Queen Victoria (1819-1901)


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Curryong said:
I would love to read her diaries too and wish someone would publish them. She certainly wasn't very reverential about various royals! Lady Geraldine spent years at Court and knew many members of the RF intimately, including the Tecks.

I suspect that's why her diaries (she never married or had a family) were tucked safely away in the Royal archives at Windsor at her death, where they were unearthed by James Pope Hennessy when he was researching his biography of Queen Mary in the 1950s.

Perhaps if she had had descendants these diaries would have been published Several of the royals that she wrote about lingered on into old age which is probably why her acerbic comments on them didn't come to light before the mid twentieth century.

Apparently Lady Geraldine had a huge crush on George Duke of Cambridge, Queen Victoria's cousin. She loathed his morganatic wife Louisa. Geraldine is quoted a lot here.

https://books.google.com.au/books?i...dy geraldine somerset and her diaries&f=false
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Thanks for that link.
 
I just finished reading "Queen Victoria's Matchmaking" by Deborah Cadbury and I enjoyed it so much. I have read two books on Queen Mary and one on King George V, and I knew from reading them that King George had been in love with his cousin Missy, daughter of his brother Alfred, but that was pretty much all that was said. However, this book went into a great amount of detail about them. I wonder why the other books did not. Could it be because that information was not available at that time?

Also, I really found the the last few pages very intriguing. Deborah Cadbury speculates about what might have been if Federick III had lived and been the Emperor of Germany much longer. Also, she wonders what might have happened if Alix (Queen Victoria's granddaugter who was tsarina of Russia) had married Maximillan von Baden, the man Queen Victoria had preferred for her. Likewise, Cadbury also speculates if Tsar Nicholas II (Alix's husband) had married Princess Margaret (Mossy- Frederick III and Princess Vicky's daughter) that maybe he would have been less autocratic because she shared the same views as her mother. Anyway, this led me to wonder if there is a book that tries to answer the "What If" question about a different outcome for Europe if circumstances had been different. I know that no one can truly know, but it is interesting to think about. Does anyone know of such a book?
 
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I think Queen Victoria's favourites changed over the years. Prince Albert's favourite was Vicky, later the Empress Friedrich while Victoria's was Alfred when he was a boy. Later he started exhibiting louche and womanising behaviour, and she disapproved. Arthur became the favourite among her sons as she decided he was very like his father. After the Prince Consort's death she clung to her youngest child Beatrice, and never wanted her to marry and leave her. Beatrice's husband Henry Battenburg had to settle for a life at Court with his mother in law.

I think Queen Victoria certainly found two of her children, Louise and Leopold, quite difficult to deal with and of course she disapproved of the lifestyle of Bertie Prince of Wales, though she was fond of him.
 
Here's a video of H.M.The Queen from the Queen Victoria Palace Exhibition today.

 
Do you think that it was wise for Queen Victoria to try to make marriage matches for some of her grandchildren?
 
Not by the standards of today, no. However during her lifetime almost all monarchs and leaders of royal Houses (or their wives) engaged in matchmaking for young relatives.
 
Curryong said:
Not by the standards of today, no. However during her lifetime almost all monarchs and leaders of royal Houses (or their wives) engaged in matchmaking for young relatives.
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It was inevitable surely. Royals had to marry and produce children.. and also to an extent to use hteir marriages for diplomatic reasons. So Victoiria was bound to do it, like other royal mothers. She tried to get her children married to people they got on with.. and did not force anyone into marriage.
 
Back in those days I assume that even many non-royal marriages were a matter of people being matched together by relatives or friends or even downright arranged for mostly economic, religious or class reasons.
Most royal marriages definitely were right out arranged up until the 1940s or 1950s with history littered with many a tearful brides. A delighted Queen Elisabeth of Belgium famously declared that her son Leopold's marriage to Princess Astrid of Sweden was a love match, but still had no qualms about setting her daughter Marie-José up with Umberto of Italy. The tradition of "encouraged" marriages continued even longer with for instance Queen Frederika of Greece and Lord Mountbatten who both famously trying to set young relatives up with each other or other suitable partners with the disastrous result in the marriage of Prince Charles and Lay Diana Spencer. Frederika's daughter Queen Sofia tried to set Felipe up with many girls of a suitable background of which the most well-known was Tatiana of Liechtenstein.
 
