We know of course, that Queen Victoria’s relationship with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, whilst difficult in the early years of her childhood and adolescence, gradually improved with her marriage to Prince Albert, becoming one of genuine closeness and affection. The death of the Duchess of Kent in 1861 – nine months as history would show, prior to the death of Prince Albert – provoked an…
“Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!”
With these words, Queen Victoria described her wedding day in her diary – 10 February 1840, writing up the event for the day’s entry from Windsor Castle. It marked the beginning of her marriage to her cousin, Prince Albert…
On 1 August 1832, the thirteen-year-old Princess Victoria of Kent made her first entry into her diary; it was a diary, as she described it on its title page, which had been given to her by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, at Kensington Palace the day before. Bound in…
On 16 March 1861, the Duchess of Kent, born Princess Marie Louise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and by her first marriage, Princess of Leinigen, died at her residence of Frogmore House, in Windsor Great Park. Though she had been mother to Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Kent had never herself been Princess of Wales, because her second husband, Edward, Duke of Kent had been George III’s fourth…
Animals given to royalty could, of course, become pets – but they could often be presented in the form of political gifts, adding therefore to the monarch’s personal sense of majestas. An example of this is the bay horse and three brood mares, sent to Henry VIII by…
Brooch of Queen Victoria's daughter set to fetch thousands at auction
26th September 2017
Out of her nine children, Queen Victoria favoured her youngest, Beatrice. Known by the affectionate name, Baby, the Queen both doted and depended on her daughter. Beatrice was just four-years-old when her father, Prince Albert died suddenly. At age fourteen, the Queen gifted…
New Film Victoria and Abdul to Explore Colonialism and Islamophobia
24th September 2017
The upcoming film Victoria and Abdul will shine a light on the controversial friendship between Queen Victoria and her servant, Abdul Karim, focusing on the colonialism and Islamophobia of the time.
Abdul Karim became a servant to the Queen in 1887, alongside another Indian servant, and eventually rising in the ranks until he became her Indian Secretary.
In an interview with New Hampshire Public…
Victory as the battle to keep Victoria's coronet in the UK is won
27th August 2017
A long battle to keep one of Queen Victoria’s most magnificent jewels in the UK seems to have been won.
The Queen’s sapphire and diamond coronet is now heading to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London after it was bought and donated by an Irish-American hedge fund…
It’s been more than a century since Whitechapel, London witnessed a disturbing string of five murders between 1888 to 1891 and historians and interested observers still argue about the true identity of Jack the Ripper. In the intervening years accusations have been…
It is hard to imagine British history without Queen Victoria. So deeply has she made an impression on British history andbestowed her name upon anera that we could be momentarily forgiven for thinking that she had always existed. During her reign, she oversaw a period of unprecedented national change and industrial advancement, dying just a year after the turn of the 20th century, yet…
