Becoming Queen Victoria

I've just recently finished reading a book I'd been saving for once I'd returned from London and its palaces and other royal things. Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams was a great read. In my obsession with all of Britain's royalty through the ages, Queen Victoria is right up on top with the current queen and Victoria's great-granddaughter. Partly because I took Victorian Literature in graduate school and it was heavy on the era's history (which was great) and partly because of all the reading I've done in the past few years, I feel like I have a good handle on Victoria's reign. What I didn't know as much about is how she got to that point. Only a very small part of this book actually takes place after Victoria has become queen. I was fascinated by her overbearing mother and her counterpart John Conroy, and the power they wanted to have over her, and the recognition and prestige they desired to have once Victoria became queen. I loved that even though she was only 18 when she became Britain's leader, she acted quickly and firmly to stand on her own. She knew she was capable of doing her duty without her mother and Conroy's influence, and she did so very well for the next 63 years. While the first half of the book focuses on Charlotte and is very interesting, I loved learning more about Victoria's early life and early reign in the second half of the book.

I've been lucky enough to visit Kensington Palace twice and Buckingham Palace once on my two trips to London. Here are a few photos.

 Kensington Palace

 The lawn at Kensington Palace

 Kensington Palace from a distance

 The Victoria and Albert Monument in front of Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace during the changing of the guard

Queen Victoria

Here I am in front of Kensington Palace, childhood home of Queen Victoria and many other members of the Royal Family, including Princess Diana. Currently, the palace is under renovation and will be quite spectacular by 2012 with new tours and tour guides, a historic garden, and better accessibility for all visitors. Because of the renovations, the palace had a different tour than usual, called "The Enchanted Palace," which encouraged visitors to learn all the palace's secrets, featured the lives of seven princesses who lived there, as well as other Royal Family members. 

Here is the Orangery, which was a greenhouse during Victoria's time, and is now a restaurant and a great place for afternoon tea.

 

Here's a closer picture.

Here's the garden as it is now. In two years it will be renovated to be like the garden that was here during the 18th century.


In graduate school, I took Victorian Literature, which turned out to be one of my favorite graduate school classes. We read wonderful books of course, but one of the things that I liked so much was that our professor spent a good part of time giving us an overview of what life was like in England during Victoria's reign (1837-1901). It was a time of great change and modernization, but many social problems as well.

I'd been meaning to watch the movie, The Young Victoria, before heading to London, but that didn't quite happen. I did, however, notice that they sell the DVD in the store at Kensington Palace, so I figured it must be good.

Earlier this week I got The Young Victoria from Netflix and enjoyed every second of it. I'm a fan of Emily Blunt anyway, so I figured I'd like it and I did. The costuming is beautiful, and the movie painted a wonderful portrait of what Queen Victoria may have been like. I particularly liked the development of her relationship with her husband, Prince Albert; this relationship had a central focus in the movie. I also liked that Queen Victoria had concern for those living in poverty in her country, which is something we see in, for example, the work of Charles Dickens.

Overall, The Young Victoria was a wonderful movie. I'm going to have to find something to read about Queen Victoria to supplement.

While I'm on this topic, here is the Queen Victoria Memorial, just outside Buckingham Palace. We saw this the following day when we attended the Changing of the Guard.