The Making of a Monarch: Queen Victoria's Early Years

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was the longest reigning monarch in her nation's history. Her reign was characterized by its growth, development, wealth, and prestige. That the colloquial adage "the sun never sets on the British Empire" proved to be so true, the time of her reign, 1837-1901, was named for her and thus became known as the Victorian Era. Before she became queen and, later, called the Grandmother of Europe, due to her numerous descendants' propensity to marry into other European monarchies, her early life was an occasionally convoluted journey toward a greatness that was not always assured. The early life and reign of Queen Victoria, although not necessarily renowned for their contribution to the British Empire, show the ease at which she could have not ascended the throne, perhaps altering the course of British history irrevocably.

The life and reign of Queen Victoria, born in 1819, is owed in great part to a sequence of events which took place in the two years preceding her birth. In 1817, her first cousin, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter of George, Prince of Wales (later, George IV) died in childbirth. Charlotte was her father's heir and, because he had been separated from his wife, Caroline, for decades, it was thought that no other children would be possible from that union. In addition, only one of his six younger brothers, all sons of George III, had married and none had produced legitimate issue. For the first time since the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty in Great Britain, the succession was not secure. In order to help secure the succession (and in turn receive extra income from Parliament in order to alleviate gambling debts), a matrimonial race ensued. Despite being middle-aged and overweight, the royal dukes, as sons of the British sovereign, were considered good catches.

Following the Prince of Wales (also called the Prince Regent because he ruled in place of his father during George III's bouts of insanity) in the line of succession were Frederick, Duke of York (who was already married, but childless); William, Duke of Clarence; Edward, Duke of Kent; Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (who was married, but childless); Augustus, Duke of Sussex; and Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. According to the rules of primogeniture, any children that a royal duke produced (boys before girls, within a legal marriage) would follow him directly in the line of succession, with his next youngest brother following those children. For example, before her death, Princess Charlotte was second in line for the throne, behind her father, and the Duke of York was third. Had the Duke of York had a child, he or she would have been fourth. George III also had several daughters, some of whom had married, but they followed their brothers in the succession and none would have legitimate children.

In 1818, the year after Princess Charlotte's death, the race to produce an heir to the throne began when three of the royal dukes got married. The Dukes of Clarence and Kent were married, on the same day, to Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen and the widowed Princess Victoria of Leiningen, respectively. The latter was the sister of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, widower of the late Princess Charlotte. He would eventually be elected King of the Belgians. The Duke of Cambridge married Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel. The only unmarried duke who refused to participate was the Duke of Sussex. He had already been married once, without his father, the king's, permission, violating the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. Although that marriage had been annulled, he now had another mistress he did not wish to give up. Later, Queen Victoria would give the couple permission to marry, thus legitimizing their marriage under the Royal Marriage Act.

That next year, in 1819, was a banner year for royal births. The Duke of Clarence had a daughter, Charlotte, who was stillborn. The Duke of Duchess of Clarence would produce no legitimate heirs, which is ironic since the duke, later William IV, had at least ten illegitimate children, all of whom he acknowledged. The Duke of Kent gave birth to a daughter and the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge had sons. The baby princes were both called George.

The princess was christened on 24 June 1819 at Kensington Palace. Originally, she was to have been called Georgiana Charlotte Augusta Alexandrina Victoria, but when the Archbishop of Canterbury asked what the baby was to be called, one of her godfathers, the Prince Regent, refused most of them. He said that he did not wish for his name to come before that of her other godfather, Alexander I of Russia, nor did he want the Duke and Duchess of Kent to include the name of his dead child Charlotte (despite the fact that this was also the name of the child's grandmother, Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III). Augusta was deemed too grand. Finally, he declared that Alexandrina would do and, when prompted for another name, said that she should be called after her mother and Victoria became her second name. Years later, Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne told her that her parents had wanted her to be named after the tsar because it annoyed the Prince Regent so much -he hated him. Princess Victoria of Kent was called Drina for most of her early life. After her accession, the name Alexandrina was rarely referred to again and none of her female descendants bore that name.

