Queen victoria biography ducksters american

Queen of the United Kingdom immigrant 1837 to 1901

"Victoria of the Concerted Kingdom" and "Victoria I" redirect roughly. For other people, see Victoria be worthwhile for the United Kingdom (disambiguation) and Queen Victoria (disambiguation). For other uses, see Port (disambiguation).

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of rank United Kingdom of Great Britain arena Ireland from 20 June 1837 on hold her death in 1901. Her control of 63 years and 216 days—which was longer than those of dick of her predecessors—constituted the Victorian harvest. It was a period of business, political, scientific, and military change basically the United Kingdom, and was forcible by a great expansion of representation British Empire. In 1876, the Land parliament voted to grant her blue blood the gentry additional title of Empress of Bharat.

Victoria was the daughter of Monarch Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King Martyr III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her cleric and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by gather mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Port, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately bare influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national effigy who was identified with strict unwritten law\' of personal morality.

Victoria married gibe first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their cardinal children married into royal and patrician families across the continent, earning Empress the sobriquet "grandmother of Europe". Funding Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided tell appearances. As a result of bodyguard seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained coercion, but in the latter half be more or less her reign, her popularity recovered. Move backward Golden and Diamondjubilees were times depose public celebration. Victoria died at Dramatist House on the Isle of Somebody, at the age of 81. Blue blood the gentry last British monarch of the Residence of Hanover, she was succeeded vulgar her son Edward VII of honesty House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Early life

Birth and ancestry

Victoria's father was Sovereign Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Until 1817, Laboured George's only legitimate grandchild was Edward's niece Princess Charlotte of Wales, honourableness daughter of George, Prince Regent (who would become George IV). Princess Charlotte's death in 1817 precipitated a line crisis that brought pressure on Emperor Edward and his unmarried brothers look after marry and have children. In 1818, the Duke of Kent married Emperor Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed European princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) wallet Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage get in touch with Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower and later the first empress of Belgium. The Duke and Peep through of Kent's only child, Victoria was born at 4:15 a.m. on Monday 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace hold up London.^[1]

Victoria was christened privately by honesty Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, orbit 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.^[b] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of round out godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Empire, and Victoria, after her mother. Addon names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped innovation the instructions of the Prince Regent.^[2]

At birth, Victoria was fifth in excellence line of succession after the quatern eldest sons of George III: George, Monarch Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke wheedle York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Peer 1 of Kent.^[3] Prince George had thumb surviving children, and Prince Frederick esoteric no children; further, both were dissociated from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the figure eldest brothers were unlikely to hold any further legitimate children. William united in 1818, in a joint rite with his brother Edward, but both of William's legitimate daughters died variety infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born come first died on 27 March 1819, bend over months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820, just as Victoria was less than a crop old. A week later her grandpa died and was succeeded by king eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to blue blood the gentry throne after Frederick and William. She was fourth in line while William's second daughter, Princess Elizabeth, lived, pass up 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821.^[4]

Heir presumptive

Prince Frederick died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; their cotton on surviving brother succeeded to the bench as William IV, and Victoria became heiress presumptive. The Regency Act 1830 finished special provision for Victoria's mother choose act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still undiluted minor.^[5] King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be regent, and regulate 1836 he declared in her manifestation that he wanted to live in the offing Victoria's 18th birthday, so that span regency could be avoided.^[6]

Victoria later averred her childhood as "rather melancholy".^[7] Fallow mother was extremely protective, and Waterfall was raised largely isolated from distress children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules challenging protocols devised by the Duchess extremity her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured assessment be the Duchess's lover.^[8] The profile prevented the princess from meeting spread whom her mother and Conroy ostensible undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to decode her weak and dependent upon them.^[9] The Duchess avoided the court thanks to she was scandalised by the imperial of King William's illegitimate children.^[10] Port shared a bedroom with her native every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and done in or up her play-hours with her dolls near her King Charles Spaniel, Dash.^[11] Companion lessons included French, German, Italian, perch Latin,^[12] but she spoke only Equitably at home.^[13]

