Produced by Jonathan Ingram, S.R. Ellison, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
QUEEN VICTORIA
STORY OF HER LIFE AND REIGN
1819-1901
[ILLUSTRATION: QUEEN VICTORIA. (From a Photograph by Russell & Son.)]
'Her court was pure, her life serene; God gave her peace; her land reposed; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen.'
TENNYSON.
'God bless the Queen for all her unwearied goodness! I admire her as a woman, love her as a friend, and reverence her as a Queen. Her courage, patience, and endurance are marvellous to me.'
NORMAN MACLEOD.
'A Prince indeed, Beyond all titles, and a household name, Hereafter, through all time, Albert the Good.'
TENNYSON.
PREFACE.
This brief life of Queen Victoria gives the salient features of her reign, including the domestic and public life, with a glance at the wonderful history and progress of our country during the past half-century. In the space at command it has been impossible to give extended treatment. The history is necessarily very brief, as also the account of the public and private life, yet it is believed no really important feature of her life and reign has been omitted.
It is a duty, incumbent on old and young alike, as well as a pleasing privilege, to mark how freedom has slowly 'broadened down, from precedent to precedent,' and how knowledge, wealth, and well-being are more widely distributed to-day than at any former period of our history. And this knowledge can only increase the gratitude of the reader for the golden reign of Queen Victoria, of whom it has been truly written:
A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--Reign of Queen Victoria--Outlook of Royalty in 1819--Duke and Duchess of Kent--Birth of Victoria--Anecdotes.
CHAPTER II.--First Meeting with Prince Albert--Death of William IV.--Accession of Queen Victoria--First Speech from the Throne--Coronation--Life at Windsor--Personal Appearance--Betrothal to Prince Albert--Income from the Country.
CHAPTER III.--Marriage--Family Habits--Birth of Princess Royal--Queen's Views of Religious Training--Osborne and Balmoral--Death of the Duke of Wellington.
CHAPTER IV.--Chief Public Events, 1837-49--Rebellion in Canada--Opium War with China--Wars in North-west India--Penny Postage--Repeal of the Corn-laws--Potato Famine--Free Trade-Chartism.
CHAPTER V.--The Crimean War, 1854-55--Interest of the Queen and Prince Consort in the suffering Soldiers--Florence Nightingale--Distribution of Victoria Crosses by the Queen.
CHAPTER VI.--The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58--The Queen's Letter to Lord Canning.
CHAPTER VII.--Marriage of the Princess Royal--Twenty-first Anniversary of Wedding-day--Death of the Prince-Consort.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: Queen Victoria by Anonymous
- 2: The Dukes of Clarence and Kent
- 3: 'The position of the widowed Duchess of Kent
- 4: The Princess Feodora of Leiningen
- 5: Since Fraeulein Lehzen wishes it to be so
- 6: 'When Fraeulein Lehzen died in 1870
- 7: The dolls seem to have been packed away about 1833
- 8: Conyngham told his errand in few words
- 9: ' Nor was the gentler womanly side of life neglected
- 10: And presently travelled down to the peeresses
- 11: These precious stones included 1 large ruby and sapphire
- 12: Noting also that her complexion was clear
- 13: She had Lord Melbourne as her first prime minister
- 14: ' said the Duchess of Gloucester
- 15: The younger son of the Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha
- 16: ' she had written to Baron Stockmar
- 17: ' The Queen and Prince Albert went everywhere together
- 18: Illustration Marriage of Queen Victoria
- 19: In the Swiss cottage at Osborne
- 20: Costa Sir Michael accompanied
- 21: 'for the laureates to be loyal
- 22: Mrs Tennyson generally goes too
- 23: The Chinese are great consumers of opium
- 24: Especially among the officials of the postal department
- 25: Candahar and Cabul were both occupied by British troops
- 26: Both the corn and potato crops being blighted
- 27: The anger of the Protectionists
- 28: And the Russians retreated towards Sebastopol
- 29: With the design of capturing the port of Balaklava
- 30: In the terrible winter of 1855
- 31: ' Illustration Massacre at Cawnpore
- 32: Illustration Relief of Lucknow
- 33: The Prince Consort met with a severe carriage accident
- 34: Came on the 14th of December 1861
- 35: Es ist kleins Frauchen It is little wife
- 36: On that fatal 14th December 1878
- 37: The Jubilee presents were exhibited in St James's Palace
- 38: When a Jubilee Memorial Statue of the Queen
- 39: As Duke Alfred of Saxe Coburg Gotha
- 40: On 22d July 1896 Princess Maud
- 41: At Dalkeith the Duke of Buccleuch's
- 42: Taymouth lies in a valley surrounded by very high
- 43: Through a wood overhanging the river Tilt
- 44: To commemorate their taking possession of Balmoral
- 45: Dr Macleod was again at Balmoral in 1862 and 1866
- 46: The son of the Egyptian Tewfik
- 47: Of more than princely munificence
- 48: In a vault in the Institute at Peabody
- 49: Stockmar had been the private physician of Leopold
- 50: The Crimean War had been finished
- 51: Lord Palmerston therefore introduced a bill
- 52: Illustration William Ewart Gladstone
- 53: Which passed through parliament
- 54: And the Gladstone ministry was overthrown
- 55: And Candahar very soon afterwards
- 56: Arabi Pasha was banished for life
- 57: Which the peasantry resisted by violence
- 58: And the injustice done to these Uitlanders
- 59: The penny postage scheme adopted in 1839