Queen Victoria’s private life exposed in celebration of her 200th birthday
The life and reign of Queen Victoria has been remembered in two poignant new exhibitions to mark the 200th anniversary of her birth.
Victoria: Woman and Crown and Victoria: A Royal Childhood opened at her former home of Kensington Palace today to celebrate the bicentenary.
Queen Victoria, born on May 24 1819, was previously the longest-reigning monarch in British history before she was overtaken by Queen Elizabeth II – her great-great-granddaughter – in 2015.
The modern Royal family are all direct descendants of Victoria.
She is the five-times great grandmother to Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, who now reside in the palace where she was born.
The newly-born son of the Duke and Duchess, Archie Harrison Windsor-Mountbatten, is also a direct descendent, and his home of Frogmore Cottage is a stone’s throw away from her tomb at the Royal Mausoleum on the Frogmore estate in Windsor.
Woman and Crown explores the private life behind the monarch’s carefully-controlled public image and aims to ‘re-introduce Victoria as a young woman’ in her roles as a queen, wife, mother and empress.
Father was so shocked at winning $10million on lottery he lost the power of speechRare surviving pieces from the 19th-century monarch’s wardrobe are on show at the palace for the first time – including a simple cotton petticoat, dated around the time of her marriage, and a fashionable pair of silver boots.
Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, when she was only 18, and ruled for more than 63 years.
Britain had evolved into a constitutional monarchy and she became the figurehead of a vast empire, with her reign spanning the rest of the century.
Five things you might know about Queen Victoria's life
1. Her name was actually Alexandrina Victoria and her childhood nickname was Drina, but she ruled as Victoria, which she is said to have preferred.
2. She wed her first cousin Albert at the age of 20 after falling deeply in love with him.
3. The couple had nine children but Victoria was not a doting mother and thought it was her duty to be ‘severe’. She loathed being pregnant.
4. She insisted on having all windows open, even in winter.
5. There were eight assassination attempts on Queen Victoria’s life.
She married Prince Albert and they had nine children, but after 22 years of marriage Albert died, making the Queen a widow for the remaining four decades of her life.
But while she may have died in 1901 at the age of 81, her influence and lineage still spreads through much of the world.
Lib Dems leadership race kicks off as Sir Vince Cable confirms resignationOut of the 28 monarchies still in existence, her direct descendants currently sit on five thrones.
As well as the UK, the royal families of Norway, Spain, Sweden and Demark can all trace their lineage to Victoria, who was nicknamed ‘Grandmother of Europe’ for her widespread genealogy.
The display also explores Victoria’s complex love affair with India, from the story behind the Koh-i-noor diamond to her friendship with the deposed Maharajah Duleep Singh.
Examples of her personal diaries carefully inscribed in Urdu will form a centrepiece.
The Victoria: A Royal Childhood exhibition allows visitors to follow a route through the suite of rooms in the west London royal residence where the young Victoria was born and spent her childhood.
New research by curators at Historic Royal Palaces has been used to re-imagine the rooms as they would have been when Victoria was a child.
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