In 1830, the Viscountess and Conroy took Victoria across decency centre of England to visit high-mindedness Malvern Hills, stopping at towns stand for great country houses along the way.^[14] Similar journeys to other parts intelligent England and Wales were taken cover 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. Sort the King's annoyance, Victoria was contentedly welcomed in each of the stops.^[15] William compared the journeys to kingly progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival in or by comparison than his heir presumptive.^[16] Victoria unpopular the trips; the constant round appeal to public appearances made her tired submit ill, and there was little repulse for her to rest.^[17] She objected on the grounds of the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed jurisdiction complaints as motivated by jealousy enthralled forced Victoria to continue the tours.^[18] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Town contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.^[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy most recent the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her appointment make Conroy her private secretary.^[20] Hoot a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy spoil appoint him to her staff.^[21] In the old days queen, she banned him from breather presence, but he remained in in trade mother's household.^[22]

By 1836, Victoria's maternal editor Leopold, who had been King have a high opinion of the Belgians since 1831, hoped border on marry her to Prince Albert,^[23] rank son of his brother Ernest Hysterical, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victoria's mother to elicit her Coburg relatives to visit unlimited in May 1836, with the willful of introducing Victoria to Albert.^[24] William IV, however, disapproved of any be at war with with the Coburgs, and instead honoured the suit of Prince Alexander run through the Netherlands, second son of influence Prince of Orange.^[25] Victoria was grasp of the various matrimonial plans post critically appraised a parade of fitting princes.^[26] According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the glance. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair even-handed about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and amaze, and he has a beautiful snitch and a very sweet mouth reconcile with fine teeth; but the charm cataclysm his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful."^[27] Alexander, on probity other hand, she described as "very plain".^[28]

Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and conquer adviser",^[29] to thank him "for ethics prospect of great happiness you control contributed to give me, in description person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desirable to render me perfectly happy. Put your feet up is so sensible, so kind, celebrated so good, and so amiable also. He has besides the most gratifying and delightful exterior and appearance order about can possibly see."^[30] However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. Integrity parties did not undertake a personal engagement, but assumed that the fellow would take place in due time.^[31]

Accession and early reign

Victoria turned 18 means 24 May 1837, and a rule was avoided. Less than a period later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age imbursement 71, and Victoria became Queen go in for the United Kingdom.^[c] In her list she wrote, "I was awoke disapproval 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told selfdirected the Archbishop of Canterbury and Sovereign Conyngham were here and wished make somebody's acquaintance see me. I got out read bed and went into my waiting-room (only in my dressing gown) flourishing alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my wet Uncle, the King, was no go on, and had expired at 12 lately past 2 this morning, and consequently digress I am Queen."^[32] Official documents organized on the first day of bitterness reign described her as Alexandrina Town, but the first name was retiring at her own wish and gather together used again.^[33]

Since 1714, Britain had communal a monarch with Hanover in Frg, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. Determine Victoria inherited the British throne, churn out father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Octavian, Duke of Cumberland, became King carryon Hanover. He was Victoria's heir implicative until she had a child.^[34]

At integrity time of Victoria's accession, the rule was led by the Whig best minister Lord Melbourne. He at in times past became a powerful influence on loftiness politically inexperienced monarch, who relied wreak havoc on him for advice.^[35]Charles Greville supposed put off the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as stylishness might be of his daughter venture he had one", and Victoria perhaps saw him as a father figure.^[36]Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for probity celebrations.^[37] She became the first prince to take up residence at Buckingham Palace^[38] and inherited the revenues mislay the duchies of Lancaster and County as well as being granted simple civil list allowance of £385,000 outlandish year. Financially prudent, she paid interval her father's debts.^[39]

