QUEEN VICTORIA

Childhood

Queen Victoria was born 24^th of May of 1819 in United Kingdom.  Her parents were Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

She described her childhood, as "rather melancholy". Her mother was extremely protective, as a consequence of the death of Victoria’s father when she was only 1 year old, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so called "Kensington System", the system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Sir Conroy, who was rumored to be the Duchess's lover.

Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play hours with her dolls and her dog, who’s called Dash. Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin, but she spoke only English at home.

Victoria’s mother and Conroy took Victoria around England, making stops in every town. Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops, but she disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest. In one of these trips, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy didn’t pay attention telling it was childish pretence. As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.

Married in love! : white dress

Before her reign, Victoria met her cousin, the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1836. They fell in love since the time they saw. They  commited on 15th October 1839. Their wedding ceremony took place on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace. This was the first wedding of a reigning Queen in England since 1554.

One of the curiosities of this story, is that Victoria was the first woman who dressed in White on your wedding day, she started the fashion. Finally, their married on 10th February 1840 at St James Place, in London.

We found a text from Victoria when she explaid about her wedding night with her really love:

“NEVER,  I have NEVER spent a night as well. MY DEAR, DEAR, DEAR Albert with his love and affection has made me feel like I'm in a paradise of love and happiness, something I never expected to feel. He took me in his arms and we kissed again and again. Her beauty, her sweetness and kindness, I can never thank enough times to have a husband like that, he calls me cute names like never before called me, has been an incredible blessing. This has been the happiest day of my life.”

In the text can be the feelings that Victoria had toward his cousin and husband. 

In total, they had nine children: Victoria-German Empress-, Edward VII –Successor-, Princess Alice -Grand Duchess of Hessen-, Alfred  -Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Goth-, Helena-Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-, Princess Louise -Duchess of Argyll-, Prince Arthur-Duke of Connaught-, Prince Leopold -Duke of Albany- and Beatrice -Princess Henry of Battenberg-.

Albert was a perfect husband for Victoria but in the year 1861, aside from suffering the death of her mother, Victoria lived the death of her beloved husband. Is from then until his death that the sovereign was not presented at public events and always was mourning to show the faithful and never-ending love made her beloved husband. So this beautiful love story is finished.

Monarchs in Victoria’s time

There was other big monarchs in Victoria’s time. The more important were: Isabel II (Spain), Tsar Alejandro III (Rusia), Fernando I (Austria-Hungary), Leopold II and Fernando IV (Italy) and Federico-Guillermo III (Prussia).

Descendents

Victoria and Albert had 4 sons, 5 daughters, and some of they had hemophilia. Victoria had trouble relating to her children when they were young; some of this possibly owing to her own isolated childhood.

Victoria, Princess Royal was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of and Prince Albert. She was created Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, and Edward VII was he eldest son and the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India.

Society

Victoria’s time was between of industrial revolution, a very important change in 19^th century. The industrial revolution which has inside five different revolutions, demographic, medicine, transports and politic revolution. The demographic revolution makes an enormous population grown. The most important was the invention of railroads and the vapor machine. United Kingdom has the most important communications of railroads in the world. The economic politic of queen Victoria’s time was the liberalism, more hard than our capitalism.

Victoria was a monarch, but U.K was a constitutional monarchy which the commons and lords house, they were the people who decided about politic subjects in the time.

The dark side of Victoria’s time was the slavery, started when Great Britain started to get some countries and colonies, workers; even children had to work industries more than ten hours, the misery and the hunger that the big part of the society had.

Not everybody was agree with the monarchy; in 19^th century were an important riots that change the way to understand the politics in that era. For example the communism whose leader was Karl Marx had a relevant paper in those years, the most important struggles of the communism were for reduce the working hours, more salaries and better conditions in the industries.

Anarchism of Mijail Bakunin was important too. 

Although United Kingdom was a constitutional monarchy, women were not allowed to vote, so started the first feminist struggles, but the women vote didn’t come until after of first world war.

Great Britain was a rich empire, control a lot of colonies in the world, the biggest or more important were, the concessions in China, South Africa to control the pass in Cabo de Hornos, Egypt to control pass of Suez, Canada and Australia for the economy.

Victorian Vogues

 There was a big difference between rich and poor also has looked this difference in the way of dressing. Throughout the 19^th century, on the reign of 63 years, there were many changes in fashion. They introduce new designs. The sewing machine revolutionized this fashion and introduce new models of dresses and new designs that revolutionized fashion.

The dresses, houses, the interiors of houses etc… had this type of colors, were the colors that were in vogue. Here we have a scale of colors that were fashionable in the Victorian edge.

 In architecture the style is characterized by taking designs of English Gothic architecture and other architecture used in his time. The design and construction forms varies from one place to another. It was used mainly in the design of private homes, although there are good examples of public and industrial buildings.

Some modes still continue, for example Steampunk that is a genre that comes from science fiction. This genus is based on the 19^th century western civilization. This fad has futuristic elements and accessories like real not machines of the works of Jules Verne or Phillip Pullman, among others. 

-Marina B., Alba G., Carla M. and Ariadna S.-