“HERGREAT EMPInN

Alan MaeBonag
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
In 2024

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i

Alan MacDonald
County Council

104010
3013021896003 6
 Published in the UK by Scholastic Children’s Books, 2020
Euston House, 24 Eversholt Street, London, NW1 1DB
A division of Scholastic Limited

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SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or

registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

First published in the UK under the title

Dead Famous: Queen Victoria and her Amusements
by Scholastic Ltd, 2002

Text copyright © Alan MacDonald, 2002

Illustrations copyright © Clive Goddard, 2002

ISBN 978 1407 19811 8

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved

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Introduction
Timeline: Young Victoria
“We are young’
— Little Drina
“We are Queen’
— Learning to rule
Timeline: Victoria and Albert
“We are a family’
— At home with Albert
‘We are doing our duty’
— Victoria at work
Timeline: Victoria alone
“We are in mourning’
— Dead Albert lives
‘We are an Empress’
— The British Empire
\
RA
‘We are proud’
= om
| oO io)te fo)=) N > i e) ta is}=
oe
aa +e! 2)

S
Oo-=
o
| aa
aes, a wo =<o I ta N
So

“We are departed’

— The end at last
Index
 i|g“s
a na
Rey epebes

Queen Victoria. This is probably how most people

picture her:
A fat little old lady
wWithad..dace that
would turn milk
sour. Victoria, as
we all know, was
dead famous for
being strict, stuffy
and disapproving.
A queen who wore
only black for 30 years and was as gloomy as a graveyard.
Her most famous saying is:

WE ARE NOT
AMUSED!
But was she really like that?
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Well, did you know that Queen Victoria often smiled?

One reason we usually picture her looking grumpy is
because Victorian cameras took so long to take a picture.
By the time the Queen was snapped her smile had
usually faded to a bored frown!
In fact when she first became Queen, young Vicky was
a lively 18-year-old, who liked games, going to the
theatre and dancing. The fact is she was often amused,
as you'll find out in this book. For instance, did you
know that:
eShe had Albert’s potty cleaned every day — even though
he was dead.
eShe often went out in disguise.
eShe once let an African chief wear her lace cap.
Victoria ruled England for a record-breaking 63 years. In
that time the world changed out of all recognition.
~ Victoria was born in the age of the stagecoach and went
out in the age of the aeroplane. As you read The Hard
Times newspaper and dip into the Queen’s diary (the secret
version) you'll meet the real Victoria, the one behind all
those black looks. Read on for some gripping stories of
bloomers, big hats and the mighty British Empire.

IT'S REALLY
MOST AMUSING
 TIMELINE:
YOUNG VICTORIA
(319: VICTORIA BORN AT || 1820: A DEADLY YEAR For
KENSINGTON PALACE, ROYALS. VICTORIA'S FATHER,
EDWARD DUKE OF KENT,
4 |DIES. “MAD” KING GEORGE

PoLICE FORCE STARTED. TV- TURNS UP HIS TOES.

NICKNAMED ‘PEELERS’ WILLIAMIV - SAILOR BILL
oR “BoBBIES’.
>

1334. GRUEL DAYS - POoR

THROUGHOUT THE BRITISH LAW CREATES ROTTEN
EMPIRE. _ WORKHOUSES. HOUSES OF
C AND A8oU PARLIAMENT BUR N DOWN.
TIME Too'| & 17 SERVES
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

1835: VICTORIA TouRS ENGLAND AND SEES

PooR Beane:
ae
ge fiArea (ae
‘me p ie J io]
7 {987
z ea ROD -

Ote SEA2)See ae BS
= ae Bra ak 22 ~mthe

‘eS Aneie eis Cel fe

“er
co <—~—>

1337: SAILOR BILL SINKS, 1839: THE BEDCHAMBER

18-YEAR-OLD VICTCRIA CRISIS- VICTORIA PUTS
|BECOM ES QUEEN. HER Foot DOWN. SNAP!
FIRST CAMERA DEVELOPED,

LALA
sf
\\
rN
§SOS
111)

1840: VICTORIA MARRIES 1841: BERTIE, PRINCE

HANDSOME ALBERT. OF WALES BorRN. HE’LL
FIRST PoSTAGE STAMPS — HAVE A LONG WAIT To
PENNY BLACKS - BEARING BECOME KING.
VICTORIA’S HEAD. VICTORIA
FIRST CHILD, PRINCESS
VICKY BORN.
In 1819 a coach rattled its way along through Germany
on its way to France. The driver was in a hurry. Inside,
his heavily pregnant wife bounced around on the bumpy
road and wished the journey would end.

TY
LiLjdibibes
VU A-L_La

The driver was the Duke of Kent and his wife, the
Duchess, was carrying a child. A gypsy had foretold that
one day the baby would become Queen of England. At
the time the prediction didn’t seem very likely, but the
Duke wasn’t taking any chances. He wanted his baby to
be born in England, not somewhere on the road to
Calais.
 Queen Victoria: Her Great

The parents made it The little one is rather

home and the baby was a pocket Hercules
born on 24 May at than a pocket Venus.
Kensington Palace. Her
grandmother called her
‘the May flower’ but
Victoria wouldn’t have
won any beautiful baby
contests. Even her Dad
admitted that.
Baby Vicky was a bit of a podge, but then she
followed her royal family in that respect. At the time,
Vicky was only fifth in line to the throne. King George
III had plenty of ugly relatives who had their greedy
eyes on the crown.
MAD KING | |Victoria's dadd WILLIAM DUKE
GEORGE TI | [the DUKE OF KENT OF CLARENCE
-On the -Soon to be dead - €ager to
become
William IW

- Soon to be CAMBRIDGE
arank outsiaer
fat George WV inthe race

10
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

Heir today, queen tomorrow

With all those fat uncles around, it’s surprising that
Victoria ever got to be queen. Yet, as it turned out, fate
handed her the crown on a silver plate. None of her
uncles produced a child who could be heir to the throne.
It’s true Uncle Clarence did have lots of children but
they either died or didn’t count because they weren’t his
wife’s children. Next in the pecking order came Vicky’s
dad, and when he died that left Victoria as the heir
apparent (the bottom most likely to sit on the throne).
Of course, in 1819 when little Vicky was born, no one
guessed that things would turn out this way. Vicky was a
royal baby but not especially important.

SHE'LL NEVER wow

AMOUNT To &

For now there was the small matter of naming the baby.
It wasn’t a happy start.

‘I name this child’

Did you know that the Victorian age was almost called
something else? It could have been the Alexandrinan
age (a bit of a mouthful) or the Elizabethan age (rather
confusing as there’d been one of those already.) It was all
because of the row over the baby’s name.

11
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Imagine the scene — the happy occasion of a royal

christening. The proud parents — the Duke and Duchess
of Kent — are there with the baby. A handful of royal
relatives have come to witness the occasion. Among
them the godfather, fat Uncle George, is looking
grumpy — even though he’ll soon be king. :
The christening takes place at Kensington Palace
where red velvet curtains have been hastily added to
make the room look more regal. Jealous Uncle George
has said a state christening with all the trimmings is
totally out of the question. He doesn’t want his niece
stealing all the attention. The Archbishop takes the
plump child in his arms and pauses over the font. ‘I
name this child. . .’ he says and turns to Fat George.
‘Alexandrina,’ comes the short reply.

12
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

There’s an embarrassed silence. The parents had chosen

a long list of royal names for their bouncing babe —
Victoria Georgina Alexandrina Charlotte Augusta — but
George isn’t following the script. Nervously the father
suggests Charlotte and Augusta. George turns him down
flat. ‘Elizabeth? A shake of the head.
Fat George doesn’t want his godchild bearing any of
the traditional royal names. The baby’s mother, the
Duchess of Kent, bursts into tears. Glaring at her, Fat
George mumbles, ‘Give her the mother’s name also then.’
So, in the middle of a seething family row, the baby is
finally baptized Alexandrina Victoria. As a girl she’ll be
known as Little Drina — but Victoria will be the name
she takes later. On the whim of a plump grumpy uncle
the Victorian Age gets its name.

PLONE
OLO
(

PS el
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Nineteenth-century Britain
What kind of world did Little Drina grow up in? For
a start the monarchy was in a bad way. Fat George
IV became king in 1820, but his subjects were more
likely to jeer than cheer when he was seen out in
his carriage.
More importantly, Victoria was born at a
crossroads in history, when rural England was being
replaced by a new world of machines and factories.
The Industrial Revolution was sweeping Britain
and re-shaping the landscape — not always for the
better.

404

e “ys
= ~— WB
= —
VE
ee) Re
—— a

Change was in the air and new inventions were

making their mark.

1 The first WC or water closet is

on the market (though most
families still use a bucket).

2 Parts of London are now lit by °

gas lights.

14
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

3 New roads mean that mail

coaches can travel ata breath- g
taking 16-19 km an hour.

4 Baby Victoria is one of

Meanwhile, in the slums of London and the north,

poor children go on dying of smallpox and other
dire diseases like cholera and dysentery. But who
cares about them? Certainly Little Drina doesn’t
meet any poor people. Her childhood is filled with
dolls, pets and taking tea with Mamma.

A sad life?
In later life, Victoria was fond of saying she’d had ‘a sad
dull childhood’, but it’s hard to see what she had to
grumble about. Compared to children from poor families
her life was a happy, idle existence. Here’s a typical day
when she was four years old.

« VicToRia's SecreT diary “7

ifa.n. Breakast with Mamma in the
* Jatden. Ihave bread, milk and fruit on
TAY OWN little Cable. ésbePR
- Yam. Out for Aride on Dickey the
donkey (n Kensington (Fardens.
@
WY:

15
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

T say ‘Houy doyoude?’ or ‘Good ” Dns

rrpraingto aii the ladies and Sirs that
We Pass.
Aonm- Lessons with Mamma. Soon get
bored and tun off to play with my dolls.
430 pm- /unch.Mamma Says we have
Lhe plainest and most wholesome fare.
3 P.n- Out visitieg Some of Mamma’s
Friends. They Said T have lovely blue yes:
‘IT know, I replied.
TRAM. Dinner. Teat
my bread and milk ¥
out of a silver basin-
Dp. Tine for bed.in Mlamma’s Yoom- *
SS
SS"
4, Cee 2 udl ap fh BEDE Py sell Ye WIA

You might imagine that Victoria would have been a

serious, solemn child, but you’d have been wrong. All
the stories suggest that she was a proper little madam.
When she played on the lawn in front of her house at
Kensington Palace, a crowd often gathered to watch her
through the railings. Little Drina used to play to the
gallery, curtsying and kissing her hand to her public.
Sometimes she would run over to talk to her future
subjects and have to be dragged away by her disapproving
nurse, Boppy (as Vicky called her).

Uncle King
When she was seven years old Victoria had her first visit
to her Uncle King — George IV. Remembering how

16
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

badly he’d behaved at the christening her mother must

have been nervous. She needn’t have worried — Victoria
charmed her fat foolish uncle. Kissing his face can’t have
been easy for a seven-year-old girl. The King was a
ridiculous old man who wore a wig and plastered his face
with make-up. In a letter, Victoria wrote:

The ‘King took me by the hand, saying, ‘Give me your little

paw. € was large and gouty but with a wonderful dignity
and charm of manner.

Naturally Victoria couldn’t be too rude about her Uncle

King. The Duke of Wellington who was also present had
no such qualms. He remembered the meeting differently.

The King was very drunk,

very blackguard, very foolish,
very much out of temper at
times — and a very great bore!

Spoilt rotten
We haven’t mentioned Victoria’s dear papa since the
christening. That’s because the Duke of York died the
year after Little Drina was born. With only a nurse and
her doting Mamma to look after her, Victoria was spoilt
rotten. Everyone worshipped ‘the poor little fatherless
child’ and Victoria took full advantage. Screaming fits
and tantrums regularly exploded in the nursery. Once,
one of her playmates — Lady Jane Elliot — had the nerve
to play with Vicky’s toys. Victoria fixed her with an icy
glare and said:

17
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

You must not touch those,

they are mine, and I may call
you Jane, but you must not
call me Victoria.

More often it was dear mamma or her tutors who suffered

from the tiny tyrant.

WHEN You ARE

NAUGHTY You
MAKE ME AND
YouRSELF

THERE IS NO Br
ROYAL ROAD To | @
MUSIC, PRINCESS. y
‘TYoU MUST PRACTISE &
LIKE EVERYONE
ELSE!
iii
A
io

Eventually Nurse Boppy — who was fighting a losing

battle — was replaced by a governess called Louise
Lehzen. Lehzen was made of sterner stuff and set about
trying to impose some discipline on the spoilt Princess.
She soon took a firm line on the screaming and foot-
stamping. Victoria even had to apologize to her maid
when she was naughty or rude. There was. still
bargaining at bedtime and often it took a lot of
persuasion to get Vicky up in the morning. When forced
to put on her stockings by Lehzen, she would complain
in tragic tones:

18
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

Poor Vicky! She is an unhappy

child! She doesn’t know which
is the right stocking and which
is the left!

As a little girl, Victoria was a chubby bundle of

mischief. Of course her childhood was hardly a normal
one. How many other children have a collection of 132
wooden puppets to play with? She didn’t go to school or
have friends round to play. In fact she hardly saw any
friends of her own age at all. But there were advantages
to being a princess. Here are a few of the highlights you
might have seen if you were able to take a peek in young
Vicky’s photo album.

—— arats
Sof my ee bth
ay
my ea le
presents

r p to
he seasiide Mi VA
ee
“a
&

Season ty ll
i HW (RES)
Beakling Dash
Regdrlessed, oo.
oie)pki: mam > gen
a

My
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

School for Royals

As we mentioned, Victoria didn’t have to go to school
like other kids — school came to her. Whereas most
schools have lots of children and a handful of teachers,
Victoria’s schooling involved lots of teachers and only
one pupil — the Princess herself. This had _ its
disadvantages. When a teacher asked a question, Victoria
couldn’t hope that someone else would put their hand
up first.

The tutor in charge of the Princess’s schooling was the

Reverend George Davys. As a vicar, George taught
Vicky religion (or at least the Church of England
version), while a long line of other tutors were called in
to handle other subjects. Victoria’s school timetable
included Maths, German, French, Italian, Latin, Music,
Dancing, Drawing and Calligraphy (lettering).
Victoria was a whizz at modern languages, pretty
handy with a paintbrush but bottom of the class at Latin.
It may sound a narrow sort of education, but girls weren’t
supposed to be too bright anyway. As long as a young
lady could dance, say ‘Pass the cake’ in French and
embroider a hanky, she was considered quite educated
enough to get married. The idea of women becoming
doctors or engineers in Victoria’s day was considered as
mad as men landing on the moon. In any case, Victoria’s
schooling was much better than most children could

20
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

expect. Take a look at what you had to suffer if you went

to an ordinary school.

School daze
Not all children went to school in Victoria’s day,
and those that did probably wished they’d stayed at
home. There were no government-run schools like
today. Schools were either public schools (where
you had to pay) or charity or church schools based
on the Sunday School movement.
Some poor children went to ‘ragged schools’
where they learned the three R’s — Reading, Riting
and Rithmetic (but obviously not spelling). Ragged
schools provided free basic schooling, clothing and
food for thousands of poor children.
The school day began at nine and lasted eight
long hours until five 0’ clock, starting and ending
with mumbled prayers. Much of the teaching was
done by the children chanting aloud their times
tables or other facts. )
Discipline made joining the TEACHER'S
army look like a picnic. No =_WEAPONS_
talking was allowed in class and
if you got your sums wrong
you’d end up standing in the
corner wearing the dunce’s cap.
Teachers were allowed to hit b
children and some of them crea f
thought it was their duty. US

21
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Boys from rich families who attended posh boarding

schools weren’t any better off. A lot of bullying went
on unchecked by the teachers and there were stories of
children being roasted over fires or burnt with cigar
butts. (A jolly book called Tom Brown’s Schooldays goes
into detail.) If the school bully didn’t get you, then the
bullying teachers might. The headmaster of Eton
school once flogged 72 boys in a row without a tea
break!
Girls didn’t go to public schools. They were usually
taught at home by a governess and learned even less
than Victoria. During Victoria’s reign the need for
properly run schools for all children was gradually
recognized. But it wasn’t until 1880 that it became law
for all five — ten-year-olds to go to school. Just think, if
it wasn’t for good old Victoria you might be sitting at
home watching TV!

A bit of an accident
By the time Victoria was ten years old it was clear that
none of her fat royal uncles would produce an heir to the
throne. The next queen of England would be the plump
little Princess. The only problem was that no one had
got round to breaking the news to Victoria herself. Her
mother said that she rather hoped her daughter would
‘come to the knowledge by accident.’ Exactly what kind
of accident did she have in mind? Maybe she imagined
Victoria might trip over a crown in the street one day
and try it for size. In the end an ‘accident’ had to be
carefully arranged. Governess Lehzen suggested slipping
an extra page into Vicky’s history book. By a lucky
coincidence the page would show the truth:

i
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina

OSS ”
y RE

From an early age Victoria kept her own diary. In its

pages she recorded the momentous occasion when she
realized she’d one day be queen.

[ am nearer to the throne than J thought.

I will be good.

It’s become Victoria’s signature tune — the ten-year-

old child who promised to do her duty and be a good
queen. But maybe Vicky’s secret thoughts weren’t quite
so goody goody. Not many people know that Queen
Victoria’s actual diary was burned. On her death she left
it to her youngest daughter, Beatrice, with instructions
to make a copy and burn the original version. We can
safely say that Princess Beatrice copied out a watered-
down version. She probably left out all the juicy bits and
re-wrote anything too rude or revealing. So we can only
guess at what Victoria actually wrote in her diary. Or use
our imaginations. . .

VICTORIA'S SECRET DIARY

11th March 1830
Ha! So it's true - Im going to de queen
one day. Tra-lata! Iknew there was
Something they were hiding from me.
Things are going tochange Yound here «
od WOON

#3
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

| when,the time comes. No more Sleeping

in Mamma’s bedroom for one thing.
~ Tteld my governess I will
be good, and Twill: Good. at
wearing a CYown, good at
choosing new gowns, good
at eating as much cake as
how long
Headac
onderhe lovg it'll el
alTaltSlab
wo two fat uncles te pop of f? Wish
theyd hurry up. Can't wait to have
_ everyone Kneeling down to Kiss my hand.
7% Mamma for a start . S :
nay iN 7 PPPEPE .
SSS

~ The teenage years

As it turned out, Victoria had only another eight years
to wait. Her teenage years were unhappy, mainly because
her mother had fallen under the influence of a sneaky
creep called Sir John Conroy.
Using his slimy charms, Conroy had already taken
control of the Duchess’s household, but he had his sights
set on a bigger jewel. Knowing that Victoria was still
young, Conroy was plotting to become the real power
behind the throne. He made sure Victoria and her
mamma were kept away from anyone who suspected his
nasty plot (the King, for instance).
When Victoria fell seriously ill at Ramsgate, aged 16,
creepy Conroy tried to make her sign a document to
name him as her private secretary when she became

24
 ‘We are young’ — Little Drina .

Queen. But even in illness, young Vicky was stubborn as

a mule and refused to sign. Up to the last hour, as King
William IV lay dying, Conroy and the Duchess tried to
persuade Victoria to accept what Conroy called his
‘system’ (i.e. ‘I give the orders’). Victoria shut herself in
her room and refused to listen. Then the next morning
the great news came. Unfortunately, since it was 5 a.m.
everyone was asleep when the messengers arrived. It
took about an hour before 18-year-old Victoria emerged
from her bedroom in her dressing gown and slippers. As
usual she wrote it all down in her diary.

] was awoke at 6 o'clock byMamma who told me that the

Archbishop of Canterbury and Jord Conyngham were here
and wished to see me. [ got out of bed and went into the
sitting room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and
saw them. Jord Conyngham (the Jord (hamberlain) then
acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no
more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this
morning and consequently that|am Queen.