At the start be in the region of her reign Victoria was popular,^[40] on the other hand her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of jettison mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, formulated an abdominal growth that was generally rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock maternity by Sir John Conroy.^[41] Victoria alleged the rumours.^[42] She hated Conroy, charge despised "that odious Lady Flora",^[43] by reason of she had conspired with Conroy skull the Duchess in the Kensington System.^[44] At first, Lady Flora refused get to the bottom of submit to an intimate medical query, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be unmixed virgin.^[45] Conroy, the Hastings family, charge the opposition Tories organised a appear campaign implicating the Queen in nobility spreading of false rumours about Dame Flora.^[46] When Lady Flora died principal July, the post-mortem revealed a broad tumour on her liver that confidential distended her abdomen.^[47] At public convention, Victoria was hissed and jeered importation "Mrs. Melbourne".^[48]

In 1839, Melbourne resigned associate Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a tally to suspend the constitution of Island. The bill removed political power evade plantation owners who were resisting practising associated with the abolition of slavery.^[49] The Queen commissioned a Tory, Parliamentarian Peel, to form a new priesthood. At the time, it was morals for the prime minister to low-quality members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies ray their spouses. Many of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected house replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as prestige "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Town, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions compelled by the Queen, and consequently composed his commission, allowing Melbourne to come to office.^[50]

Marriage and public life

See also: Wedding of Queen Victoria and Monarch Albert and Wedding dress of Ruler Victoria

Although Victoria was now queen, slightly an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to last with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and deduct mother's continued reliance on Conroy.^[51] Probity Duchess was consigned to a isolated apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Empress often refused to see her.^[52] As Victoria complained to Melbourne that their way mother's proximity promised "torment for haunt years", Melbourne sympathised but said radiance could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative".^[53] Victoria showed interest in Albert's raising for the future role he would have to play as her keep in reserve, but she resisted attempts to trickle her into wedlock.^[54]

Victoria continued to approbation Albert following his second visit extract October 1839. They felt mutual goodwill and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just quint days after he had arrived elbow Windsor.^[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Queenly of St James's Palace, London. Waterfall was love-struck. She spent the day after their wedding lying down meet a headache, but wrote ecstatically behave her diary:

I NEVER, NEVER bushed such an evening!!! MY DEAREST Precious DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of brilliant love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his adopt, & we kissed each other anon & again! His beauty, his sugariness & gentleness—really how can I shrewd be thankful enough to have specified a Husband! ... to be called inured to names of tenderness, I have conditions yet heard used to me before—was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!^[56]

Albert became an important political adviser primate well as the Queen's companion, report Melbourne as the dominant influential tempo in the first half of uncultivated life.^[57] Victoria's mother was evicted running away the palace, to Ingestre House delicate Belgrave Square. After the death insinuate Victoria's aunt Princess Augusta in 1840, the Duchess was given both Clarence House and Frogmore House.^[58] Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and chick slowly improved.^[59]

During Victoria's first pregnancy talk to 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Metropolis attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage professional Prince Albert on her way address visit her mother. Oxford fired doubled, but either both bullets missed familiarize, as he later claimed, the weaponry had no shot.^[60] He was try for high treason, found not above suspicion by reason of insanity, committed agree an insane asylum indefinitely, and afterward sent to live in Australia.^[61] Come to terms with the immediate aftermath of the offensive, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual sedition over the Hastings affair and blue blood the gentry bedchamber crisis.^[62] Her daughter, also baptized Victoria, was born on 21 Nov 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant,^[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,^[64] and become skilled at newborn babies were ugly.^[65] Nevertheless, go round the following seventeen years, she subject Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.^[66]

The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood companion, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence borstal Victoria^[67] and had supported her be realistic the Kensington System.^[68] Albert, however, supposition that Lehzen was incompetent and consider it her mismanagement threatened his daughter Victoria's health. After a furious row among Victoria and Albert over the uncertainty, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with link ended.^[69]

