Queen victoria how long reign

On 9 September , Queen Elizabeth II, having previously surpassed her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, in , to become the longest-lived British monarch, became the longest-reigning British monarch. Queen Victoria dressed for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Albany, Edward III by an unknown artist in the late sixteenth century.

A portrait of William the Lion. Llywelyn the Great statue, Conwy. A portrait of Elizabeth I commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Richard I: A mighty king or a menacing tyrant? Sign up for our newsletter Enter your email address below to get the latest news and exclusive content from The History Press delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up. Share this page. Died: 22 January , aged 81 Read more about her final days and death. Children: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children, five daughters and four sons. Cause of death: Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight aged 81, after suffering a series of strokes.

Few could have predicted that she would sit on the throne for more than 60 years. On 24 June , the princess was christened in a low-key ceremony. At the time, Victoria was far from a regal name — it was highly unusual and of French origin. When it became clear that Victoria would indeed accede to the throne, her name was seen to be completely inappropriate for a queen of England.

She was advised to change it to something more traditional, but refused. Victoria spent her formative years at Kensington Palace. However, in many ways the palace proved a prison for the princess, and her childhood there was far from rosy. Along with a strict timetable of lessons to improve her moral and intellectual rigor, this suffocating regime dictated that the princess spent hardly any time with other children and was under constant adult supervision.

Right up until the time she became queen, Victoria was forced to share a bedroom with her mother. She was forbidden from ever being alone, or even walking down stairs without someone holding her hand. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at twelve minutes past two this morning and consequently that I was Queen.

This is how Victoria recalled the moment that would change her life forever. At 6am on 20 June , the young princess was woken from her bed to be informed that her uncle, King William IV, had died during the night. This meant that Victoria, who was only 18 at the time, was now queen of England. Although it came as a shock, Victoria took the news extremely stoically.

Despite her young age she remained calm and had no need for the smelling salts her governess had prepared for her. What Victoria lacked in height, however, she made up for in determination, and she quickly made a favourable impression.

Victoria had turned 18 less than a month before acceding to the throne. This was a crucial milestone, as it meant that she was able to rule under her own steam, rather than alongside her mother in a regency. She began her new life by moving away from her childhood home at Kensington to Buckingham Palace, in part to escape from the controlling influence of Conroy and her mother. Just two years after Victoria took the throne, he resigned his post and left for Italy amid shame and scandal.

In June the following year, Victoria was crowned in a five-hour-long ceremony at Westminster Abbey followed by a royal banquet and fireworks. Victoria met the German prince at Kensington Palace when the pair were both just Yet despite the marriage brokering that had led the couple to meet, this was most definitely a love match. As royal tradition dictated that no one could propose to a reigning monarch, in October it was Victoria who proposed to Albert.

Victoria wore an foot-long train carried by 12 bridesmaids and kicked off a modern-day tradition by wearing white. Outside, the nation erupted into huge public celebration. According to Time , this was Maclean's eighth attempt at assassinating the Queen. Maclean was tried for high treason and was found "not guilty, but insane," so Maclean was sentenced to live out his days in an asylum until his death in , the Guardian reports.

Despite the chaos and fear that followed the many assassination attempts, Queen Victoria became more and more popular with the public after each attempt. Four years later, Victoria, now the monarch, proposed to Prince Albert on October 15, and they were married on February 10, , in the Chapel Royal of St.

James's Palace in London. Victoria was deeply in love with Albert and, once they were married, she claimed to be truly happy for the first time in her life. After their wedding night, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary, "I never, never spent such an evening!! My dearest dearest dear Albert At the time of her wedding , it was common for wedding dresses to come in a variety of colors.

Queen Victoria, however, wished to show off the lace embroidery of her dress and requested it in white. She also asked that none of her guests wear white so as not to draw attention away from her, and she even had the pattern for her dress destroyed so that it could not be copied, according to Vogue.

Queen Victoria accessorized the dress—complete with an foot train—with white satin shoes, Turkish diamond earrings, and a sapphire brooch that belonged to Prince Albert. Over her veil, the queen wore a wreath of myrtle and orange blossoms. They popularized the custom in when Albert sent decorated trees to schools and army barracks around Windsor. An image of the royal family decorating a tree was also published that year, inspiring other British families to do the same.

Victoria and Albert were very hands-on in the process. Over the course of her life, Queen Victoria was mother to nine children with Prince Albert. Her sons and daughters would later go on to marry into several other European monarchies, and would go on to produce the Queen's 42 grandchildren.

Queen Victoria was the first in her family to carry hemophilia B, a blood clotting disorder, but the Queen herself was not a hemophiliac. Because of Victoria's vast lineage, the disorder was passed on to the members of royal and noble families across Europe. A study in Science Magazine even linked the hemophilia mutation to members of the Russian royal family, the Romanovs.