Queen Victoria (1819-1901)

[gogm]

A few images of her illustrious majesty

The image to the left looks like it was made just after she was widowed, so it would be from the 1860s.

I have a b&w version of the third hanging on my wall, it dates from shortly after her accession in the late 1830s.

 

[PssMarie-Elisabeth]

The image to the left looks like it was made just after she was widowed, so it would be from the 1860s.

I have a b&w version of the third hanging on my wall, it dates from shortly after her accession in the late 1830s.

... it's one of my favorite paintings of her as a young Queen. She appears to be smiling in the 1st pic * just teasing * Queen Victoria was not as one-dimensional as some people think

 

[mary1103]

Really interesting, I really like this Queen!

 

[Melchezideck]

Does anyone have a good picture of Queen victoria by Heinrich von Angeli any of them i doing a paintig and all the outher sources are too fuzzy

 

[Skydragon]

They are knickers fit for a queen or - given their size - maybe two.
Able to accommodate a 50in -plus waist, they belonged to Queen Victoria.
Doubtless she would not be amused to have her undergarments - or her vital statistics - discussed in public

Blooming enormous: Queen Victoria's 50-inch waist knickers are uncovered | Mail Online

 

[Lady Jennifer]

Well the knickers sold for more than expected:

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Derbyshire | Queen's bloomers sell for £4,500

 

[eponabri]

Hello, I'm new to this forum and I was wondering if anyone could tell me why Victoria always wore a white veil after she was older? It seems to be in every picture.

 

[gogm]

She mourned for her husband Albert who died 14 December 1861.

 

[tan_berry]

I have been reading lately on Queen Victoria and his "almost king" husband Prince Albert and now I look forward eagerlier for the new movie with Emily Blunt as the young queen. When she was crowned she was 18 years old and one month, and she became queen of the nation and the balls, that she enjoyed as the youngster she was, enjoying too a freedom she has never had before, because her mother was so afraid of some accidental or not problem.

It seems she was never aware of the hemophilia problem, because she married a first cousin and it was such a good marriage, that she tried to marry several grand-children among themselves.

They tried very hard, with their eldest daughter Vicky, Empress of Germany, to influence with liberal ideas the german empire, without success. Her husband died when they were both 42 years old, which did not help for reaching the goal, because he was more interested and had more knowledge on politics.

 

[Warren]

When she was crowned she was 18 years old and one month...

19 years and one month: born 24 May 1819 and her coronation was 23 June 1838.

 

[Avicenna]

They tried very hard, with their eldest daughter Vicky, Empress of Germany, to influence with liberal ideas the german empire, without success. Her husband died when they were both 42 years old, which did not help for reaching the goal, because he was more interested and had more knowledge on politics.

It would have been better to start being liberal at home, in England. Just think of these famous lines written by the Queen to prime minister Gladston May 6, 1870: (summary in my own words)

She believes it is unnatural and against all sense to give women the right to vote or to make them equal in professions!

Now, how liberal was this Queen? Only when it came to the point of intervening abroad it seems to me.

 

[tan_berry]

The author I have been reading, Stanley Weintraub, means liberal in politics for the time being. England already had elections, and the Queen and her husband did not intervene in politics openly, although they did. In Germany the kaiser was still the real power, still absolute power, and their grandchild Wilhelm II got rid of the legendary Prince Bismarck, prime minister for a long time for his grandfather Wilhelm I, whenever he decided it. So the empire was politically ultraconservative when the subjects were not anymore, it lacked flexibility in relation to the zeitgeist, which Queen Victoria, her husband, and their daughter Vicky and her husband, the heir, could foresee, and the result of this contradiction was that the empire fell down. I interpreted that from what I read.

 

[Avicenna]

Tan_berry, you certainly have a point there. Just two notes from my side: first of all Germany - or Prussia as I should because The German Reich only came to life in 1871 - had a parliament. It was this parliament which had a dispute with Wilhelm I in 1862 in matters of army reform. Wilhelm I was willing to abdicate in favor of his son Friedrich. However, Friedrich declined. Thus, came Otto von Bismarck who saved the monarchy. Only due to Bismarck's constitutional reform the position of the monarch was strengthened. Christopher Clark has shown this in his book on Prussia.