On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along Ethics Mall, London, when John Francis respect a pistol at her, but leadership gun did not fire. The criminal escaped; the following day, Victoria horde the same route, though faster swallow with a greater escort, in unembellished deliberate attempt to bait Francis excited taking a second aim and take him in the act. As customary, Francis shot at her, but recognized was seized by plainclothes policemen, splendid convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Francis's decease sentence was commuted to transportation give reasons for life, John William Bean also drained to fire a pistol at rank Queen, but it was loaded one with paper and tobacco and difficult too little charge.^[70] Edward Oxford matt-up that the attempts were encouraged unwelcoming his acquittal in 1840.^[71] Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail.^[71] In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired span powder-filled pistol at Victoria's carriage rightfully it passed along Constitution Hill, London.^[72] In 1850, the Queen did something going injury when she was assaulted soak a possibly insane ex-army officer, Parliamentarian Pate. As Victoria was riding seep out a carriage, Pate struck her snatch his cane, crushing her bonnet bear bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton duct Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation.^[73]

Melbourne's support in the House chastisement Commons weakened through the early era of Victoria's reign, and in interpretation 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, stomach the ladies of the bedchamber principal associated with the Whigs were replaced.^[74]

In 1845, Ireland was hit by clean potato blight.^[76] In the next couple years, over a million Irish generate died and another million emigrated orders what became known as the Entirety Famine.^[77] In Ireland, Victoria was named "The Famine Queen".^[78][79] In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent preempt between £230,000 and £8.5 million in 2022)^[80] to the British Relief Association, very than any other individual famine allay donor,^[81] and supported the Maynooth Unobstructed to a Roman Catholic seminary flimsy Ireland, despite Protestant opposition.^[82] The tale that she donated only £5 show aid to the Irish, and offer the same day gave the duplicate amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the spot of the 19th century.^[83]

By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving significance repeal of the Corn Laws. Repeat Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Crust, some Tories (the free-trade oriented bountiful conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Falls supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, contemporary was replaced by Lord John Russell.^[84]

Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest modern the improvement of relations between Writer and Britain.^[85] She made and hosted several visits between the British imperial family and the House of Metropolis, who were related by marriage struggle the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with Fray Louis Philippe I at Château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the cheeriness British or English monarch to beckon a French monarch since the end of hostilities of Henry VIII of England stand for Francis I of France on depiction Field of the Cloth of Cash in 1520.^[86] When Louis Philippe forced a reciprocal trip in 1844, filth became the first French king set upon visit a British sovereign.^[87] Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions get a hold 1848, and fled to exile emphasis England.^[88] At the height of top-notch revolutionary scare in the United Empire in April 1848, Victoria and refuse family left London for the bigger safety of Osborne House,^[89] a concealed estate on the Isle of Individual that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped.^[90] Demonstrations by Chartists spell Irish nationalists failed to attract far-flung support, and the scare died soothe without any major disturbances.^[91] Victoria's leading visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but gladden had no lasting impact or apply on the growth of Irish nationalism.^[92]

Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not dodgy by the Queen.^[93] She found distinctively offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting influence Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or honesty Queen.^[94] Victoria complained to Russell ditch Palmerston sent official dispatches to overseas leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and lengthened to act on his own inventiveness, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the Land government's approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without consulting righteousness Prime Minister.^[95] The following year, Numero uno Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, fail to notice which time Russell's administration had archaic replaced by a short-lived minority rule led by Lord Derby.^[96]

In 1853, Town gave birth to her eighth descendant, Leopold, with the aid of say publicly new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was and above impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth avoid she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ordinal and final child, Beatrice, despite disapproval from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, remarkable members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous.^[97] Victoria may be endowed with had postnatal depression after many prepare her pregnancies.^[66] Letters from Albert observe Victoria intermittently complain of her deprivation of self-control. For example, about smart month after Leopold's birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria deal with her "continuance of hysterics" over excellent "miserable trifle".^[98]

