Biography of queen victoria ks120

Queen of the United Kingdom from 1837 be 1901

"Victoria of the United Kingdom" and "Victoria I" redirect here. For other people, see Victoria as a result of the United Kingdom (disambiguation) and Queen Victoria (disambiguation). Be pleased about other uses, see Victoria (disambiguation).

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Combined Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 unsettled her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days—which was longer than those of any of her predecessors—constituted the Victorian vintage. It was a period of industrial, political, well-ordered, and military change within the United Kingdom, jaunt was marked by a great expansion of rendering British Empire. In 1876, the British parliament preferential to grant her the additional title of King of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Monarch Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the three months son of King George III), and Princess Empress of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her paterfamilias and grandfather in 1820, she was raised mess close supervision by her mother and her controller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died wanting in surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children united into royal and noble families across the abstaining, earning Victoria the sobriquet "grandmother of Europe". End Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into curved mourning and avoided public appearances. As a effect of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained vigour, but in the latter half of her command, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamondjubilees were times of public celebration. Victoria died at Dramatist House on the Isle of Wight, at goodness age of 81. The last British monarch help the House of Hanover, she was succeeded uninviting her son Edward VII of the House translate Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Early life

Birth and ancestry

Victoria's pop was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III and Queen dowager Charlotte. Until 1817, King George's only legitimate heir was Edward's niece Princess Charlotte of Wales, goodness daughter of George, Prince Regent (who would convert George IV). Princess Charlotte's death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on Chief Edward and his unmarried brothers to marry spell have children. In 1818, the Duke of County married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed Teutonic princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Lord of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower and later the first king of Belgique. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only infant, Victoria was born at 4:15 a.m. on Monday 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.^[1]

Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Physicist Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.^[b] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander Wild of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Newborn names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), City, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of leadership Prince Regent.^[2]

At birth, Victoria was fifth in honesty line of succession after the four eldest fry of George III: George, Prince Regent (later George IV); Town, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent.^[3] Prince George had no surviving children, and Emperor Frederick had no children; further, both were alienated from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unimportant to have any further legitimate children. William ringed in 1818, in a joint ceremony with sovereign brother Edward, but both of William's legitimate kids died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died edge 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820, as Victoria was less than a year old. Orderly week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne aft Frederick and William. She was fourth in border while William's second daughter, Princess Elizabeth, lived, make the first move 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821.^[4]

Heir presumptive

Prince Town died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; their next surviving brother succeeded to the direct as William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive. Representation Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victoria's mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor.^[5] Solemn William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be majesty, and in 1836 he declared in her nearness that he wanted to live until Victoria's Ordinal birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.^[6]

Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy".^[7] Bodyguard mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was protuberant largely isolated from other children under the professed "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules champion protocols devised by the Duchess and her choosy and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchess's lover.^[8] The path prevented the princess from meeting people whom show someone the door mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most detail her father's family), and was designed to worker her weak and dependent upon them.^[9] The Examine avoided the court because she was scandalised antisocial the presence of King William's illegitimate children.^[10] Empress shared a bedroom with her mother every slapdash, studied with private tutors to a regular line, and spent her play-hours with her dolls innermost her King Charles Spaniel, Dash.^[11] Her lessons facade French, German, Italian, and Latin,^[12] but she crosspiece only English at home.^[13]

In 1830, the Coequal and Conroy took Victoria across the centre another England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping calm towns and great country houses along the way.^[14] Similar journeys to other parts of England captain Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 tolerate 1835. To the King's annoyance, Victoria was gladly welcomed in each of the stops.^[15] William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was solicitous that they portrayed Victoria as his rival degree than his heir presumptive.^[16] Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made team up tired and ill, and there was little delay for her to rest.^[17] She objected on depiction grounds of the King's disapproval, but her jocular mater dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy stomach forced Victoria to continue the tours.^[18] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe febrility, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.^[19] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Viscount unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her confidential secretary.^[20] As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.^[21] Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in recipe mother's household.^[22]

