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Summary and Analysis of

Victoria

The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Based on the Book by Julia Baird

The summary and analysis in this ebook are meant to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction. This ebook is not intended as a substitute for the work that it summarizes and analyzes, and it is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the works author or publisher. Worth Books makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this ebook.

Contents

Context

Victoria: crowned when only a teenager, but fated to become one of the longest-reigning monarchs in British history, one who ruled longer than Great Britains previous three female queens combined. She was a complex ruler with an intimate, sometimes contentious relationship with both the populace, her advisers, and her close familydetermined to govern, but also to be a devoted wife and mother.

When Victoria took the throne, Britain had a small population largely consisting of the peasant class, with limited modern technology and industrial methods. By the end of her reign, Britain had colonized large swaths of the globe, and was a modern industrial nation. Her reach, her relationship with her people, and her reforms on their behalf were unprecedented.

Julia Baird contrasts aspects of the queens domestic lifeher relationships with her mother, husband, and childrenwith the onerous tasks of her day-to-day life as the ruler of one of the worlds most powerful nations. She also explores the dynamics of that rule with the multiple prime ministers who served under Victoria, such as Melbourne, the eminent Disraeli, and Gladstone. Placing the queen in a larger cultural context, Baird details her relationships with the disapproving Charles Dickens (whose works Victoria adored), historian and sometime chronicler Thomas Carlyle, nurse and inspiration Florence Nightingale (whose work in medicine greatly affected Victorias reforms), and, finally, poet and confidante Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Fiery, passionate, impulsive, diligent, hard-workingthe list of adjectives that can be applied to this icon of British history is long and diverse. Above all, Baird seeks to separate the real Victoria from the ubiquitous public portrayal of her as a puritanical, one-dimensional queen, which even members of her own family have sought to promote. Baird looks at letters, documents, and accounts from Victorias contemporaries to dissociate the real woman and monarch from the myths which have been promulgated about herthat she was a pawn of powerful men, or more interested in maternity than governance. Victoria was very human, and the dynamics between herself and the people of her time were deeply personal and complex. Her rule was singular even in the colorful annals of the British monarchy, with which the public maintains a fascination that made this book a bestsellerand its revelations about the nineteenth-century queen front-page news.

Overview

Victoria, the daughter of Edward and Victoire, Duke and Duchess of Kent, had a difficult childhood that was far from the glittering paradise one might expect for a princess fated for the crown. After her father died when she was only a few months old, her mother came to increasingly rely on her associate John Conroy, a controlling, manipulative man who sought to exercise undue power over the young princess. (Conroy, who took on the role of domineering father, was likely also her mothers lover.) When Victoria was crowned queen upon the death of William IV (her uncle) in 1837, she immediately dismissed Conroy. She instead took Lord Melbourne, then prime minister, as adviser, with whom she maintained a strong bond: Melbourne made the young, inexperienced queen his ally, and kept her apprised of national politics and the internal mechanics of her government.

Shortly thereafter, the young queen married her German cousin, Albert, with whom she would have nine children. During the course of their happy, though sometimes contentious, life together, Albert was first relegated to a minor role in his adopted nation. He was determined to contribute, and took on promoting the Great Exhibition and working with PM Robert Peel on reforms to improve the lives of the nations working poor. For over a decade, Victoria and Albert ruled as partners.

However, he died in 1861, possibly from complications caused by Crohns disease, which was, then, unrecognized. When Victoria lapsed into a protracted and bitter mourning period, the British public lost patienceuntil staunch friend John Brown helped her emerge and take up the reins of power again. When Brown also died, along with much of her family, including a daughter and a son, Victoria was forced to draw on her own resources. They were considerable.

Queen Victoria died in 1901, bringing to an end a momentous era in British culture and politics.

Summary

Part 1

Princess Victoria: Poor Little Victory

Chapter 1

The Birth of Pocket Hercules

Politicians and courtiers milled anxiously about the house, waiting for news of the birth of a baby who would be fifth in line to the throne, the child of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. It was the morning of May 24, 1819, at 4:15, when Victoria finally arrived. Because history had proved succession in the royal family was a chancy matter, her father, Edward, the fourth son of King George, had raced his pregnant German wife home in a carriage to make sure that the baby was born on English soilthough in truth, the chances of the child taking the throne seemed remote. Still, all knew that delicate politics, as well as the dangers of childbirth and childhood illness, made it crucial that Victoria be given all the advantages possible.

It was a particularly disruptive time in English politics: King George III was widely assumed to be going mad. His presumptive line of heirs to the thronefrom his eldest son, the Prince Regent George, through his granddaughter Charlotte, to her sonwas abruptly cut off by Charlottes death and that of her child. When he took the throne, George IV had a violent and toxic relationship with his wife, whom he banned from his coronation, and may have even poisoned. That meant the heirs to the throne would be created by his brothers. However, besides Edward, all but one were unmarried, and all debauched, producing a total of fifty-six illegitimate sons and daughters. None of these could ever take the throne. A race began among the brothers to make legitimate marriages, and produce a lawful heir.

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