The Queen was able to open Parliament in person at the end of January. The first christening in the royal household had been fixed to take place on the 10th of February, the first...
In the month of August, 1831, the Princess went with her mother to profit by the soft, sweet breezes of the Isle of Wight. The Duchess and her daughter occupied Norris Castle for t...
Many people had thought that the Russians hoped to get control of India. If they had succeeded in doing so, the Queen would have been saved the sorrow that came to her from a revol...
A writer in Blackwood, speaking of the Queen about this time, said: "She is 'winning golden opinions from all sorts of people' by her affability, the grace of her manners, and her...
It was in Balmoral Castle that the husband and wife most loved to be with their children. Here they could lead a simple life free from all restraints, "small house, small rooms, sm...
This year of 1842 was not all joy and festivity. It was the year of the massacres of the British forces in Cabul; there was financial distress in England, which a charitable masked...
The Queen had never been abroad. It was still well-nigh an unconstitutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege, enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreig...
I The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared in the world, received but scant attention. There was small reason to foresee her destiny. The Duchess of Clar...
In the months of March and May, 1819, the following announcements of royal births appeared in succession in the newspapers of the day, no doubt to the satisfaction alike of anxious...
Buckingham Palace had been a seat of the Duke of Buckingham's, which was bought by George II., and in the next reign was settled on Queen Charlotte instead of Somerset House, and c...
The Queen's remaining unmarried was becoming the source of innumerable disturbing rumours and private intrigues for the bestowal of her hand. To show the extent to which the public...
The reign of Queen Victoria may be aptly described as a period of progress in all that related to the well-being of the subjects of her vast empire. In every department of science,...
Few men in England worked as hard as Prince Albert, the uncrowned King. If a corner stone of a school, a hospital, or a public building was to be laid, a missionary society to be f...
When she was eleven years old, the Princess opened the Victoria Park at Bath. She began the opening business thus early, and has kept it up pretty diligently for fifty years--parks...
"Elizabeth would be a good name for her," said the Duke of Kent. "Elizabeth was the greatest woman who ever sat on the throne of England. The English people are used to the name, a...
On the 9th of November, 1841, the happiness of the Queen and Prince was increased by the birth of the Prince of Wales. The event took place on the morning of the Lord Mayor's Day,...
On the day after that on which Princess Victoria celebrated her majority. Baron Stockmar arrived at Kensington. He came from the King of the Belgians to assist King Leopold's niece...
1838. The Chartist Movement. The Chartists demanded (1) Annual Parliaments; (2) Manhood Suffrage; (3) Vote by ballot; (4) Equal electoral districts; (5) Abolition of the property q...
Exactly one hundred years after Clive had laid the foundation of our empire in India by the victory of Plassey, events occurred in that country which completely cast into the shade...
The 10th of February rose dark and foggy, with a lowering sky discharging at frequent intervals heavy showers. But to many a loyal heart far beyond the sound of Bow bells the date...
When the young Queen awoke on the morning after her accession, she must have fancied for a moment that she had dreamed all the events of the previous day. She had gone to bed expec...
The coronation was fixed for June 28, 1838 a little more than a year from the accession. The, Queen had been slightly troubled at the thought of some of the antiquated forms of tha...
Nothing could be more simple than the order of the Princess' day at Kensington. Breakfast was at eight, and it was eaten out of doors whenever the weather was good. The Princess sa...
With the exception of Prince Alfred, the Queen's children had married according to the German proverb, "The oldest must leave the house first." The next in age was Prince Arthur, o...
In the old legend of Rip Van Winkle with which the American writer Washington Irving has made us so familiar, the ne'er-do-weel Rip wanders off into the Kaatskill Mountains with hi...
During the years from 1833 to Victoria's eighteenth birthday, on May 24, 1837, her life was sometimes that of a child, sometimes that of a young woman. Much of the time she lived q...
I The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects. In her public appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her private life had been that of a novice in...
"Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's. . . . A second man I honour, and...
Possibly the person to whom the Queen owed most--next to her husband--was Lord Melbourne. His position at the time when the young Queen came to the throne was a unique one. Victori...
It is very delightful to live in palaces and entertain kings and emperors; but Queen Victoria's palaces belonged to the English nation and not to herself, and, as has been said, th...