Dimensions
127 x 198 x 10mm
Fatherless from the age of eight months, Queen Victoria was brought up at Kensington Palace in an atmosphere thick with family feuds, backbiting and jealousy - the focus of conflicting ambitions. Though her uncle William IV was anxious to bring her into Court circles, her German mother and the calculating John Conroy were equally determined that she should remain under their control. The 'little Queen', who succeeded to the throne a month after her eighteenth birthday, was greeted by a unanimous chorus of praise and admiration. Guided by her 'excellent Lord Melbourne', she threw off the restraints imposed by Mamma and the Kensington System and plunged joyfully into the exciting business of reigning. Nevertheless, she resisted Peel's attempt to dismiss some of her household in the infamous Bedchamber Crisis, and was compelled to accept a reduced Civil List for Albert of GBP30,000, rather than the GBP50,000 she had requested. Her marriage, 'the happiest day of my life', at the age of twenty, to her cousin, marked the end of childhood and the beginning of the glorious legend.
