Facts
Born: May 24, 1819
Died: January 22, 1901
Reign: 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Spouse: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Children: Edward II, Victoria, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, Beatrice
Queen Victoria Summary
Queen Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch, ruling the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for 64 years. She was fiercely independent and although she faced dwindling direct political control, she strengthened the monarchy by redefining its role in British life.
Victoria as Queen of Britain
Victoria immediately took steps to minimize Conroy’s influence. She dismissed him from her household and relegated her mother, who did not dismiss him, to remote living quarters at Buckingham Palace, effectively cutting off contact with them although social convention required her to continue living with her mother. Melbourne counseled her that the only acceptable way to remove them from her day-to-day life and the palace would be if she married.
Her mother and Conroy had considered suitable matches for Victoria before she became queen. Her mother’s brother, King Leopold I of Belgium, had arranged for her to meet to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in May 1836, and Victoria made it clear that she preferred Albert over the other candidates being considered for her. Late in 1839 Victoria and Albert met again. He was now a student at the University of Bonn, intellectually engaging and, she thought, handsome. Five days after his arrival at Windsor, she proposed (he could not propose because of social protocol since she was queen). They were married on February 10, 1840, the first wedding of a reigning Queen of England in nearly 300 years.
Queen Victoria’s Final Days
Victoria continued her royal duties to the end, including an official visit to Dublin in 1900 and many reviews of British troops on their way to the Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa, as well as visits to hospitals for the returning wounded. She died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight after a series of small strokes on January 22, 1901, at the age of 82, having reigned almost 64 years. Her reign had seen Britain through a period of great changes—the Industrial Revolution, the expansion of the British Empire, and a shift of direct political power away from the monarchy. She was the last British monarch in the House of Hanover—her son Edward IV belonged to his father’s house, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, renamed the House of Windsor by Victoria’s grandson, George V.