Victoria’s first act as Queen was to have her bed removed

from her dear mamma’s room. At last she was free. Well,
sort of. . .

25
 7
sp
Za ATES Die +s —
SOV -

"WE ARE QUEEN’

s292| - LEARNING TORULE |S@3;
Because most pictures of Victoria show her in plump,
dumpy old age, it’s easy to forget what Victoria was like
when she first became queen. Here’s a picture to remind
you.

Vict or
AT 18
ae
Yd
hie & PINT SIZE
‘SS 3 QUEEN
API
Te
NW” ONLY 1:5 METRES
————.
mM (Sft 2 INCHES)
MY) ROUND FACE
BLUE Eves «WN \ <<"

HAIR , - DETERMINED
TH
FASHIONABLY —7 fae} epri nt
MOwTn ES
COILED MINISTERS
y
The most striking thing about Victoria was not her
beauty but her youth. She was still a teenager when she
became queen — and the British weren’t used to royalty
in skirts. No woman had ruled England since Queen
Anne over 100 years before.

26
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

In her favour, Victoria arrived at a time when the

monarchy’s popularity was at rock bottom. She could
hardly do a worse job than the last three royals to fill the
throne.
N

ZZ

1 - NXWHOPPING LIAR
4
4‘
‘

AND A BOASTER
SSS

\ AYN ~ .
NX eS

S WILLIAM IV -SAILOR BILL- 5

ODDBALL WHO OFFERED ~
PEOPLE A LIFT IN)His
WON
ROYAL CARRIA
48

Victoria had several things going for her. For starters she
wasn’t barking mad like some of her relatives. Also she
was young, honest and hard-working. True, having a
large doll collection wasn’t much of a training for ruling
a country, but she was willing to learn. Luckily she found
a kindly father figure in her first Prime Minister, Lord
Melbourne. In fact all her life Vicky would lean on a
series of father figures — Melbourne, Prince Albert,
Disraeli and, later, a Scotsman named John Brown, who
often had to lean on other people when he was drunk.
More of them later. First Victoria had to be crowned.

Ji
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

THE HARD TIMES

28th June 1838
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

my
AyKs,
PRE
Mi

aneat
Wildiiay),
oe

Lye LET)
TELL)
=
ee

In
alan i ceremony at glittering with diamonds.
Westminster Abbey this morning, The weather was fine and all
the young Queen was crowned in along the route the Queen’s coach
front of 10,000 guests. Looking was greeted by the thunderous
majestic in her crimson robes and cheers of her subjects.
a small diamond circlet on her ‘I really cannot say how
head, the young Queen was a proud I feel to be the Queen of
picture of dignity. such a nation,’ said Victoria,
From a quarter to seven, lords before rushing back home to
and ladies had thronged the give her pet dog, Dash, a much
Abbey, their necks and hands needed bath.

A royal blunder
Actually, the coronation was not the triumph the
newspapers reported. In fact, it was dogged by a catalogue
of blunders.

28
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

The problem was that hardly anyone — least of all

Victoria herself — knew what was supposed to happen.
With no proper rehearsal for the main players, things
were bound to go wrong — and sure enough they did...

1 Victoria’s coronation ring f HROS

was forced on to the wrong / |
finger by the Archbishop.
Afterwards Victoria had
to bathe her finger in
iced water to get the
ring off.

2 Doddery 88-year-old Lord Rolle lived up to his name

by tripping and tumbling down the steps when he
tried to touch the
Queen’s crown. A
wit remarked that
Lord Rolle only
held his title on
the condition of
taking a tumble at
every coronation.

3 The Bishop of Bath

and Wells accidently
turned over two pages of
the ceremony together and
told Victoria it was all over.
After a long delay she had to be
brought back to go over it again.

29
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

4 In the meantime Victoria was taken to St Edward’s

Chapel, which looked more like a picnic site. Bottles of
wine and sandwiches had been left on the altar by lords
having a late breakfast.

ae Za
oy
= MI Vs EEN =

5 The Bishop of Durham gave Victoria the orb too early

in the ceremony. ‘What am I to do with it?” asked a
puzzled Victoria.

So Queen Victoria’s 64-year reign started with a series of

blunders. Unfortunately things didn’t get much better
for young Vicky. She was soon caught up in the nasty
whiff of scandal.

The case of Lady Flora’s bulge

The first test of the new young queen involved a spot
of scandal and a Lady in Waiting. Lady Flora Hastings
was a member of Victoria’s mum’s household and the
Queen couldn’t stand her. Victoria had grown more
and more distant from her dear mamma and was keen
to finally get rid of Sir John Conroy who she referred
to as the Demon.

30
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

V VICTORIA'S SECRET DIARY 4

"45th December 1833
Ho hum. Noticed today that Lady Flora
is getting a little fat. Infact she's got
aveal BULGE. Couldit be she's having
a baby? Heavens!-how dreadfully
shocking! Especially ifthe father Should
be the Demon himself. Tmust be By
careful such gossip isn't
spread around. Told dear
Lehzen who promised not |
to tell a Soul who can't
be trusted. wv
20th January 1839
The Scandal of Lady Flora’s preqnancy
is allround the court. (Can't think how
Such a Yumour started!) It's yeached
her @ars and she has Volunteered to be
examined by a doctor.
January
27th 1839
Most trying! Dr Clark says she’s not
7,pregnant at all, which puts me ina
Li,

a1.
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Cather awkward Spot (though ofcourse

* [never breathed a Word ofgossip). “ft
Asked to see Lady Flova but now the
wretched woman Says she’s too ill to
Come.
20th July1839
How everything goes against me! lady ~
Flora has died and Im sure just to
Spite ‘me. Her swollen stomach tumed
out to be cancer of the liver. Well, any-
Z one can make a mistake!
Vt i.
- Victoria didn’t come up smelling of roses from this affair.
In the public eye Lady Flora was cast as the wronged
woman and Victoria as the heartless queen. A week
before Flora died, the Queen went to Ascot races and
got a nasty reception.

x4

gr =
m CLL

Changing the Bed Ladies

It wasn’t long before another storm blew up. This time
the Ladies of the Bedchamber were at the centre.

oe
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

(Victoria had lots of Ladies who helped her dress and do

things that queens can’t possibly do by themselves.)
The Bedchamber Question sounds completely potty
to us today, but it managed to bring down a government.
The problem arose when Victoria’s favourite, Lord
Melbourne, was to be replaced as Prime Minister. The
newcomer, Sir Robert Peel, was a Tory. Victoria herself
was a Whig and all the Ladies of the queen’s Bedchamber
were the same. (The Whigs were a political party later
known as the Liberals.) Even worse, Victoria felt he
lacked good manners. When feeling awkward his feet
used to perform a stiff little dance on the carpet.
Understandably, Peel wasn’t too happy that all the
Queen’s Ladies were cheering for the opposition party.
Victoria, meanwhile, couldn’t see that it was any of his
business. The argument between Peel and the Queen
soon reached deadlock.
WILL YOUR MAJESTY CHANGE
YOUR BEDCHAMBER LADIES ?

Victoria may have been young but Peel soon found she
was stubborn. Even the Tory Duke of Wellington, who'd
~ beaten Napoleon at Waterloo, found he’d met his match
in Victoria. In the end Peel said he could not form a
government under these conditions and Victoria got her
beloved Melbourne back as Prime Minister. The Queen

33
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

was happy. She’d prevented a change of government —

and all over a bunch of chambermaids. This kind of
thing couldn’t happen today as monarchs aren’t supposed
to have political views. Imagine our present queen
telling the world:
ONE VOTES ToRY
AND SO DOES :
ONE’S SERVANTS Nei?

‘HOW WE LAUGHED”
~Queen Victoria was amus
The popular idea of Queen Victoria is that she
never smiled or laughed. Certainly she didn’t have
a sense of humour. Or did she?
In fact Victoria often found things funny and
rather than tittering politely she had a deep belly
laugh.
Once, when she was sitting for the sculptor
Mr Gibson, he asked her if he could measure her
mouth. ‘Oh certainly,’ replied the Queen, ‘if I can
only keep it still and not laugh.’ But the request was
so unexpected that the Queen found it impossible
to keep a straight face. Every time she closed her
mouth she burst out laughing again.

A day in the life

Victoria’s daily life during the early years of her reign was
blissfully happy. She led a simple life — riding, eating,

34
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

dancing, and the humdrum business of running a

country. And always always there was her dear Lord
Melbourne.

F VICTORIAS SECRET DIARY

WY, A

© Morning - sat with Lord M while he

Tead letters from abroad. He is always
, 90 amusing. He told me he never carries
: & watch. T always ask the servant
Pitat 0’ Clock it ts and he tells mé what
“he likes? teste

Afternoon - went out viding as Usual.

Lord M says Llook Very elegant in my
velvet viding habit with a top hat and a
little veil.He always rides beside me of
Course.

Back in time for agame of shuttlecock

before dinner. | (@ = (BS

Dinner - Lord M always sits on my left.

What a wretched nuisance I must talk
to other people too! After dinner the
men jom us to talk in the drawing room.
Lord M in Wonderful forrn! So amusing!

Bedtime - another tiring clay over.

WW"
'
Who'd be Queen of England?
EE

35
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Manners
Victoria was very keen on good manners. Victorians had
rules for everything from how to address the Queen to
the number of knives you needed for dinner. No one was
permitted to sit down whilst talking to the Queen unless
she asked them — which she rarely did. Even Victoria
herself didn’t escape the demands of etiquette. One trial
she had to endure was speaking to every guest after
dinner. One of them, a Mr Greville, later recorded his
gripping conversation with the Queen...
(YES MA’AM,
A VERY
FINE DAY

2 Wt,D Ay
Eeee} ||135
i
U
ges Orr | FS SSS

THINK DOES
SHE Not?
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

HAS YoUR MAJESTY HAS Your MAJESTY GoT

[BEEN BIRING: TODAY 2 OH, A A NICE HORSE?

Buen
But ae life couldn’t sa go on ee ever. ec were
saying that the young Queen should get married. She
was so fond of spending time with the Prime Minister
that people in the street were starting to call, ‘Mrs
Melbourne!’ after her. Something had to be done. And
after all it was the Queen’s royal duty to have a child
who would be the next king or queen. Victoria, however,
wasn’t keen to get married. In any case, the list of suitors
boiled down to two.

TALBERT OF
BC SAXE- COBURG

SPOTTY aaene
“ACE HIDDEN
HANDSOME, DASHING AND
CLEVER -BUTA FOREIGNER
BY HUGE HAIRY WHISKERS | I-aiin wuere’s SAXE-COBURG?
Cousin George was never really in the running. Victoria
couldn’t see herself marrying one of her own subjects — it
would be too humiliating! Anyway she liked her men to
be dashing and handsome. That pointed to Albert.

37
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

He was also Victoria’s cousin and had been groomed

to marry her most of his life. Yet not everyone was
enthusiastic about the match. Lord Melbourne
remarked:

Cousins are not

very good things.

Besides, eet the country accept a German prince?

More to the point, could Victoria accept anyone?

I was so accustomed to having

my own way that I thought it
was ten to one that I shouldn't
agree with anybody.

Victoria had met her cousin before and liked:Albert: but

things were different now that she was Queen. After her
strict childhood, she was enjoying her freedom. She was
in no hurry to find a husband who might try to tell her
what to do. However, things would change when she set
her eyes on Albert. Victoria couldn’t resist a slim waist
and a pair of manly moustachios. Maybe her private
--recorded her change of heart.

| 10thVICTORIA'S
i,

July 1839
SECRET DIARY
Discussed marriage with Lord M. How
ee ln

38
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule
SS 7
odious the subject ts!Idon't wish to Ih
Yili
“meet Albert. If Tdo meet him, PU have
to decide whether to marry him or not.
And if Ido decide to marry him, I'll have
to propose! (He can_hardly propose to
me, Im the Queen!) Pd much rather just
keep my dear Dash instead. You can
tell a dog to ‘Sit’ and they do what you
Say.In any case, I'm too old for Albert.
(By Several months at least.)
10th October 1839
Albert arrived at 730 this evening. a
met him on the Staircase. Cannot put
my feelings into words. He is so hand-
some. Ive sketched him from memory.
; Delicate
Heete Pe a nes

, ; (| o Ver
Exquisite ees ae Slight
ee : by whiskers
Pretty mouth—7

He has a beautttul figure, broad in the

shoulders and a fine slim waist. In
Short, I find him fascinating. Oh - his
brother Ernest was there Too. \\
WAL. att})

39
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

With Victoria’s change of heart, it wasn’t long before

the marriage was settled. Victoria summoned Albert to
a private audience with her. She then proposed in
these words:

It would make me too happy if you

would consent to what I wish.

Albert didn’t go down on bended knee. In fact he

didn’t have much choice in the matter. It never even
occurred to Victoria that he might say no. After all he
was just a tinpot German prince and she was the Queen
of Great Britain.
Albert consented and the match was made. For
him it meant leaving his home, his country and his
people for a strange foreign land where he wasn’t
totally welcome. For Victoria it was quite simple —
she was in love!
The news, though, didn’t cause great rejoicing in the
country. A closer look into Albert’s background showed
that his kingdoms of Coburg and Goth combined were
roughly the size of Dorset. Their annual revenue was a
measly £128,000. Added to this, many of Victoria’s
stuck-up subjects had no time for Germans. They held
the view that all Germans were poor, dirty and, even
worse, pipe-smokers! Albert was regarded as a beggar
who was no fit match for Victoria. Popular songs of the
day were very rude about him:

40
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

I am a German just arrived,

With you for to be mingling.
My passage it was paid,
From Germany to England;
To wed your blooming Queen,
For better or worse I take her.
My father is a duke,
And I’m a sausage maker.

Parliament wasn’t any more welcoming to poor Albert

than the public. When an allowance of £50,000 a year
was proposed, they voted to cut it to a mere £30,000.
Albert suffered at his wife’s hands too. Victoria
wouldn’t let him choose his own private secretary or the
gentlemen to wait on him. When he wanted a longer
honeymoon than the two or three days she proposed, she
replied in a letter: |

Youforget, my dearest Jove, that | am the Sovereign and

that business can stop and wait for nothing.
RON

Victoria was used to getting her way and it was clear

she was going to wear the trousers in the marriage.
However, Albert was no pet poodle. He’d lost round
one to Victoria but there was always round two after
the wedding.

41
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

THE HARD TIMES

10th February 1840

QUEEN WEDS
HER ALBERT
The young Queen married and falling — out of trees.
Prince Albert at St James’s Victoria usually brings her
Palace today. Thousands own sunny weather, but on
gathered on the route to see this occasion she failed
the bride, some climbing — miserably.

mame

=WAAANENSSS
SSS

were.
ee
aN

SSS
SSSS LLLEEE
SE

Kz
SS

SSS

y
me,
b, 8
2 \es:
% > Sess

The Queen looked a vision of |was nine feet wide. It needs to

splendour in a white satin be big since pieces will be sent
dress and diamond necklace. all over the world. Guests
Prince Albert wore the uniform were surprised to hear Victoria
of a British Field-Marshal promise to obey her husband
(let’s hope he gave it back during the marriage vows.
after the service).Thewedding Bets are being taken on how
cake weighed 300 pounds and long that will last!

42
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

Bloomers and bustles

At her wedding, Victoria wore a white satin gown,
trimmed with lace. State occasions with balls and
banquets meant that Victoria had to take an
interest in fashion. Her favourite colour was pink
which showed off her diamonds so well. Sometimes,
however, she plumped for brighter colours.
Once, when visiting France, she
carried a handbag embroidered
with a parrot and wore a dress
covered in red geraniums. The
fashionable French thought
that she looked like a walking
flower shop! Once she was married,
Victoria always asked Albert’s advice on what to
wear. (Not a good idea since Albert didn’t exactly
dress in the height of fashion himself.) Fashion
changed a great deal during Victoria’s reign. Here
are some of the crazes that came and went.

Top ten Victorian fashions

1 The hoopskirt
Skirts got wider and
wider during Victoria’s
reign, reaching a
record ten metres
around and causing
the wearer to get

43
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

stuck in doors and turnstiles. The hoopskirt was the

brainchild of the English designer Charles Worth,
who invented it to hide the French Empress
Eugenie’s bulging tum when she was pregnant.

2 The bustle
By the 1870s women had got tired
of looking like circus tents. The
hoopskirt was replaced by the bustle
which put all the padding behind
the wearer. A variation on the
bustle was the crenelate — so
wide it was said that you could
balance a tea-tray on it.

3 The Albert waistcoat

Not to be outshone by
women in the fashion stakes,
Albert gave his name to the
double-breasted waistcoat.

4 The cardigan
Lord Cardigan, a famous
Victorian, was warming
himself with his back to the |
fire one night. Unfortunately
he got too close and burnt
his coat tails. Undismayed,
Cardigan cut them off and
with one snip invented the
casual short jacket. It came to
be known as the cardigan.

44
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

5 Muttonchops and Piccadilly weepers

During the Crimean War shaving was a problem so
the officers grew beards. This quickly caught on
back home. Young men grew facial fungus to make
them look older and more reliable.
Later on beards got the chop and
were replaced by enormous side §
whiskers known as muttonchops
or Piccadilly weepers.

6 The blooming bloomer

Mrs Amelia Bloomer, an
American, caused a scandal in
1851 by promoting baggy trousers for women.
The trousers were worn under a knee-length
skirt and were soon mockingly
mZ= nicknamed ‘bloomers’ . They
were much more practical
but Victorians found
women wearing trousers
shocking and Mrs
Bloomer was accused of
being a marriage wrecker.
In Victorian society men
wore the trousers and
women were meant to be fragile and
obedient. (Victoria was an exception, of course.)

7 The suspender
In 1876 a greater scandal than the bloomer hit
London. The Grand Opera Bouffe appeared at the
Alhambra Theatre and the audience were shocked

45
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

to see French dancers with ‘naked

thighs with suspenders stretched
across them to keep up the
stockings. Up to now most
women had to wear garters to
keep their stockings from
falling down, now the twangy
suspender took over. 4
ragense

8 Big drawers
By the 1880s luxury undies were being made in soft
silk and lace. The Victorians liked their knickers
big. Linen drawers were so
enormous that there
PHWOARL) Was room for three or
four people inside.
By the end of the
se century drawers were
Lin A being challenged by
=F (-(—=== combinations which
== combined pants and vest
into one undie.

9 Corsets
Women were supposed to have slim waists,
so slim that their husbands could reach
right round them with their hands. In
order to achieve this women spent
hours being laced into stiff whalebone
corsets. Sometimes these were so tight
that women couldn’t breathe and fainted.
Some even went so far as having their ~

46
 ‘We are Queen’ — Learning to rule

bottom ribs removed in the interests of fashion.

Victoria herself was warned against getting too fat
and advised to go for walks. She declined on the
grounds that she might get stones in her shoes. ‘Get
tighter shoes,’ was Lord Melbourne’s reply.

10 Raging purple PERHAPS THE

In 1856 purple became all PURPLE WALLPAPER
the rage when W H Perkin WASN'T SUCH A
& GOOD IDEA...
discovered that a new
bright purple dye could
be made from coal-tar.
Soon everyone was
wearing purple hats,
dresses, gloves and hats.
One writer commented:
‘We shall soon have
purple omnibuses and
purple houses.’