Denville said:
It was inevitable surely. Royals had to marry and produce children.. and also to an extent to use hteir marriages for diplomatic reasons. So Victoiria was bound to do it, like other royal mothers. She tried to get her children married to people they got on with.. and did not force anyone into marriage.
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She might not have "forced" anyone, but certainly Ernst of Hesse and Victoria Melita of Edinburgh felt enough pressure to marry even though both fancied others. Ducky and Ernie divorced with alacrity after Victoria's death and she later married her first love, her cousin Grand Duke Kyril of Russia, despite royal opposition from both families.
 
LauraS3514 said:
She might not have "forced" anyone, but certainly Ernst of Hesse and Victoria Melita of Edinburgh felt enough pressure to marry even though both fancied others. Ducky and Ernie divorced with alacrity after Victoria's death and she later married her first love, her cousin Grand Duke Kyril of Russia, despite royal opposition from both families.
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Sure, but you can hardly have expected her to act differently at the time. It is tragic though that some of the marriage were so unhappy. And as for Ernst and Victoria Melita, they had to lose their only child too. :sad:
 
Did Queen Victoria send a personal condolence to a royal relative when there was a demise in his/her family?

Princess Feodora of Leiningen was on opposite political sides with her sister Queen Victoria during the Schleswig-Holstein crisis of 1863 and Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871.
 
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The restoration of Queen Victoria's Throne from Buckingham Palace by the Royal collection workshops .

This throne chair dates from 1837.

 
Queen Victoria's second choice as a bride for Prince Albert Victor was Princess Margaret of Prussia.
'For of course any Lady in Society would never do,' the Queen instructed Eddy on May 19, 1890.
The Prince of Wales was not opposed to Margaret.
 
I wonder who the other occupants of the carriage were?

Victoria didn't visit Ireland much at all really when you consider how often she went to Scotland. Having Balmoral made a big difference of course. And politics was also presumably a factor. I have read somewhere that Victoria encouraged Bertie to buy a home in Ireland but of course he never did.

She made a well known visit to Killarney earlier in her reign.
 
Durham said:
I wonder who the other occupants of the carriage were?

Victoria didn't visit Ireland much at all really when you consider how often she went to Scotland. Having Balmoral made a big difference of course. And politics was also presumably a factor. I have read somewhere that Victoria encouraged Bertie to buy a home in Ireland but of course he never did.

She made a well known visit to Killarney earlier in her reign.
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Hard to believe the footage was from Dublin of all places,less than 20 years later Ireland would start the divorce from the Crown.
 
An Ard Ri said:
Hard to believe the footage was from Dublin of all places,less than 20 years later Ireland would start the divorce from the Crown.
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Indeed it is! Who would have thought at the beginning of that new century?
 
Denville said:
Anyone who knew how strongly nationalistic the Irish were...
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Yes of course with the benefit of hindsight but at the time the British monarch did receive an enthusiastic reception from sections of Dublin's population. That probably gave a false impression of national opinion.

History is nuanced after all.
 
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Denville said:
Anyone who knew how strongly nationalistic the Irish were...
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Queen Victoria's visit to Dublin in the later years were actually quite popular and always drew large crowds. Ofcourse not everyone rejoiced and security was very high.

And the queen despite being Head of the Church of England had a fondness for visiting convents in Dublin and talking to the nuns.

May it was their outfit that appealed to the queen ;)
 
Conroy was married. The chances of him becoming her stepfather were nil.

She was actually frequently amused by quite a lot and it's on record.

Most of this isn't actually respectful or funny.

Is something supposed to be interesting about this, other than the fact you don't attribute authorship yet have a plug at the end?
 
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