June 22, 1948: King George VI formally gives up the title “Emperor of India” Part I.

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East India Company, Emperor of India, Empress of India, George VI of the United Kingdom, India, Indian Empire, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

On June 22, 1948 King George VI formally gives up the title “Emperor of India”, half a year after Britain actually gave up its rule of India.

In this two part series I will discuss the history of the title of “Emperor/Empress of India” from it’s origin (Part I) to the abolishing of the title (Part II).

In 1858 after the nominal Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed at the conclusion of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the government of the United Kingdom decided to transfer control of British India and its princely states from the mercantile East India Company (EIC) to the Crown, thus marking the beginning of the British Raj.

The EIC was officially dissolved on June 1, 1874, and the British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, decided to offer Queen Victoria the title “Empress of India” shortly afterwards. Victoria accepted this style on May 1, 1876. The first Delhi Durbar (which served as an imperial coronation) was held in her honour eight months later on January 1, 1877.

Constitutionally speaking, the emperor or empress was the source of all legislative, executive, and judicial authority in the British Indian Empire as the sovereign. However, the emperor or empress took little direct part in the affairs of government. The exercise of sovereign powers was instead delegated from the emperor or empress, either by statute or by convention, to a “viceroy and governor-general”, who in turn was appointed by the emperor or empress on the advice of the secretary of state for India, a British minister of the Crown.

The idea of having Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India was not particularly new, as Lord Ellenborough had already suggested it in 1843 upon becoming the governor-general of India. By 1874, Major-General Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s private secretary, had ordered English charters to be scrutinised for imperial titles, with Edgar and Stephen mentioned as sound precedents.

The Queen, possibly irritated by the sallies of the republicans, the tendency to democracy, and the realisation that her influence was manifestly on the decline, was urging the move. Another factor may have been that the Queen’s first child, Victoria, the Princess Royal was married to Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia, the heir apparent to the German Empire. Upon becoming empress, she would outrank her mother.

By January 1876, the Queen’s insistence was so great that Benjamin Disraeli felt that he could procrastinate no longer. Initially, Victoria had considered the style “Empress of Great Britain, Ireland, and India”, but Disraeli had persuaded the Queen to limit the title to India in order to avoid controversy. Hence, the title Kaisar-i-Hind was coined in 1876 by the orientalist G.W. Leitner as the official imperial title for the British monarch in India.

The term Kaisar-i-Hind means emperor of India in the vernacular of the Hindi and Urdu languages. The word kaisar, meaning ’emperor’, is a derivative of the Roman imperial title caesar (via Persian, Turkish – see Kaiser-i-Rum), and is cognate with the German title Kaiser, which was borrowed from the Latin at an earlier date.

Many in the United Kingdom, however, regarded the assumption of the title as an obvious development from the Government of India Act 1858, which resulted in the founding of British India, ruled directly by the Crown. The public were of the opinion that the title of “queen” was no longer adequate for the ceremonial ruler of what was often referred to informally as the Indian Empire. The new styling underlined the fact that the native states were no longer a mere agglomeration but a collective entity.

May 24, 1819: Birth of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Empress of India

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Duke of Kent, Empress of India, George III of the United Kingdom, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death. On May 1, 1876, she adopted the additional title of Empress of India. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III and Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the fourth daughter and seventh child of Franz Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf.

After both her father the Duke of Kent and his father, King George III, died within a week of one another in January 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father’s three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue (King George IV died 1830, Frederick, Duke of York died 1827, King William IV died 1837).

The United Kingdom was an established constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

In February of 1840 Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.

Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe” and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances.

As a result of her seclusion, republicanism in the United Kingdom temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

In July 1900, Victoria’s second son Alfred (“Affie”) died. “Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too”, she wrote in her journal. “It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another.”

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts.

Through early January, she felt “weak and unwell”, and by mid-January she was “drowsy … dazed, [and] confused.” She died on Tuesday January 22, 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor, King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, German Emperor Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request.

On January 25, King Edward VII, Wilhelm II and her third son, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, helped lift her body into the coffin. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February 2, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park.

With a reign of 63 years, seven months and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on September 9, 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover. Her son and successor Edward VII belonged to her husband’s House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, her eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominio. He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to “undervalue the name of Albert” and diminish the status of his father with whom the “name should stand alone.” The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the national church, in deference to protests that the previous Edwards were English kings who had “been excluded from Scotland by battle”.

March 30, 2002: Death of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

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14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Duke of York, Empress of India, Glamis Castle, King George VI of the United Kingdom, Peerage of Scotland, Prince Albert, Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the last Empress of India from her husband’s accession as King-Emperor in 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947. After her husband died, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

Early life

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the youngest daughter and the ninth of ten children of Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of Scotland), and his wife, Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. Her mother was descended from British Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and Governor-General of India Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, who was the elder brother of another prime minister, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.