What I blame to Vicky is her narrow-minded English view. Of course she was right with her idea of a constitutional monarchy according to the English model. But she was so focused on this one idea. On the other handside she refused the Bismarck social reforms end of the 1860ies. Those were the basis even for today's social system!! But Vicky preferred a traditional benevolence - or should I say charity? - towards the poor. Truth is, she was indoctrinated at 15 years by personal studies with her father - the Prince Consort - and took his view without questioning. Due to the early death of Albert she henceforward devoted her life to realising his ideas. Without reviewing them, without revising them. A waste of human material - a tragedy, for she could given her life far more purpose plus it would have facilitated her life in Prussia/Germany.

 

[tan_berry]

Thanks, Avicenna, now I understand better.

 

[Emeralds and Opals]

Queen Victoria's cottage - Loch Katrine

Courtesy of the BBC

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Royal 'rain shelter' to be sold

"Royal 'rain shelter' to be sold."

 

[CarolinaLandgrave]

I am just getting to read all the way through this thread - so my comment may not be in the correct place...
its in reference to the pictures of Queen Victoria up near the front...
doesn't she look alot like Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck and her sister, Princess Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They were, of course, first cousins, but I had never noticed such a striking family resemblance.

 

[windsorbrides1]

General James Longstreet who became second in command to Lee when Stonewall Jackson died, said the England would never support the Confederacy as long as it had slavery. In fact he's known for saying that the South should have freed the slaves and THEN fired on Fort Sumter. According to "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara, England was never really that close to supporting the Confederacy. They were too sure that even with their intervention that the Union would win the war and they would lose world power.

 

[CarolinaLandgrave]

But how long could Britain's textile industry have held out without Southern cotton? The Industrial Age was underway...... even with cotton the Union stole and exported to GB or the cotton from the Blockade Runners, I am sure they were worried.
Especially the highly prized (long staple) Sea Island Cotton, from the islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia..... even the French were in a squeeze.
Queen Victoria's moral code may have been against the South and slavery, but as is most things... her "purse" would eventually speak otherwise.
Being a South Carolinian, like General Longstreet, I have to agree with his synopsis. If the South had ever wanted to gain the support of the world community, the slaves should have been freed first - regardless. It would have made the reason for seccession valid - States Rights - rather than the reason that has been given all these years - slavery.

 

[Roslyn]

If the South had ever wanted to gain the support of the world community, the slaves should have been freed first - regardless. It would have made the reason for seccession valid - States Rights - rather than the reason that has been given all these years - slavery.

But there would have been no point in the South seceding if they freed the slaves first. The Southern economy relied on slavery and the CSA couldn't survive without it.

 

[CarolinaLandgrave]

True - in part. We were an agrarian society, but the South could have easily adapted its practices to use freed labor and still make a profit.
They did it after the War - and would have faired well doing so, had not the Reconstruction government been so corrupt and intent on feasting on the defeated Southern populace.

 

[EmpressRouge]

But how long could Britain's textile industry have held out without Southern cotton? The Industrial Age was underway...... even with cotton the Union stole and exported to GB or the cotton from the Blockade Runners, I am sure they were worried.
Especially the highly prized (long staple) Sea Island Cotton, from the islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia..... even the French were in a squeeze.
Queen Victoria's moral code may have been against the South and slavery, but as is most things... her "purse" would eventually speak otherwise.

Even though cotton was important for their textile industry, the British also imported a lot of American wheat from the North, which ended up being more important than cotton. Until 1863, the war was not about freeing the slave officially but reuniting the country. After the Emancipation Proclamation, countries could definitively support the North.

 

[Roslyn]

True - in part. We were an agrarian society, but the South could have easily adapted its practices to use freed labor and still make a profit.

They did it after the War - and would have faired well doing so, had not the Reconstruction government been so corrupt and intent on feasting on the defeated Southern populace.

But the necessary changes to the system would have, and did, take time, and I don't think it was something that could all that easily have been done. It involved huge changes at all levels of society. If, and it's pure speculation since it was never going to happen, the Southern states had been minded to free the slaves before seceding, it would have taken years to restructure, and by the time the South had a sustainable and stable economy based on free labour, the main reason for most of the conflicts between the two economies, including States' Rights, would probably have no longer existed. IMO, anyway.

As for Britain's attitude, I happened upon this interesting site which contains an archive of all the Harper's Weekly newspapers published during the Civil War. One of which, dated May 24, 1862, specifically addresses the issue of British support for the Confederacy.