Five years later Victoria would make black all the rage
when she went into 13 years of mourning. For now she
was delighted with married life. Albert and Victoria
settled down to a family life of perfect contentment.
Most of the time.

ai
 TIMELINE 3
VICTORIA AND ALBERT
1842: NEW LAW BANS 1846% FAMINE IN IRELAND
WOMEN AND CHILDREN CAUSED BY ROTTEN
FROM WORKING IN CRO
COAL MINES. LSEEMIUETEY
=r iy
SY fig, GS, ,

I847: VICTORIA TAKES

HER FIRST SEA BATHE
ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
REENHOUSE,
——
7——

1854:CRIMEAN WAR BREAKS OUT. LIGHT BRIGADE

LOSE THEIR HEADS AT BALACLAVA.
\ AY ARE You Sure

=
—
Chen os
S Tak

\\MM SN pt
ZN
i.) Wid Z

48
 Timeline: Victoria and Albert

1855: DAVID LIVINGSTONE STUMBLES ONA BIG

WATERFALL IN AFRICA AND CALLS 1T THE
VICTORS FALLS,
THAT SHOULD
BE ENOUGH FOR
A qmprod| Oe ~~»

aeAb
——

Bh
‘\
)

~VaA
a

“iHH

1856: VICTORIA CROSS 1857: INDIAN MUTINY-

MEDAL INTRODUCED THE SENS ARE REVOLTIN
baci BRAVERY.

1959: DARWIN'S THEORY 1861: DARLING ALGERT

OF EVOLUTION CLAIMS DIES OF TYPHOID FEVER.
MONKEYS AND HUMANS
ARE RELATED.
 “WE ARE A FAMILY’
-AT HOME WITH ALBERT Ry

He is an angel . . . To look
in those dear eyes and that
dear sunny face is enough
to make me adore him.

Victoria was so delighted with her husband that she

often had to check he hadn’t sprouted wings and a halo.
Prince Albert was not only good-looking but brainy. At
21 he seemed much older than Victoria (though he was
the same age). Albert had come to Britain hoping to
make himself useful in public life. However, Victoria
warned him that the British didn’t like foreigners
interfering in their affairs and he had better keep his
nose out. Poor Albert found himself kicking his heels
with nothing to do.

50
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

In the early days of their courtship, Albert stood by

Victoria while she signed her state papers.

BLOTTING \
PAPER, [=
ALBERT

The paper Prince was there to support Victoria and help

her bear royal babies. Apart from that he wasn’t to be
allowed to meddle. This became clear from the start
when the question of Albert’s title was raised. What

DUKE ALBERT?
OR PERHAPS

Victoria wanted him to be called King Consort but

Melbourne rejected this on the grounds that once the
English started making kings they’d soon start unmaking
them. Albert had to make do with his own title, Prince
Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Eventually Victoria insisted he
be given the title Prince Consort. This didn’t help
settle the matter of a role for the royal husband.
Parliament decreed he was to have no power in politics,
no rank in the army and no place in the House of
Lords. What was a young prince with brains and energy
to do with himself?

51
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Who wears the trousers?

At home, Victoria didn’t easily forget that she was
queen. Albert was well aware that in most homes the
husband was the lord and master. But then most
husbands weren’t married to the Queen of England.

I am only the husband, not

the master in the house.

This led to occasional quarrels. Victoria loved her dear

Albert, but she could sometimes be proud and bossy.
Once, she drove Albert so mad that he walked out and
locked himself in his private apartments. Victoria
knocked on the door but Albert wouldn’t open it until
_ she answered. Their argument sounds like one of those
old knock knock jokes:

7 7oN
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

From the start Albert was given a desk next to

Victoria’s, but he had nothing to do except talk to his
wife or write letters.

Lo whit are Be WeJsover there °

Gaag a YiJogMa Vy
fo \i(] re) |

LT ZZ zat Khelil

Victoria was still liable to ue her temper and fly into a

rage, so there was no sense in fighting her for power.
Albert saw that his best bet was to wait and be patient.
Things began to change when Victoria became pregnant
for the first time. Then the Queen started to rely on
Albert more and more to take care of state business for
her. In time she began to rely on his advice in
everything, especially since all her ministers praised his
good sense. Albert had slipped off his leash — and he’d
only just begun.

The frog princes

Obviously one of the main reasons royals get married is
to have children. A childless king or a queen is like a
firework in the rain — they’re going to fizzle out sooner
or later. (No one guessed that Victoria was going to hang
around for another 60 years.)

53
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Unfortunately, having babies was one of the things

Victoria hated doing. She wasn’t at all pleased when she
got pregnant and dreaded the whole business of
childbirth. She could be sentimental about animals —
sobbing herself to sleep when Albert’s favourite
wolfhound died — but she couldn’t stand babies in what
she called ‘the frog stage’.

An ugly baby is a very

nasty object and the
prettiest is frightful.

Having them was one thing, but breast-feeding them

was quite another. Once
_ when she saw her daughter
Alice breast-feeding, she
ordered that a cow in
the royal dairy be called
Princess Alice.
In later life when Princess Victoria (our Vicky’s
daughter) became pregnant and wrote of the wonder of
giving birth to an ‘immortal soul’, her mother replied
dryly: ‘I think much more of our being like an animal, I
felt more like a cow or a dog at such moments.’
Victoria felt the first two years of her married life
were utterly spoiled by having a baby. Still after the
first one she went on to have eight more. Naturally
Vicky’s kids weren’t just there to fill the nursery.
Through them she became the Grandmother of Europe
with royal relatives everywhere.

54
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

y gj y
Wie Ceele dee BG ee i IY ae me es Ep

WV
ASS
SSS
SST

two years, so it’s hardly surprising if she looked fat and

frumpy in old age. With their fast growing family,

59
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria and Albert settled down to home life, showing

the nation a model of domestic bliss. Actually it wasn’t
always like that. With Albert’s strong views and Victoria's
temper tantrums, storms were inevitable.
One erupted over the health of Princess Victoria,
their first child. When the child grew sickly, the Queen’s
doctor, Sir James Clark, failed to make her better. Albert
thought Clark was a bungler and the Queen was to
blame. He wrote her a note:

Z De (Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her

with calomel and you have starved her. [ shall have
nothing more to do with it; take the child away and do
as you like and if she dies you will have it on your
conscience.

Victoria, stubborn as ever, wouldn’t give in and — not for

the first time — Albert’s old tutor, Baron Stockmar had
to act as the peace-maker.
As it turned out, Albert was probably right about
Clark. Later the bungling doctor would cost him his life.
When the Princess Royal was three months old a
curious rumour went round that she’d been born blind
and without any feet. People love to hear bad news
about royalty and the rumour proved hard to quell.
When the court artist C R Leslie showed a sketch of the
Princess at a party he was told: ‘What a pity so fine a
child should be entirely blind.’ In vain, Leslie protested
that the royal sprog’s eyes were bright and she took
notice of everything around her. No one would believe

56
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

him. Though her eyes might be bright it was certain that

she was blind.

HOW WE LAUGHED’
~Queen Victoria was amused
At a dinner party, Victoria once described how her
mother, the Duchess of Kent, once carried a fork
out of the dining room after dinner. The old lady’s
eyesight wasn’t so good and she’d mistaken it for
her fan.
At another dinner party the Queen told with
roars of laughter how shocked her Master of the
Household had been by a design for some important
medals. . .

Roman soldiers with

nothing — nothing at
all — but helmets on!

Jobs for Albert

While Victoria got on with providing an heir to the
throne, Albert was at last finding scope for his talents.
His first job was to put his house in order. In Albert's
case the house was Buckingham Palace (and Windsor
Castle) and the accounts were in a mess. On

57
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

investigation, Albert discovered that all sorts of sharp

practices were going on under the Queen’s nose. In her
palaces, hundreds of candles were put in chandeliers
daily! and then disposed of, whether they’d been used or
not. Where did the candles go? The servants sold them
off for pocket money as ‘Palace ends’.
Tradesman brought goods that were never seen in
Buckingham Palace and many officials were stuffing
themselves on the Queen’s charity. Meanwhile the
captain who had stood guard over George III still got an
annual wine allowance of 35 shillings from the Queen!
Albert blamed Victoria’s old governess Lehzen for the
household’s hopeless chaos. It wasn’t only the accounts
that were in a mess, he soon discovered that security in
the Palace was a shambles. How did he know? One day he
found an intruder sleeping under a sofa. Here’s how a
Victorian police officer might have reported the outrage.

Police Report, 2nd December 1840

Arresting Officer: PC Peeler
Shortlyafter 1 a.m. the nurse reported
she
heard a suspicious noise in the Queen’s

Edmund Sones, 17-year-old ton of a tailor,

who. fad been teen in the Palace on

1 Buckingham Palace didn’t get gas lights until 1846 — some

40 years after the first in London.

58
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

On being questioned the suspect alleged he

could gain entrance to. the Palace any time
he liked ‘by shinning over a wall and
bunking through a window’.When
asked
why he'd entered Her Majesty’s apartment
he replied: ‘9 wanted to know how the
Queen and such live at the Palace. 3
thought it’d look nice in a book one day.’ He
claimed ta. have sat an the throne, seen the
Queen herself and heard the Little
Princess ‘ *
Further investigation in the Palace
kitchens revealed that the intruder had abso.

the night. On arrest, Master Jones put on

‘fehave to. him as 9 aught to a gentleman \

, who is likely to. rite high in the world’.

‘

‘Boy Jones’ was arrested three times for breaking and

entering the Palace. The first time it happened he was
declared mad. The second time he was sentenced to
three months on the treadmill in the House of Correction.
Finally, when he went back a third time, he was sent to
sea. Sadly, the only way he rose high in the world was
probably by climbing the rigging. Albert meanwhile
blew his top at the lack of safety for his family.
The Boy Jones wasn’t the only scare that Victoria had
to endure. During her first pregnancy there was an
attempt to kill her.

59
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

THE HARD TIMES

10th June 1840

MADMAN ATTACKS QUEEN

The Queen came within inches Shortly after, the gunman —
of death today when she was Edward Oxford, a waiter — was
shot at not once but twice only a arrested.
100 yards from her home. The
Queen was out driving in her
CO
aes. Gat

open carriage with Prince Albert,

when a sinister assassin appeared
from nowhere and took a potshot
from six paces. The Queen only
survived because he was a rotten
shot. The pistol crack frightened
the horses and stopped them in
their tracks.
The Prince recalled: ‘He was
a little mean-looking man,
standing with his arms crossed
and a pistol in each hand. His atter- brought to order
attitude was so theatrical it The cool reactions of the Queen
amused me.’ and her Consort have been
The Prince wasn’t laughing praised by many. They are
though when the madman took applauded in the streets and
aim a second time. Thanks to choruses of ‘God Save the
Albert’s quick action the Queen Queen’ ring out wherever they i
ducked down out of sight. go. i
Va Z

60
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

It was the first attempt to kill the Queen but not the last.
During her long reign Victoria suffered a staggering seven
assassination attempts.

Home sweet palace

Away from the public eye what did Victoria and Albert
actually do with themselves?
In a typical day at the Palace, mornings were taken up
with work — Albert by now drafting letters for Victoria
and reading all state papers.

lell, THAT LOT SHOULD ¥/

KEEP HIM Bt
XD eyW YU
Na

nosh
VL LLL
CLMMMAMLUM "8
NA: ll Az nae
LEE ODDIE.
PR I
After lunch there might be some play-time — the royal
couple playing piano duets together or sketching portraits.
In public, Albert was serious and solemn, but with his
children he was different. He was often found playing on
the floor with young Bertie and Pussy (that’s Princess
Vicky, not the cat).
Dinner was a more solemn affair. The only time
Albert came alive was when discussing thrilling topics
such as drainage or heating. The Gentlemen and Ladies
in Waiting were present but weren’t allowed to go to bed

61
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

until the Queen yawned politely and retired. This was

rarely after ten o’clock. After dinner Albert would take
himself off to play a game of chess. Sometimes Victoria
would have to send a servant to remind him that it was
past his bedtime. Who was he playing in these absorbing
chess matches? Himself!

ICHECK-MATE! T
: sel AGAIN! i cp 4
ENS,
(PS yee an, EN \
Albert lights up Christmas
Christmas was one of Victoria’s favourite times. Christmas
was usually at Windsor Castle and celebrated in the
German style. Albert introduced his family to the
German custom of the Christmas tree. One tree wasn’t
“enough though, each member of the royal family got
their own small Christmas tree decorated with candles,
sweetmeats and cakes hung from ribbons. Actually
Christmas trees had been imported earlier in the century,
but it was Albert’s example that led to the fashion
catching on. Endlessly talked about in the new illustrated
papers, the Royal Family Christmas was a public event.
Soon families all over England were stacking their
brightly wrapped presents under the Christmas tree.
(Except poor families who didn’t have any trees or
presents to put under them.)
In the winter Albert also enjoyed the outdoor sports
of tobogganing, building snowmen and_ ice-skating.
Once, in a nasty accident, skating was nearly the death
of him.

62
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert
aT)

VICTORIA'S SECRET DIARY

12th February 1841
Day Very cold but bright. Dear Albert
| wanted to go ice-skating on the pond
at the Falace and this nearly led to a
most dreadful tragedy. Twarned him to
be caveful but he would go.
What a blessing that I accompanied
him to the pond with Lady Palmerston,
though intending only to
watch. He had hardly
Set foot on the ice when
it cracked and started
to breakup.I cannot <<
Convey ‘ry feelings of
dvead as I saw my poor
darling fall and sink! for a moment his
dear head disappeaved below the black
splosh! a icy water. I thought
on f\— > _ he was lost to me
7=> for ever. Lady
I! Patmerston was |
Cal Screaming (a i ’
ze 1! help shewas). then

63
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

\ Albert bobbedup,gasping for air, and I

~ was able to Yeach out my hand and pull
him to safety.
Heaven be blessed —7
for preseving his cee ee
life! What a mercy | aeinip) |
that Albert can 1 Cs
Swim! Lhopehe'll ¢ S
never, never Scare
me like this again . LA
(IVe hidden his
Skates where
wa «=e wont find
GLLLLE
VLE
fa

‘HOW WE LAUGHED”
- Queen Victoria was amused.
In the summer, Victoria enjoyed trips to the seaside.
During the Victorian age, doctors recommended
sea bathing as good for your health. Seaside resort
s
such as Brighton became fashionable for the upper
classes as well as the poor. However, bathing
was a
problem. The glimpse of a woman’s leg
was
considered shocking by the Victorians (even
table

64
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

legs had to be covered up). Swimming costumes

were neck to toe affairs and taking a dip wasn’t a
simple matter. Victoria had her first sea bathe in
1847 at Osborne on the Isle of Wight.
an
Sym i at the ||2. Enter SS
1.Atrive
———
hee oN
i: ma ae bet bathing
Loe
| in,g Mro
Em | 7
ey Wel E

EZ ay i ees we
Paw mena steps coirea b
r a ou re, bathing=

— q |
— —

After that first experience, Victoria changed her

routine. She would delicately sponge her face with
water before going into the sea, then ‘plunge about’
in the water, making sure she kept her head
upright. We can safely say that Victoria wasn’t a
strong swimmer.

65
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Educating Bertie
Meanwhile, Victoria’s large family was growing up and
that brought new worries. Out of her nine children, all
her hopes for the future were pinned on Albert
Edward — better known as Bertie. It was Bertie who
would be her successor one day. From an early age
Albert and Victoria set out to educate their eldest son
as the future King of Britain.

I wish that he should grow up

entirely under his father’s eye,
and every step be guided by him.
4
an air
Victoria really wanted her son to be a miniature Albert.
The trouble was that Bertie wasn’t brainy like his papa,
he was a bit dim. No end of tutors or lessons could
discover brains where there weren’t any. Princess
Victoria, Bertie’s eldest sister, was clever and strong, but
the Queen often remarked that Bertie was a stupid boy.
From an early age Bertie’s only talents seemed to be
charm and chasing women. Once, as a child, Victoria
overheard Bertie telling Lady Beauvale how he had
nearly fallen overboard on a cruise. The Queen sent him
off with a flea in his ear for telling lies.
Bertie’s tutor from the age of seven, was the Reverend
Henry Birch who drew up a strict timetable of six-and-
a-half hours a day studying English, Writing, French,
Maths, Music, German, Drawing and Geography. There
was no room for play or sport on the menu. No room for
girls either, which may be why they were Bertie’s
favourite sport in later life. Bertie’s miserable day began

66
 ‘We are a family’ — At home with Albert

and ended with prayers recited in front of his tutor. He

hated it. His lessons bored him and he took to making
faces, spitting and even throwing stones at his tutors.
When his German tutor tried to tell him off, Bertie
really got angry.

Bertie’s parents never understood him. By trying to turn

him into his upright, clever father, Victoria only
succeeded in achieving exactly the opposite. Bertie grew
into a fat, foolish prince who was the black sheep of the
family. Yet maybe if Victoria had shown him a bit more
kindness and affection as a child, he might have turned
out differently.

While Bertie was growing up and behaving badly, his

parents were determined to do their duty for the
country. Albert, especially, had ideas in his head that
would force the country to admit he was a pretty clever
chap after all.

67
 Albert had a dream. He wanted to organize an exhibition.
Not a little show of his sketches, but something on a
much grander scale. In the mid-nineteenth century he
felt that society had entered a wonderful period of
progress and invention that would create a better world.
’ (Albert was a great optimist.)
Many people thought the Prince should be put ina
strait-jacket and led quietly away to the nearest padded
cell. But Albert hadn’t lost his marbles. His dream was
to put on the greatest trade show the world had ever
seen. It would be a giant shop-window for Britain’s arts,
crafts and industries. Not only that, it would provide a
stage for the best exhibits from all over the world. The
Great Exhibition was the Millennium Dome of its day —
and it had just as much trouble getting off the ground.

Albert’s great greenhouse

Naturally many people pooh-poohed the idea from
the start. (They hadn’t forgotten that Albert wasn’t
even British, dammit.) Parliament was among the

68
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

party-poopers, refusing to vote any money to Albert’s

grand scheme. But Victoria backed her husband with a
gift of £1,000 and once the Queen took the lead, other
donations soon followed.
ISN'T ANYONE
ELSE GOING
TO DONATE?

The big question was where to hold it. Albert needed

a big space for his Exhibition and Hyde Park in London
was the obvious choice. The Times newspaper protested
that it would turn the park into a magnet for all the
‘vagabonds’ in London (meaning the pongy poor who
the upper classes preferred not to see). Even worse, said
the whingeing critics, a huge brick monstrosity would
ruin the look of the park.
Luckily for Albert he found a man who could solve his
problem. The architect Joseph Paxton suggested
building a glass and iron structure that would be big
enough to cover the trees of Hyde Park. It could be
assembled piece by piece and taken down afterwards so
the Park wouldn’t have to be spoiled. The Crystal
Palace — as it was soon nicknamed — would be the
wonder of the century. Albert’s Great Greenhouse Show
was up and running.
The Great Exhibition was opened on May day of
1851. Twenty-five thousand guests were invited to the
ceremony and watched the Queen — dressed in pink and
glowing with pride — declare the show open to a peal of
the Hallelujah Chorus.

69
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Sot ik

550 metres long and 140 metres

wide at its broadest point

Inside, more than

100,000 exhibits

\AATUVY

iit

LA@ i al A
Wn’ i ) Z ‘ te =
igs he 2)

New Steam-powered freezer Cast itonframe held R

makes ices on the Spot - é ff
: |\=
together 300,000
cool idea! sh Panes of glass
ty

The doom-merchants had to admit that they were

wrong. Albert’s Great Greenhouse Show was a sparkling
success. Throughout the summer an average of 60,000
people a day streamed into the Exhibition hall, marvelling
at the wonders inside. Many had claimed the glass palace
would collapse like a pack of cards in a gale. Others said
that the roof would offer a giant bullseye for passing

70
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work
EEO TIL CE ECE

Flags flying from the roof Glass-topped ceiling - b

representing all nations {9 metres high ff

38 Kilometres
of guttering

i
a

(ae (a a OTe
ga | gaunt

it \ =Sa a

: a SSS ae J "GL Pag =e j

snanedad ; cd a 2H USFS Sih
Sqaass euGeaar CG CK ISIE
Fag repre eds
CH V4 “46 iY >

E
NAA
AAS
SS
NSN
TENURE
NEN
WS

Hyg
AA,

million visitors - streets

: First building
A
to Jammed with people and
offer public lays!
Rt | \
IS S Carriages
NAG Tree |
sparrows and the weight of their droppings would shatter
the glass. (‘Sparrow hawks,’ suggested the Duke of
Wellington when the problem was put to him.) Every
problem and difficulty was brought personally to Albert
who worked day and night. ‘My poor Albert is terribly
fagged,’ wrote Victoria in her diary. (‘Fagged’ meant tired
in Victorian slang.)

el
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Yet, in the end, it was all worth it. The sun shone on
the opening day and Victoria rode in her carriage
through streets packed with cheering people. It was,
wrote Victoria, the greatest day of her life. (Although it’s
true she’d said that before.)
ts :
“The tremendous cheering, the joy expressed in every face, the {
vastness of the building with all its decorations and exhibits, .
the sound of the organ, and my beloved husband the ~~
creator of this great “Peace festival’. . . all this was (
indeed moving and a day to live for ever.

