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Douneside House offers a truly luxurious hotel stay within the grounds of the MacRobert Estate in Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Highlands.
Set within the grounds of the MacRobert Estate in Aberdeenshire, the main House features 13 beautiful guest rooms. The current refurbishment includes a complete re-design of each room to create a classic-contemporary style, whilst retaining important elements of Douneside’s original character through the careful placement of individual pieces of antique furniture and precious artwork. Guests staying at Douneside House, Casa Memoria or the Douneside cottages can take advantage of our fully refurbished Health Club on the grounds. After a rejuvenating day spent hiking in the surrounding hills, fishing in the nearby river, or golfing at the local course, there is no better way to unwind than with a relaxing yoga class or refreshing dip in the pool, followed by a visit to the steam room or sauna. You may of course prefer to spend a leisurely few hours in the Douneside library, browsing our extensive range of books next to a roaring open fire while sipping a wee dram‌ Our award-winning Head Chef will then indulge you with a true Scottish dining experience. The carefully crafted menu showcases seasonal, locally sourced produce, perfectly complemented by our extensive wine and whisky list. Our breathtaking location, coupled with luxurious accommodation, outstanding facilities and a passionate, attentive team dedicated to indulging your every whim, will ensure that your stay with us here in the Scottish Highlands is a truly memorable one.
To book or for further information contact Manager@dounesidehouse.co.uk or on +44 (0)13398 81230 or visit dounesidehouse.co.uk Douneside House | Tarland by Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, AB34 4UL
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W elcome With Jenna Coleman making a star return as the title character in TV’s Victoria, we bring you the story of the real Victoria – the princess who was thrust into public life, becoming Queen at the tender age of 18. While the first series focused on Victoria’s ascension to the throne as well as her burgeoning love affair with Albert, in the second series of Victoria, the Queen adjusts to life as a first-time mother. She had to learn quickly: the first seven of Victoria and Albert’s nine children were born within the first decade of their marriage. Over the next 32 pages, we’ll examine the secret life of Victoria. Through private letters and diaries, we reveal her inner thoughts as both mother and wife, and chart her meteoric rise to become one of the most formidable rulers our nation has ever seen.
4 4 A WIFE'S DEVOTION Victoria and Albert’s love affair showed the Queen's warmer side
8 VICTORIA'S SECRET HIDEAWAYS From Cliveden to Snowdonia, visit Victoria’s stunning retreats
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SALLY COFFEY, Editor
FAMILY TIES She bore nine children, but how maternal was Victoria?
The real VICTORIA
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WIFE MOTHER QUEEN
A SUPPLEMENT TO BRITAIN – THE OFFICIAL M AGAZINE
BRITAIN is the official magazine of VisitBritain, the national tourism agency. BRITAIN is published by The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ Tel: 020 7349 3700 Fax: 020 7901 3701 Email: info@britain-magazine.com
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ROYAL SETTINGS The real stars of TV’s Victoria are the beautiful backdrops
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20 Editor Sally Coffey Art Editor Clare White Deputy Editor Laura Silverman Publisher Steve Pill Managing Director Paul Dobson Head of Market James Davis Sales Team Paul Beckham, Samuel Sud Printed in England by William Gibbons Production All Points Media
VICTORIOUS REIGN How Victoria went from reluctant monarch to Queen of an Empire
© The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd 2018 All rights reserved. Text and pictures are copyright restricted and must not be reproduced without permission of the publishers.
The information contained in this supplement has been published in good faith and every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy. However, where appropriate, you are strongly advised to check opening times, dates, etc, before making final arrangements. All liability for loss, disappointment, negligence or damage caused by reliance on the information contained within this publication is hereby excluded. The opinions expressed by contributors to BRITAIN are not necessarily those of the publisher or VisitBritain.
