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Dear Osborne: Queen Victoria's Family Life in the Isle of Wight by John Matson
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PRINCESS DIANA: The True Story of the People’s Princess
Katy Holborn - 2017
Lady Diana Spencer. One time wife of the heir to the throne and mother to two sons, one of whom will most probably one day be king. Challenger to the established protocols of the monarchy, a woman determined to do it her way. Trend setter, humanitarian, darling of the public. A person who appeared to have everything but whose life would end in tragedy at just thirty-six years of age. The People’s Princess…this is her story.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip: Six Decades of Love, Marriage and Monarchy (Royal Couples Book 1)
Jessica Jayne - 2012
Theirs was not an arranged marriage but a love match. This book will show you a love story that transcended the times and remained strong unto this day.What’s InsideThe Queen and her Consort are celebrities in their own right, and their lives have always had that quality that made them interesting for ordinary people. Every little thing about them was a thing of wonder, and you’ll be surprised to know:• How old Elizabeth was when she fell in love with a dashing young man named Philip• How they nurtured their relationship amid the war and in their separation as they go about their duties• Why Philip gave up his naval career• The circumstances that led to Elizabeth being the Queen, and what it meant for her and Philip• The last-minute glitches that occurred on the day of the couple’s highly publicized wedding• Why it was difficult for Philip to find his own role within the royal family• Why the House of Windsor remained as it is and not the House of Mountbatten-Windsor following the couple’s wedding, and what the Queen did as a compromise for her husband• The problems they encountered as a married couple, and how their marriage remained intact when those of their children’s crumbled…Table Of ContentsChapter 1 – The Future QueenChapter 2 – The Future ConsortChapter 3 – The CourtshipChapter 4 – The Wedding of the CenturyChapter 5 – Between Family and DutiesChapter 6 – The Queen’s CoronationChapter 7 – The Queen and the ConsortChapter 8 – The Modern TimesWhy Buy NowThe intertwining lives of Queen Elizabeth II and her faithful consort, Prince Philip, is an interesting read, mainly for what it is, the workings of a love story. Theirs is an inspiration for many people, a testimony of how love, respect, and tolerance (in Philip’s word) carried their marriage through the good and the bad times and emerged to become the longest married couple in the history of British monarchy. Take part in that history and read this book.
The Reign of Queen Victoria
Hector Bolitho - 2010
From the day when, as a young girl of eighteen, she succeeded to the throne, she showed that a constitutional monarch could still have a will of her own and that her words could make statesmen tremble. In this classic biography Hector Bolitho analyses the phases of the Queen's life; her childhood and upbringing, her all too brief married life with Albert, the years of' retirement behind the great walls of Windsor and the more remote fastnesses of Deeside. Although Bolitho calls his book The Reign of Queen Victoria, his work is essentially a record of a remarkable woman and her husband, their personal lives and characters, rather than a political history of her reign. It describes the childhood and youth of Victoria and Albert in alternate chapters so that the reader can see the two growing up side by side yet independently, and can trace the gradual evolution of their characters in isolation until they come together. The expansion of the Prince's influence, first over the Queen, then on successive Cabinets and Prime Ministers, and finally on every aspect of the national life, is traced, and the importance of his reforming zeal is clearly brought out, particularly in its lasting influence on Victoria herself, which controlled to the end the more irrational elements of her character. Praise for Hector Bolitho ‘Flowing and lively’ – Cobden Sanderson Hector Bolitho (1897-1974) was born in New Zealand but settled in Britain, where he wrote over fifty books and worked as a freelance journalist. His other books include Albert: Prince Consort and A Penguin in the Eyrie.
Victoria: A Life
A.N. Wilson - 2014
She was a mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain's longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.A. N. Wilson's exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources to show us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before. Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria's coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain’s history — and the world’s.Born at the very moment of the expansion of British political and commercial power across the globe, Victoria went on to chart a unique course for her country even as she became the matriarch of nearly every great dynasty of Europe. Her destiny was thus interwoven with those of millions of people — not just in Europe but in the ever-expanding empire that Britain was becoming throughout the nineteenth century. The famed queen had a face that adorned postage stamps, banners, statues and busts all over the known world.Wilson's Victoria is a towering achievement, a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.
Queen Victoria's Cousins
Christina Croft - 2016
From the newly-created Empire of Mexico, to the largely undiscovered African Congo, their influence crossed continents; and their lives, spanning more than a century, were interwoven with some of the most significant events of the age. They experienced wars, revolutions, personal tragedies and national disasters, and, as in any extended family, their characters were as varied as their experiences. Among them were princes, potentates and dukes; dutiful wives and desperate daughters; an Empress; three Kings; the consorts of Queens; and the spouses of theatre performers and a circus artiste. With several, Queen Victoria maintained a lifelong correspondence, while others were gradually distanced from her. All, however, contributed something to her life’s experience, and many repaid her devotion with love.
