22 January 1901 A.D. Queen Victoria Dies (The Queen Who Appreciated
the Rev. Dr. J.H.Merle d’Aubigne Over Which Tractobates Groused)
Editors. “Queen Victoria dies.” History.com.
N.d. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/queen-victoria-dies. Accessed 21 Jan 2015.
Queen Victoria dies
.The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most
of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign, the longest
in British
history, saw the growth of an empire
on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy
and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.
Born in 1819, she came to
the throne after the death of her uncle, King William IV, in 1837. As a young
woman ascending to the throne, her future husband described her "as one
whose extreme obstinacy was constantly at war with her good nature."
Her first prime minister,
Lord Melbourne, became her close friend and adviser, and she succeeded in
blocking his replacement by Tory leader Sir Robert Peel in 1839. Two years
later, however, an election resulted in a Tory majority in the House of
Commons, and Victoria was compelled to accept Peel as prime minister. Never
again would she interfere so directly in the politics of democratic Britain.
In 1839, her first cousin
Albert, a German prince, came to visit the English court at Windsor, and
Victoria proposed to him five days after his arrival. Prince Albert accepted,
and in February 1840 they were married. He soon became the dominant influence
in her life and served as her private secretary. Among his greatest
achievements as royal consort was his organization of the Great Exhibition of
1851, the first world's fair, in the Crystal Palace in London. He also steered
her support away from the Whigs to the conservative Tories; she later was a
vocal supporter of Benjamin Disraeli, leader of the Conservative Party.
Victoria and Albert built
royal residences at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and at Balmoral Castle
in Scotland and became increasingly detached from London. They had nine
children, including Victoria, later the empress of Germany, and the Prince of
Wales, later King Edward VII. In 1861, Albert died, and Victoria's grief was
such that she did not appear in public for three years. She never entirely got
over the loss, and until the end of her life she had her maids nightly lay out
Albert's clothes for the next day and in the morning replace the water in the
basin in his room.
Disraeli coaxed her out of
seclusion, and she was impressed by his efforts to strengthen and expand the
British Empire. In 1876, he had her made "empress of India," a title
which pleased her and made her a symbol of imperial unity. During the last few
decades of her life, her popularity, which had suffered during her long public
absence, increased greatly. She never embraced the social and technological
advances of the 19th century but accepted the changes and worked hard to
fulfill her ceremonial duties as head of state. When she died, she had 37
surviving great-grandchildren, and their marriages with other monarchies gave
her the name the "grandmother of Europe."
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