Cover image: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy
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victoria & albert
A WIFE’S
Devotion
From their early courtship to Albert’s untimely death, Victoria and Albert’s love affair showed a warmer side to the Queen
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hough their affection for each other has been well documented – not least by the Queen herself, who wrote openly of her love for her husband in her diaries – it was far from love at first sight for the royal couple, at least on Victoria’s part. First cousins – Albert’s father was the brother of Victoria’s mother – Victoria and Albert actually met a couple of years before their engagement. The pair first met in 1836, when Albert travelled from his native Germany to London for the then Princess Victoria’s 17th birthday celebrations. Though Victoria later wrote to her uncle, King Leopold I of Belgium, thanking him for introducing them and describing Albert as having “the most pleasing and delightful exterior”, she was determined not to rush into marriage and it wasn’t until two and a half years later that she really let herself fall for Albert. In the ensuing years since their first meeting, Albert had written to Victoria many times and it seems his visit in the autumn of 1839 may have been to confront her about stringing him along. Whatever the reason, the outcome was good. Five days after his arrival at Windsor, Victoria proposed to Albert, as custom dictated. Writing in her journal about the proposal, Victoria recalled: “I said to him that I thought he must be aware why I wished him to come here, and that it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished (to marry me); we embraced each other over and over again, and he was so kind, so affectionate; oh! To feel I was, and am, loved by such an angel as Albert.” And so began a love affair every bit as passionate as the one portrayed by Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes in TV’s Victoria. While it would be easy to presume the programme makers had ramped things up to increase ratings, we know from Victoria’s
journal and correspondence between the couple that their desire for each other was very real. And this is despite their daughter Beatrice doctoring her mother’s diaries to remove all mention of bedroom talk. In a letter written shortly after their engagement, when Albert had returned to Germany briefly, he wrote: “I need not tell you that since we left, all my thoughts have been with you at Windsor, and that your image fills my whole soul. Even in my dreams I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth.” But despite it being a love match, like most couples, Victoria and Albert had their arguments. Victoria was prone to temper tantrums: so dramatic were her mood swings that some historians even claim Albert worried that she may have inherited the ‘madness’ of her grandfather, George III. Nevertheless, despite the arguments, Albert always managed to get back into Victoria’s good books. She called him her ‘angel’ and wrote frequently of her pride in his achievements, particularly the hugely successful Great Exhibition of 1851. When Albert died of typhoid fever in 1861, Victoria was devastated. She wrote to her eldest daughter, also called Victoria, asking: “How I, who leant on him for all and everything – without whom I did nothing, moved not a finger, arranged not a print or photograph, didn’t put on a gown or bonnet if he didn’t approve it shall go on, to live, to move, to help myself in difficult moments?” For years, she mourned Albert’s death, retreating from public life and wearing black for the remaining 40 years of her life. For many years, Victoria’s grief bordered on the obsessive – it’s even said she ordered servants to continue bringing hot water into his room for his morning shave. However, the myth that Victoria ordered London railings to be painted black has been widely discredited.
Top to bottom: Prince Albert and Victoria in 1854; the couple riding at Windsor Castle
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PHOTOS: © ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II/WWW.BRIDGEMANIMAGES.COM/ PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY/NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES
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Victoria’s love affair with Scotland is well known – indeed, she is largely credited with helping to dispel the idea that Scotland was a land of savages and encouraged tourism here. On her first visit in 1842, she and Albert spent several days in Edinburgh. The couple returned many times, before building their own castle at Balmoral. On arrival in what is now Royal Deeside in northeast Scotland, Victoria wrote in her diary: “All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.” Victoria saw Scotland as an escape from reality and she enjoyed hunting, fishing, riding and painting here. She loved the fact that
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she could go relatively incognito and there are many reports of her and Albert taking long expeditions through the hills of the Highlands before staying overnight in inns in remote villages. However, it’s unlikely the royal couple actually got lost and stayed in a poor couple’s cottage, as shown in Series 2 of Victoria, if only because she never mentioned it in her journal. Following Albert’s death, Victoria often retreated to Glas-allt-Shiel, a lodge on the Balmoral Estate, which she referred to as her ‘Widow’s House’. She also regularly took breakfast in Balmoral’s Garden Cottage, where she would write her diaries. www.balmoralcastle.com
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Victoria’s Secret
HIDEAWAYS When Queen Victoria needed a break from duties, these are the places to which she retreated
WORDS SALLY COFFEY
