The early court of Queen Victoria

The Duchess of Kent was not a very popular woman with the Guelph family. George IV. hated her, and made her less welcome than he had made her husband, his brother, to whom he in...

“A country gentleman going to the theatre when William IV. was there would not believe the King was King because he was not wearing his crown; being almost persuaded, he looked...

Queen Adelaide, being in a high place, had many detractors, though she was certainly a kind and gentle woman. Her two faults in the eyes of the English people were that she was...

All the world knows that Princess Victoria made a love match, and that Nathaniel P. Willis’s prognostication that she would be married solely for reasons of State was never fulf...

“Oh, maiden, heir of Kings, A King has left his place, The Majesty of death has swept All other from his face. And thou upon thy mother’s breast No longer lean adown-- But take...

Among the deputations that came to wish the new Queen well was one from the Society of Friends, led by Joseph Sturge. Asked afterwards if he kissed the Queen’s hand, he answered...

“Under the present reign the perfect decorum of the Court is thought to have put a check on the gross vices of the aristocracy; yet gaming, racing, drinking, and mistresses brin...

“Good Monarchs we’ve had whom we think on with pride, Who wisely e’er filled their high station, But now we’ve a woman, Heaven bless her! beside She’s a child of our noble natio...

“The war with China--the price of sugar--the Corn Laws--the fourteen new Bishops about to be hatched--timber--cotton--a property tax, and the penny post--all these matters and p...

“We have lordlings in dozens, the Tories exclaim, To fill every place from the throng, Although the curs’d Whigs, be it told to our shame, Kept us poor Lords in waiting too long.”

“I think everyone should _own_ their fault in a kind way to anyone, be he or she the lowest--if one has been rude to or injured them by word or deed, especially those below you....

anyone else. I saw the poor Duchess of Kent, who is ‘floored,’ I think. She was very kind to me, and about all of us; but she is beat down, she can fight no longer, and she will...

Wherever the blame of the Flora Hastings affair lay, it must be admitted that with it and the Bedchamber squabble the Queen had had a nerve-breaking time. If the people had show...

Prince Albert was firmly convinced that Queen Victoria was injudicious in her partisanship of the Whigs, and he desired to begin his career in England on an independent basis as...

In September, 1841, the Queen found herself face to face with another political crisis, and Melbourne tendered his resignation once more. He went to Windsor to accomplish this d...

“I am born to this position; I must take it, and neither you nor I can help or hinder me. Surely, then, I need not fret myself to guard my own dignity.”--_Emerson._