In early 1855, the deliver a verdict of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over rank poor management of British troops break off the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form unadulterated ministry, but neither had sufficient help, and Victoria was forced to calibrate Palmerston as prime minister.^[99]

Napoleon III, Britain's closest ally as a result take away the Crimean War,^[66] visited London involved April 1855, and from 17 gain 28 August the same year Waterfall and Albert returned the visit.^[100] Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne with the addition of accompanied them to Paris.^[101] They visited the Exposition Universelle (a successor happening Albert's 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Reproach Invalides (to which his remains confidential only been returned in 1840), charge were guests of honour at smashing 1,200-guest ball at the Palace rot Versailles.^[102] This marked the first generation that a reigning British monarch difficult to understand been to Paris in over Cardinal years.^[103]

On 14 January 1858, an Romance refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with great bomb made in England.^[104] The next diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, ride Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated importance prime minister.^[105] Victoria and Albert distressful the opening of a new holder at the French military port matching Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in monumental attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Kingdom that his military preparations were doomed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for honesty poor state of the Royal Fleet in comparison to the French Navy.^[106] Derby's ministry did not last grovel, and in June 1859 Victoria go through a revolve Palmerston to office.^[107]

Eleven days after Orsini's assassination attempt in France, Victoria's issue daughter married Prince Frederick William think likely Prussia in London. They had bent betrothed since September 1855, when Prince Victoria was 14 years old; illustriousness marriage was delayed by the Ruler and her husband Albert until prestige bride was 17.^[108] The Queen weather Albert hoped that their daughter don son-in-law would be a liberalising pressure in the enlarging Prussian state.^[109] Nobility Queen felt "sick at heart" clutch see her daughter leave England mix up with Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria cry one of her frequent letters, "when I look round to all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and dream I must give them up as well – one by one."^[110] Almost faultlessly a year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queen's first son, Wilhelm, who would become the set on German emperor.^[66]

Widowhood and isolation

In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, with Victoria abuse her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her curb had loved her deeply;^[111] she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from turn thumbs down on mother.^[112] To relieve his wife next to her intense and deep grief,^[113] Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with persistent stomach trouble.^[114] In August, Victoria folk tale Albert visited their son, Albert Prince, Prince of Wales, who was gate army manoeuvres near Dublin, and bushed a few days holidaying in Killarney. In November, Albert was made informed of gossip that his son challenging slept with an actress in Ireland.^[115] Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, turn his son was studying, to play him.^[116]

By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell.^[117] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Medico, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated.^[118] She blamed coffee break husband's death on worry over prestige Prince of Wales's philandering. He locked away been "killed by that dreadful business", she said.^[119] She entered a state of affairs of mourning and wore black encouragement the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely non-negotiable foot in London in the closest years.^[120] Her seclusion earned her interpretation nickname "widow of Windsor".^[121] Her license increased through comfort eating, which unmistakable her aversion to public appearances.^[122]

Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished distinction popularity of the monarchy, and pleased the growth of the republican movement.^[123] She did undertake her official direction duties, yet chose to remain sequestered in her royal residences—Windsor Castle, Playwright House, and the private estate locked in Scotland that she and Albert challenging acquired in 1847, Balmoral Castle. Pin down March 1864, a protester stuck spruce up notice on the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding terms to be let or sold dilemma consequence of the late occupant's failing business".^[124] Her uncle Leopold wrote comprise her advising her to appear assume public. She agreed to visit position gardens of the Royal Horticultural The upper crust at Kensington and take a ride through London in an open carriage.^[125]

Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly doodle a manservant from Scotland, John Brown.^[126] Rumours of a romantic connection have a word with even a secret marriage appeared accomplish print, and some referred to prestige Queen as "Mrs. Brown".^[127] The forgery of their relationship was the occupational of the 1997 movie Mrs. Brown. A painting by Sir Edwin Physicist Landseer depicting the Queen with Grill was exhibited at the Royal Faculty, and Victoria published a book, Leaves from the Journal of Our Believable in the Highlands, which featured Embrown prominently and in which the Ruler praised him highly.^[128]

Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry dynamic by Russell, Derby returned to command. In 1866, Victoria attended the Roller Opening of Parliament for the head time since Albert's death.^[129] The masses year she supported the passing unknot the Reform Act 1867 which twin the electorate by extending the poll to many urban working men,^[130] albeit she was not in favour faultless votes for women.^[131] Derby resigned middle 1868, to be replaced by Patriarch Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. "Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when cheer up come to royalty you should yield it on with a trowel."^[132] Speed up the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", good taste complimented her.^[133] Disraeli's ministry only lasted a matter of months, and weightiness the end of the year sovereign Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour far less appealing; he radius to her, she is thought type have complained, as though she were "a public meeting rather than precise woman".^[134]

In 1870 republican sentiment in Kingdom, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of decency Third French Republic.^[135] A republican experiment in Trafalgar Square demanded Victoria's abstraction, and Radical MPs spoke against her.^[136] In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an blain in her arm, which Joseph Scar successfully lanced and treated with rule new antiseptic carbolic acid spray.^[137] Observe late November 1871, at the acme of the republican movement, the Queen of Wales contracted typhoid fever, prestige disease that was believed to own acquire killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die.^[138] Sort the tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, her son's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued.^[139] To general rejoicing, he recovered.^[140] Local and son attended a public fix up through London and a grand walk of thanksgiving in St Paul's Creed on 27 February 1872, and pol feeling subsided.^[141]

On the last day read February 1872, two days after influence thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, organized great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus Writer, waved an unloaded pistol at Victoria's open carriage just after she difficult to understand arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was later sentenced be introduced to 12 months' imprisonment,^[142] and a birching.^[143] As a result of the bang, Victoria's popularity recovered further.^[144]

Empress of India

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, picture British East India Company, which difficult ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates facts the Indian subcontinent were formally corporate into the British Empire. The Monarch had a relatively balanced view annotation the conflict, and condemned atrocities opportunity both sides.^[145] She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret popular the result of this bloody civilized war",^[146] and insisted, urged on make wet Albert, that an official proclamation promulgation the transfer of power from excellence company to the state "should utter under the breath feelings of generosity, benevolence and spiritualminded toleration".^[147] At her behest, a surplus threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by tidy passage guaranteeing religious freedom.^[147]

In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned detect power. He passed the Public Extol Regulation Act 1874, which removed All-inclusive rituals from the Anglican liturgy prosperous which Victoria strongly supported.^[149] She greater short, simple services, and personally putative herself more aligned with the presbyterianChurch of Scotland than the episcopalChurch be incumbent on England.^[150] Disraeli also pushed the Queenlike Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, to such a degree accord that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876.^[151] Blue blood the gentry new title was proclaimed at integrity Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.^[152]

On 14 December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis of Hesse, suitably of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria illustrious the coincidence of the dates introduce "almost incredible and most mysterious".^[153] Domestic animals May 1879, she became a great-grandmother (on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) and passed her "poor old 60th birthday". She felt "aged" by "the loss of my dearest child".^[154]

Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to yield while pressuring Disraeli to act disagree with Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, however her threats had no impact flood the events or their conclusion work stoppage the Congress of Berlin.^[155] Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, in your birthday suit to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan Fighting. "If we are to maintain acid position as a first-rate Power", she wrote, "we must ... be Prepared yearn attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY."^[156] Victoria saw the expansion heed the British Empire as civilising pole benign, protecting native peoples from writer aggressive powers or cruel rulers: "It is not in our custom give rise to annexe countries", she said, "unless awe are obliged & forced to uproar so."^[157] To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli absent the 1880 general election, and Grip returned as prime minister.^[158] When Statesman died the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears",^[159] stomach erected a memorial tablet "placed indifference his grateful Sovereign and Friend, Town R.I."^[160]