In further attempts to irritate his brother, Victoria's father took her to military reviews. There were also plans to introduce her to some of his Radical and more liberal friends and to take her to New Lanark Mills, where the socialist Robert Owen gave lectures. Unfortunately, Edward, Duke of Kent died of pneumonia on 23 January 1820 before he could do those things. At eight months old, Victoria experienced the first of a long line of the deaths of the important men in her life, a list that would eventually encompass three sovereign uncles (two of Great Britain and one of Belgium), her husband, her beloved servant John Brown, most of her Prime Ministers, and several sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons. She would spend much of her life in search of father figures. In the Hanoverian family, where father and child relationships were typically difficult at best, Victoria and her father's, despite the short time they had together, was one of the best.

Six days after the death of his son the Duke of Kent, George III died after many years of illness. George IV became king. He was now followed in the succession by the Dukes of York and Clarence, and Princess Victoria of Kent. Despite her close proximity to the throne, little attention was paid to the financial needs of the young princess, who resided with her mother at Kensington Palace. The Duke of Kent's death had left them with a great deal of debt. They were supported primarily by the duchess' brother, Leopold, who was elected king of the Belgians in 1831. He gave them, first, £ 2,000 and, later, £ 3,000 a year.

Victoria was two years old when her Aunt Adelaide, the Duchess of Clarence, gave birth to a daughter. This new birth knocked Victoria down one space in the succession. Unlike at Victoria's christening, George IV allowed the baby's parents to choose their own name and she was christened Elizabeth. The papers began referring to her as as little Queen Bess. Three months after her birth, however, the baby died. Victoria was once again third in line for the throne and the Clarences would have no more children.

Despite her close proximity to the throne, George IV took little interest in Victoria. Even if he had, the Duchess of Kent did not want her daughter exposed to someone she distrusted. The one memorable occasion on which they met, however, Victoria remembered as one of the happiest of her childhood. The king presented her with a jeweled miniature portrait of himself and held her on his knee. Later, he had a servant "pop her in" his carriage and they took off at whirlwind speed, exciting Victoria, but not her mother.The Duchess of Kent was afraid that the king would kidnap her daughter.

When she was five, a decision was made that would alter Victoria's life more than perhaps any other. Her grandmother, the Duchess of Coburg, her mother, and Uncle Leopold decided that she should marry her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who was born one month after Victoria (the two were even delivered by the same midwife, Fraulein Siebold). Although this marriage, which would eventually occur in 1840, would be considered a love match, the machinations were taking place long before either party was aware of them.

The young princess's education was in the hands of her governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen and a liberal clergyman, the Reverend George Davys. Her education consisted of religious instruction, literature, history, languages, piano lessons, and drawing lessons. She was particularly adept at languages and took lessons in English, German, Italian, French, and Latin. Victoria was also particularly interested in genealogy, specifically her own. She was kept purposely unaware of her closeness to the throne, but took great interest in stories about her family. On 11 March 1830, shortly before her eleventh birthday, Victoria was made aware of her destiny and shown just how close to the throne she was. While studying with Baroness Lehzen, she opened a copy of Howlett's Tables of the Kings and Queens of England for a lesson and noriced that an extra page had been placed in the book. After remarking that she had never seen that page before, Lehzen told her that until then it had not been considered necessary that she should. This new page showed the current royal family, with only her uncles George IV and the childless Duke of Clarence between her and the throne -the Duke of York had died childless three years prior. After shedding a few tears, Victoria raised her hand and declared that she would be good. This was an early sign of the devotion she would display to the monarchy over her decades long reign.

That same year, in 1830, George IV died, leaving William IV as the new king and Victoria as his heiress presumptive. The distance that had been kept between the Kents and George IV was extended to most of the members of Victoria's immediate family, including the well meaning William IV and Queen Adelaide. Despite the deaths of their own children, they seemingly held no feelings of resentment against Victoria and often sent her presents and notes. The new king wished for closer ties between himself and his heir. The Duchess of Kent, however, felt that as long as William IV's numerous illegitimate children had a place at Court, she could not allow her daughter to be exposed to it. Victoria eventually became aware of her uncles' scandalous reputations and numerous illegitimte children and she and Albert went out of their way to create a more respectable family atmosphere, one that previous Hanoverian monarchs had not accomplished.

