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Queen Victoria

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1. Queen Victoria's birth and youth

She was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24^th May 1819. She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent and granddaughter of King George III.

She was warmhearted, lively and had a gift for drawing and painting. She was educated by a governess at home.

She became Queen in 1837 at the age of 18,after the death of King William IV who had no legitimate children who survived.

2. Queen Victoria's life and reign

Her reign was the longest of any British King or Queen and is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and – especially –Empire.

In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by two men : her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and her husband, Prince Albert, whom she married in 1840.
Both men taught her much about how to be a ruler in a "constitutional monarchy" where the monarch had very few powers but could use much influence.

Her marriage to Prince Albert brought nine children.
Queen Victoria was deeply attached to her husband and she sank into depression after he died, aged 42, in 1861 and took no further part in public affairs. She lived in seclusion for a long time and was criticised for it.

Seven attempts were made on Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 but her courageous attitude towards these attacks greatly strengthened her popularity. She was persuaded to go back onto the political scene by her Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

3. Her foreign policy

The Queen played an important role as far as diplomacy was concerned. Her influence during the middle years of her reign (1860 to 1880) was generally used to support peace and reconciliation.
In 1864, Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the Prussia-Austria-Denmark war and her letter to the German Emperor (whose son had married her daughter) in 1875 helped to avoid a second Franco-German war.

Queen Victoria's popularity grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from the 1870s onwards. In 1877 Victoria became Empress of India thanks to her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

She died in 1901. You can see the statue of Queen Victoria on her throne in front of Buckingham Palace in London.

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