British Sympathy With the Confederacy

Here's another one, on Europe and the American Civil War. Europe and the American Civil War It quotes Gladstone's statement in October 1862, at a time when the CSA's army was doing quite well. "On October 7 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William E. Gladstone, made a notable speech at Newcastle in which he remarked that no matter what one's opinion of slavery might be, facts had to be faced: "There is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than either-they have made a nation." He added, "We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards their separation from the North.""

Interestingly, and something that is often overlooked in cursory treatments of the subject, this article also points out that, "Technically, the (Emancipation) proclamation was almost absurd. It proclaimed freedom for all slaves in precisely those areas where the United States could not make its authority effective, and allowed slavery to continue in slave states which remained under Federal control." It was a political tool, but a very effective one.

 

[Warren]

OK, while that is interesting, could we get back to Queen Victoria, and maybe her attitudes to the Civil War and to Mr (and Mrs) Lincoln.

thanks,
Warren
British Forums moderator

 

[Roslyn]

It is possible that Queen Victoria (because she allowed Prince Albert so much active involvement in her job) and Prince Albert were responsible for the North winning the Civil War. No, this is not a joke, nor is it an attempt to taunt Warren. I think, and sincerely hope, it is on topic.

In late 1861 two Confederate envoys were travelling to London on a British mail packet out of Havanna, Trent. US warship San Jacinto discharged a shell acrossTrent's bow and when Trent stopped, she was boarded by an officer with a large armed guard of marines. The CSA envoys and their secretaries were removed and taken to the USA.

The full story is complicated and long, but to say the least Britain was not impressed with what had occurred, it amounting to a breach of international law. Prince Albert was very ill but also very concerned and recorded the events in his diary on 28 November 1861.

One of Prince Albert's last formal acts, if not the last, was the amending of a Draft memorandum from British Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell, to the British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Lyons, changing its wording and tone from bellicose to conciliatory, which quite likely avoided a declaration of war between Britain the and USA. Had war with the USA eventuated, Britain would have undoubtedly recognised the CSA. The USA had sought the support of France in that event, but France declined. It is likely that the USA could not have maintained a war against both Britain and the CSA, and would have ended up recognising the CSA.

Albert died two weeks after drafting the amendments, which were accepted. Victoria later wrote in the margin, "This draft was the last the beloved Prince ever wrote, he was very unwell at the time & when he brought it to the Queen he said, "I could hardly hold my pen"'.

According to Cecil Woodham-Smith in her "Queen Victoria, Her Life and Times - Volume 1, 1819-1861" (there was to be no Volume 2), "The importance of the Prince Consort's amendments cannot be exaggerated. England and the Northern States of America were on the verge of war".

A detailed account of the Trent Affair can be found here: The Trent Affair: How the Prince Consort Saved the United States The article includes more quotes from Queen Victoria, including her acknowledgment that the peaceful resolution was one which "her dear Angel much wished for", and her statement to the Prime Minister in January 1862 that, "The things of this world are of no interest to the Queen, beyond the satisfaction she must experience if Peace is maintained and this country is in prosperity: for her thoughts are fixed above."


I don't know what HM thought about President Lincoln, but Woodham-Smith records that both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert liked President Buchanan when he was American Minister in London.

 

[CarolinaLandgrave]

Very interesting, thank you for posting!!

 

[georgiea]

Queen Victoria’s sleigh goes on display at Windsor Castle

Queen Victoria’s sleigh goes on display at Windsor Castle - Times Online

 

[Skydragon]

A heartbreaking letter has revealed how even Queen Victoria couldn't always maintain the stiff upper lip for which her empire was famed.
Britain's longest-serving monarch was renowned as the very embodiment of unshakable dignity and decorum in the latter years of her reign.


Letter reveals Queen Victoria's heartbreak over death of son-in-law Prince Henry | Mail Online

 

[Warren]

The trailer for the new film "The Young Victoria" is beginning to appear. The film is due to be released in March.
One of the film's producers is Sarah, Duchess of York, and Princess Beatrice has a cameo as a lady-in-waiting during the Coronation scene.

The thread for discussion of the film can be found in the Royal Library, here.
I've added the trailer, which is worth a look.
.

 

[Emeralds and Opals]

Re: Another article from the Telegraph.

Queen Victoria's 'overwhelming sorrow' at death of son-in-law revealed in letter - Telegraph

 

[colynsmomma]

Many of the royals left the child rearing to the wife, depinding on the wife. Some left it to the nurses and nannys that they all had. It was said of QV that she would give her oldest 4 their baths and put then to bed everynight. After that she said that she did not have time. After the 5th one she did not even do bath time.