Long lived the Queen! Pre-reading Read the sentences below. What do you think? Are they true or false? 1. Queen Victoria was the longest reigning British monarch ever. 2. Her mother was German. 3. Her husband was German. 4. She spoke German at home as a child. 5. Victoria became Queen when she was 18. 6. Queen Victoria married for love. 7. She proposed to her husband. 8. Queen Victoria had no influence on British politics. 9. Queen Victoria had the title Empress of India. 10. She was the first monarch to live in Buckingham Palace. Now read the following texts to find out more about her. The many faces of Queen Victoria Until last year in May she held the record for the long- est reign of any queen in the world. She had also reigned longer than any other monarch in Britain. 5 Queen Elizabeth II overtook her in May 2015, manag- ing to stay on the throne longer than Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months. States (Victoria in Australia), towns, waterfalls, ships and buildings have all been named after Queen 10 Victoria as well as periods in history (the Victorian Age) and a code of conduct (Victorian morality). She is possibly best known as the “Grandmother of Europe” and you may be familiar with her saying, “We are not amused”, which she may not have actually 15 said, but certainly sums up people’s opinions of her as an outwardly tight-lipped person. But what kind of person was she really? And was she really as lacking in humour and joie de vivre as is commonly believed? Victoria, the teenager 20 Alexandrina Victoria was born on 24th May 1819 to Prince Edward, fourth son of King George II and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a German princess. Her father died when she was only one year old and she was looked after by her German mother and Louise Lehzen, her German governess, but she always spoke English at home. She did learn German and French as a child though and later when she became Empress of India, she also learnt Hindustani. She had 25 no brothers or sisters and her mother had strict ideas about raising children. She devised a system together with her advisor, Sir John Conroy, in which Victoria was only allowed to meet people that they approved of. She was mostly forbidden from playing with other children and was not allowed to meet most of her father’s family! The young princess hated Conroy and did not get on very well © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2016 | www.klett.de Autorin: Pauline Ashworth, Stuttgart Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Bildquellen: Thinkstock -Getty Images Deutschland GmbH; gemeinfrei, 1 Unterrichtsgebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. public domain, domaine public Long lived the Queen! with her mother. She once described her childhood as miserable. Despite those feelings, Victoria 30 showed a strong character as a young teenager refusing even under their joint pressure to allow Conroy to become her own private secretary. Victoria became heir to the childless King William IV when her uncle George IV died in 1830. Her mother and Conroy did not like King William because of the many illegitimate children of his who lived in the palace. They kept Victoria away from him. 35 When she was just eighteen, Victoria became Queen of England upon William‘s death. She was the first British monarch to choose Buckingham Palace as her main home and official residence. Until that time Victoria’s mother had insisted that she and her daughter share a bedroom. The first thing that Victoria did on becoming Queen was ban her mother to a far corner of the Palace and to ban Conroy from her sight. It was only when her mother died in 1860 and after Victoria had read her 40 mother’s diaries that Victoria realised her mother had loved her at all. Queen Victoria, the romantic Victoria would have made her mother leave the palace altogether but was not allowed to because she was only 18 and therefore, according to social convention, had to carry on living with her moth- er. When she complained to the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, who was also her friend, he said 45 the only thing she could do about it was to get married. Victoria was shocked at the idea of getting married in order to have more freedom from her mother, but she had, in fact, already met somebody she liked a lot: her cousin, Albert. She met him when she was about 17 and her relations had already started looking for suitable husbands. Albert was a German cousin from her mother’s side of the family. After the visit she wrote in her diary how good looking he was with a “beautiful nose” and a 50 very charming character. The admiration was mutual and they stayed in contact until his second visit when she was 20. Her feelings for him grew and she proposed to him on 15th October 1839. They married four months later, and Victoria was happier than ever before. She described how she felt in her diary: I NEVER, NEVER spent before! He clasped such an evening!!! me in his arms, and MY DEAREST DEAREST we kissed each other DEAR Albert sat on a again and again! footstool by my side, His beauty, his and his excessive love sweetness and and affection gave me gentleness – really how feelings of heavenly can I ever be thankful love and happiness . enough to have such a I never could have Husband! hoped to have felt © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2016 | www.klett.de Autorin: Pauline Ashworth, Stuttgart Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Bildquellen: Thinkstock -Getty Images Deutschland GmbH; gemeinfrei, 2 Unterrichtsgebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. public domain, domaine public Long lived the Queen! 55 Their first baby was born in November of the same year and named Victoria after her mother. The Queen was not overly impressed with her first-born, writing that she thought she was ugly. However, it didn’t put her off; they had eight more children over the next seventeen years. Victoria and Albert’s marriage was not without disagreement and rows but their love remained strong. When Albert died of typhoid in December 1861, Queen Victoria was devastated. She went 60 into mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. For the next few years the Queen did not appear in public at all and her popularity as Queen suffered from it. Victoria, the “Grandmother of Europe” In Britain a constitutional monarchy had already been established, meaning that Queen Victoria was only the head of state symbolically and had no real power in Britain – nor anywhere else in 65 the world for that matter. However, she did influence British politics and world affairs in a variety of ways. In Britain a Prime Minister resigned when she refused to let him decide who should look after her in the Palace. Furthermore, Victoria worked personally – and quite successfully – to improve the relationship between France 70 and England. After all, the Napoleonic Wars had ended only 22 years before Victoria was crowned. She also tried to encourage peace in Europe by marrying her children and grandchildren into the many royal houses in Europe. Her eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, was married to 75 Prince William of Prussia in the hope that Prussia would become more liberal with the connection. Eventually Victoria had 42 grandchildren. Descendants include the monarchs Harald V of Norway, Felipe VI of Spain, and Margrethe II of Denmark. 80 During Victoria’s reign, India started to be ruled by Bri- tain and Victoria became Empress of India. She used her remaining influence to add a passage to an official document allowing religious freedom in India. Victoria, the moralist 85 The Victorian Era is now regarded as a time with a strict code of conduct verging on repression in many areas. Women and men were supposed to appear with dignity in public. Many people hold Victoria responsible for this, but in reality the morality of this era was probably a general backlash against the “loose living” of the period before. For example, King William had many illegitimate children and acknowledged them openly. Victoria’s uncle, George IV, was known as a playboy who 90 lived for pleasure, going into debt by spending his money on art, buildings and women. Victoria was brought up very strictly and carried on the tradition in many ways herself, although her children were brought up more lovingly than she had been. She is supposed to have said, “We are not amused” when somebody told a risqué joke in her presence. The “we” was supposed to refer to the women present. There is no proof of this but evidently it is the kind of thing that she 95 might have said. On pictures or photographs, Victoria is mainly seen with a very serious expression on her face. © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2016 | www.klett.de Autorin: Pauline Ashworth, Stuttgart Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Bildquellen: Thinkstock -Getty Images Deutschland GmbH; gemeinfrei, 3 Unterrichtsgebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. public domain, domaine public Long lived the Queen! This was because of the [photographic…but that’s another subject] tradition of the time and also later because she spent a lot of her time in mourning after her husband, 100 Albert, had died. However Victoria apparently had a good sense of humour and probably enjoyed life to the full.