MARTYN DOWNER

The Queen's Knight

Queen VictoriaQueen Victoria (1819-1901) remains Britain's longest reigning and most alluring monarch. She was the only child of George III's fourth son Edward, Duke of Kent and of Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. In 1837 she succeeded her uncle William IV to the throne ruling for the next 64 years over an ever-expanding empire. Her marriage in 1840 to her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha defined her life, and her reign. Victoria bore her husband nine children in eighteen years and when he tragically died from Typhoid in 1861 she retreated into miserable seclusion. Tempestuous by nature, the Queen often endured fraught relations with her ministers, especially with her Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone. None the less, she respected her constitutional position and steered the monarchy successfully through the political turmoil of the nineteenth century. In the latter part of her reign, Victoria regained her popularity with a series of public events culminating in the tumultuous celebrations for her Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1887 and 1897.