Becoming Queen
Kate Williams - 2008
That, of course, is a matter of opinion. And there are other layers to the story.With a combination of novelistic flair and historical accuracy, Kate Williams begins by relating the heartbreaking story of Princess Charlotte, the Queen who never was, and her impact on the young Victoria. Our perception of Victoria the Queen is coloured by portraits of her older, widowed self - her dour expression embodying the repressive morality propagated in her time. But Becoming Queen reveals an energetic and vibrant woman, determined to battle for power. It also documents the Byzantine machinations behind Victoria's quest to occupy the throne, and shows how her struggles did not end when finally the crown was placed on her head.In the late eighteenth century, monarchies were in crisis across Europe. Discontented with their mad King, George III, and his spendthrift offspring, the English pinned their hopes on the only legitimate grandchild: Princess Charlotte, daughter of George, Prince of Wales. But Charlotte died at the age of twenty-two, a few hours after giving birth to a stillborn son. A grieving nation immediately began venerating her as someone who would have made an ideal Queen while Charlotte's rackety uncles embarked on a race to produce the next heir.No one thought that little Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, would ascend the throne. She, in turn, became increasingly determined to take control of her own destiny, and clashed constantly not only with her hugely ambitious mother but with her protégé and household comptroller, the Irish adventurer, John Conroy. After she became Queen, ministers, even her beloved Prince Albert, still attempted to steal power away from her.Revealing how Charlotte's death shaped Victoria's reign and laying bare the passions that swirled around the throne, Becoming Queen is an absorbingly dramatic tale of secrets, sexual repression and endless conflict. After her lauded biography of Emma Hamilton, England's Mistress, Kate Williams has produced a most original and intimate portrait of Great Britain's longest reigning monarch.
We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals
Gillian Gill - 2009
Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity, qualities neither had seen much of as children. The love affair that emerges is far more captivating, complex, and relevant than that depicted in any previous account. The epic relationship began poorly. The cousins first met as teenagers for a few brief, awkward, chaperoned weeks in 1836. At seventeen, charming rather than beautiful, Victoria already “showed signs of wanting her own way.” Albert, the boy who had been groomed for her since birth, was chubby, self-absorbed, and showed no interest in girls, let alone this princess. So when they met again in 1839 as queen and presumed prince-consort-to-be, neither had particularly high hopes. But the queen was delighted to discover a grown man, refined, accomplished, and whiskered. “Albert is beautiful!” Victoria wrote, and she proposed just three days later.As Gill reveals, Victoria and Albert entered their marriage longing for intimate companionship, yet each was determined to be the ruler. This dynamic would continue through the years–each spouse, headstrong and impassioned, eager to lead the marriage on his or her own terms. For two decades, Victoria and Albert engaged in a very public contest for dominance. Against all odds, the marriage succeeded, but it was always a work in progress. And in the end, it was Albert’s early death that set the Queen free to create the myth of her marriage as a peaceful idyll and her husband as Galahad, pure and perfect. As Gill shows, the marriage of Victoria and Albert was great not because it was perfect but because it was passionate and complicated. Wonderfully nuanced, surprising, often acerbic–and informed by revealing excerpts from the pair’s journals and letters–We Two is a revolutionary portrait of a queen and her prince, a fascinating modern perspective on a couple who have become a legend.
A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy
Helen Rappaport - 2011
For Britain had not just lost a prince: during his twenty year marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert had increasingly performed the function of King in all but name. The outpouring of grief after Albert's death was so extreme, that its like would not be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later.Drawing on many letters, diaries and memoirs from the Royal Archives and other neglected sources, as well as the newspapers of the day, Rappaport offers a new perspective on this compelling historical psychodrama--the crucial final months of the prince's life and the first long, dark ten years of the Queen's retreat from public view. She draws a portrait of a queen obsessed with her living husband and - after his death - with his enduring place in history. Magnificent Obsession will also throw new light on the true nature of the prince's chronic physical condition, overturning for good the 150-year old myth that he died of typhoid fever.
Queen Victoria, From her Birth to the Death of the Prince Consort
Cecil Woodham-Smith - 1972
Queen Victoria, from Her Birth to the Death of the Prince Consort includes separate appendixes on the Coburg Family, The Conroy Family, The Alleged Plot of the Duke of Cumberland Against the Life of Princess Victoria (with comments by Queen Victoria), and The Destruction of the Queen's Diary.
Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household
Kate Hubbard - 2012
For some, royal employment was the defining experience of their lives; for others it came as an unwelcome duty, or a prelude to greater things. Serving Victoria follows the lives of six members of her household, from the governess to the royal children, and her maid-of-honor to her chaplain and personal physician.Drawing on their letters and diaries - many hitherto unpublished - Serving Victoria offers a unique insight into the Victorian court, with all its frustrations and absurdities, as well as the Queen herself, sitting squarely at its center. Seen through the eyes of her household as she traveled between Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral, and to the French and Belgian courts, Victoria emerges as more vulnerable, more emotional, more selfish, more comical than the austere figure depicted in her famous portraits. We see a woman who was prone to fits of giggles, who wept easily and often, who gobbled her food and shrank from confrontation but insisted on controlling the lives of those around her. We witness her extraordinary and debilitating grief at the death of her husband Albert, and her sympathy towards the tragedies that afflicted her household.Witty, astute and moving, Serving Victoria is a perfect foil to the pomp and circumstance - and prudery and conservatism - associated with Victoria's reign, and gives an unforgettable glimpse of what it meant to serve the Queen.
Christmas with the Queen
Brian Hoey - 2014
Where do she and her guests spend Christmas and how do they get there? The answers to these and many other questions are given in this intriguing and riveting account of what really goes on at a Royal Christmas, written by one of Britain’s leading Royal writers, and based on facts from impeccable sources at Buckingham Palace.Brian Hoey is acknowledged to be one of the most important Royal authors in the world, having written 28 books about the Royal Family. He conducted the first ever television interview with the Queen’s only daughter, Prince Anne, the Princess Royal, and also wrote her only official biography. He was a commentator at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, and again, at the funeral of Diana in 1997, and his written work has appeared in countries throughout the world, particularly the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Hoey has been a guest on many major radio and television shows in Britain and America, including the Today Show, Good Morning America and in Britain, This Morning.
Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
Lucy Worsley - 2018
She found a way of being a respected sovereign in an age when people were deeply uncomfortable with having a woman on the throne.As well as a queen, Victoria was a daughter, a wife, a mother and a widow, and at each of these steps along life's journey she was expected to conform to what society demanded of a woman. On the face of it, she was deeply conservative. But if you look at her actions rather than her words, she was in fact tearing up the rule book for how to be female. By looking at the detail of twenty-four days of her life, through diaries, letters and more, we can see Victoria up close and personal. Examining her face-to-face, as she lived hour to hour, allows us to see, and to celebrate, the contradictions at the heart of British history's most recognisable woman.
The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter
Matthew Dennison - 2007
Her father died when she was four and Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, and also demanded from her complete submission. Victoria was not above laying it down regally even with her own children. Beatrice succumbed to her mother’s obsessive love, so that by the time she was in her late teens she was her constant companion and running her mother’s office, which meant that when Victoria died her daughter became literary executor, a role she conducted with Teutonic thoroughness. And although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice met Prince Henry of Battenberg. Sadly, Beatrice inherited from her mother the hemophilia gene, which she passed on to two of her four sons and which her daughter Victoria Eugenia, in marrying Alfonso XIII of Spain, in turn passed on to the Spanish royal family. This new examination will restore her to her proper prominence—as Queen Victoria’s second consort.
Victoria's Daughters
Jerrold M. Packard - 1998
Two of these princesses would themselves produce children of immense consequence. All five would curiously come to share many of the social restrictions and familial machinations borne by nineteenth-century women of less-exulted class.Victoria and Albert's precocious firstborn child, Vicky, wed a Prussian prince in a political match her high-minded father hoped would bring about a more liberal Anglo-German order. That vision met with disaster when Vicky's son Wilhelm-- to be known as Kaiser Wilhelm-- turned against both England and his mother, keeping her out of the public eye for the rest of her life. Gentle, quiet Alice had a happier marriage, one that produced Alexandra, later to become Tsarina of Russia, and yet another Victoria, whose union with a Battenberg prince was to found the present Mountbatten clan. However, she suffered from melancholia and died at age thirty-five of what appears to have been a deliberate, grief-fueled exposure to the diphtheria germs that had carried away her youngest daughter. Middle child Helena struggled against obesity and drug addition but was to have lasting effect as Albert's literary executor. By contrast, her glittering and at times scandalous sister Louise, the most beautiful of the five siblings, escaped the claustrophobic stodginess of the European royal courts by marrying a handsome Scottish commoner, who became governor general of Canada, and eventually settled into artistic salon life as a respected sculptor. And as the baby of the royal brood of nine, rebelling only briefly to forge a short-lived marriage, Beatrice lived under the thumb of her mother as a kind of personal secretary until the queen's death.Principally researched at the houses and palaces of its five subjects in London, Scotland, Berlin, Darmstadt, and Ottawa-- and entertainingly written by an experienced biographer whose last book concerned Victoria's final days-- Victoria's Daughters closely examines a generation of royal women who were dominated by their mother, married off as much for political advantage as for love, and finally passed over entirely with the accession of their n0 brother Bertie to the throne. Packard provides valuable insights into their complex, oft-tragic lives as daughters of their time.
Victoria
Daisy Goodwin - 2016
“They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.