WILLOW SPRINGS TUESDAY STUDY CLUB

Tuesday Study Club met at the Senior Center for our March 2, 2021 meeting. Mary Knott and Kathleen Carel were the ones hosting the meeting. After the business of the club was taken care of, the program was given by Pauline Cape.

 

Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1819. She was born with no expectation of becoming the queen someday. She was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III. Her father died, and his three older brothers all died. Without any surviving legitimate children, her mother raised her under close supervision.

She came to the throne when she was 18 in 1837. She had strict standards of personal morality. Her uncle, her predecessor, King William, distrusted Victoria’s mother’s capacity to be regent, and in 1836, he declared that he wanted to live until Victoria’s 18th birthday so a regency could be avoided. After Victoria turned 18, a regency was avoided when King William died less than a month later.

 

Queen Victoria reigned 63 years, seven months and two days. She was the longest-reigning British monarch until her great-great granddaughter, Elizabeth II, surpassed her on September 9, 2015.

 

Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. She gained an additional title of Empress of India. Her reign was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific and military change within the United Kingdom.

By 1836, her maternal Uncle Leopold was hoping to marry her to Prince Albert, son of his brother, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She did meet Albert and wrote in her diary glowing things about him.

 

Victoria kept a diary all of her entire adult life, some saying she wrote an average of 2,500 words per day. There were 122 volumes of her diaries. After her death, her youngest daughter was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries and burned the originals in the process.

 

Victoria wrote a letter to King Leopold, whom she considered her “best and kindest advisor,” thanking him for the prospect of great happiness in the person of dear Albert. “He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy,” also saying how sensible, so kind and so good, besides having the most pleasing and delightful exterior.

 

However, at 17 Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. It was assumed that the match would take place in due time. That time was October 15, 1839 when the Queen proposed to him. They married February 10, 1840. Albert became an important political adviser, replacing Lord Melbourne for that position.

There were many attempts on Queen Victoria’s life, the first during her first pregnancy. As we know from her long reign, none were successful. Victoria and Albert had nine children, many marrying European royalty, giving Victoria the nickname “The Grandmother of Europe.”

 

The presence of the disease hemophilia was in Victoria’s descendants, but not in her ancestors, leading to speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent.

 

Prince Albert died at an early age from typhoid fever. The Queen dressed in mourning for most of the rest of her life, wearing white headdress toward the end. On doing this, she received another nickname, “Widow of Windsor.” She remained most, if not all of the time secluded in her royal residences – Windsor Castle, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and Bamoral Castle, Scotland.

 

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House. On January 22, 1901, at the age of 81, she died.

 

After learning a little of Queen Victoria’s long life, a lovely dessert was served along with good conversation.