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This grand house was a favourite holiday home for Victoria, Albert and their nine children (see below), but while Osborne House may not seem so secret, there are certainly parts that were more private to the royal couple than others. In 2017, the garden terrace (right) at the Isle of Wight home, where Victoria once sat and painted watercolours, opened to the public. The terrace – along with the rest of the house – was designed by Prince Albert together with his art adviser Ludwig Gruner. From here, there are panoramic views across the Solent – comparable, according to the Prince Consort, to the Bay of Naples. Victoria loved the terrace, writing in her journal on 2 June 1850: “This evening, after our little ‘tête à tête’ dinner, we went out for a little on the Terrace, and nothing could have been more enchanting — the calm sea stretched out before us, and innumerable birds singing, the only sounds to interrupt the quiet of the place.” Visitors to Osborne House can now see the fully restored Andromeda fountain, bought by Queen Victoria during the Great Exhibition of 1851; the ornate Shell Alcove, decorated with thousands of seashells from the beach below, and the famous royal myrtle plant, given to Victoria by Prince Albert’s grandmother, which has been included in royal wedding bouquets since the marriage of Victoria and Albert’s eldest daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal. www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/osborne
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PHOTOS: © VISITSCOTLAND/RICHARD ELLIOT/JIM HOLDEN/PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY
OSBORNE HOUSE, ISLE OF WIGHT
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So enamoured was Victoria by north Wales that she bought a holiday home here. Today, Ynyshir Hall (above), on the fringes of Snowdonia National Park, is a Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms, but it still retains a sense of seclusion, thanks in no small part to the many Persian ironwood trees planted under Victoria’s instruction. Victoria was drawn to the abundance of wildlife, which can still be seen at RSPB Ynys-hir, just two minutes away. This wasn’t the only place that Victoria stayed at in the region, either. Victoria was so taken with Palé Hall (both above right and right), now a country house hotel, during her stay in 1889 that she extended her visit to 10 days. A half-tester bed believed to be the one the Queen slept in remains, while guests can also use the same bath and basin as Victoria, who chose the room as it was the only one at the time with its own plumbing. www.ynyshir.co.uk; www.palehall.co.uk
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PHOTOS: © TIM WINTER
SNOWDONIA, WALES
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travel For more photos of royal hideaways across Britain, go to www. britain-magazine. com
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HOTEL ENDSLEIGH, DEVON Now a hotel (left and below), this Grade I listed house, set amid 100 acres of woodland, including follies and grottoes created by Humphry Repton, was once used as a hunting lodge by the Duke of Bedford. Victoria was suitably impressed when she visited, writing in her diary: “We saw yesterday one of the loveliest places possible – Endsleigh.” Guests today can enjoy the setting much as Victoria would have done, taking in the views of the River Tamar and the glorious gardens from the window of room 8, where Victoria slept. Even the botanical hand-painted wallpaper remains unchanged. www.hotelendsleigh.com
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CLIVEDEN, BERKSHIRE In 1849, Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland – a close friend of Queen Victoria’s – bought this remarkable house. Later that year the house burned down (despite the Queen sending her fire engines from Windsor) and architect Sir Charles Barry rebuilt it in 1851. Victoria visited Cliveden on at least eight occasions and in the summer of 1866 she stayed for 10 days, bedding down in what is now the resplendent Lady Astor Suite. Today Cliveden is home to an exquisite hotel and spa. www.clivedenhouse.co.uk
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mother
FAMILY
Ties
PHOTOS: © HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD/ALAMY/NATIONAL TRUST/ANNE CHAPMAN AND DAVID PRESSWELL
She bore nine children but it’s no secret that Victoria loathed being pregnant and questions abound as to how maternal she actually was
Left: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with five of their children Above: Victoria in 1861 BRITAIN | THE REAL VICTORIA
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PHOTOS: © WWW.BRIDGEMANART.COM/GARETH GATTRELL/ITV PLC FOR MASTERPIECE
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t is most odious but they have spread a report that you and I are both in what I call an unhappy condition,” wrote Queen Victoria to her eldest daughter, also called Victoria, amid rumours that the newly married princess was pregnant. “All who love you hope you will be spared this trial for a year yet,” she continued. “If I’d had a year of happy enjoyment with dear Papa to myself how happy I would have been!” Queen Victoria fell pregnant very soon after her marriage: ‘Vicky’ was born just nine months after the wedding. At the start of Series 2 of Victoria, we see the Queen frustrated at being confined to the nursery to look after her young baby, but in reality she only saw Vicky twice a day and she certainly did not breast-feed (she considered it the “ruin” of many good women). Unhappily for Victoria, she became pregnant again very soon after Vicky, with Prince Albert Edward (Bertie) being born within the year. While the numerous pregnancies were the result of her passionate relationship with Albert, they also drove a wedge between the royal couple. Victoria grew increasingly jealous of her husband’s rising power – he assumed control of the household, attended meetings with ministers and even drafted her correspondence – but with seven of their nine children born within the first 10 years of their marriage, she was in no fit state to argue. Nor did she seek solace in the motherly affection she felt towards her children, writing openly of her dislike of babies: “I have no tender for them till they have become a little human; an ugly baby is a very nasty object – and the prettiest is frightful when undressed.”