Naturally the grand opening day didn’t pass entirely

without a hitch. In the procession a man in full Chinese
dress was spotted walking proudly between the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of Wellington.
It was assumed he was an important ambassador from
~China and it was a bit embarrassing when it was later
discovered that he was the owner of a junk-boat moored
on the Thames.

‘HOW WE LAUGHED”
~ Queen Victoria was amus
An embarrassing blunder happened when the
Queen began her tour and stooped to admire one
of the stalls showing engraved glass. The Queen
pointed to a glass which showed a boy jumping
from a boat while a giant eye watched him from
the clouds. The flustered craftsman explained:

iz
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

‘The boy, Madam, is the Prince of Wales, and the

eye is the eye of God looking out with pleasure for
the moment when his Royal Highness will land on
his kingdom and become the reigning sovereign.’
There was an appalled silence. Was the man
suggesting it would be a happy day when the
Queen popped her clogs? Victoria moved on until
she’d passed the stall; then she burst out laughing.

(10 MARVELSSPOTTED AT THE

GREAT EXHIBITION

i
3.A PAPIER-
MACHE FIRE-
SCREEN (JusT
THE THING FOR
PREVENTING
A FIRE)
~
CHAMPAGNE
ADE FRomM
NUBARB

9
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

s ep = ( ‘

—_
g.AGiANT —\ Sed eels) /7)io. BERTIE,
DIAMOND CALLED] (\ K
THE KOH- \-NOoR ZN Ker
Pe ecy 1(/ - bp EEK] Ys
>ae 9.A SPoRTSM AN’S K,NIFE ~
MADE IN SHEFFIELD, WITH
LIGHTY USEFUL BLADES
AND

- The Queen was so pleased with the Great Exhibition

that she visited almost every day. Her Majesty wasn’t the
only enthusiast. In all, six million visitors came — that
was one in three of the population of England and Wales.
Today it’s hard to imagine anything that could draw such
a massive audience. (Unless the National Lottery started
giving prizes for attending the draw.)
The new railways brought people from the north who
had never seen a train before, let alone set eyes on
London. The papers predicted that riots would break out
in the streets if the Exhibition let in the pongy poor. As
it turned out no one pinched the Koh-i-noor diamond or
even picked a tulip from the park. The sight of the
working class behaving as well as their betters was hailed
as the greatest marvel of all.

74
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

SF CTORIAN VALUES Fre

The stinky poor
Albert’s dream of the new age of invention bringing
a better world for all was a nice thought, but it had
little to do with the lives of the poor. The number
of people in Britain was growing at a fast rate. In
1800 the population was 15.5 million. By 1851, the
time of the Great Exhibition, that number had
almost doubled.
In 1800 most people lived and worked in the
countryside. By 1850 millions had moved into the
towns and cities, looking for work. Britain’s.
Industrial Revolution was built on coal, machinery
and cheap labour. Parts of the Midlands became
known as the Black Country because everything
was black — from the smoke-belching chimneys to
the grubby faces of the miserable workers.
In the cities, poor families were crammed into
dirty slums. In parts of London as many as 40 people
lived in one terraced house. And they were the
lucky ones! Homeless people could pay for ‘a penny
hang’ — a space on a thick rope over which you
hung and tried to get some sleep.
1 WISH | COULD AFFORD
URY! }
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

The Great Stink

Cities were often filled with rubbish, and human
waste was carried away by ‘nightsoil men’. The
sewers of London were said to contain: dead dogs
and cats, huge rats, rotten fish, slime, rags and
stable dung. No wonder Londoners covered
themselves in perfume.
Sometimes the sewage seeped into the rivers.
Even the Queen wasn’t safe — pongy poo from the
Thames occasionally turned up in her garden at
Windsor castle. It was good for the roses but
Victoria had it chucked back in the river.
A LITTLE Too MUCH
MANURE, PERHAPS?

Things reached a whiffy peak in 1858 — known as

the year of ‘The Great Stink’. It was a long hot
summer and the revolting stench from the Thames
got so bad that many MPs were sick. Parliament
had to be closed while a group of brave MPs were
volunteered to find a solution. They suggested a
fund to raise money for a new drainage system
under London.

76
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

‘HOW WE LAUGHED”
-~ Queen Victoria was amus
Victoria was once shown round Trinity College,
Cambridge, with Albert who had just been awarded
an honorary degree. At the time Cambridge’s
sewage system was as bad as London’s and all the
poo and paper went into the river. As the royal
party stopped on a bridge, the Queen pointed down
at the water and asked, ‘What are all those pieces
of paper floating down the river” It was a delicate
moment but the Master of Trinity rose to the
occasion.

Those, ma’am, are notices

that bathing is forbidden.

Whigs and big hats

The triumph of the Great Exhibition was Albert's,
although Victoria bathed in her fair share of the glory.
Much of her daily routine was taken up by politics and
meeting with her prime ministers. Victoria must have had
trouble remembering their names since there were ten of
them in all. Her first Prime Minister in 1838 was Lord
Melbourne, her last one would be Lord Salisbury in 1901.

77
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Hairy Victorian Prime Ministers

- ae bi of
é ar oes as Prime
ns Ig Minister

atsotet=e
Lord Melbourne ‘Whig

Whig
Earl ofAberdeen
:
Lord Palmerston Whig
Benjamin Disraelt | Tiory
William Gladstone ‘Whig
Margquts ofSalisbury Tor
Farl ofRosebury ;

Victorian politics was fought between two partie

s —
Whigs and Tories. A third party also emerged late
in
Victoria’s reign — the Labour Party — but at first
they
only had one MP. His name was Keir Hardie
and to
show his working-class roots he turned up at Parli
ament
in a dirty working suit, cloth cap and follo
wed by a
noisy brass band.

78
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

How could you tell the Whigs from the Tories? Sadly
the Whigs didn’t sport silly wigs to identify themselves.
Both Whig and Tory MPs preferred hairy sidewhiskers
and big top hats.

Pa WHIGaul | A TORY MP AE etl ae

Whigs were also Tories were also} | Some people

; Known as thought he
They bac Conservatives. aas a loud-
parliaments power | Pro-royalty and |) mouthed oik!
's ||the upper class.
over the Queen
Victoria herself was a staunch Whig supporter when she
first became Queen, but that was only because all her
pals, including Lord Melbourne, were Whigs.

ONE DOESN'T.
LIKE To BE THE
ODD ONE OUT

Albert taught her the wisdom of a queen not taking sides

in politics, but at heart she was really a Tory, especially
in later life. Here’s a guide to the most famous of
Victoria’s ten prime ministers.

19
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

KNOW YOUK
ROBERT PEEL
7
“iS Tory Prime Minister
— Wn (twice: 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

Royal relations: Awkward,

tended to shuffle his feet. But
Albert was a bigfan.
Finest hour: Created the
police force (nicknamed
Peelers). Abolished Corn Laws
so the poor could buy bread.
Victoria’s verdict: ‘She
would like him better ifhe could
keep his legs still.’ — as reported by
Lord Greville.

LORD PALMERSTON
Whig Prime Minister

Royal relations — Stormy.

V and A referred to his frequent
blunders as ‘bocks’.
Finest hour: Once made a
speech lasting nearly five hours
defending his foreign policy.
Victoria’s verdict: ‘He had
often worried and distressed us.’

80
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

PIRIMIE MINISTERS
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Also known as: Dizzy/ the Earl of
\. Beaconsfield
Tory Prime Minister
(twice: 1868, 1874-1880)

Royal relations: Warm.

‘Flattery will you get you
everywhere, Prime Minister.’
Finest hour: Doubled the
number of voters, made Victoria
Empress of India.
Victoria’s verdict: ‘He isfull
ofpoetry, romance and chivalry.’

WILLIAM GLADSTONE
Also known as: the Grand Old
Man (G.O.M.)
Whig Prime Minister
(four times: 1868-1874,
1880-1885, 1886, 1892-1894)

’ Royal relations: Frosty.

He talked to Victoria as ifhe
was giving a public lecture.
Finest hour: Sat in
Parliament for 61 years (until
died of boredom).
Victoria’s verdict: “The
abominable G man.’

81
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Dizzy versus the Grand Old Man

The two great political giants of Victoria’s reign were as
different as chalk and cheese. Gladstone and Disraeli
frequently clashed in Parliament where cool, debonair
Dizzy had the advantage over his irritable opponent.

Gladstone’s temper is visible and

audible whenever he rises to

William Ewart Gladstone was a deeply religious man,

who thought that God’s will and his own plans were
"pretty much the same thing. So devout was Gladstone
that he spent his free time prowling the back-streets,
finding ‘ladies of the night’ to talk to. Gladstone said he
wasn’t interested in their bodies, it was their souls he was
trying to save. Knowing Gladstone it was probably true,
but think what Queen Victoria would have made of his
hobby if she had known. (Lucky for Gladstone that the
tabloid press hadn’t been invented!)
Victoria thought Gladstone was a total crackpot. He
had none of Disraeli’s wit and charm, and always made
the mistake of lecturing the Queen rather than flattering
her. Gladstone once arrived late to see Victoria and only
made matters worse by trying to pass it off with a weak
joke. He had three hands he told the queen, ‘a left hand,
a right hand and a little behindhand.’

82
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

‘We are not amused,’ replied the stony-faced Queen in

her famous phrase.
In contrast to glum Gladstone, Disraeli was one of the
most flamboyant Prime Ministers Britain has ever had.
The son of a Spanish Jew, Disraeli was baptized a
Christian as a boy. He was a complete outsider in an age
where most MPs were blue-blooded Englishmen.
Disraeli’s weapons were his wit and his charm. In his
spare time he was a popular novelist. ‘If 1 want to read a
good novel I write one!’ he said modestly.
Dizzy liked to cut a dash in the Commons and wore
jewelled rings, fancy waistcoats and a goatee beard. He
also dyed his hair when it became grey. Although
Victoria at first thought he was a bounder she grew to
like him. This was because Dizzy knew the best way of
pleasing the Queen — by crawling to her shamelessly.

Everybody likes flattery, and when you

Zl come to royalty, you should lay it on
with a trowel.

) Dorit
a“attiotss'

KAN
OO)
Or
SNS

It’s said a woman once sat next to Gladstone at dinner

one night, and next to Dizzy the next. Asked for her
opinion on the two great men she said: ‘When I left the
dining-room after sitting next to Gladstone I thought he
was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next

83
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

to Mr Disraeli I thought I was the cleverest woman in

England.’ Victoria probably felt much the same and
that’s why she always preferred Disraeli.

Travelling first class

Away from politics, Victoria spent much of her time
moving between her various homes at Buckingham
Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral in Scotland and
Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Travelling from
London to Scotland could have been along uncomfortable
business but luckily for Victoria train travel had arrived
by the beginning of her reign.
Before trains most people got about by horse-drawn
coaches which were noisy, bumpy and painfully slow. In
London you were likely to be held up by the crowds or a
wandering sheep crossing the road. There was no
highway code, so accidents and disputes were routine
- affairs. Trains soon caught on since they were lightning
fast in comparison. A four-day coach journey from
London to York took only 12 hours by train. The first
public steam railway line opened in 1825 and by the
1840s even Victoria was letting the train take the strain.

“We arrived here yesterday morning, having come by the

railroad from Windsor, in half an hour free from \
dust and crowd and heat, and J am quite charmed
by it.

quite like her subjects. She had her own private carriage
upholstered in royal blue silk, with padded walls and
ceiling to deaden the noise and vibration. Albert and

84
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

Victoria even had two brass beds in their carriage so that

they could snooze their way through the journey.
Life was very different for a servant who travelled in
third class. They were lucky to get a seat on a wooden
bench. The sides of the coach were so low that
passengers often fell out on the journey! To make
matters worse most carriages had no roof, leaving the
passengers to get drenched to the skin in bad weather.
Dry days weren’t much better. Passengers were blackened
with cinders from the engine or choked with smoke
when the train entered a tunnel. Funny that train travel
was so popular.

RAVELLING ROYAL CLASS

E/
4 ~ ~ ry

Sx

SESS
Cah
kkgshohed
kik
SS>

Ruling the waves

When at sea the Queen had a private paddle-wheeled
steam-yacht called the Victoria and Albert (no surprises
there). The 1,000-ton steamer was ordered by the
Admiralty (and paid for by the nation) in 1843.

85
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Steamships were starting to take over from sailing

ships in the mid-nineteenth century and in 1858 a
monster steamer, the Great Western, was launched.
Designed by the famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom
Brunel (we’ll meet him later), the ship was six times as
big as any other ship on the ocean.

Steamships would go on getting bigger and bigger until

the launch of the ‘unsinkable’ liner, the Titanic. It sank
in 1912.

~ Country life
As we’ve mentioned, Victoria didn’t spend all her time
in Buckingham Palace. She had a whole collection of
royal residences to choose from. The Queen preferred
Windsor Castle to Buck House, but Albert was more of
a country boy at heart. (No wonder, with all the stinks
getting up his nose in the city.)
Victoria and Albert soon looked around for a humble
country house they could retreat to with their family.
They found two — Balmoral in Scotland and Osborne
House on the Isle of Wight, which clever Albert had
rebuilt to his own design. For the royal couple these two
houses offered peaceful oases away from court life. They
weren't so popular with ministers who had to make the
long train journey from Westminster to see the Queen.

86
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

The Royal Piles

Buckingham Palace
Bought by Victoria’s grandfather,
George III, for a snip in 1762,
Buck House was a regular choice
for state banquets. Albert had the
builders in to add a balcony to the
front and do something about the
pongy drains and toilets.
Victoria’s verdict: Fond of the Palace and London life,
till Albert arrived. He preferred the country hidey-holes
of Osborne and Balmoral.

Osborne House
Seaside holiday home designed and built by Albert in
Italian style. Albert bought it with Victoria’s private
money and the sale of Brighton Pavilion. He organized
the planting of the garden by standing on a high platform
and using a system of flag signals to show where to plant
the trees. The children had their own Swiss cottage and
a fort where the boys played soldiers.
Victoria’s verdict: ‘It is
impossible to imagine a prettier
spot... We can walk about
anywhere without being followed
or mobbed.’ (At Brighton she’d
complained that children stared
at her as if she was a brass band.)

87
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Balmoral pe Ee gi
Victoria’s Scottish hidey hole
which she bought with money yy flag
left to her by an eccentric miser, Fr
John Camden Nield. The 4&
mountains and forests reminded =A==—
9 ==
Albert of Germany, and later the ZZ Dn
place reminded Victoria of her dear departed Albert. At
Balmoral, Victoria let her peasant dreams run wild. She
enjoyed porridge for breakfast, the wail of the bagpipes,
the clean air and the Highland dancing. The Ghillies’
(servants’) balls were wild drunken affairs in which
Victoria sometimes joined in the hooligan (it’s a dance).
The royals even took to wearing kilts themselves.
Victoria’s verdict: ‘A pretty little castle.’

Windsor Castle
!
The oldest royal pile in Britain and the world’s largest
inhabited castle. Windsor was begun by William the
Conqueror in 1066 and improved by successive monarchs.
Twenty-year-old Victoria met her Albert and
fell in love at Windsor. The smell from the Thames was
the only drawback of Windsor. Albert once discovered
the 53 cesspools (underground pits where the loos
Bieowexes drained) were overflowing. Part
a of Windsor Castle had to close
Goo because of the rotten stench.
Victoria’s verdict: Spent her
three-day honeymoon at the old
castle. Who needs the south of
France when you’ve got Windsor?

88
 ‘We are doing our duty’ — Victoria at work

What Victoria and Albert liked more than anything was

a quiet home life. Victorians thought of their home as
their castle — and Victoria was no exception. (Well, her
home was a castle.) Countless Victorian magazines were
devoted to the happiness of home and the daily pleasures
of family life. The Queen’s own pleasures were simple
ones. Here she is describing a typical evening at home at
Osborne in 1844.

\" The children again with us, & such a pleasure & interest.
Bertie & Alice are the greatest friends O always playing
together. Later we both read to each other “When J read |
sit on a sofa in the middle of the room . . . Albert sitting
> in a low armchair . . . with another small table in
front of bim on which he usually stands his book.
Oh, if [ could only describe our dear happy life
together! | W

Not exactly thrilling but Victoria was happy. She had no

idea that her happiness with Albert wasn’t going to last.
Before long Albert would be gone — a victim of the
stinky drains at Windsor which spread disease. For
Victoria, losing her darling Albert would be the beginning
of the Great Misery. It wasn’t too much fun for her
subjects either.
 TIMELINE:
VICTORIA ALONE
1963: BERTIE MARRIES | |1864: ALBERT MEMORIAL
BUILT.VICTORIA’S
(BUT DOESN'T STOP ALBERT-MANIA SPREADS.
MISBE HAVING). NOT BAD , BuT
IT’S A BIT SMALL.

iF)
Y 3}

Te rd
als ee
? 7 & ¥

Mi
i ml
meal =A Act
ae CHARLES DICKENS
DIES. SCHOOLS RULES-

1874: THE QUEEN 1S BACK

VICTORIA FINALLY COMES
OUT OF MGOEMING:
THESE ARE MY ( w~’N
GLADRAGS. G NG RERREZ a@/wuere Does
ONE WEAR (T?

90
 Timeline: Victoria alone

1884: ANOTHER YEAR, 4887:50 YEARS ON THE

ANOTHER FUNERAL. THRONE. VICTORIA'S
VICTORIA'S SON GoLDEN JUBILEE PARTY.
ES.

1897: DIAMONDJUBILEE. 1899: BOER WAR BREAKS

60, NoT OUT OUT. VICTORIA SENDS
Bone,
Z— op ©
CHOCOLATE.
| [FANCYA MARS BOER? )A
| | : 3 We

al Le SSS

Dy
Sw
Bre
SE

1900: GooD GRIEF! 901: VICTORIA GIVES

VICTORIA’S SON UP THE GHOST AT 8I.
ALFRED DIES. BERTIE FINALLY BECOMES
KING ae :
BRON
 “WE ARE IN MOURNING’
-DEAD ALBERT LIVES
Victoria had always been stronger than Albert. She was
rarely ill and disliked warm rooms. Seeing a fire lit in a
room, the Queen would order it to be put out to the
annoyance of her shivering guests. Albert, in contrast,
often complained of the cold and sometimes took
_unusual measures to keep his head warm.
| WONDER
WHAT WIC ae a CC
HELL BE LIKE re) CO ne?
IN THE WINTER! (OCTTTOSTRY
ay MAMByhinee
" ALS

\
Y Wag
lt ANN AWN N

He was overworked and ME Pte *e scrapes his son,

bad Bertie, was getting into. Yet when the Prince died,
at the age of only 42 years old, it was a great shock to
everyone, especially Victoria.

