Born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London, Victoria was the daughter of Victoria Mary Louisa, Daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III.

She ascended the throne on June 20, 1873, on the death of her uncle, William IV, who had no legitimate children. At this stage she was an unknown figure, even by name, to most of her subjects. When she on January 22, 1901, outliving the century, she was one of the best-known figures, by reputation as well as name, not only in the United Kingdom but also in a greatly expanded British Empire and in the world, including the United States. Her reign had been the longest in British history, and she had given her name to an age – the age of Victorian Britian.

There had been no sense in 1873 of outcome. There was curiosity about what an 18-year-old queen was and would be like, but uncertainty about what, if anything, she would achieve. As it was, she was sensitively guided politically and socially by the aged Whig prime minister, William Lamb, 2^nd Viscount Melbourne, before February 10, 1840, she married her first cousin Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Albert had been given more guidance by his tutors, not all of it sound, about the role he should play as her husband, than she had been giving before she came to the throne. She had been dependent most of her German governess, Baroness Lehzen, who was the first to tell her daughter (at the age of 11) that she was Heiress Presumptive to the throne. Her father Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, youngest brother of William IV, had died in 1820, when Victoria was still an infant, and her German mother Victoria Mary Louisa had proved an ill-informed and difficult parent. Later in life Victoria was to repeat many times that she was never happy until she was 18.

"Beloved Albert" brought her exceptional happiness until his early death on December 14, 1861. The marriage, while an affair of state, was a love match, and the royal couple were seldom apart. They offered an example of family life that contrasted sharply with the earlier royal images of George IV and his brothers. Victoria and Albert had nine children; the first of them, Victoria, future German Empress, born on November 21, 1840, the second, the future Edward VII, born November 9, 1841. They had limitations as parents, but their intentions were beyond reproach and they enjoyed their private lives, particularly at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, purchased in 1843, and Balmoral Castle in Scotland, acquired in 1852 and rebuilt on the basis of Albert’s designs. "God knows", the Queen had written as early as 1844, "how willingly I would always live with my beloved Albert and our children in the quiet retirement of private life, and not to be the constant subject of observation." An aristocratic German visitor to Balmoral 11 years later, Helmuth Karl von Moltke, told his wife, "It is hard to believe that the most powerful monarch in the world can leave all court life so much behind. It is just plain family life here."

Queen Victoria’s constitutional power was always limited, and while her personal likes and dislikes influenced the selection of the Cabinet and her views on political issues were forthright and shrewd, she never determined policy. Albert, who was always at her side whatever issues, particularly foreign policy, were being discussed, used his influence to persuade Victoria to accept his version of what a constitutional monarch should be. They both disliked Lord Palmerston and his policies, but they could never undermine his political leadership. They had been deeply concerned about British foreign policy in the lead-up to the Crimean War – and Albert was very unpopular in the country – yet when it began they zealously supported British troops in action, as the Queen was always to do in all "small wars" in which the country was involved. It was in 1856 that she instituted the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for military valour. Albert was given the title of Prince Consort in 1857.

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Victoria was desperately lonely after Albert’s death in 1861 and retreated into a gloomy widowhood, undergoing a nervous breakdown and shrinking from the public. The result was a barrage of criticism as sharp as Albert had had to face at the worst moments in his lifetime. On the third anniversary of his death, The Times declared that "the living have their claims as well as the dead; and what claims can be more important than those of great nation, and the Society of the first European capitals?" In these circumstances, it was the Queen’s strong sense of duty and the much vaunted power of her will that kept the monarchy alive. By the end of the reign, with an experience that reached deep into the past, she had endowed it with a new magic.

In one of her prime ministers, the Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who had done to destroy Sir Robert Peel, one of Albert’s heroes, she found a leader who knew how to get the best out of her, and it was he who in 1876 persuaded Parliament (in face of Liberal opposition) to pass a Royal Titles Act adding to the Queen’s titles that of Empress of India. If Disraeli was adept in understanding the Queen, she was incapable of understanding or appreciating the most authoritative of the Liberal leaders of the late 19^th century, William Ewart Gladstone, who in age of increasing political party organization was to survive Disraeli by a quarter of a century. When he became prime minister for the fourth time in 1892 at over 80 years old, he described his interview with her as "such as took place between Marie Antoinette and her executioner", and when he retired two years later she refused to thank him for his services to the country. She was shocked that Edward, then Prince of Wales, with whom she was on bad terms, acted as a pall-bearer at his funeral in 1897.