Some modern scholars have even suggested that Queen Victoria suffered from postnatal depression. It’s most definitely true that she took more of an active interest in her children as they grew older – she was particularly loving towards Vicky – although others claim she was just using them as political pawns to cement her power in Europe by strategically marrying them off. Victoria and Albert were keen to set a moral example for the rest of Europe, and many paintings and photographs show them with their children looking like a happy family. Victoria revelled in this image, writing: “They say no Sovereign was ever more loved than I (I am bold enough to say), and this because of our happy domestic home and the good example it presents.” However, the perfect family came at a price: the princes and princesses all had to endure a strict education regime to prepare them for royal marriages across Europe. The only one of her children to resist this strict regime was Bertie, who – against both his parents’ wishes – became something of a libertine. Indeed, it was while on a mission to chastise Bertie for his behaviour that Albert caught the fever that was to kill him. Victoria blamed her eldest son for his father’s death and for years she could barely look at him. Perhaps it was this that led Queen Victoria to famously declare: “You will find as the children grow up that, as a rule, children are a bitter disappointment – their greatest object being to do precisely what their parents do not wish and have anxiously tried to prevent.”
“An ugly baby is a very nasty object – and the prettiest is frightful when undressed”
Above: Painting by Charles Robert Leslie depicting the christening of Victoria and Albert’s oldest child, Victoria Right: Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes in TV’s Victoria
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stately homes
Regal SETTINGS
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Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes aside, the real stars of TV’s Victoria are the historic buildings that provide the stunning backdrops
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stately homes
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stately homes
Harewood House, West Yorkshire This 18th-century country pile in Yorkshire (previous page) does a sterling job as a stand-in for Buckingham Palace in both series of Victoria. The John Carr and Robert Adam designed house, set amid a Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown landscape, can easily rival the more famous Castle Howard (which starred as Kensington Palace in Series 1), but it has fallen under the radar… until now. Harewood was originally considered to be the model location for Downton Abbey. It didn’t quite meet the demands of Julian Fellowes and his location scouts – being beaten to the post by Highclere Castle – but thanks to Victoria it is currently experiencing something of its own ‘Downton effect’. Its lavish interiors include an incredible art collection, featuring a series of watercolours by JMW Turner, an impressive collection of Chippendale furniture, plus the State Bedroom (pictured) where the real Queen Victoria is said to have stayed when she was Princess. www.harewood.org
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stately homes
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stately homes
Blair Castle, Scotland This fairytale castle in the Scottish Highlands was chosen as the location to bring Victoria’s burgeoning love affair with Scotland to life as she visited the castle many times during her 63-year reign. The castle appears in Episode 7, with scenes filmed inside, on the castle’s forecourt and around the estate. During filming, several Atholl Highlanders – from the regiment founded by Victoria – feature, as well as two of the estate’s Highland ponies. Blair Castle has a fascinating 700-year history: Mary, Queen of Scots took part in an elaborate hunt here in 1564 and it was laid siege by both Bonnie Prince Charlie and his supporters, and the British government during the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46. In 2018, visitors will be able to join outdoor tours of some of the filming locations on the estate, as well as see some of Victoria’s personal belongings on display. www.blair-castle.co.uk
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stately homes
Carlton Towers, North Yorkshire This beautiful private mansion is more castle than stately home, making it the ideal filming location for scenes set at Windsor. Edward Welby Pugin (son of Augustus Pugin, who designed the interior of the Houses of Parliament) added the crenelated towers, gargoyles, battlements and coat of arms, turning the Jacobean Carlton Hall into Carlton Towers. The overhaul was the vision of the house’s Victorian custodian, the 9th Lord Beaumont. Beaumont wanted to create the greatest country house of the era so he also employed the master craftsmanship of John Francis Bentley to remodel the interior of the house in the Gothic Revival style. Today, you can stay the night (providing you are prepared to book out all 16 bedrooms), join a cookery course, come for Sunday lunch, or attend one of the many fancy events. www.carltontowers.co.uk
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stately homes
