Queen Victoria: A Personal History

La Filatrice Addormentata, by Julius Froschel. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/A Disderi.

Florinda, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria with the Prince of Wales in 1846. A portrait of Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Swiss Cottage at Osborne. A watercolour by William Leighton Leitch. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Prince of Wales just before his ninth birthday. A sketch by Queen Victoria. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Princess Beatrice in a purple dress. A watercolour by Queen Victoria. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Painting of Queen Victoria holding Prince Arthur, with the Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert. A painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria opening the Great Exhibition. An illustration by André & Sleigh, after a painting by H. C. Selous. © Mary Evans/Edwin Wallace.

Fir trees decorated with lighted tapers at Windsor at Christmas. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Princess Alice in 1861. A portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Sorrow by Sir Edwin Landseer. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen’s dressing room at Balmoral, by James Roberts. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen’s bedroom at Balmoral, by James Roberts. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

BLACK AND WHITE

Victoria, Duchess of Kent, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Leopold I of Belgium. © Mansell/Time Inc/Katz.

Luigi Lablache. A sketch by Queen Victoria. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Baroness Louise Lehzen. A sketch by Queen Victoria in 1833. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria riding with Lord Melbourne, after a painting by Sir Francis Grant. © The British Museum.

Lord Melbourne. A portrait by Queen Victoria. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Baron Stockmar. A painting by John Partridge. © Mansell/Time Inc/Katz.

Queen Victoria holding a portrait of Prince Albert. A photograph by B. E. Duppa. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/B E Dupper.

Prince Albert in 1854. A photograph by B. E. Duppa. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Great Exhibition of 1851. © The Illustrated London News Picture Library.

Prince Alfred, Frederick Waymouth Gibbs and the Prince of Wales. A photograph by Roger Fenton. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Roger Fenton.

The Princess Royal (with butterfly net), the Prince of Wales, Princess Alice and Prince Alfred at Osborne in 1853. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Dr Ernst Becker.

Prince and Princess Frederick William of Prussia at Windsor in 1858. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Bambridge.

Napoleon III, a sketch by Queen Victoria. The Royal Collection 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

The Royal Family at Osborne in 1857. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Caldesi.

Queen Victoria and Princess Alice with a bust of Prince Albert. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Prince Alfred.

The Blue Room at Windsor Castle, with a bust of the Prince Consort by William Theed. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Hills & Saunders.

The Prince and Princess of Wales with Prince Albert Victor in 1864. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Prince Alfred.

Queen Victoria on the throne in 1876. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/W & D Downey.

Queen Victoria bestowing an earldom on Disraeli. © Punch.

Prince Leopold with Sir William Jenner and the Hon. Alec Yorke. © Hulton Getty.

Princess Louise in 1865. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Bingham.

Princesss Beatrice in 1885. © Hulton Getty.

Attempt to shoot the Queen at Windsor in 1882. © The Illustrated London News Picture Library.

Queen Victoria smiling. A photograph by Charles Knight in c. 1887. By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Sir James Reid. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria and the Empress Frederick in 1889. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria in the garden at Osborne in 1889, surrounded by members of her family. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/Mullins.

Queen Victoria in a carriage at Grasse in 1891. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II/F Busin.

Queen Victoria and the Munshi, Abdul Karim, at Balmoral in 1894. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria with Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg at breakfast in the Oak Room at Windsor in 1895. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria wearing spectacles and reading a letter. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria’s funeral procession. © Hulton Getty.

The Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore with marble effigies of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Royal Archives 2000. © HM Queen Elizabeth II.

AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#ulink_02312493-4345-5860-a13b-aa313172c851)

In an essay read to fellows and members of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972, Giles St Aubyn said that on average Queen Victoria wrote about 2,500 words every day of her adult life, achieving a total of some sixty million in the course of her long reign. If she had been a novelist her complete works would have run to seven hundred volumes, published at the rate of one a month. To her eldest daughter alone she wrote at least twice a week, and sometimes twice a day, for over forty years. Much of this material has been published in the various books mentioned in the preliminary note to the References on page 503. There remain at Windsor, however, many letters both to and from Queen Victoria which have never before been printed; and in 1983 the late John Murray and I were kindly allowed to consult these papers and to reproduce parts of them in a selection published under the title Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals. I have to acknowledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen for their publication as I do for the publication of all the other material of which she holds the copyright. I have been deeply indebted for their help to Sir Robin Mackworth-Young and Miss Jane Langton, Her Majesty’s former Librarian and her Registrar of the Royal Archives, and to Mr Oliver Everett, the Queen’s present Librarian at Windsor.