Queen Victoria

Title: Queen Victoria – A Life

Author: Lytton Strachey

Publisher: Tauris Parke, 2012 (First published 1921)

ISBN: 9781780760483

Pages: 255

The reign of Alexandrina Victoria (1819 – 1901) as the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was so profound as to be termed the ‘Victorian Era’. At 63 years and six months on the throne, she is second only to her successor, Queen Elizabeth II in the length of reign. Called upon to wear the crown at the tender age of 18, Victoria was the exemplar of public and private morality. Sweeping changes occurred in Britain during the six decades of her reign which saw England getting on to the centre stage of international politics with powerful presence in all corners of the globe. She presided over the making of a superpower, under the watchful eyes of the prime ministers who assumed and remitted office twenty times in her entire career. She ran a large family with nine children, who were married into all the major royal houses of Europe so that the queen came to be affectionately called the ‘Grandmother of Europe’. Giles Lytton Strachey (1880 – 1932) was a British writer and critic and a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. In this award-winning biography of Queen Victoria, the author places before us the image of a stern, but benevolent monarch who at the same time possessed all the emotions of a woman who had an innate respect and capacity for business as well.

People who are familiar only with despotic kings in the fables and real life would feel amazed at the working of constitutional monarchies like that of England, where the lineages that vied for the crown were often living in straitened circumstances till the moment they ascended the throne. Victoria was no different, and so too was King Leopold of Belgium, who was her uncle. The aristocracies of Europe provided princes and princesses to the royal houses thereby maintaining a tinge of supra-national affiliation towards their homes. Victoria, and her consort Albert, had German as their preferred tongue and their warmest sympathies were towards Germany as the mother country. The Duke of Kent - Victoria’s father -  lived in Germany as his finances were not that impressive to maintain the facade of a royal household. The close relationship between the monarchs of various kingdoms – bound together by bonds of consanguinity – was instrumental in moulding the foreign policy of the country. King Leopold of Belgium tried to sway Victoria from the measured route charted by her democratically elected ministers, in vain. But England was an exemption in this, since many of the others still depended on the voice of the sovereign to set the fate of the populace. Victoria, who was said to have stepped all at once from a nursery to the throne, exhibited unusual rectitude and steadfastness in discharging her duties as the Queen of England.

Britain was the most powerful nation in the middle of the nineteenth century, on which the sun never set. They could command the vast resources of a string of colonies in every part of the globe. By corollary, the Queen of England, though constrained by constitutional safeguards, may be said to be the most powerful human being on the planet. Being the husband of such a lady is not an enviable proposition for most men, who could look forward to nothing better than forever be in their wife’s shadow. The book presents a refreshing alternative to this gloomy prospect in the form of Prince Albert, who was also Victoria’s cousin. Their wedded life began with the usual skirmishes, but a strong sense of mutual attachment soon developed between the spouses. Albert, with his deep knowledge of continental politics, came in handy in setting England’s foreign policy. He made negotiations with the politicians on behalf of the queen on delicate issues of international import. He conceived the idea of and was instrumental in staging the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London which showcased the industrial produce of all the nations and was considered to be a milestone in the free run of the Industrial Revolution. The Prince Consort always maintained a balanced view of overseas politics. He could rise above petty electoral politics to which the politicians too easily succumbed. When Albert came to know of a dispatch by the Prime Minister John Russell on the American Civil War, he leaned heavily on the minister to moderate its tone. If the letter had gone forward without the prince’s intervention, Britain would’ve been forced to take sides in the civil war. Albert’s sudden death at the age of 42, after 21 years of conjugal life, shattered Victoria so thoroughly that it took her many years to regain her old composure. Strachey has made a very touching portrait of the last days of the prince and the inconsolable grief of the queen upon the untimely demise of her husband due to Typhoid fever.

Bureaucratic red-tapism and pettiness have been the hallmarks of the administration which the colonies inherited from their erstwhile imperial masters. Presence of this debilitating legacy still haunts India to great annoyance to the public and the business community. This book presents some episodes to remind us of the brutal compartmentalization of Victorian England’s government machinery. A lot of departments were involved in the upkeep and maintenance of the Queen’s palaces. Often, the petty squabbles between the employees of one department against those of another led to inconvenience even to the highest dignitaries. Once, Victoria noticed that that there was no fire in the dining room. Upon examination, it turned out that the Lord Steward lays the wood and Lord Chamberlain lights it. The underlings of these two lords quarreled with each other and the queen had to eat in the cold. Then again, the inside of the palace windows were cleaned by the department of the Lord Chamberlain, while their outsides were cleaned by the Office of Woods and Forests. The gradual change of archaic customs related to the Royals is also mentioned in the text. Up till the very end of the Queen’s reign, ministers were not allowed by custom to sit down in her presence. She once apologetically remarked to a physically exhausted prime minister about her distress in not being able to allow him to be seated. However, towards the end of the century, this custom was abolished.

This book was first published in 1921 and exudes the old charm of a long gone era. The diction is really fine and the narrative is touchingly penned. With a supremely pointed analysis of the characters in the story, Strachey exerts great dexterity in managing the flow of events. This biography is oriented more towards the personal, rather than the political. Readers are expected to be aware of the major European political events of the period on which the queen was called upon to finalize England’s stand. The publishers should consider adding a short description of the major events alluded to in the narrative. The book is endowed with a bibliography and a good index. A set of photographic plates is also added for greater visual interest.

The book is strongly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star