Who is QUEEN VICTORIA EMPRESS OF INDIA

he young Princess Victoria, as the only legitimate child of the fourth son of George III, the Duke of Kent, who died in 1820, became heiress presumptive after the death of George IV in 1830.
George IV, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), had no surviving legitimate children. She was the only legitimate child of the fourth son of George III, the Duke of Kent, who died in 1820.

On the 20th June 1837, William IV died from heart failure at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom.

Her Coronation took place on the 28th June 1838, and became the first Monarch to take up residence at Buckingham Palace

Victoria, who was of almost entirely German descent was the daughter of Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She was raised by her governess, Barroness Louise Lehzen, from Hanover and was taught only German until she was three years old and then subsequently taught French and English. She became virtually trilingual, in fact, her mother only spoke in German with her. Her command of English, although good, was not perfect. Victoria maintained a close relationship with Baroness Lehzen for much of her life.

Victoria first met her future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, when she was just seventeen in 1836. Prince Albert was Victoria's first cousin, his father was her mother's brother, Ernest.
As a monarch, Victoria had to propose to him and in 1840 they married, in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, London.

Their marriage proved to be very happy. They had nine children the eldest Vicky, born on 21st November 1840.

Albert became not only the Queen's companion, but an important political advisor to her. He replaced Lord Melbourne as the dominant figure in the first half of her life following Melbourne's death.

hen Victoria's first pregnancy, an eighteen-year-old man Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate the Queen while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert in London. Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed.

He was tried for high treason, but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity.

Other attempts to assassinate the Queen were made between May and July 1842.

The first was on 29th May at St. James's Park, again in London. John Francis, fired a pistol at the Queen while she was in a carriage, but he was immediately seized by Police Constable William Trounce.
Francis was convicted of high treason. The death sentence was commuted to transportation for life (deportation of criminals to penal colonies, such as America and Australia).

Then, on 3rd July, just days after Francis's sentence was commuted, another boy, John William Bean attempted to shoot the Queen. Prince Albert felt that the attempts were encouraged by Oxford's acquittal in 1840. Although Bean`s gun was loaded only with paper and tobacco, his crime was still punishable by death.

Feeling that such a penalty would be too harsh, Prince Albert encouraged Parliament to pass,The Treason Act 1842.

Under the "New law", an assault with a dangerous weapon in the monarch's presence with the intent of alarming her was made punishable by seven years imprisonment and flogging.
Bean was thus sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment, however, neither he, nor any person who violated the act in the future, was flogged.

The period during which Russell was Prime Minister also proved personally distressing to Queen Victoria. In 1849, an unemployed and disgruntled Irishman named William Hamilton, attempted to frighten the Queen by firing a powder-filled pistol as her carriage passed along Constitution Hill. Hamilton was charged under the 1842 act, he pleaded guilty and received the maximum sentence of seven years of penal transportation.

In 1850, the Queen did sustain slight injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-Army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her. Pate was later tried, but he failed to prove his insanity, and received the same sentence as Hamilton.


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n 1887, the British Empire celebrated Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

Victoria marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on 20th June with a banquet to which fifty European kings and Princes were invited in her honour.

Although she could not have been aware of it, there was a plan by Irish Anarchists to blow up Westminster Abbey while the Queen attended a service of thanksgiving. This assassination attempt, when discovered, became known as the Jubilee Plot.
On the next day, she participated in a procession that, in the words of Mark Twain, "Stretched to the limit of sight in both directions". By this time, Victoria was once again an extremely popular monarch.

On 22nd September 1896, Victoria surpassed George III as the longest-reigning monarch in English, Scottish, and British history. The Queen requested all special public celebrations of the event to be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee.

The Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, proposed that the Diamond Jubilee be made a "Festival of the British Empire". The Prime Ministers of all the self-governing dominions and colonies were invited and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession included troops from every British Colony and Dominion, together with soldiers sent by Indian Princes and Chiefs as a mark of respect to Victoria, the Empress of India.

The Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion marked by great outpourings of affection for the septuagenarian Queen. A service of thanksgiving was held outside St. Paul's Cathedral.
Queen Victoria sat in her carriage throughout the service. She wore her usual black mourning dress trimmed with white lace. Many trees were planted to celebrate the Jubilee, including sixty oak trees at Henley-on-Thames in the shape of a Victoria Cross.

The VC was introduced on 29th January 1856 by Queen Victoria to reward acts of valour during the Crimean War, and it remains to this day the highest British award for bravery.


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ollowing a custom she maintained throughout her Widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle Of Wight.
She died there from declining health on Tuesday 22nd January 1901 at half past six in the evening, she was 81.

At her deathbed, was her son, the future King, and her eldest grandson, German Emperor William II. As she had wished, her own sons lifted her into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil.

Her funeral was held on Saturday 2nd February, after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert at Frogmore Mausoleum Windsor Great Park.

Victoria disliked black funerals and as a mark of respect, London was instead festooned in purple and white. When she was laid to rest at the mausoleum, it began to snow.

Flags in the United States were lowered to half mast in her honour, by order of the President, William McKinley a tribute never before offered to a foreign monarch at the time and one which was repaid by Britain when McKinley was assassinated later that year.

She arranged marriages for her nine children and forty-two grandchildren across the continent, tying Europe together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son King Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Victoria outlived three of her nine children, and came within seven months of outliving a fourth (her eldest daughter, Vicky, who died of spinal cancer in August 1901 aged 60). She outlived eleven of her forty two grandchildren (3 stillborn, 6 as children, and 2 as adults).

Victoria had reigned for a total of sixty three years, seven months and two days, the longest of any British monarch and surpassed her grandfather, George III, as the longest-lived monarch, three days before her death.


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