Childhood
Queen Victoria was born 24th 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 19th 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 19th 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 19th 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 19th 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.-