That year saw the second of the two great Jubilees which suggested to the world just how strong the British monarchy was. That of 1887, the Golden Jubilee, once more displayed the Queen to the public. She herself helped to organize it, and at the thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey there were representative from all parts of the empire. There was an even stronger imperial dimension to the Diamond Jubilee ten years later, when, as in 1887, thanksgiving services were held in every church, chapel, and synagogue throughout Britain, and in many other parts of the world. At a private family thanksgiving in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, a different note was struck. A Te Deum with the music written by Prince Albert was fervently sung. The celebrations ended with the Queen pressing an electric button which telegraphed a Jubilee message round the empire: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them." The Queen had always liked new gadgets, the telephone as well as the telegraph. Old though she was, she had in this respect at least kept in touch with the changing times.

Between 1897 and 1901 there was one more very special occasion – a visit to Ireland in 1900, which she had last visited 39 years before. It was part of the empire that had been at the centre of British politics in the Gladstone years, and was to remain so throughout much of the new century which she herself did not celebrate. "I’m bored with the Future", she is said to have remarked in her old age, "and I don’t want to hear any more about it." The present itself was scarcely consoling. The south African Wars in South Africa, which began on October 12, 1899, brought with it a chain of unexpected military reverses and a burst of European opposition. As in the past, the Queen staunchly supported her troops, and she drove in triumph through London after which she called horrible – not because of the war or politics but because of the weather- and after a short but wearing illness died at Osborne. One of her last visitors was her grandson the German Emperor, William II, "the kaiser", who was to lead Germany against Britain during World War I. He supported her on her pillow in her last two-and-a-half hours. He was one of the main figures at her impressive funeral, which was military in flavour, characterized by lavish pomp and ceremony. For most of her subjects, however, an age seemed to have come to an end, and for all the sorrowful tributes there were many people who looked forward not only to a new reign but a new future.

Victoria’s Family

When the young, insignificant scion of an unremarkable German prinicipality first came to England to serve as consort to the youthful Queen Victoria, no one could have guessed that he would grow to become one of Britain’s great if – uncrowned – kings. A man of intelligence, pride, and ambition, Albert was forced to move behind the scenes. While his wife adored him, his adopted people scorned him for his foreign ways and his covert activities as a surrogate ruler. Tapping previously unexplored sources, Weintraub chronicles every aspect of Albert’s life – from the political to the sexual – in lively, accessible prose.

Prince Albert and the University by Owen Chadwick. The expanded text of a 1997 lecture about Albert’s influence on English education.

Victoria’s Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard. Incisive Character studies of Queen Victoria’s five daughters provide the framework for a living survey of 19^th century European history. Vivacious, intelligent Vicky (1840-1901), the spoiled eldest, had a happy union with Hohenzollern prince Frederick William, though her liberal views were unpopular in Prussia and vehemently resisted by her son Willy, who became the emperor of Germany. Sensitive, altruistic Alice (1843-78); and shy dutiful, dull Lenchen (1846-1923); and shy baby sister Beatrice (1857-1944) all married minor German royalty – though Beatrice, intended to be her mother’s spinster companion, didn’t marry until she was 28 and continued to live in England at Victoria’s beck and call. Custom dictated that princesses must not wed subjects, but Artistic, rebellious Louise (1848-1939) married a Scottish nobleman and managed to lead a slightly less restricted life than her sisters, particularly as a strong supporter of charitable organizations for women.

Prince Leopold: The untold story of Queen Victoria’s youngest son. A biography of the prince who died at a tragically young age. Includes a discussion of Victoria’s genealogy and how she inherited the gene for hemophilia.

Queen Victoria’s Children

Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise was born in 1840. Her nickname in the family was "Vicky". She married Prince Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia when she was 17. Her husband became emperor of Germany, but died of throat cancer after a three-month reign. Vicky had seven children. Her eldest son became German emperor Wilhelm II; her daughter Sophie married a Greek prince and in time became the queen of Greece.

Prince Albert Edward was born in 1841. His nickname was "Bertie."