in 1861.

Glossary of characters

Victoria's family

Q
UEEN
A
DELAIDE
: Victoria's aunt; wife of William IV.

L
ORD
A
DOLPHUS
F
ITZCLARENCE
: son of William IV.

A
DOLPHUS
, D
UKE
OF
C
AMBRIDGE
: Victoria's uncle; son of George III.

P
RINCE
A
LBERT
O
F
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
AND
G
OTHA
: son of Ernest I; Victoria's cousin, whom she married in 1840.

P
RINCESS
A
MELIA
: youngest daughter of George III.

A
UGUSTA
O
F
C
AMBRIDGE
: Victoria's cousin.

P
RINCESS
A
UGUSTA
: Victoria's aunt; daughter of George III.

C
APTAIN
A
UGUSTUS
AND
M
ISS
D
'E
STE
: children of the Duke of Sussex.

A
UGUSTUS
F
REDERICK
, D
UKE
OF
S
USSEX
: son of George III.

P
RINCE
C
HARLES
OF
L
EININGEN
: Victoria's half-brother.

P
RINCESS
C
HARLOTTE
: only child of King George IV; married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld.

Q
UEEN
C
HARLOTTE
(“Grandma'am”): Victoria's paternal grandmother; wife of George III.

E
DWARD
A
UGUSTUS
, D
UKE
OF
K
ENT
: Victoria's father; son of George III.

P
RINCESS
E
LIZABETH
: Victoria's aunt; daughter of George III.

E
RNEST
, D
UKE
OF
C
UMBERLAND
: Victoria's uncle; son of George III.

E
RNEST
, P
RINCE
OF
H
OHENLOHE
-L
ANGENBURG
: husband of Victoria's half-sister, Princess Feodora of Leiningen.

E
RNEST
I,
OF
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
S
AALFELD
: (1) Duchess of Kent's and Prince Leopold's older brother; (2) his son, Albert's elder brother.

P
RINCESS
F
EODORA
OF
L
EININGEN
: Victoria's half-sister.

F
REDERICK
, D
UKE
OF
Y
ORK
: Victoria's uncle; son of George III.

K
ING
G
EORGE
III: Victoria's grandfather.

K
ING
G
EORGE
IV: Victoria's uncle; son of George III.

P
RINCE
G
EORGE
OF
C
UMBERLAND
: Victoria's cousin; son of Duke Ernest.

P
RINCE
L
EOPOLD
OF
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
AND
S
AALFELD
: Victoria's uncle and mentor; brother of Duchess of Kent.

P
RINCESS
S
OPHIA
: Victoria's aunt; daughter of George III.

V
ICTOIRE
OF
S
AXE
-C
OBURG
AND
S
AALFELD
, D
UCHESS
OF
K
ENT
: Victoria's mother; sister of Prince Leopold.

K
ING
W
ILLIAM
IV (Duke of Clarence): Victoria's uncle; son of George III.

 

Friends, attendants and associates

M
RS
A
RBUTHNOT
: friend of the Duchess of Kent.

M
ADAME
B
OU
[
R
]
DIN
: Victoria's dancing teacher.

M
RS
B
ROCK
(“Brocky”): Victoria's nurse.

L
ORD
B
ROUGHAM
: Whig Member of Parliament.

S
IR
J
OHN
C
ONROY
: the Duchess of Kent's financial comptroller.

V
ICTOIRE
C
ONROY
: daughter of Sir John Conroy.

L
ADY
C
ONYNGHAM
: wife of the Lord Chamberlain.

M
R
(T
HOMAS
) C
OUTTS
: banker for Victoria's mother.

R
EVEREND
G
EORGE
D
AVYS
: Victoria's tutor.

Q
UEEN
M
ARIA
DA
G
LORIA
OF
P
ORTUGAL
: married Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, Victoria's cousin.

P
RINCESS
D
OROTHEA
DE
L
IEVEN
: wife of the Russian ambassador to George IV's court.

B
ARONESS
DE
S
PAETH
: lady-in-waiting to Victoria's mother.

L
ORD
J
OHN
E
LPHINSTONE
: officer in the Royal Horse Guards.

B
ISHOP
F
ISHER
OF
S
ALISBURY
: uncle of Sir John Conroy's wife.

L
ADY
C
ATHERINE
J
ENKINSON
: lady-in-waiting to Victoria's mother.

M
RS
L
OUIS
: Leopold's Claremont housekeeper.

B
ARONESS
L
OUISE
L
EHZEN
: Victoria's governess.

S
IR
M
OSES
M
ONTEFIORE
: Prince Leopold's friend.

D
UCHESS
OF
N
ORTHUMBERLAND
: Victoria's governess.

R
OBERT
O
WEN
: pioneer of the cooperative movement.

M
R
J
OHN
S
ALE
: Victoria's music instructor.

D
R
C
HRISTIAN
VON
S
TOCKMAR
: Leopold's physician.

A
RTHUR
W
ELLESLEY
, D
UKE
OF
W
ELLINGTON
: Tory Prime Minister and commander-in-chief.

M
R
R
ICHARD
W
ESTALL
: Victoria's art instructor.

 

Family pets

D
ASH
: Victoria's mother's tan-and-white King Charles spaniel.

F
ANNY
: Victoria's black-and-tan terrier.

R
OSA
: Victoria's grey pony.