Summary and Analysis of Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Women, History, Europe, Great Britain, Georgian Era (1714-1837), Study Aids, Book Notes
ISBN: 9781504021906
Google: GSiLDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-04-04T03:16:53+00:00

Part 4

The Widow of Windsor

Chapter 20

“There Is No One to Call Me Victoria Now”

“Poor Bertie,” as Victoria called her first son and heir, was increasingly, in his parents’ view, a failure, lacking intellect, discipline, and the ability to command. Albert and Victoria despaired over their heir’s affair with Irish actress Nellie Clifden, which his father called “debauched.” They knew and cared little of his great popularity in the United States, which would serve him well, and began to push Denmark’s Princess Alexandra—“Alix”—as a candidate for marriage.

Albert’s health, never good, was suffering from his numerous responsibilities and anxieties, including negotiations with the United States: He was anxious that the two countries might end up at war. After a protracted illness, during which Victoria was continually and mistakenly assured the crisis had passed, Albert died. He died at 42, surrounded by many of his children, when their daughter Beatrice was 4. (The cause of his death is still unknown, although a recent and plausible theory is that he died from Crohn’s disease, which was not yet identified as an illness.)

The country went into mourning. Victoria was stricken, signing her letters “the brokenhearted widow.”

Need to Know: Before his death, Albert drafted an extraordinary memo that allowed Britain to remain neutral after the seizure of a British ship during the American Civil War. Victoria was nearly destroyed by his death, and took “happiness” out of the routine blessing of the queen during his funeral.

Chapter 21

“The Whole House Seems Like Pompeii”

Victoria remained in deep mourning, but summoned poet Alfred Tennyson, whose In Memoriam had deeply affected her. They became close. Still, she was bereft. She had lost not only Albert’s emotional companionship, but also his political and administrative guidance. She declared an official mourning period of two years, preserved Albert’s belongings as they had been when he was alive, and drew the children into a grim house of mourning.

Albert’s death also increased her distance from Bertie, even when he married her choice, Alix of Denmark. Victoria went so far as to pray she would outlive him. Alice married a German prince, leaving the queen with another daughter in a foreign court.

And as she “canonized” Albert, the British public began to lose faith in the woman they now saw as only the widow of the true sovereign. They were not pleased with the prospect of Bertie becoming king, and Victoria’s increasing assertion that she had been helpless, useless, and worthless as a ruler.

But still, though Victoria refused to emerge from her depression, she reentered politics when Prussia became aggressive, again being more partisan than the public would like, as her son’s marriage to Denmark made it a family affair. As Baird writes, “This became Victoria’s new template: weep with the women and dictate to the men, all while cushioning herself with a dramatic, large grief.”

Need to Know: Victoria entered a years-long period of mourning and seclusion, participating in politics only intermittently. But on a trip to the Highlands, she was thrown out of her carriage in an accident and realized it was time to reemerge.

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