22
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

THE HARD TIMES

15th December 1861

ALBERT DEAD-
DOCTORS BUNGLED
Prince Albert died late Holland. These two, Lord
yesterday evening. It’s said Clarendon claimed, ‘had
that the Prince died of not been fit to attend a sick
typhoid fever — a result of cat.’
the rotten drains at Windsor. Sir James assured the
But some are saying that Queen that ‘there was no
his life might have been cause for alarm’ — even
saved by a decent doctor. though Albert was

Albert’s doctor was Sir wandering from room to

James Clark — the Queen’s room talking gibberish. By
old favourite. ‘Old’ is the the time a second opinion
word since Sir James is 73 was called it was too late.
and was assisted by the The fever had taken a grip
equally doddery Sir Henry and Albert was a goner.
The Queen blames her
husband for dying too
easily. ‘He would die,’ she
told Lord Derby, ‘He
seemed not to care to live.’
Today the whole nation
is in mourning. The Prince
will be sorely missed, most
of all by his heartbroken
wife.

09
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Oddly enough, Albert had predicted his own death some

years earlier.

I am sure that ifI had a

severe illness, I should give up
at once and should not fight
for my life.

That’s just how it turned out. Albert never clung on to

life like Victoria. Whether he could have been saved by
a decent doctor no one will ever know.
For Victoria it was as if the world had stopped turning.
Without her dear Albert she felt that her life was over.
This posed a bit of a problem since she was only 42 and,
in fact, still had half her life in front of her. What would
she do without her dear, wise Albert to lean on? The
_answer was: be miserable and make everyone else’s life a
misery too. A great gloomy black cloud was about to
descend on Britain.

The great gloom

It was natural that Victoria should miss Albert. She’d loved
him dearly and had come to depend on his advice in
everything. However, Victoria wasn’t planning on a year or
two of mourning -— she was planning on a
lifetime! Not only that, she expected the whole country to
mourn with her. It was time to paint the country black.
Albert was buried at Frogmore on the Windsor estate.
A marble statue of the Prince was carved on top of his
tomb. Victoria would visit often and spend hours there
gazing on ‘his beloved features’ — although the features

94
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

were only made out of stone. The Queen made sure she
reserved a place for herself next to Albert and longed for
the day when she could join him.
When she was younger, Victoria tried to be fashionable,
from now on her only colour was black.

BA,
SOLA PPELPE (¢g@/ LLL K(

VICTORIA, ig
IN MOURNING #7 EOE
gtatataitee
se
aa
Lizz

se
y SSS

gY
SESS
SAA

agZ
Z
g
yZz
“haOEE TEE: ASS LELLAL LLL LE ge
CAL

Victoria wore black for the rest of her days. Her ministers
and servants also had to wear black and the nation
followed their lead. Women wore black ostrich feathers
in their hats, men wore black crepe ‘weepers’ (bands)
round their top hats. Even the horses wore black plumes
on their heads.
Six months after Albert’s death, Victoria’s daughter,
Princess Alice, got married but the wedding was more
like a funeral. All the guests were dressed in black and
Victoria sat in her widow’s weeds, frowning under a bust
of Prince Albert. The wedding photographs must have
been cheerful!

95
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

The dying trade

It’s hard for us to understand the Victorian mania
with death. Today dying is something we generally
prefer not to talk about — although it’s the one
thing we can all count on. The Victorians were
different. There was nothing they liked better than
a good funeral. Maybe it’s because death was much
more common in the nineteenth century. If you
were poor you were lucky to see your 40th birthday.
Every day thousands of children died of hunger or
disease. The Victorians accepted death as part of
daily life, but that didn’t mean they kept quiet
about it. Grieving Victorian style was a public affair
and the funeral trade was a huge industry.
The custom of wearing black dates from 1660,
but it didn’t catch on in a really big way until the
Victorian age. There were actually shops in London
that sold only black. Here’s a typical advert from
1887.

CRETERROB a \G

Blackmaterials by the yai

nd the new makes of
Hac «

beg ecu jae

sismarvello

96
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

It wasn’t only clothes that were black, you could

have your furniture dyed black as a mark of respect.
Ribbons, fans and jewellery in black (called jet) were
all available from shops dealing in the death trade.
Naturally the shopkeepers assured their customers
that they made no personal profit from their trade.
The period of mourning varied according to the
importance of the departed. When Queen Victoria’s
aunt — the Queen of Hanover — died in 1841, court
mourning was a measly three weeks. Albert was
another matter altogether. In 1869, eight years after
his death, Victoria’s servants were still wearing
black armbands!

The hermit Queen

As for Victoria herself, her grief was so unbearable that
she hid herself away. It would be 13 long years before she’d
return to public life. Even then it would take all Disraeli’s
charm and cunning to draw her out of retirement.
What did the Queen do during those 13 long years?
She stayed in Scotland and the Isle of Wight thinking of
Albert. London was far too near Parliament and the »
horrid business of running the country. The only thing
that would tempt Victoria out of hiding was the promise
of someone putting up a memorial of her dear departed
hubby. Victoria liked statues of Albert and she wanted
lots of them. When Wolverhampton became the first
town to erect a statue to Albert, Victoria turned up to
unveil it. What’s more, she knighted the Lord Mayor. If
you fancied a knighthood, it was pretty clear what you
had to do. Suddenly statues of Albert started to spring up

val
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

all over the place!

If you take a short stroll from London’s Hyde Park
today, you'll walk through Albertopolis. There are lots of
reminders of Victoria’s Albert mania.

ALBERT HALL THE ALBERT EMBANKMENT

GB

ICTORIA AND | |SCIENCE MUSEUM

LBERT MUSEUM | | founded by A Albert

Albert lives
To Victoria, Albert wasn’t dead, he was just a little
more
quiet than usual. When Lord Clarendon visited
the
Queen at Osborne House he had difficulty believing
Albert wasn’t in the room. Perhaps the visit got
a
mention in Victoria’s journal.

98
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives
air LA YZ

VICTORIA'S SECRET DIARY

Lord C called to see me and Iveceived
him in my Deloved’s dear room. I have alt
dearest Albert's things set out on his
table just as they used to be. His pen
and blotting paper, his hanky on the
Sofa, his watch (Still going) and fresh
flowers. Spoke to Lord C at some
Length. We talked about Albert - I don't
Wish to hear about tiresome things Like
Acts of farliament.
Every evening yny Clear one’s clothes
are laid out in his voom for the
Morning. Every evening I have his
Chamber pot washed
and cleaned. Over our
bed Nangs a
photograph of him -
on the right side
where he always used to sleep. Never,
ever ever shail J forget him! (And nor
shall anybody else, 'll See to that.)
If Victoria was
Albert’s ghost to keep her company. Even when she
went abroad she took Albert’s photo with her to show
him the view!

99
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Royal sponger
After several years had passed, the public began to grow
tired of the Queen’s endless misery. Wasn’t it time she
got back to work? What was the point of a Queen who
no one ever saw?
The newspapers and critics in Parliament started to
grumble. Victoria’s popularity took a nose dive and
people begun to call her ‘The Royal Malingerer’
(lazybones). Some even whispered that she was off her
head. Madness was in the family after all, it was said that
George III used to talk to trees.
Mocking posters appeared outside Buckingham
Palace:

4 |
These commanding
premises to dele
1 or Sold ,in Consequence
of the late occupant’s
canes! business,

There was one possible solution — Victoria would have to

let her eldest son take over her public duties for her. But
her eldest son, remember, was Bertie, Prince of Wales.
Victoria had no intention of handing the reins over to
him. When we last met Bertie he was pulling his teacher’s
beard. What had become of him in the meantime?

FOO.
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

Bad Bertie — at it again

Bertie’s strict education didn’t end when he grew up. His
parents were constantly bemoaning his stupidity and
idleness. It never occurred to them that if they’d given
him something to do he wouldn’t have been so idle.
Victoria was always moaning about her son’s weakness
and lack of brains.

Usually his intellect is of no

| more use than a pistol packed
at the bottom of a trunk.

a
PLL
Hes << 7.
Ye
WLS

To try and improve his brains and character, Bertie was

packed off to university and then the army. At Oxford,
Bertie was the most miserable student in the whole
college. Not only was he forbidden to mix with other
students of his own age, he was constantly under the eye
of his aging minder, Major Robert Bruce. Bertie even
had to write a note to ask for permission if he wanted to
go out for a walk.
When he was almost 18, his parents still treated him
like a naughty schoolboy. Victoria never visited him and
Albert sent him notes — usually dreary lectures on
education and duty.
It’s hardly surprising that poor Bertie behaved badly.
While he was in the army he started seeing a girlfriend.

101
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

But she wasn’t a princess, she was an actress called Nellie

Clifden. In those days the affair of the Prince and the
actress caused a shocking scandal. It upset upright Albert
no end (and he died soon after). Victoria said that she
could never look at her eldest son without a shudder
after that.
A marriage was quickly arranged to keep bad Bertie
out of mischief. On 10 May 1863 Bertie was married to
Alexandra, Princess of Denmark. (The Danish royal
family were hard up and willing to overlook the Prince’s
fondness for actresses.)
Even Bertie’s wedding day was ruined by his mum.
Victoria, still mourning Albert, refused to attend the
wedding service in St George’s Chapel at Windsor.
Instead, she watched it from a balcony room in her
widow’s dress — casting an air of gloom over the whole
occasion.
She was hardly more cheery about the prospect of
Bertie as the future king.

Oh! what will become of the poor country if J die!

Iforesee, if Bertie succeeds, nothing but misery...

A Highland fling
Of course, Victoria never dreamed that she could
be capable of causing a scandal herself. Yet four years
after Albert’s death, tongues started to wag about the
Queen andanother man. Even more shocking, the man
in question was one of the Queen’s servants. .
John Brown was a rough Scotsman who liked his
whisky and spoke his mind.

102
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

Brown had been one of

A SERVANT’ Albert’s favourite servants
SI BIG at Balmoral so Victoria
MouTH 2dopted him. Soon she
couldn’t do without him.
Victoria’s fondness for her
Highland servant caused
many a snigger. One rumour
claimed that Brown was
actually a medium who’d
put Victoria in touch with
Albert’s ghost. Others
gossiped that the Queen had
actually married her rude
Highlander in secret. People
|=
——— SS
started to mockingly call
Victoria ‘Mrs Brown’.

circulars informing readers what the royals were doing.

Punch magazine printed an imaginary court circular as if
Brown was royalty:

“Court C ircular
th Faly 1866 Balmoral, Tuesd-
one Brown walked on the Slopes

was pleased. to listen

Mr John Brown retired early.
RN

103
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria didn’t see the joke. Actually, since she never

went out in public, she was ignorant of all gossip. The
fact was, she didn’t have any friends — they were all her
subjects — and she wasn’t close to her family. She needed
a friend and chose Brown because he was blunt and
honest. She even liked the way he sometimes scolded
her like she was a little girl.

Brown tales
Here are a few of the stories about the Queen and her
rude Scottish servant:
e Brown didn’t call Victoria ‘Your Majesty’; he called
her ‘wumman’.
e A passing tourist once heard him shouting at Victoria,
after he’d pricked her chin trying to fasten her cape.
‘Hoots, then, wumman!’ he growled. ‘Can ye no hold
yerr head up?
~ Brown was fond of whisky and used to put a nip in the
Queen’s tea. On more than one occasion he was drunk
as a skunk on duty. Victoria pretended not to notice.
THAT WILL BE CaP
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives
Ww);
sTHI, VICTORIA'S SECRET DIARY SSS

Waited for half an hour in my carriage Ss

this morning for Broun to come and
take the ves. Fearing Something must
be wrong, I sent a footman to Knock on
his door. Broum appeared, but the poor
man had to be Supported all the way
to the gate. He looked very unsteady
on his feet and his breath Smelt
awfully! T can only think he must be
exhausted from his many duties. How
devoted he is!
When we arrived at the house, Brown
tried to help me down But, taking a
Step back, he swayed and-fell flat on
his face.
Can he no stand up? asked our host,
running out -
‘T think there must: have been a slight
| earthquake; I told her.

105
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria’s children couldn’t stand her Highland servant.

Once Victoria’s daughter, Vicky, was visiting, bringing
the Queen’s grandchild, little Princess Charlotte. The
Queen commanded Charlotte to say hello to Brown.
NO, THAT | WON’T.
MAMMA SAYS| OUGHT
NOT To BE Too
FAM([LIAR WITH
SERVANTS

_ Bertie was even less of a fan. After his mother died, he

took personal pleasure in going round Windsor and
smashing every bust of John Brown he could lay his
hands on.

HOW WE LAUGHED”
~Queen Victoria was amused
Visitors to the Queen suffered just as much as
anyone from Brown’s straight talking.
When General Henry Gardiner arrived he shook
hands politely with Brown and enquired, ‘How is
the Queen and what is she saying”
Brown replied, ‘Well she just said, “Here’s that

106 :
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

damned fellow Gardiner come and he’ll be poking

his nose into everything.”

Kote Rag

Brown once saved the Queen’s life, when a man with a

gun attacked her carriage at the gates of Buckingham
Palace. Brown seized the young man by the throat and
sat on him till the police arrived. He was given a gold
‘Victoria Faithful Service Medal’, an honour that was his
and his alone.
Brown died in 1883, after 18 years’ loyal service. He
kept up his seven-days-a-week attendance on the Queen
right to the end.
More than 20 years after his death, letters written by
Queen Victoria about John Brown were discovered in a
big black trunk. For some mysterious reason they were
burnt. Could they have contained secrets that would
have embarrassed the royal family?

Z
KZ

eos
oy

107
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

One reason that Victoria doted on Brown was that he

understood the things she couldn’t abide — such as
smoking. Bertie — a great cigar smoker — once adopted a
room at Windsor as a secret smoking room for his pals.
When he heard his mother was on the warpath, he
escaped discovery by a clever dodge.

Smoking was just one of Victoria’s pet hates. She had

lots of others as the list below shows.

- Queen Victoria’s top ten pet-hates

1 Education for the

workers.
‘It is rendering the
working class unfitted
for good servants and
labourers.’

2 Bishops.
‘I do not like Bishops.’

108
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

3 Meeting people she 7 Votes for women.

knew when out for her ‘She ought to get a good
afternoon drive. whipping,’ Victoria said of
one suffragette. .

be

K ee oh Mh
NG
if * =

4 Men staying behind

after dinner while the 8 Death duties.
ladies retired. She feared they would cause
‘I think it is a horrid custom.’ hardship to ‘poor widows’
Lord Melbourne was allowed (like herself).
a maximum of five minutes.
9 Loud voices.
5 The hairstyle of the
1880s.
‘The present fashion of fringe
and frizzle in front is frightful.’

10 Getting her head wet

when bathing in the sea.

6 Cars. :
‘I am told that they smell
exceedingly nasty, and are
very shaky and disagreeable
conveyances altogether.’

109
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Not that Victoria was perfect herself. She could be pig-

headed and unforgiving. Another of the Queen’s oddities
was the way she spoke. Victoria had been brought up by
a German mother and her grasp of English was never
quite perfect. Her notes sometimes had a German
flavour with odd spellings such as ‘schocking’ and
‘bewhildering’. Sometimes she even got muddled up
with her words.

Aira
Wf THe NEWS FRoM
Y ARE FRIGHTFUL
|

Y Be

When in Scotland, Victoria had a habit of copying the

way her Highland servants spoke. She once asked a
servant if he had any money to give one of the local
cottagers. ‘Aboot twelve shillings,’ he replied.
‘Ah that won’t do a-tall, | always give her five poond,’
said the Queen.

During the long years of mourning for Albert, Victoria

wasn’t so often amused. This is probably where her
reputation as the Queen of Gloom started.
Yet it wasn’t all bad news. While Victoria hid herself

110
 ‘We are in mourning’ — Dead Albert lives

away and moped, Britain continued to strengthen its

position as the top dog in the world. It’s time to look at
some of the glories of the Great British Empire.

111
One hundred years ago Britain ruled the biggest empire
the world has ever seen. At its biggest, one quarter of the
world was under British rule. The Empire stretched from
Canada to Australia and from India to South Africa. At
its head was Victoria — the mother of this great family of
nations. There was a famous saying at the time:

==! The sun never sets on the

British Empire.

Since the Empire was so vast, the sun was always shining
somewhere, either in London, Calcutta or Sydney.
There was also another side to the boast. The British
firmly believed that the sun would never go down on
their glorious Empire. They were wrong — but it didn’t
start to crumble till after Victoria’s time.
Maps of the world usually showed the British Empire
in pink, blushing with modest pride. If you’d been a

Li
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

Victorian schoolchild you’d probably have spent hours

staring at maps like these.

BRITA]

~ UGANDA ie =
vES IA= — SOUTHAFRICA — -
S= RUo
How did the British Empire get so big? It had started as
far back as the reign of Good Queen Bess — Elizabeth
I — when England began to establish new colonies. The
Empire had grown slowly ever since. Not that Britain
ever set out to conquer the world. The real prize was
trade and wealth. By grabbing countries like India,
Britain got rich from trading their goods.
During the nineteenth century the greedy Europeari
powers set about slicing the world into pieces like a giant
cake. (Africa got carved up in 1884, though nobody
bothered to tell the Africans.) Britain managed to grab
the biggest slices of cake because it had the largest navy
and controlled the trade routes at sea. Politicians behind
this policy, such as Palmerston and Disraeli, were known
as Empire builders. They piled their plates with cake and
brought it to Victoria to be gobbled up into the British
Empire. This attitude was known as Jingoism after a
popular music hall song.

113
 Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

We don’t want to fight but by jingo ifwe do,

We've got the ships, we’ve got the men,
We've got the money too.

_ Not every country was keen to be ruled by the British

which led to squabbles such as the Boer War and the
Indian Mutiny. We'll come to these shortly. First, what
had happened to Victoria after her years of playing hide
and seek from her subjects?

The great comeback

By 1871, ten years after Albert’s death,. Victoria’s
popularity was at an all-time low. The gossip about ‘Mrs
Brown’ was the talk of every London dinner party. In
Parliament there were even MPs who talked openly
about a Republic — government without royalty. No king
or queen? It was enough to make the royal blood run
cold! Even Victoria — who hadn’t paid attention to
anything for years — was alarmed.

114
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

By the following year, however, the Queen had made

a triumphant comeback.
First, the nation was shocked when Bertie fell ill. For
a time it looked as if he would follow his father to an
early grave. At last, when he made a miraculous
recovery the Queen attended a thanksgiving service at
St Paul’s Cathedral. She was back in business and the
crowds cheered. All it needed was another
assassination attempt for Victoria’s popularity to be
fully restored. As if on cue a pistol-waving maniac
attacked her two days later and got flattened by big
John Brown. (No one cared that the pistol wasn’t
loaded.)
The Queen’s return to public life was helped by
Disraeli — her pet Prime Minister. By 1876, the Queen
had agreed to open Parliament again. In return for this
service she made a small suggestion. For a long time,
India had been part of the Empire so. . .

Victoria liked the sound of Empress of India, it had a

nice ring to it. Disraeli, in return for this little gift,

115
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

became the Earl of Beaconsfield. It was the crowning

moment in an astonishing career for the Queen’s
favourite flatterer. For Victoria the crown of India was a
bauble to be prized. All her life she had a great fascination
for India, although she never visited it (far too hot). But
her Indian subjects had a great respect for her. When she
finally died, most of Calcutta’s population sat in the park
all day without food, mourning the great Queen-Empress
that they’d never met.

Queen in disguise
Victoria never got to India but she did travel to other
parts of the world. Sometimes she used to travel in
disguise. It would be nice to record that she went round
dressed as a policeman with a handlebar moustache, but
Victoria’s disguise was more subtle. It looked like this:

Yes, Victoria’s cunning trick was to dress just like

everybody else!

116
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

‘I hate being troubled about dress,’ she once said, so

she only dressed like a queen when she had to. When off
duty, it was hard to tell the Queen apart from her Ladies
in Waiting or even from the servants. This sometimes
led to embarrassing mistakes. A drunken gentleman
called Dawson-Damer once went up to her and said:

Gad! How glad I am to see you!

But I say, I can’t for the life of me
remember your name.