Ripon Cathedral, North Yorkshire With the twin towers of its Early English west front, this remarkable building is very convincing as Westminster Abbey in the second series of Victoria. Built on the site of an Anglo-Saxon church that had been constructed by St Wilfrid, the medieval cathedral still has access to the 7th-century crypt (one of the oldest in Britain), where worship continues to this day. Inside, the 15th-century misericords depict allegorical scenes with more than a hint of the absurd and are said to have fired the imagination of Lewis Carroll and his Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. www.riponcathedral.info
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PHOTOS: © COURTESY OF GARETH GATRELL/ITV PLC FOR MASTERPIECE/VISITENGLAND/THOMAS HEATON/PAUL BARKER/HAREWOOD HOUSE TRUST/VISITBRITAIN/ PAUL TOMKINS/VISITSCOTLAND/MARSAILI MAINZ/PAUL THOMPSON IMAGES/BRIAN LAWRENCE/ALAMY/PETER SMITH
stately homes
Castle Howard, North Yorkshire
For more on Britain's stately homes, see www. britain-magazine. com/statelyhomes
No stranger to film crews, Castle Howard (left) was made famous by its starring role in Brideshead Revisited in 1981 and then again in 2008 as the backdrop to the frivolous and decadent activities of the wealthy Flytes and their friends. In Victoria, its role as Kensington Palace in Series 1 was rather more restrained but no less thrilling. Interiors that featured in the series include the grand Castle Howard bedroom (right) where Victoria was seen sleeping next to her mother when she was awoken to be told that her uncle, King William IV, had died and she is to be Queen. Visitors can also stroll along the Long Gallery (above), where Queen Victoria was seen addressing her Lords for the first time in the series: “I know that I am young and some would say my sex puts me at a disadvantage, but I know my duty and I assure you I am ready for the great responsibility that lies before me.” www.castlehoward.co.uk
VICTORIA SEASON 2 Premieres Sunday, 14 January 2018 on MASTERPIECE on PBS.
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V ictorious reign
From reluctant monarch to Queen of an Empire, Victoria achieved a remarkable amount in her 63 years on the throne
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FIVE KEY MOMENTS O Bedchamber Crisis (1839)
Early in her reign, Victoria cast out her mother’s lady-in-waiting Flora Hastings, amid rumours that she was pregnant. When Flora was found to have a liver tumour, which led to her death, the Queen was criticised for her callous treatment of the girl. O New traditions (1852)
Victoria arrived at the first State Opening of Parliament in the newly built Palace of Westminster in a fanfare of pomp and ceremony, starting a set of traditions that
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have been kept ever since. Together with Albert, she also began to create a more visible monarchy, becoming patron of 150 institutions and visiting industrial towns.
O Empress of India (1877)
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (depicted right in a Punch cartoon) declared Victoria ‘Empress of India’ to further his imperial ambitions.
O Return to the public eye (1871)
Following the recovery from typhoid of her son Edward, Victoria returned to public life after Albert’s death, appearing on the Buckingham Palace balcony to thank crowds for their support.
O Golden Jubilee (1887)
Victoria used her 50th anniversary as Queen to cement her reputation as the face of the Empire. Alongside processions through London, her face was emblazoned on souvenirs (left).
PHOTOS: © ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL/JOHN MCLEAN/ELSIE ROLFE/NATIONAL TRUST
her history books. Later, Victoria orn Alexandrina said she was very unhappy at the Victoria on 24 May discovery and “cried much”. 1819 at Kensington When her uncle, King William IV, Palace, it seemed unlikely at her died of heart failure in 1837, birth that ‘Drina’, as her mother the Victoria, then 18, became Queen. Duchess of Kent called her, would The control of her mother and become Queen. Conroy was finally broken and with Fifth in line to the throne, her this newfound independence it is said birth, like many royal births before that one of her first acts as Queen her, was triggered by a succession was to spend an hour alone. crisis – that of her grandfather King Of her five-hour-long coronation George III when Princess Charlotte, ceremony, which was criticised for his only legitimate grandchild at the being chaotic, she wrote of how the time, died before him. Archbishop of Canterbury placed Victoria had an unhappy and sheltered childhood, dominated by a ring on the wrong finger: “The her mother and her father’s former consequence was that I had the adviser, Sir John Conroy, who greatest difficulty to take it off again, employed the Kensington System – which I at last did with great pain.” Above: Queen Victoria as a child with her mother, the Duchess of Kent Guided initially by her friend and a strict set of rules imposed on mentor, Lord Melbourne, and later by her husband, Victoria’s reign Victoria requiring that she never spend time alone and had to share introduced a new style of constitutional monarchy, which shook a room with her mother. off the reputation of the Crown as overindulgent and helped them The uncertainty of the succession meant that Victoria was not reconnect with the public through civic duties. Victoria also survived made aware of her position until around 1830, when she found a a number of assassination attempts throughout her long reign. genealogical table that had been deliberately slipped inside one of
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