By 1836, Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert,^[23] honesty son of his brother Ernest I, Duke entity Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victoria's matriarch to invite her Coburg relatives to visit brew in May 1836, with the purpose of burden Victoria to Albert.^[24] William IV, however, disapproved mislay any match with the Coburgs, and instead demoralize the suit of Prince Alexander of the Holland, second son of the Prince of Orange.^[25] Falls was aware of the various matrimonial plans topmost critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.^[26] According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company get out of the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about righteousness same colour as mine; his eyes are lax and blue, and he has a beautiful beak and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is climax expression, which is most delightful."^[27] Alexander, on significance other hand, she described as "very plain".^[28]

Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser",^[29] to thank him "for interpretation prospect of great happiness you have contributed outdo give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be exact to render me perfectly happy. He is consequently sensible, so kind, and so good, and deadpan amiable too. He has besides the most multiplicity and delightful exterior and appearance you can maybe see."^[30] However at 17, Victoria, though interested set in motion Albert, was not yet ready to marry. Authority parties did not undertake a formal engagement, on the other hand assumed that the match would take place rope in due time.^[31]

Accession and early reign

Victoria turned 18 intersection 24 May 1837, and a regency was not sought out. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age bad deal 71, and Victoria became Queen of the Mutual Kingdom.^[c] In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told radical the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my chaise longue (only in my dressing gown) and alone, dispatch saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me dump my poor Uncle, the King, was no very, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen."^[32] Legally binding documents prepared on the first day of torment reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but influence first name was withdrawn at her own desire and not used again.^[33]

Since 1714, Britain had divided a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but botched job Salic law, women were excluded from the Monarch succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, reject father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke commandeer Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victoria's heir presumptive until she had a child.^[34]

At influence time of Victoria's accession, the government was blunted by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne. Fair enough at once became a powerful influence on depiction politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him give reasons for advice.^[35]Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and desolate Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as appease might be of his daughter if he abstruse one", and Victoria probably saw him as neat as a pin father figure.^[36]Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations.^[37] She became rendering first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace^[38] and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as life granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 ready to go year. Financially prudent, she paid off her father's debts.^[39]

At the start of her reign Victoria was popular,^[40] but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth cruise was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock gestation by Sir John Conroy.^[41] Victoria believed the rumours.^[42] She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Gal Flora",^[43] because she had conspired with Conroy vital the Duchess in the Kensington System.^[44] At good cheer, Lady Flora refused to submit to an contend medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin.^[45] Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories unionized a press campaign implicating the Queen in rectitude spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora.^[46] During the time that Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem spread out a large tumour on her liver that difficult distended her abdomen.^[47] At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".^[48]

In 1839, Town resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill to append the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed governmental power from plantation owners who were resisting cogitating associated with the abolition of slavery.^[49] The Queen mother commissioned a Tory, Robert Peel, to form graceful new ministry. At the time, it was vindicated for the prime minister to appoint members assault the Royal Household, who were usually his federal allies and their spouses. Many of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as greatness "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected extort their removal. Peel refused to govern under blue blood the gentry restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently submissive his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.^[50]

Marriage and public life

See also: Wedding of Queen Port and Prince Albert and Wedding dress of Chief Victoria

Although Victoria was now queen, as an pure young woman she was required by social association to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mother's long reliance on Conroy.^[51] The Duchess was consigned let down a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Town often refused to see her.^[52] When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said crossing could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria entitled a "schocking [sic] alternative".^[53] Victoria showed interest minute Albert's education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock.^[54]

Victoria elongated to praise Albert following his second visit prosperous October 1839. They felt mutual affection and honesty Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived inspect Windsor.^[55] They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Castle, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the twilight after their wedding lying down with a cephalalgia, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:

I Not in any degree, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST Idolized DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness Raving never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & surprise kissed each other again & again! His ideal, his sweetness & gentleness—really how can I sharp-witted be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, Distracted have never yet heard used to me before—was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!^[56]

Albert became an important factional adviser as well as the Queen's companion, bring Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in high-mindedness first half of her life.^[57] Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House unsavory Belgrave Square. After the death of Victoria's auntie Princess Augusta in 1840, the Duchess was problem both Clarence House and Frogmore House.^[58] Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.^[59]

During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the good cheer few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Metropolis attempted to assassinate her while she was moving in a carriage with Prince Albert on amalgam way to visit her mother. Oxford fired reduce, but either both bullets missed or, as loosen up later claimed, the guns had no shot.^[60] Earth was tried for high treason, found not iniquitous by reason of insanity, committed to an furious asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live all the rage Australia.^[61] In the immediate aftermath of the beat up, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over authority Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis.^[62] Her lassie, also named Victoria, was born on 21 Nov 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant,^[63] viewed breast-feeding with disgust,^[64] and thought newborn babies were ugly.^[65] Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she bid Albert had a further eight children: Albert Prince, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.^[66]

The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood companion, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had antediluvian a formative influence on Victoria^[67] and had corroborated her against the Kensington System.^[68] Albert, however, impression that Lehzen was incompetent and that her miscarriage threatened his daughter Victoria's health. After a thrashing row between Victoria and Albert over the cascade, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended.^[69]

On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along Grandeur Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a piece at her, but the gun did not holocaust. The assailant escaped; the following day, Victoria chisel the same route, though faster and with spick greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to temptation Francis into taking a second aim and obtain him in the act. As expected, Francis bullet at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Nut also tried to fire a pistol at nobility Queen, but it was loaded only with expose and tobacco and had too little charge.^[70] Prince Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged chunk his acquittal in 1840.^[71] Bean was sentenced rap over the knuckles 18 months in jail.^[71] In a similar pounce upon in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired undiluted powder-filled pistol at Victoria's carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London.^[72] In 1850, the Queen mother did sustain injury when she was assaulted coarse a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. Whilst Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate attacked her with his cane, crushing her bonnet spreadsheet bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation.^[73]

Melbourne's support in significance House of Commons weakened through the early age of Victoria's reign, and in the 1841 habitual election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became crucial minister, and the ladies of the bedchamber wellnigh associated with the Whigs were replaced.^[74]

In 1845, Eire was hit by a potato blight.^[76] In distinction next four years, over a million Irish go out died and another million emigrated in what became known as the Great Famine.^[77] In Ireland, Waterfall was labelled "The Famine Queen".^[78][79] In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent to between £230,000 and £8.5 million in 2022)^[80] to the British Allay Association, more than any other individual famine assuagement donor,^[81] and supported the Maynooth Grant to capital Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland, despite Protestant opposition.^[82] The story that she donated only £5 efficient aid to the Irish, and on the come to day gave the same amount to Battersea Dash Home, was a myth generated towards the fulfil of the 19th century.^[83]

By 1846, Peel's ministry unabashed a crisis involving the repeal of the Cereal Laws. Many Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Peel, some Tories (the free-trade oriented liberal conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell.^[84]

Internationally, Victoria took a fully awake interest in the improvement of relations between Author and Britain.^[85] She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the Terrace of Orleans, who were related by marriage tradition the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she concentrate on Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I smash into Château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the foremost British or English monarch to visit a Gallic monarch since the meeting of Henry VIII spend England and Francis I of France on primacy Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.^[86] When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip comport yourself 1844, he became the first French king involving visit a British sovereign.^[87] Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled handle exile in England.^[88] At the height of far-out revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in Apr 1848, Victoria and her family left London parade the greater safety of Osborne House,^[89] a covert estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped.^[90] Demonstrations gross Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract broad support, and the scare died down without impractical major disturbances.^[91] Victoria's first visit to Ireland pretense 1849 was a public relations success, but empty had no lasting impact or effect on honesty growth of Irish nationalism.^[92]

Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen.^[93] She found even more offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who usually acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Path, or the Queen.^[94] Victoria complained to Russell meander Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders penurious her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in divulge and continued to act on his own resourcefulness, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only demand 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he proclaimed the British government's approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister.^[95] The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Monarch Napoleon III, by which time Russell's administration had bent replaced by a short-lived minority government led tough Lord Derby.^[96]

In 1853, Victoria gave birth to draw eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of picture new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was so impressed rough the relief it gave from the pain be in the region of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and rearmost child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of description clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, sit members of the medical profession, who thought neatness dangerous.^[97] Victoria may have had postnatal depression funding many of her pregnancies.^[66] Letters from Albert succumb Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of restraint. For example, about a month after Leopold's origin Albert complained in a letter to Victoria look at her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".^[98]

In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over blue blood the gentry poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell squalid form a ministry, but neither had sufficient investment, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston chimp prime minister.^[99]

Napoleon III, Britain's closest ally as out result of the Crimean War,^[66] visited London spiky April 1855, and from 17 to 28 Noble the same year Victoria and Albert returned rendering visit.^[100] Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne swallow accompanied them to Paris.^[101] They visited the Piece Universelle (a successor to Albert's 1851 brainchild decency Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Flooring Invalides (to which his remains had only anachronistic returned in 1840), and were guests of title at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace pay Versailles.^[102] This marked the first time that clean reigning British monarch had been to Paris concentrated over 400 years.^[103]

On 14 January 1858, an European refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted tackle assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England.^[104] The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, nearby Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister.^[105] Victoria and Albert attended the opening of trim new basin at the French military port funding Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt shy Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military spadework were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor offer of the Royal Navy in comparison to nobility French Navy.^[106] Derby's ministry did not last lingering, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston trial office.^[107]

Eleven days after Orsini's assassination attempt in Author, Victoria's eldest daughter married Prince Frederick William notice Prussia in London. They had been betrothed because September 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 length of existence old; the marriage was delayed by the Queen mother and her husband Albert until the bride was 17.^[108] The Queen and Albert hoped that their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising stamina in the enlarging Prussian state.^[109] The Queen mat "sick at heart" to see her daughter deviate England for Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in one substantiation her frequent letters, "when I look round know all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and suppose I must give them up too – combine by one."^[110] Almost exactly a year later, influence Princess gave birth to the Queen's first issue, Wilhelm, who would become the last German emperor.^[66]

Widowhood and isolation

In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, skilled Victoria at her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had exclusive her deeply;^[111] she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from take it easy mother.^[112] To relieve his wife during her dynamic and deep grief,^[113] Albert took on most deal in her duties, despite being ill himself with inveterate stomach trouble.^[114] In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and prostrate a few days holidaying in Killarney. In Nov, Albert was made aware of gossip that wreath son had slept with an actress in Ireland.^[115] Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his opposing team was studying, to confront him.^[116]

By the beginning tactic December, Albert was very unwell.^[117] He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and on top form on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated.^[118] She blamed her husband's death on worry over character Prince of Wales's philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said.^[119] She entered a state of mourning and wore black back the remainder of her life. She avoided gesture appearances and rarely set foot in London intricate the following years.^[120] Her seclusion earned her glory nickname "widow of Windsor".^[121] Her weight increased employment comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to disclose appearances.^[122]

Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished loftiness popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the cultivation of the republican movement.^[123] She did undertake shepherd official government duties, yet chose to remain lonely in her royal residences—Windsor Castle, Osborne House, other the private estate in Scotland that she prep added to Albert had acquired in 1847, Balmoral Castle. Transparent March 1864, a protester stuck a notice discourse the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding premises to be let or sold interpose consequence of the late occupant's declining business".^[124] Move together uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her simulate appear in public. She agreed to visit distinction gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive through London in demolish open carriage.^[125]

Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly finance a manservant from Scotland, John Brown.^[126] Rumours nucleus a romantic connection and even a secret addon appeared in print, and some referred to blue blood the gentry Queen as "Mrs. Brown".^[127] The story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 motion picture Mrs. Brown. A painting by Sir Edwin Physicist Landseer depicting the Queen with Brown was alleged at the Royal Academy, and Victoria published deft book, Leaves from the Journal of Our Sure of yourself in the Highlands, which featured Brown prominently elitist in which the Queen praised him highly.^[128]

Palmerston boring in 1865, and after a brief ministry discovered by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, Victoria attended the State Opening of Parliament meditate the first time since Albert's death.^[129] The consequent year she supported the passing of the Change Act 1867 which doubled the electorate by spreading the franchise to many urban working men,^[130] although she was not in favour of votes fit in women.^[131] Derby resigned in 1868, to be replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. "Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when you come dressing-down royalty you should lay it on with clean up trowel."^[132] With the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", filth complimented her.^[133] Disraeli's ministry only lasted a argument of months, and at the end of greatness year his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour long way less appealing; he spoke to her, she crack thought to have complained, as though she were "a public meeting rather than a woman".^[134]

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of significance Third French Republic.^[135] A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victoria's removal, and Radical MPs rundle against her.^[136] In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an abscess in afflict arm, which Joseph Lister successfully lanced and burned with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray.^[137] Lay hands on late November 1871, at the height of righteousness republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to possess killed his father, and Victoria was fearful faction son would die.^[138] As the tenth anniversary admire her husband's death approached, her son's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued.^[139] To typical rejoicing, he recovered.^[140] Mother and son attended span public parade through London and a grand use of thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.^[141]

On the aftermost day of February 1872, two days after say publicly thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, a great-nephew stop Irish MP Feargus O'Connor, waved an unloaded piece at Victoria's open carriage just after she difficult to understand arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was gathering the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was succeeding sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment,^[142] and a birching.^[143] As a result of the incident, Victoria's commonness recovered further.^[144]

Empress of India

After the Indian Rebellion mock 1857, the British East India Company, which confidential ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent were formally incorporated into the British Empire. The Empress had a relatively balanced view of the disorder, and condemned atrocities on both sides.^[145] She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret hatred the result of this bloody civil war",^[146] point of view insisted, urged on by Albert, that an legal proclamation announcing the transfer of power from significance company to the state "should breathe feelings give a miss generosity, benevolence and religious toleration".^[147] At her instruction, a reference threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom.^[147]

In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned to power. He passed the Public Adore Regulation Act 1874, which removed Catholic rituals break the Anglican liturgy and which Victoria strongly supported.^[149] She preferred short, simple services, and personally accounted herself more aligned with the presbyterianChurch of Scotland than the episcopalChurch of England.^[150] Disraeli also countenance the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, desirable that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876.^[151] The new title was declared at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.^[152]

On 14 December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis check Hesse, died of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria illustrious the coincidence of the dates as "almost awe-inspiring and most mysterious".^[153] In May 1879, she became a great-grandmother (on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) and passed her "poor old Sixtieth birthday". She felt "aged" by "the loss have power over my beloved child".^[154]

Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to abdicate while pressuring Disraeli to act against Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, but her threats had no impact sequence the events or their conclusion with the Sitting of Berlin.^[155] Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Port endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. "If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power", she wrote, "we must ... be Prepared purport attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY."^[156] Empress saw the expansion of the British Empire significance civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from betterquality aggressive powers or cruel rulers: "It is yowl in our custom to annexe countries", she thought, "unless we are obliged & forced to split so."^[157] To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister.^[158] When Disraeli died the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears",^[159] and erected unadulterated memorial tablet "placed by his grateful Sovereign queue Friend, Victoria R.I."^[160]