(ane
Te

When travelling abroad the Queen posed as the Countess

of Kent. After all, you couldn’t possibly expect her to
pretend to be a commoner. Her daughter, Louise,
would sign herself in the hotel register as the Lady
Louise Kent.
Victoria delighted in going shopping in Paris in her
‘ordinary person’ disguise. In her elderly years she would
make annual pleasure trips to Europe, especially to Nice
in the sunny south of France. ‘When one is in a country
one likes to see some life about one,’ said Victoria. She
would drag her party endlessly through the countryside
in search of a monastery or a soap-factory to visit.
Sometimes she travelled with other royalty. ‘She was
so kind and amiable and in good spirits,’ recalled the
Tsar of Russia, ‘but from time to time she poked me in
the eye with her parasol, which was less pleasant.’

117
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

TOW WE LAUGHED’
-Queen Victoria was amus
The Queen’s travels didn’t extend to the far-flung
parts of her Empire. India and Africa were too hot
for her and, in those days (before aeroplanes), too
far away to travel to easily. —
Still, she could always welcome her subjects to
court. Most people think Victoria was very stiff and
formal, but ‘in fact she much SEE You HAVE
preferred visitors from abroad to
dress as normal. This almost
caused a scandal when the
natives of British Guiana arrived.
Their normal dress was to be
stark naked! However, the men
were persuaded to wear a small
loincloth to preserve the Queen’s
modesty. When the famous
African chief Cetewayo came to
court, Victoria was disappointed that ‘he appeared
in a hideous black frock and coat.’
Victoria much preferred the West African chief
who she entertained at Windsor. At the end of his
audience, Victoria asked him if he’d like anything
as a souvenir of his visit. The Chief pointed to
Victoria’s widow’s cap. ‘Yes, mighty Queen: I should
like to have a bonnet as Your Majesty is now
wearing, and I should like to be the only chief
entitled to wear it.’

118
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

The Queen was much

amused by this request and
gave instructions that one of
her spare caps should be
given to the Chief. Much
later his photograph was sent
to her.

Rotten war
Victoria took a deep interest in her Empire and followed
the wars that sometimes threatened her colonies. She
always found the prospect of war alarming. The invention
of new guns and explosives meant that war in the 19th
century was becoming, well . . . dangerous. British soldiers
often got killed and injured. Victoria knew this because
she visited her wounded soldiers in hospital and liked to
present them with medals. One Christmas she even sent
her soldiers thousands of boxes of chocolates. That’s just
one of the Empire Tales you can read below.

The Indian Mutiny, 1857

Odd Empire fact: The revolt in India was sparked by cow fat.

From the early 1800s much of India was controlled by

the British East India Company. Their interest was trade
rather than controlling India and its people. All this

119
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

changed with the strange mutiny that broke out in parts

of India in 1857. One cause of the revolt was a new rifle
cartridge issued to Indian soldiers. (The British army in
India had English officers but Indian soldiers.) A soldier
had to bite off the end of the cartridge before pouring
the powder into the barrel. Trouble started when a
rumour went round that the cartridge was greased with
fat. Worse still it was whispered the fat came from cows
and pigs. This was an outrage to Hindus, who believe
the cow is a sacred animal. Muslims were equally
outraged because they regard pigs as ‘unclean’.
Soon mutiny broke out all over northern India. At
Delhi and Cawnpore many British were butchered.
Queen Victoria was horrified.

The horrors committed on

the poor ladies makes one’s
blood run cold.

What did Britain do? It sent 70,000 troops armed with

the new American Colt revolver. The rebels were
tortured and killed without mercy. Some of them were
even tied to cannons and blasted. (But Victoria didn’t
mention these ‘horrors’.)
The main result of the mutiny was that the East India
Company’s rule came to an end. A company that could
allow cow fat to start a rebellion obviously wasn’t fit to
be in charge. From then on India came under the direct
rule of the British crown.

120
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

The Crimean War, 1853-1856

Odd Empire fact: The Crimean War was the first war
where people at home read news reports from the front
line and even saw war photographs.

The Crimean War is best remembered for two things:

Florence Nightingale and the Charge of the Light
Brigade. The Charge of the Light Brigade was made
famous by Lord Tennyson’s heroic poem:

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward.
Into the valley of death
| Rode the six hundred.
\
)hy
ay We\a

V 34 CO
wy eS Pgs
i

: é My ols ce
Lz ZZ

There’s pages more of it, but you get the general idea.
Actually the Light Brigade’s charge was one of the
biggest blunders in British history — but since it was a
heroic blunder nobody minded except the soldiers who
got killed.
The Crimea wasn’t even part of the British Empire.
It was a peninsula that’s now part of Ukraine. The war
was between the Turks and the Russians, but British
troops were sent because of fears that Russia was getting
too powerful.

E21
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

The war was one in the eye for Victoria’s great British
Empire. British generals argued and bungled, soldiers
died of disease, and troops were hopelessly short of
supplies. Some found themselves with two left boots to
wear in the freezing conditions.
Then came the Light Brigade’s almighty clanger. Led
by the Earl of Cardigan, they attacked the Russian guns
in a cavalry charge down a long valley. It would have
been a brilliant ploy, if they hadn’t been charging in the
wrong direction at the wrong enemy. They should have
attacked the Russian flank. Instead, the 600 cavalry
thundered down the valley towards the heavy artillery of
Russia’s main army. It was like attacking an angry bear
with peashooters. Those who reached Russia’s guns were
left with no choice but to charge back the way they
came while being shot at from all sides. Almost half of
the Light Brigade died in the mad charge. A French
_-general who saw it, General Bosquet, famously remarked:
‘It’s magnificent but it isn’t war.’

A woman’s place
Women weren’t allowed to join the army in
Victoria’s day. A woman’s role was to sit at home
and be ladylike.
Times were changing, however, and some women
weren't content to let men have all the action. One
such woman was Florence Nightingale. When
Florence heard that soldiers in the Crimea were dying
without hospitals or doctors, she packed her lamp

122
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

and went to help, taking 38 nurses with her. Before

Florence, nursing was not considered a respectable
profession for a woman (what with all that blood and
sawing off of legs). Besides, the generals didn’t want
any women interfering in their army. They were
making a hash of things quite well on their own. The
wounded soldiers, however, regarded Florence as an
angel and nicknamed her ‘The Lady of the Lamp’.
A lamp wasn’t the only
thing she carried. As a pet | I wish we had her
lover, Florence often went | at the war office.
round with an owl in her
pocket. Back home in England
she kept 60 cats, including two
called Gladstone and Disraeli.
Even the Queen was a fan and
invited Florence to meet her.
In England, Florence set about improving the
country’s hospitals and made nursing a respectable
profession for women.
Fetching bedpans was one thing but meddling in
politics was another. The suffragette movement —
which wanted votes for women — got no support at
all from Victoria.
We women are not made for
governing and if we are good
women, we must dislike these
masculine occupations.

Funny that Victoria never had a problem telling her

male prime ministers what to do.

123
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

The Boer War, 1899-1902

Odd Empire fact: During this war the Queen knitted

woolly khaki scarves for her troops with her initials VRI
on them.

The Boers were farmers who resented Britain adding

South Africa to its Empire collection. For one thing it
was their land, for another gold and diamonds had
recently been discovered in the region. Britain sent a
massive army to teach the upstart Boers a lesson but they
fought back using guerrilla tactics.

|
Ny
GZ
Z
uw

ae
YNHi{A

OM ASS 25
That’s ‘guerrilla’ tactics — fighting hit and run style. For
a long time the Boers’ makeshift troops succeeded in
making the mighty British army look rather silly. One
British general, Buller, was known as Sir Reverse because
he retreated so often.
One of the war's strangest stories concerns a bugler in
one of Buller’s regiments, a 14-year-old boy called Arthur
Dunn. During a battle the British were losing, young
Arthur panicked and sounded the advance instead of
the retreat. His company charged forward = straight into
a river where many drowned and others were shot. Guess
what happened to the bungling bugler?

124
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

Was he:

a) put in prison?
b) court-martialled?
c) declared a hero?

Answer: c) Arthur survived to become a war hero,

mainly because the country was in desperate need of
heroes. He was taken to meet Queen Victoria who
presented him with a new silver bugle. Luckily she didn’t
ask him to play a tune.

Chocolate soldiers
Victoria herself took a keen interest in the Boer War. At
Christmas 1899 she decided to send her loyal troops a
present. What better than a box of the new treat called
chocolate? Soon every soldier was shipped a chocolate
bar with Victoria’s head on the lid of the tin box. Almost
100,000 chocolate bars went to Africa but not all were
eaten. Some soldiers were so proud of owning the
Queen’s chocolate that they took the tin back home
unopened. Others claimed that the Queen’s choccie had
saved their lives. Private James Humphreys was one. He
kept his tin in his soldiers’ haversack. One lucky day,
when he was shot in battle, the bullet went through the
tin and lodged in the chocolate rather than Humphrey’s
back. The doctor treating the lucky soldier sent the life-
saving choc box to Queen Victoria. A note suggested
she ‘would doubtless wish another box be sent to Private
Humphrey’.

125
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Eventually the British beat the Boers through sheer

weight of numbers. Even after the worst disasters
Victoria said:

We are not interested in

7 the possibilities of defeat;
=| they do not exist.

One other ETE es of the Boer War was the start of

the Boy Scout movement. Its devil-may-care founder,
Baden-Powell, deserves a space to himself...

The first Boy Scout

Did you know that before Baden-Powell rubbed two
sticks together to start a fire, he was a famous spy and
war hero?
During the Boer War, BP (as his soldiers called
-him) became a hero for defending a town called
Mafeking. He held out for 217 days using home-made
ammunition and guns made from drainpipes. Mafeking
was finally relieved.

PHEW! THATS
A etal

BP always had his own odd ways of doing things.

Africans nicknamed him Mhlalapanzi — which means the
man who lies down to shoot. Apparently BP once shot a

126
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

hippo while lying on his back and firing between his

legs. (Don’t try this one at home!) Many of Baden-
Powell’s fellow officers thought he was a complete
headcase. During the defence of Mafeking, BP printed
stamps. It seemed an odd way to fight a war but Baden-
Powell’s stamps bore his own head instead of the
Queen’s. He claimed the idea was to keep up morale, but
when Victoria heard, she didn’t see the funny side.
When not working on his stamp collection, BP loved
nothing better than to dress up in disguise and go off on
a daring adventure. Once he was sent to find out about
the guns in an enemy fortress. Instead of sneaking up
under the cover of darkness, Baden-Powell disguised
himself as a mad butterfly-collector. Armed with a
butterfly net and a notebook he boldly walked around
the fortress. His sketches of butterflies looked innocent
enough but actually they contained cunningly hidden
secret information. . .

ANY
\\
W\\
SS
ae
—_
=
—s
—
——
_
=
Pete
pes

eae
ae
=
=
Se

E27
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

BP later wrote a thrilling book called My Adventures as

a Spy. But it was his handbook for soldiers, Aids for
Scouting, that gave him the idea for the Boy Scout
movement. With a hero like Baden-Powell in charge,
the idea of a boys’ own club soon caught on. The first
Scout uniform looked like this:

TRILBY HAT
NU

SOUTH AFRICAN
CONSTABULARY
SHIRT

SHORTS ~__y
AND
GOLF
SOCKS

(During the Second World War the Nazis actually

believed that Boy Scouts were a branch of the British
Secret Service! )

Whether Britain was fighting the Boers or the Russians,

Victoria embodied the fighting spirit of the nation. Even
in old age she telegraphed messages of encouragement to
her generals and visited her injured troops in hospital.
It was Victoria who was the first monarch to actually
present medals to her soldiers in person. Previous kings

128
 ‘We are an Empress’ — The British Empire

had drawn the line at actually touching the hand of a

common soldier, but Victoria thought nothing of taking
such risks. She even invented anew medal for outstanding
bravery — the Victoria Cross.
1.CROSS VICTORIA 2. VICTORIA CROSS
ee

HO W WE LAUGHED’
~Queen Victoria was amus
After the first time the Queen presented medals to
her troops, Mrs Norton was talking to Lord Panmure
about the unique event.
‘Was the Queen touched” she asked.
‘Bless my soul, no!’ was the reply. ‘She had a brass
railing before her, and no one could touch her.’
‘I mean was she moved?’ persisted Mrs Norton.
‘Moved!’ answered Lord Panmure, ‘she had no
occasion to move!’
Mrs Norton gave up.

Of course one day the sun would finally set on the glory
of the British Empire. After the First World War its
colonies eventually started to break away and Britain
didn’t have the resources to keep them. The Empire was
gradually replaced by the Commonwealth — a kind of old
boys’ club for ex-members.

i?
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria was probably glad she didn’t live to see that

day. The Queen was getting old and wobbly on her legs.
One of her subjects wrote her a helpful letter suggesting
that she ought to be attached to a hot-air balloon, so
that she could float around rather than walk!

mm

-Yet even if she was doddery, Victoria’s Britain was still

Great Britain. Victorians were made of stern stuff and
Baden-Powell wasn’t the only one who became a hero.
Whether it was writing novels, building ships or
making scientific discoveries, the glorious Victorians
led the world.

130
 ‘WE ARE PROUD’
|_- GLORIOUSVICTORIANS |¢@3y
Victoria’s reign lasted from almost the beginning of the
nineteenth century to its end. It was a century of great
change and invention. Take travel, for example. Victoria
saw the first train rides and the first bicycles. She saw
ships change from wood and sail to iron and steam. She
even saw the first car (although she thought it would
never catch on).
The Victorian age was the time when Britain really
did think of itself as truly Great. Not only did Britain
tule the biggest empire in the world, the British also
liked to think they led the world in science, industry, art
and literature. Names like Tennyson, Dickens, Brunel
and Livingstone stood proudly for British achievement.
Life changed almost out of recognition during the
Victorian age. At the beginning of her reign Victoria
would have gone to bed by candlelight, but by the end
she could read by the marvel of the electric light and
even speak on the telephone.

‘ey
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

WICLORAW INVENTIONS
~from the brilliant to the bonkers
Some inventions during Victoria’s reign — such as
the electric light and the telephone — changed the
way that people lived. Other inventions — such as
the Alarum Bedstead — have been completely
forgotten, but they deserve a mention because they
were so delightfully crackpot. Here’s a brief selection
of Victorian inventions, from the sensible and the
sensational, to the nutty as a fruitcake.

1 The Alarum Bedstead

Oversleeping? Finding it hard to get out of bed in
the morning? Dozy Victorians could always try the
ingenious Alarum Bedstead. Not only would it wake
you up but it made sure you got out of bed as well!

ALARM CLOCK FRONT

One LEGS iP
SLEEPER TIPPED
ATTACHED To ON To FLOo
BEDSTEAD FOLD UNDER ae. : ‘
OLD
GATH
STANDING
READY

ES

ZB ~S Lo tre AAAS r
Ingenious! Hard to imagine why it didn’t catch on.

132
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

2 The post box

Before 1840 ordinary people couldn’t post letters as
there was no postal service. The first post boxes
were installed on the island of Jersey in 1852 — the
brainwave of the Victorian novelist Anthony
Trollope. Post boxes soon followed in London, and
the first ones were hexagonal (six-sided) rather
than round like modern pillar boxes. In London
you can go spotting Victorian post boxes...

THEY ‘VE GoT

MY NAME ON!

3 The Sociable bicycle

The early days of bicycles saw inventors pedalling
some truly batty ideas. One was the Sociable (1882)
which tried to make riding a bike more . . . well,
sociable. Two riders sat side-by-side between two
enormous wheels, steering with a smaller wheel out
in front. The idea was that you could chat to each
other as you went along. This could lead to nasty
accidents which perhaps explains why the Sociable
wasn’t a wheel success.

133
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

4 The telephone
The telephone was invented by a Scot, Alexander
Graham Bell. He visited Queen Victoria at Osborne
House on 14 January 1878 to demonstrate his
startling invention. Victoria’s verdict?

5 The shower
The first shower appeared in the mid 1800s, though
it wasn’t much like the power-showers we know
today. The Victorian version was a tall curtained
tent with a lid punctured with holes on top. A line
of servants had to pass jugs of water to a maid on a
ladder who poured the water into the lid and down
onto the bather. Not surprisingly only the rich
could afford to take a shower.
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

6 The speaking tube

Another invention — that
appeared in the Victorian
home around 1850. Many
servants lived in their own
quarters and it was a tiresome
nuisance for the master or
mistress to have to shout
downstairs for them. With
the handy new invention you
could simply whistle down
the tube to call for attention.

7 Loos and rolls

Toilets and their unsavoury stinks were a problem
even for royals like Prince Albert. The first public
loo opened in 1852. It closed soon after as the
public objected to paying two pence to spend a
penny. (It cost another two pence to wash your
hands.) Toilets for the home came’ in all kinds of
designs and with marvellous names like Niagara
Falls, Waterloo, Deluge
and» .Grapper. ©-The
invention of perforated
toilet paper was the
brainwave of Walter
James Alcock in the
1880s. However, tear-off
loo paper wasn’t easy to
market to the prudish
Victorians.

135
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

8 Strike a light
Before the 1820s, getting a spark to light a fire or a
pipe was a slow business involving a tinder-box.
Then English chemist John Walker was struck with
a sure-fire idea: a light on a stick! The first matches
were nicknamed Lucifers and were soon followed
by the inventions of phosphorous and safety
matches.

9 Chocolate bars
Chocolate had mouths watering at the Great
Exhibition of 1851. Two years earlier Fry’s of Bristol
unwrapped what they claimed was the world’s first
moulded choc bar. Jelly Babies followed in 1864
and by the end of the century the Victorians were
sucking up to Liquorice Allsorts.

10 The steam aeroplane

‘Victorians have the steam ship and
the steam train, so why not the
steam plane? That was the question
asked by Scottish inventor, Joseph
Kaufmann. Kaufmann designed a
plane powered by a steam engine
with wings that flapped up and
down. He boasted it could travel
through the air at 50 miles an hour
(80 kph). Unfortunately, when he
built a small model in 1869 the
wings flapped so violently that the
whole plane fell to bits.

136
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

TOW WE LAUGHED
~Queen Victoria was amuUS
When they weren’t inventing daft machines,
Victorians liked to be royally entertained. There
was a wealth of talent to choose from. The poorer
classes went to the music hall which offered
entertainment ranging from ‘acrobats and jugglers
to popular songs.
In 1844 the great American showman Phineas T.
Barnum brought his company to London. Victoria’s
tastes were as lowbrow as any of her subjects and she
was eager to see ‘General’ Tom Thumb, the pocket-
sized entertainer — only 37 inches (97 cms) high.
Barnum and the General were summoned to appear
at Buckingham Palace. After running through his
repertoire of songs, dances and impressions, the
General was attacked by Victoria’s poodle as he
tried to make his exit walking backwards. (It was
rude to turn your back on the Queen.)
The richer classes could choose from theatre,
concerts or opera. The Queen could choose from
anything she liked. Going to the theatre was such a
drag so Victoria often had the theatre brought to
her. An entire stage play and its cast would be
transported to Windsor or Balmoral. This was
expensive but Victoria didn’t need to worry about
that. Entertainments ranged from the Royal Opera
to Welsh male voice choirs and performances of
Shakespeare or Victorian melodramas.

137
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

The Queen also loved amateur theatricals and

thought nothing of dragging all her children,
servants and secretaries into a private performance.
If anything in the play offended her she simply had
it cut or changed. For example, a performance of
the play She Stoops to Conquer led to problems
when royals mixed with commoners — usually
members of the Queen’s household.
ue
\The Queen came ta the rehearsals, which frightened
“us all very much. When the taw me chucking
[stroking] Princess Louise under the chin (9 was
suppoted to. mistake her for a barmaid) she thought
this was overdone. 9 received a message that 3 had
better not indulge in any chucking under the chin.
Fritz Ponsonby — son of Victoria’s Private Secretary. \
wy

We are not amused

How did Victoria’s famous catch phrase come about?
There are several versions of the story. One tale involves
an unfortunate subject who dared to do an impression of
Queen Victoria to her face. The unfortunate Admiral
Maxse — at the Queen’s request — was said to have put a
hanky on his head and blown out his cheeks.