Perhaps even stronger than the influence Victoria's mother had over her was the influence that her mother's comptroller, Sir John Conroy, held over both of them. Conroy was an ambitious man and felt that exerting as much control as possible over the future queen and her mother would be in his favor. He helped to fan the flames of discontent between the Duchess of Kent and her in-laws. He told the Duchess that the Duke of Cumberland, who followed Victoria in the line of succession, planned to have her kidnapped and killed, a story which Queen Victoria would later vehemently deny had merit. Conroy himself was also accused, at different times, of having an affair with the duchess, which the queen similarly denied.

Ultimately, Conroy's attempts to keep the princess from her royal relations did not work in his favor. In addition to those machinations, he had instituted the Kensington Palace system, by which Victoria was never left alone, put on a strict schedule with every moment accounted for, kept from most outsiders, and most important decisions were made by Conroy. As a result, Victoria grew to hate the man who had hoped to hold great influence over her as queen. This hatred grew even more heated when, as a teenager, Victoria was diaganosed with typhoid. For months, she was sick in bed, when Conroy made his move. He urged the princess to sign a document proclaiming that once she became queen, he would be her private secretary. Victoria, despite pressure from both her mother and Conroy, refused. There would no longer be any hope of reconcilliation between the two. The iron will and stubborness that would become legendary were already formed in Victoria's girlhood.

Although William IV was aging, it looked as though the chance for Victoria, now seventeen, to inherit the throne as a minor was growing smaller. To inherit as a minor would mean that she would require a regent, just as George III required when his mental illness left him incapacitated. Naturally, her mother would be the obvious choice, with Conroy providing advice behind the scenes. Victoria was not the only one who saw a problem with this. On his seventy-first birthday, William IV saw to it that his sister-in-law (who had declined a recent invitation to Queen Adelaide's birthday) and niece attended his party. There, he made a point of telling his niece how happy he was to see her, ignoring the duchess. At a speech at dinner he said that he hoped to live at least nine more months, until Victoria's eighteenth birthday, so that the royal authority would pass to her and not to "the person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers" and had kept Victoria away from Court too long. Victoria was humiliated for her mother.

Ultimately, William IV did live long enough to see his niece's eighteenth birthday. The Duchess of Kent tried once more to have Conroy appointed her daughter's private secretary. Again, she refused. When some of the king's ministers came to Kensington Palace to interview the princess, Conroy fed them false stories about her mental state and suggested that they appoint him her private secretary. They refused and suggested the title Keeper of the Privy Purse, with its small duties, as more suitable. When they finally met with the princess, she dismissed the notion of Conroy acting as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Instead, it was decided that when the time came, she should rely instead, as prior monarchs had done, entirely on the advice of her Prime Minister. She left no doubt that she was in possession of all of her mental faculties and had no plans of relinquishing any of the few powers the British Constitution gave her.

On 20 June 1837, William IV died.The effects of the matrimonial race of 1818 had finally come to fruition. Victoria, at eighteen years old, became queen. With the ability to finally exercise power, Conroy's influence in her household was no more. She would continue to exercise that power for the next sixty-three years, longer than any other British monarch.Her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, benefitted from this as well. As the next male in line to the throne, he became the king of Hanover, whose Salic succession laws prevented Victoria from inheriting. For the first time since George I inherited the British throne in 1714, the two countries were ruled by separate monarchs.

In conclusion, the reign of one of Great Britain's greatest and longest reigning monarchs, Queen Victoria, is owed, in great part, to the perfect alignment of certain factors, including births, marriages, and deaths. Decisions were made in childhood regarding her life and education that profoundly affected the young future sovereign. Should almost any one of these events in the years prior to her birth and early childhood not have occurred, the course of British history could have been altered irrevocably.

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