138
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

Victoria told him: ‘We are not amused,’ in her iciest voice.
That tale sounds far-fetched. Another, likelier, version
involves Victoria’s master of entertainment, Sir Alick
Yorke. During a dinner party at Windsor, Sir Alick told
a rude joke to a German visitor who made the mistake
of laughing too loudly. The Queen immediately
demanded that Yorke tell her what had caused so much
amusement. Yorke repeated the story and got the famous
reply. (You may remember Victoria is supposed to have
used the words to Gladstone too!)
It’s a pity that the famous phrase has made people
think of Victoria as a grumpy old trout who couldn’t take
a joke. She was often amused with a laugh that could be
heard halfway down the street.

A Z
VICTORI
© Troite
DN
A'S SECRET DIARY
d Ackmiral Foley to lunch The poor
man is vather hard of hearing Dut told
me the story about the Sad Sinking of
his ship The Eurydice. Trying to cheer
him up,Ichanged the subject and
asked him, “How és Your sister?
Deaf as a post, he
answered: ‘Well Maam,
I am going to have her
tuned over avd take
A Jood Look at her =
bottom and have tt scraped.

139
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

k You can't imagine how much I laughed!

SXN Thaa to put down my knife and fork
~\
~

and hide my face in my tee

handkerchief. TShook till
oF >
oO
the tears Yolled down
my face. Meanwhile the %
Poor Admifal was quite
(ignorant of what hed +
Said. oo ag

Game for a laugh

Victoria also enjoyed playing games. Her diary during
the period when she proposed to Albert says:

T played two games of Lactics with dearest Albert,

and two of Fox and Geese. Stayed up till 11.20
p.m., a delightful evening”

Albert would have preferred to invite men of

literature and science to court but his wife much
preferred a game of cards to long-winded discussions.
Many Victorians would have been shocked to know that
their queen actually gambled for money.
One popular card game was Commerce and even the
upright and religious Mr Gladstone was drawn into
gambling with the Queen. On one occasion he told his
wife it was a good job he didn’t lose as before going to
dinner he’d ‘locked up his purse’. (Perhaps to stop the
moths escaping.)

140
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

Victoria’s pleasures were simple and she was easily

amused. While Shakespeare and the opera were
considered to be ‘respectable’ theatre, Victoria preferred
silly comedies and melodramas and laughed louder than
anyone. At court she entered into any game such as
charades or guessing riddles with great enthusiasm.

ITS ASONG- FouR

WORDS— GOD SAVE 5

THE SOMETHING...?

Glorious Victorians
Great Britain wouldn’t have been half so great without
some of the big names of the day. Victoria was a great
lover of novels and poetry and was a big fan of Charles
Dickens and Lord Tennyson, to name just two. With so
many glorious Victorians to choose from it’s hard to say
who was the greatest or most influential. Perhaps we
should ask Victoria herself?

CHARLES DICKENS

Claim to fame: Telling a

good story. Dickens penned
whopping big novels like |
David Copperfield and Oliver
Twist (the musical came
much later).

141
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

He’d got to pick a pocket or two? Despite growing rich,

he never stopped worrying about being poor. He made
extra money with public readings which were as popular
as train rides, though not as smutty.

Victoria’s view: The Queen was Charlie’s number

one fan. She once gave him a copy of her own book
and signed it, ‘from the humblest of writers to one of
the greatest.’

What the Dickens? Dickens

was terribly smitten with the
Queen before her wedding. He
confessed, ‘I am sorry to say |
have fallen hopelessly in love
with the Queen, and wander
up and down with vague and
Ha ee dismal thoughts of running
PreemY : away with a Maid of Honour.’

THE BRONTE SISTERS MY BOoK'S BIGGER

dass oe Book.
The Spice Girls of their day?
Be serious. Anne, Charlotte
and Emily were novelists at a
time when women were meant
to stick to pressing flowers.
Charlotte’s book, Jane Eyre, is
a classic romance. Emily’s
Wuthering Heights is a dark
tale of passion and betrayal.

142
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

Not many giggles then? What do you expect? The

Brontés were raised in a gloomy vicarage on the
Yorkshire Moors.
CY ee GUESS WHAT, ITS
WY RAIN

Because women weren’t supposed to write novels,

they even had to write under false names to get their
books published.

Victoria’s view: The Queen read Jane Eyre and thought

it, ‘awfully thrilling.’

OSCAR WILDE

Claim to fame: Writing

clever theatrical comedies
such as The Importance of
Being Earnest.

Tell us a joke, Oscar! th

Wilde was a great wit and

had Victorian audiences
rolling in the aisles. His
specialty was turning ideas upside down. Example:
‘There is only one thing worse in the world than being
talked about, and that is not being talked about.’

143
QQueen Victoria: Her Great Events

Was he talked about? A lot. Especially when it became

known he was gay (which was illegal then). It shocked
Victorian society and Oscar was sent to jail. His health
never recovered and he died in exile. Legend says that
his last words were: ‘Either that wallpaper goes or I do.’

Victoria’s view: Not recorded. Oscar said the Queen

was one of the three women he admired most and would
have married with pleasure. (The other two were an
actress and a singer.)
CHARMED, I’M SURE

ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL

Is he what? A big name for a little man with a huge

reputation. Brunel was an engineer who stood 5’ 4” tall in
his socks. He puffed on big
cigars and wore a stove-pipe
top hat into which he
stuffed his papers when
going on a journey. Two of
his big ideas were the
Clifton Suspension Bridge
(still standing in Bristol)
and the Great Western.

144
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

Great Western? Was he a cowboy builder? Ha ha!

Actually, the Great Western was a monster ship — the
fastest steamer to cross the Atlantic in its day.

Worst move: Isambard went on to build an even bigger

ship — the Great Eastern. In fact it was so big it got stuck
in the dock and took two months to launch. By then
Brunel was bankrupt.

Victoria’s view: The Queen wasn’t on speaking terms

with builders. Especially if they smoked cigars.

ARTHUR, LORD TENNYSON

Claim to fame: Victorian poet. cy

—>

Give us a rhyme, Arthur!

Tennyson’s most famous poem was eS NSS
In Memoriam. Since it was sad and
about death and mourning, it was
right up the (Queen’s street.
Tennyson wrote a poem for Victoria too, proving he
could creep with the best of them. Example:

Her court was pure, her life serene

God gave her peace, her land reposed; |
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen.

Victoria’s view: The Queen’s fave poet and a lifelong

chum. Victoria liked his bluntness. Once at Osborne,

145
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Tennyson grumbled that he was always being pestered by

intruders at his house. Victoria said she herself wasn’t much
troubled by them. To which Tennyson replied, ‘Perhaps I
shouldn’t be either if I could stick a sentry at my gates.’

ee
IY
TENNYSON] | WW
CoTTAGE | | |
SE) al aS

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

Claim to fame: Great Scot! — A Highland missionary

and explorer.

Up Loch Ness with a paddle?

Africa was more Livingstone’s
line. He discovered the
Victoria Falls on his 4,000-
mile trek across Africa. In
1866 he went back to find the
source of the Nile, but
vanished for several years.
American Henry Stanley .
went to try and locate him.

Don’t tell me — Stanley got lost too? No, he found him.

Their meeting is famous. Stanley doffed his hat and said
‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’ Livingstone raised his cap

146
 ‘We are proud’ — Glorious Victorians

and smiled, ‘Yes.’ (Great Victorians were awfully polite

even at historic moments.)

Victoria’s view: Livingstone died in 1873 — the only

missionary to be honoured with a national funeral in
Westminster Abbey. Victoria didn’t go but she sent a
nice wreath.
(fP0M AFRAID THE
WREATH HAS GOT
LOST, MA’AM

CHARLES DARWIN

Claim to fame: Biologist who

invented the theory of
evolution in his blockbusting
book The Origin of Species.

Anybody read it? In a nutshell

Darwin claimed that all life
had ‘evolved’ from the same
ancestors. Famously this made
monkeys out of our early
relatives.

Give the man a banana! Many Victorians wanted to give

him a punch on the nose. Darwin’s theory caused a mighty
stink since it challenged the Bible’s version of
Creation (there’s no mention of monkeys). Darwin was
accused of blasphemy and the public outcry made him ill.

147
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria’s view: The Queen was often surrounded by

hairy apes but they were the government.

So if you had to choose, who was the most Glorious

Victorian of them all?
No contest.
 \
y

£2\_-nwitecitine
|ey WE ARE OLD?
6

Queen Victoria was getting on a bit. As her Golden

Jubilee approached — a half century on the throne — she
was heading towards her seventies. By the end of the
century she would have reigned longer than any king or
queen in British history.
She was more tired than she used to be and still
missing dear Albert, but she wasn’t ready to quit. If there
was one thing Victoria believed in it was doing her duty,
and it was her duty to @DORTRAIT IN OLD AGE:
carry on as queen until
her dying breath. In her fwipow’s CAP
sunset years (Queen Grey
Victoria became the fat
little old lady dressed in [= ees
black that we know }
Gg

from photographs. Even

WA yy

o > 14 lat

for her big Jubilee party yp” XO

she would refuse to put 4

on her crown and dress ALMOST AS WIDE NoT AMUSED
like a queen. AS SHE 1S TALL EXPRESSION

149
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Little Big Queen

The Queen wasn’t getting any thinner. By her 50s she had
already reached a porky 12 stone. At about five feet tall
she looked like a little black battleship. In old age she went
on eating and getting fatter. The first diet was published in
1867 but Victoria for one didn’t bother to read it. Her
doctor, Sir James Reid, recommended a milky cereal called
Benger’s food. Victoria liked it but simply added it to the
rest of her daily menu.
She needed a walking stick to get around and her
eyesight wasn’t so good, but there was nothing wrong with
her appetite. Victoria liked rich foods like brown Windsor
soup laced with a drop of wine. Boiled chicken, potatoes
and peas were also favourites, as was mutton. When staying
at Balmoral she was fond of haggis — a tempting Scottish
delicacy made of offal (hearts, livers, lungs and other
yummy stuff) wrapped in the stomach of a cow or sheep.
The Queen was fond of pastries and puddings too —
strawberries and cream, if on offer, but she would just as
happily tuck into a home-made toffee cake.
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

V7? 7
~S
I fy
ify,

S VICTORIA’S SECRET DIARY

Vi

June 1886 ZS ¢
Staying at Batmoral. Weather splendid. 4 )
So allwent out for a picnic tea. Only a ’
light Lunch with Sandwiches, Scones, ae
Slices of ast, cakes, Pastries and.
chocolate biscuits.
Of course I eat but Kpe
little myself paving = Ct
little appetite. I tried SES axl
two of everything 2h
(just to be polite) but then yesisted all
temptations. Tam afraid Tmust not
have any more, J told them flably and \
Would not. (Except for a little a
Strawberry shortcake which T couldnt °,
beay to see going te waste)
As one gets older one has to
look after one’s figure.
All that fresh air's made me
hungry again, Wonder what's
for dinner?
Victoria was a fast eater which gave her the advantage
over her dinner guests. If there was a choice of either hot
or ice puddings on the menu, she’d help herself to both,

151
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

while the others were still trying to decide! Her guests

often suffered as a result of her speed eating. When Her
Majesty’s plate was empty, scarlet-coated footmen would
quickly appear and whisk away all the plates whether
people had finished or not. This was too much for one
visitor, hungry Lord Hartington, who saw his dinner
disappearing out the door and roared, ‘Bring that back!’

S R77CTORIAN VALUES J=
Food glorious food
If the Queen made a pig of herself, her subjects
were just as porky. In a rich house the cooks might
serve up ham, tongue, pheasant, kippers, kidneys,
eggs, bacon and porridge — and that was just for a
light breakfast!
The Guildhall in London saw many great state
banquets but probably the greatest one was for
Victoria’s coronation in 1837. On that occasion
there were 570 guests who managed to chew their
way through enough food for an army:
200 tureens of turtle soup
45 dishes of shellfish
2 barons of beef
10 sirloins, ramps and ribs of beef
50 boiled turkeys and oysters
80 pheasants
60 pigeon pies
45 hams

152
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

140 jellies
200 ice creams
40 dishes of tarts
100 pineapples and more

There were 39 dishes in all. It’s no wonder

Victorian magazines were always advertising pills
for heartburn and wind!
Poor people, on the other hand, didn’t get much
of a chance to eat ice cream. In the workhouse the
daily menu was a revolting porridge called gruel. It
was made from ground oatmeal and served as thinly
as possible.
YY Ue UA PLEASE SIR, | DON'T
Ve DO WANT ANY. MORE |
US ee) “Yyywyy
SS.
a

Those workers who had a roof over their heads

often lacked a stove to cook their food. If you could
afford some meat it could be taken to the bake-
house where it would be cooked for a small fee.
Market stalls in Victorian streets often sold hot
chestnuts, potatoes or tea because the poor couldn’t
get hot meals at home.

Party plans
As the 50th birthday of her reign approached, Victoria
was as popular as she’d ever been. The years of hiding

153
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

after Albert’s death were forgotten and Victorians were

queuing up to sing the praises of their Queen. Fifty years
on the throne was not to be sniffed at, especially for
those who remembered the bad old days of the monarchy
before Victoria.
Plans for the great Jubilee party were soon drawn up.
The Viceroy of India wrote that ‘all the ladies of Calcutta
are ordering Jubilee bustles.’ Over one million “Women
of England’ signed a petition urging the Queen to close
pubs on a Sunday. Victoria, who preferred whiskey in her
tea to milk, turned a deaf ear.
A collection was taken up for the Jubilee, raising
£75,000 in Britain alone. What was to be done with it?
Should the money go to the poor, to hospitals, to the
unemployed? Victoria was in no doubt.

‘ANOTHER

There were rumours that Victoria might use the Jubilee

to stand aside in favour of her son, Bertie. Anyone who
believed that didn’t know Victoria. She told her friends,
who passed it on to Bertie, that he was unfit to be king
and that she hoped to outlive him. Poor Bertie was
always the black sheep of the family though he tried his
best to please his mum. His New Year present to her was

154
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

a Jubilee inkstand. When you opened the lid you saw the
Queen’s head and her face reflected in a pool of blue ink.
‘Very pretty and useful,’ remarked Victoria. Soon Jubilee
souvenirs were selling like hot cakes. Here are a few
useful items you could have bought in London.

4. JUBILEE CUPS
SAND SAUCERS
\

4.MUSICAL BUSTLES |
THAT PLAY BS SAVE
THE QUEEN’ WHEN
S.WALKING STICKS You SIT DOWN
WITH ‘VICTORIA’ re ;
KNOBS ON

The real party got underway on 20th June. By then the

whole of the country was bubbling with excitement. The
celebrations began with a modest family lunch — 50
kings, queens and princes from all over Europe. All of
them were Victoria’s relatives. She sat wedged between
the Kings of Denmark and Greece while the Belgian
king sat opposite her. The light lunch didn’t cater for
vegetarians — it included cold beef, roast fowl, venison
steaks, chicken, veal and roast lamb — all served on
dishes of gold plate. The next day came the procession
to Westminster for a service of thanksgiving.

155
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

THE HARD TIMES

21st June 1837

GOD BLESS HER!

When the great day came,
Queen Victoria did it her own R
way, as she has done for the
last 50 years. No glass coach,
no robes of state, no crowns
and sceptres. Just a small
figure dressed in a black dress
and bonnet surrounded by no
1 OF Ogi
less than 32 princes of Europe.
een
“There she was a little old
lady coming to church to thank and the cheering and applause
God for the long years in which was. thunderous. After the
she had ruled her people,’ said service the royals filed past the
one eyewitness. Queen. Typically she stepped
It’s said the Queen wept at forward and embraced each of
the start of the day — perhaps them in turn. What dignity!
overcome with the occasion. What majesty! What a pity
Crowds thronged the streets on about that hat!
the way to Westminster Abbey

Victoria wrote in her journal...

This never to beforgotten day will always leave the

most gratifying and heart stirring memories behind, L
Qa

156
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

That was the official story anyway. In fact the little old
lady was ‘half dead with fatigue’ by the end of the day.
And the next day the celebrations started all over again!
Maybe Victoria’s real feelings were less ‘gratifying’ than
she pretended.
:
N VICTORIA'S
SECRET DIARY “i
21st June 1887 — ae
Warned Archbishop of
Canterburyto keep the
Service Short. Youve
simply no idea how hot
it can get wearing Ss
umpteen layers of Silk undies!

a
Githlon

157
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

22nd Tune ey
Yet more dratted Jutilee events to sit 7
through! T6 Hyde Fark for a party for
26,000 schoolchildren. Each child got
& bun, a glass of milk and a mug with
My face on it. (the Yoyal mug one might
Say.) Children sang ‘God Save the
Queen’. Quite out of tune if you ask me.
Finally a balloon was a
released and floated
into the sky.
Pm told
one little urchin said:
“Oh look! There’s the
Queen going up to
heaven!’ How I wish. aie
Back to Windsor - more Speeches,
more bands, more crowds - where will it
all end?
Fell asleep, exhausted! Dreamed of
Albert floating over me with milk on his
moustache. =

158
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

Only one thing went wrong during the celebrations, but

Victoria never mentioned it in her official diary. During
the impressive fireworks display a bouquet of flowers
was supposed to change into a huge blazing portrait of
the Queen’s head. Unfortunately some faulty fireworks
meant that the right eye of the Queen blinked on and
off. It looked just as if she was winking at the crowds. We
don’t know if Victoria was amused.

Idle servants — Munshi-mania

Victoria did give herself one Jubilee present during the
year. She’d often wished she could visit India, but since
the country was far too hot, she brought a bit of India to
England. The Empress sent for two Indian servants who
promptly knelt and kissed her feet on their arrival.
However the younger one, Abdul Karim, was by no
means a crawler. Karim claimed to be the son of an
Indian doctor (actually a prison chemist). He soon made
it clear he was not a common servant.

V7 x :
AND DON'T EXPECT TYMEEITToHER
HANDS DIR
if
if ax \)

Karim was known as the Munshi — Victoria’s Indian

secretary. His duties were hardly taxing. He waited on
the Queen to dry the ink of her signature and gave her

| 8a,
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

lessons in Hindustani. The Munshi proved himself a

splendid successor to John Brown and he was just as
unpopular at court as the rude Scotsman.
Black-bearded and turbanned, the Munshi gave
himself airs above all the other servants. Once, when
asked to sit with the servants to watch a play, he refused
and went to sulk in his room. After that he generally ate
with the Queen’s own household, including the Lords
and Ladies in Waiting who hated the sight of him.

Fortunately he happens to be a
thoroughly stupid and uneducated
man, and his one idea in life seems
to be to do nothing and eat as
much as he can.

Sir Henry Ponsonby

The Munshi was given a furnished house at Osborne

where large numbers of his relatives claiming to be his
wife and aunts came and went. Dr Reid, the Queen’s
doctor, remarked that every time a Mrs Karim fell ill, a
different tongue was put out for him to examine.
The general contempt for the Munshi was partly
Victorian prejudice, but it’s true he lorded it over even.
his fellow Indian servants. Matters came to a head when
the Queen’s household finally rebelled. On a trip to
France they told the Queen that it was the Munshi or
them — she’d better choose. Victoria went into a rage
and swept all the papers off her desk. Finally it was
decided the Munshi would not travel in the Queen’s
train but follow in an ordinary one. But the more people

160
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

complained about the Munshi, the more Victoria

defended him.

Ladies in Waiting
Queen Victoria was surrounded by vast numbers of staff.
On a holiday trip to France, she declared she couldn’t
manage without less than a hundred. Not all of them
were servants, some of them were the Queen’s
companions. What exactly did a Lady in Waiting do
(besides waiting around)? Their duties included looking
nice on state occasions and gossiping with the Queen. If
there were visitors the Queen’s Ladies looked after them
and they also had to scribble down the endless notes that
Victoria was in the habit of sending.
The Queen’s Lords and Ladies were carefully selected...
PN OO GD,

(MAID OF HONOUR) ¥"/ Lady Southampton is very

sy
ODPL
eee
oS
kind ... but her dullness is
beyond description.
q

eIS05

Sy REJECTED

When Marie Adeane was first approached to become a

Maid of Honour (a sort of junior Lady in Waiting) she
was presented with a four-part questionnaire.

161
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

o~9 QUESTIONNAIRE ©
4, Does the candidate read
and write edi ak
hand
German?.
2. Can she pla
hey aspiano, So
as to play u ets cith the
Prats "Boabrice?
3. Horseback riding: sien
proficiency can she Show? .
Ts she engaged to be
‘ married” oF likelyto be?..

Victoria didn’t like members of her household getting

married. It was so inconvenient for her to lose her staff.
‘It is too tiresome,’ she said when her doctor, Sir James
Reid, married one of her young Maids of Honour.
It must have been a dull life at times: breakfast at
9.30, luncheon at 2 p.m., a drive in the afternoon,
dinner at 9 p.m. and a little music in the drawing room
before Her Majesty’s yawn signalled it was time for bed.
At least there were occasional funny moments. Once, a
nervous Maid of Honour sang for the Queen but forgot
to remember the tremolos (wobbly notes to you). ‘Does
she not shake? asked the Queen. ‘Oh yes, ma’am,’
replied the girl’s mother, ‘she’s shaking all over.’

162
 ‘We are old’ — The Jubilee years

HOW WE LAUGHED’
~Queen Victoria was amused
Victoria’s sense of humour was once tickled at
Balmoral by a bustle (a sausage-shaped object used to
pad dresses). Just as the Queen was going out of the
room she stepped on something which turned out to
be somebody’s bustle. All the ladies present promptly
denied it was theirs. Lord Knutsford said it looked like
Sir Henry Ponsonby’s, which reduced Victoria to fits
of giggles. Eventually the head butler solemnly
announced that the ‘property’ belonged to the
Duchess of Roxburghe. A page presented the large
sausage to the red-faced Duchess who denied ever
having seen it. The Queen was by this point helpless
with laughter. Finally the mystery was solved when
one of the maids owned up to having lost her bustle.

Bad Bertie — all grown up and nothing to do

‘Gangan’, as Victoria’s grandchildren called her, was
entering her 70s. Meanwhile her middle-aged son, bad
Bertie, was still waiting in the wings. As far as Victoria
was concerned he could wait for ever. She never
believed he would make a good king. The model of
manhood, in Victoria’s view, was dear dead Albert, and
Bertie was as different from his father as beer from
champagne.
By the 1890s Bertie was an ageing, plump playboy
with nothing better to do than bet on racehorses and
chase women. (Bertie had married Princess Alexandra

163
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

in 1863, but this didn’t stop him having other

‘sirlfriends’.) Victoria disapproved of his ‘fast’ way of
life, moving from one party or racecourse to the next.

The country and all of us

would like to see you a little
more stationary.

But Bertie didn’t want to be solid and dutiful. He liked

parties and practical jokes with his rich pals. One of his
cronies, Christopher Sykes, was sometimes made to
crawl around under the table saying ‘As your Royal
Highness pleases,’ while Bertie splashed brandy down
his neck. When he was king, one of Bertie’s favourite
pranks was to leave a dead bird or a dried pea in one of
his guest’s beds. Victoria would certainly not have been
amused.

Victoria hated the thought of Bertie becoming king. But

she had to face facts — she couldn’t go on for ever. One
thing she’d always enjoyed was a good funeral and she

SSS
We
NSS
>
 “WE ARE DEPARTED’
- THE END AT LAST

Queen Victoria still had one last hooray left. On 22nd

June 1897 she celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. It was a
record-breaking occasion. She’d spent 60 years on the
throne. That meant she’d reigned longer than any other
British monarch in history.
Unlike the Golden Jubilee party which was a family
affair, the Diamond Jubilee was a celebration of the
glorious British Empire.

THE HARD TIMES

22nd June 1397

EVERY INCH A QUEEN

They came from every corner Zealand, China, South Africa,
of the Empire to wish her and the magnificent bearded
well. Canadian Mounties, lancers of the Indian Empire.
Jamaican artillery, giant The procession stretched as
Maories, troops from New far as the eye could see.
Wy

165
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

At the back was a carriage

drawn by eight cream-
coloured horses. Through a
storm of waving hankies, past
thousands of eager faces, and
wave upon wave of cheers
came Queen Victoria. ‘So
very quiet, so very grave, so
very punctual, so unmistakably
and every inch a Queen,’ as
one eyewitness put it.
The service at St Paul’s was
kept short out of respect for the
Queen’s age and poor health.
Afterwards even the Archbishop
of Canterbury got carried away
with the occasion and called
for three cheers for the Queen.
The echo could have been
heard by Nelson in Trafalgar
Square. people. May God bless them,’
Earlier Victoria had pressed And by the modern wonder of
a button and sent a personal the telegraph, her voice was
message to her subjects. ‘From carried to every corner of her
my heart I thank my beloved — glorious Empire.

As usual the papers forgot to mention the things that

didn’t quite go to plan. During the Diamond Jubilee the
House of Commons wished to present a loyal address to
the Queen. This involved the usual long-winded speeches
by the Speaker of the House. But when the moment

166
 ‘We are departed’ — The end at last

arrived the MPs disgraced themselves. In their eagerness

to get a good look at Her Majesty, they nearly trampled
her down in the rush. An eyewitness described the
shocking scene:

The doors at the ather end of the the ballroom were

then opened and in came the House of Commons like a
crowd being let on to the ground after a football
match, .. This dishevelled mass of humanity came at the

that they were called upon to. do or die. We moued

aut
forming a protecting screen, and stemmed the tide while
the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward tried to. find
the Speaker.

Frederick Ponsonby — Recollections of Three Reigns

You can imagine what Queen Victoria thought of this

disgraceful behaviour and she didn’t mince her words in
telling her Ministers.
The Diamond Jubilee would be the last great party for
the British Empire. Britain went into the First World

167
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

War as one of the richest countries in the world. By the

end of the war the piggy bank would be empty and
Britain would be in debt. In four years the country
exhausted the riches of the Victorian age. It was a good
job Victoria wouldn’t be there to see her precious Empire
go down the plug-hole.

The royal grandma

By 1899, the Queen was a grand old grandma of 80.
She received between three and four thousand letters of
congratulations on her birthday. She still joked about
her age and said she felt quite young. Rheumatism in her
legs meant she couldn’t walk any more. A masseuse
known as ‘the Rubber’ was employed to rub the royal
legs. When Victoria wanted to get around she used her
‘rolling chair’ — a Victorian version of a wheelchair.

MERRILY WE
ROLL ALONG

Sometimes a servant or member of the household was

called to carry the fat little Queen from one room to
another, chair and all. For short visits, Victoria would be
pulled along in her donkey-drawn carriage. This wasn’t
such fun for her family who had to trot breathlessly
along behind, trying to answer the Queen’s questions.
It seemed as if she would go on for ever. At the age of
81 Victoria suddenly decided she’d make her first trip to

168
 ‘We are departed’ — The end at last

Ireland for 40 years. ‘It is entirely my own idea,’ she said,

‘and I must confess it is not entirely to please the Irish,
but partly because I expect to enjoy myself!’ Despite the
history of troubles between Britain and Ireland, Queen
Victoria got a surprisingly warm welcome. In one village
a woman yelled out, ‘God bless the Queen!’ ‘And down
with the Minister!’ answered another voice from across
the road. .
The Queen’s age began to show during the long, hot
drives through the country and sometimes she dozed off
on the journey. This posed a tricky problem, when a
crowd of villagers was waiting to
cheer the Queen. Fritz Ponsonby,
her Assistant Private Secretary, —I

got into the habit of digging his

—s

spurs into his horse to make it

jump and whinny. The noise acted
as an alarm call, either waking the
dozy Queen or alerting Princess
Beatrice to give her mother a dig
in the royal ribs.

‘HOW WE LAUGHED
was amus
9

-~Queen Victoria
Victoria’s eyesight had been getting worse for some
time. This led to some strange mix-ups. Once,
when the Queen asked ‘Where is Fritz [Ponsonby]?’,
Lord Balfour stepped forward, not having heard the
question. The Queen, thinking she was talking to

169
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Fritz, asked how his mother was. Balfour was rather

stuck for an answer since his mother had been dead
for some time.
Marie Mallet, a Lady in Waiting, also faced a
delicate situation. In the evenings she would read
the newspaper to the Queen who would often drop
off to sleep. Marie.was under strict instructions to
keep Her Majesty awake. Should she grip the royal
shoulders and give the Queen a good shake? Marie
would try everything. . .
WHOOPS, VV
DROPPED MY FAN

OH, DID |
DROP OFF?

The new century dawned with the Queen in her 82nd

year. The end was near. The old clock was at last
running down. Death was in the air wherever Victoria
looked. In July 1900 her second son, Alfie, died of
cancer. Meanwhile in Germany, her eldest and favourite
daughter was dying. Oddly enough Victoria, who had.

170
 ‘We are departed’ — The end at last

longed for death in the years after she lost Albert — now
didn’t want to call it a day.

After the Prince Consort’s death I

wished to die, but now I wish to
live and do what I can for my
country and those I love.

On Sunday January 13th 1901 Victoria made her last entry

in her famous diary. It wasn’t exactly dramatic stuff. . .

Had a fair night, but was a little Pale Got up earlier ‘

and had some milk. Out before one in the garden A
chair... . Rested a little, had some food and took a [(A&
short drive. . .

She had kept the diary for 70 years, from her ‘sad dull
childhood’ through to her Diamond Jubilee and the new
century. Now, in the last days of her life, it came to a
sudden stop. Victoria went quickly downhill and the
family gathered at her bedside.
On 21st January Bertie went to see his mother and
speak to her. After he’d left the room, her doctor Sir
James Reid stayed at her bedside. He was a bit surprised
when the Queen kept kissing his hand.
Ea
| NEVER KNEW &
ee You CARED! .
See
27)

Y
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

Victoria evidently didn’t realize that Bertie had gone

and thought she was kissing her son’s hand. Perhaps she
was thinking about all the times she’d made his life a
rotten misery.
The next day, Victoria faded fast — ‘like a great three-
decker ship sinking,’ as one of her family said. Seeing
Bertie she put out her arms and embraced him. She died
in the arms of her grandson — Kaiser William of
Germany — who not long after would start the First
World War.
What were Victoria’s famous last words? Some say they
were, ‘Oh Albert. . .” Maybe — after 40 years of mourning —
she saw her dear hubby and was anxious to join him in
heaven. The time had come for the final funeral. Victoria
had some pretty odd ideas about that too.

"THINGS To PLACE IN QUEEN VICTORIAS COFFIN

2.ALBERT'S CLOAK -
N
DRESSING GOW EMBROIDERED BY PRINCESS
ALICE

i EA 5

Uh

3. ALBERT
HAND- A 4.NUMEROUS PHoTos |
PLASTER OF ALBERT AND THE
FAMILY
CAST, NOT TTT

THE REAL
 ‘We are departed’ — The end at last

S.VARIOUS RINGS,
CHAINS, SHAWLS,
HANDKERCHIEFS
- SOUVENIRS FROM
VICTORIA’S LIFE
FROM START To
FINISH

There was one other item that few people knew about.
A photo of her crusty old Scots servant — John Brown. It
had to be placed in the Queen’s left hand and cunningly
hidden under some flowers. If Bertie had seen it he
would have blown his top.
Victoria had dressed in black for 40 years but for her
funeral she decided on a change.

“THE HARD TIMES

1st February 1901

A WHITE FUNERAL
FOR THE QUEEN
Queen Victoria was buried It even snowed to make the
today in the white funeral day complete.
she’d planned for herself. The Queen had requested a
The dead Queen wore her military funeral. However this
wedding veil for the occasion. _backfired when the procession

173
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

ran into a slight hitch. As the Victoria’s body behind!

coffin was being pulled up the It looked like a royal
hill to Windsor Castle, the disaster until the navy stepped
horses bucked and broke their in to save the day. They got the
harnesses. The rest of the King’s permission to drag the
procession went up the hill, gun carriage up the hill by
unaware that they’d left

oa
HEAVE HO, AND Ga
I i
UP SHE RISES...

‘The damn navy ruined the Victoria was buried side by

ceremony, grumbled the army side with her dear Albert at
commander, who was told to Frogmore. They’re together
move his horses. again at last.

It was the end of an era. The close of the Victorian age.

Victoria, for all her pig-headedness and stuffiness, had
been a legend in her own lifetime. She was the Mother
of the Empire, the Empress Queen who ruled over a
quarter of the world’s population. No mean achievement
for a little old lady who rode about in a donkey carriage
and wore a widow’s cap instead of a crown.
Victorians queued up to write soppy verses about the
Queen, while famous writers gave their own verdict:

li4
 ‘We are departed’ — The end at last

TZ mourn the the Good and

| Safe and mothedy }Human, the
old mioldle- class | Likeable, the ever
Queen, who held } Lovable; and the
the nation warm | Peculiar, the never
| under the fold of Uninteresting,
her big hideous

Z “Ceaoae
2)
oe
*
aevss

Writerand §
Cartoonist

AH “ames BoM Sic THEODORE

E ; S MARTIN,
Novelist
at
Biographer of Albert
Queen Victoria: Her Great Events

In the end Victoria stood for everything both good and bad
about the Victorian age. Strength, tradition, a stubborn will
and an unswerving belief in Britain’s greatness.
Bertie, or Edward VII (as he now became), would be
different. Nicknamed Edward the Caresser, Bertie with
his whiskers, hunting dog and strong whiff of cigar
smoke, was ready to usher in a new era. The racey,
fashionable, Edwardian age. And at long last — his
interfering old mother wasn’t there to stop him.

BERTIE, PUT ¥&

THAT CIGAR OUT! |
ZG SS = NARADA AVR
———————————————
AANRN g AW

ZZ.

h
ep

176
 Index
Albert, Prince (Victoria’s husband) 6, 8, 27, bustles 44, 154, 163
37-41, 62-3, 94
buried with 172, 174-5 cardigans 44
family life of 47, 52-6, 59, 61, 66-7, chocolate 136
84, 101, 140 Christmas 62, 119, 125
loss of 49, 92-3, 101-3, 110-11, 114, coal mines, children in 48
- 149,154, 157-8, 163-4, 171 colonies 113, 119, 129
memorials to 90, 97-9 Corn Laws 80
style of 42-4 corsets, stiff 46-7
and toilets 88-9, 135 Crimean War 45, 48, 121-3
work of 48, 50-1, 57-8, 60, 66-71, Crystal Palace (great greenhouse) 69
75, 77, 19-80, 86-7
Anne, Queen (Victoria's distant cousin) 26 Darwin, Charles (biologist) 49, 147-8
Dickens, Charles (novelist) 90, 131, 141-2
Baden-Powell, Robert (Boy Scout inventor) Disraeli, Benjamin (prime minister) 27, 78,
126-8, 130 81-4, 97, 113, 115, 123
Balaclava, battle of 48 drawers, big 46
Balmoral (royal pile) 84, 86-8, 103, 137, 150-1,
163 Edward VII, King (Victoria's son) 8, 55, 61,
bicycles 113 66-7, 89-92, 100-2, 106, 108, 115, 154, 163-4,
bloomers 45 IN-3, 176
Boer War 114, 124-6, 128
Boy Scouts 126-8 famine, in Ireland 48
British East India Company 119-20
British Empire 6-7, 111-30, 165-8, 174 George Ill, King (Victoria’s grandfather) 7,10,
Bronté, Charlotte (novelist) 142-3 27, 87, 100
Bronté, Emily (novelist) 142-3 George IV, King (Victoria's uncle) 10, 12-14,
Brown, John (Victoria’s friend) 103-8, 114-15, 16-17, 27
160, 173 Gladstone, William (prime minister) 82-4, 123,
Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (engineer) 86, 13], 139-40
144-5 Great Exhibition 48, 68-75
Buckingham Palace (royal pile) 57-9, 84, 86-7, 137 Great Stink 76

177
guerrilla tactics 124 steamships 85-6
suffragettes (vote reformers) 109, 123
hoopskirts, invented 43-4 suspenders 45-6

India 81, 90, 112-13, 115-16, 159-60, 165 telephones 131, 134
Indian Mutiny 49, 114, 119-20 Tennyson, Lord (poet) 121, 131, 141, 145-6
Industrial Revolution 14, 75 toilets 87, 135
inventions 14, 44, 68, 75, 82, 119, 129, 131-7, 147 Tories (politicians) 33-4, 78-80
trains 84-6, 160
Jingoism 113-14
Victoria, Queen 5-6
Labour (political party) 78-9 amused/not amused 5-6, 34-5,
Ladies in Waiting 30, 61, 117, 160-2, 170 57, 60, 64-5, 72-3, 77, 83, 106-7,
Light Brigade, Charge of 48, 121-2 T10, 118-19, 129, 137-41, 149, 159,
Livingstone, David (explorer) 49, 131, 146-7 63-4, 169-70
assassination attempts on 60-1,
Melbourne, Lord (prime minister) 27, 33, 35, 107, 115
37-8, 47, 51, 77-9, 109 becoming Queen 26-47
muttonchops (whiskers) 45 children of 54-6, 66-7, 106
coronation of 28-30, 152-3
Nightingale, Florence (nurse) 121-3 death of 91, 116, 165-76
early life of 9-25
Osborne House (royal pile) 84, 86-7, 89, 98, as Empress 8], 90, 112-30
145, 160 favourite fashions of 42-7, 95-7,
116-19, 149, 156, 174
Palmerston, Lord (prime minister) 78, 80, 113 favourite foods of 24, 150-2, 155,
Parliament 7,41, 51, 68, 76, 78-9, 81-2, 90, 97, a
99-100, 114-15 funeral of 173-4
Peel, Robert (prime minister) 33, 78, 80 as hermit 97-8
police, creation of 7,80 and Jubilees 91, 149-64
poor people 69, 74-5, 80, 96, 142, 153 manners of 36-8
purple, fashionable 47 marriage of 37-47, 50-67
in mourning 47, 49, 92-1]
Salisbury, Lord (prime minister) 77 pet hates of 108-9
schools 21-2 schooling of 20-2
sewers 16-7 secret diary of 15-16, 23-5, 31-2,
showers 134 35, 63-4, 99, 105, 139-40, 157-8,
slavery 7 mM

178
 timelines for 7-8, 48-9, 90-1
values of 96-7, 122-3
and Victorian achievements 131
48
work duties of 68-89

waistcoats, double-breasted 44
Whigs (politicians) 77-81
Wilde, Oscar (playwright/poet) 143-4
William IV, King (Victoria's uncle) 7-8, 10, 25,
27]
Windsor Castle (royal pile) 57, 62, 76, 84, 86,
88-9, 93-4, 102, 106, 108, 118, 137, 139, 158, 174
workhouses /,153

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I'M A CHOP OFF
THE OLD BLOCK!
 18, SEEKS
UNSUITABLE
HUSBAND...
 ALLOW ME
TO PRESENT
MY BOTTOM!
\

Wane,
Or:
6269355
Queen Victoria
6 3013021896003
COUNCIL
COUNTYESSEX
 Everybody knows Victoria married a chap
called Albert and wore black clothes all the
time. But did you know that Victoria...
«Went on her holidays in_disguise?
¢ Made people stand while they spoke to her?
¢ Was best pals with her rude Scottish
servant?
Full of her victories, struggles and passages
from her ‘secret’ diary, discover everything
you could ever want to know about
Queen Victoria!

MSCHOLASTIC