Wedding of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Prince Albert, Duke of York—”Bertie” to the family—was the second son of King George V. He initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being “afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to”. When he declared he would marry no other, his mother, Queen Mary, visited Glamis to see for herself the girl who had stolen her son’s heart.

She became convinced that Elizabeth was “the one girl who could make Bertie happy”, but nevertheless refused to interfere. At the same time, Elizabeth was courted by James Stuart, Albert’s equerry, until he left the Prince’s service for a better-paid job in the American oil business.

In February 1922, Elizabeth was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Albert’s sister, Princess Mary, to Viscount Lascelles. The following month, Albert proposed again, but she refused him once more.

Eventually, in January 1923, Elizabeth agreed to marry Albert, despite her misgivings about royal life. Albert’s freedom in choosing Elizabeth, not a member of a royal family, though the daughter of a peer, was considered a gesture in favour of political modernisation; previously, princes were expected to marry princesses from other royal families. They selected a platinum engagement ring featuring a Kashmir sapphire with two diamonds adorning its sides.

They married on April 26, 1923, at Westminster Abbey. Unexpectedly, Elizabeth laid her bouquet at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on her way into the abbey, in memory of her brother Fergus.

Elizabeth became styled Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York. Following a wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace prepared by chef Gabriel Tschumi, the new Duchess and her husband honeymooned at Polesden Lacey, a manor house in Surrey owned by the wealthy socialite and friend Margaret Greville. They then went to Scotland, where she caught “unromantic” whooping cough.

Elizabeth came to prominence in 1923 when she married the Duke of York. The couple and their daughters Elizabeth and Margaret embodied traditional ideas of family and public service. The Duchess undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance.

In 1936, Elizabeth’s husband unexpectedly became king when his older brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson.

Elizabeth then became queen consort. She accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of the Second World War. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. After the war, her husband’s health deteriorated, and she was widowed at the age of 51. Her elder daughter, aged 25, became the new queen.

After the death of Queen Mary in 1953, Elizabeth was viewed as the matriarch of the British royal family. In her later years, she was a consistently popular member of the family, even when other members were suffering from low levels of public approval. She continued an active public life until just a few months before her death at the age of 101, which was seven weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.

January 22, 1901: Death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Empress of India

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Empress of India, German Emperor Wilhelm II, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, King George IV of the United Kingdom, King William IV of the United Kingdom, Osbourne House, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death. On May 1, 1876, she adopted the additional title of Empress of India. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III and Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the fourth daughter and seventh child of Franz Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf.

After both her father the Duke of Kent and his father, King George III, died within a week of one another in January 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father’s three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue (King George IV died 1830, Frederick, Duke of York died 1827, King William IV died 1837).

The United Kingdom was an established constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

In February of 1840 Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.

Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe” and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances.

As a result of her seclusion, republicanism in the United Kingdom temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

In July 1900, Victoria’s second son Alfred (“Affie”) died. “Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too”, she wrote in her journal. “It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another.”

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts.

Through early January, she felt “weak and unwell”, and by mid-January she was “drowsy … dazed, [and] confused.” She died on Tuesday January 22, 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor, King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, German Emperor Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request.

On January 25, King Edward VII, Wilhelm II and her third son, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, helped lift her body into the coffin. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February 2, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park.

With a reign of 63 years, seven months and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on September 9, 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover. Her son and successor Edward VII belonged to her husband’s House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, her eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominio. He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to “undervalue the name of Albert” and diminish the status of his father with whom the “name should stand alone.” The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the national church, in deference to protests that the previous Edwards were English kings who had “been excluded from Scotland by battle”.

June 22, 1948. The title Emperor of India is dropped by King George VI of the United Kingdom.

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Benjamin Disraeli, British India, British Raj, Delhi Durbar, Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, Emperor of India, Empress of India, Imperial Crown of India, Sir Henry Ponsonby

Emperor or Empress of India, shortened to King-Emperor or Queen-Empress, was a title used by British monarchs from 1 May 1, 1876 (with the Royal Titles Act 1876) to June 22, 1948. The image of the Emperor or Empress was used to signify British authority—his or her profile, for instance, appearing on currency, in government buildings, railway stations, courts, on statues etc. “God Save the King” (or, alternatively, “God Save the Queen”) was the former national anthem of British India.

Imperial Crown of India

Oaths of allegiance were made to the Emperor or Empress and the lawful successors by the governors-general, princes, governors, commissioners in India in events such as imperial durbars.

The title was officially dropped on June 22, 1948, when, under the Indian Independence Act 1947, George VI became King of the new dominions of India and Pakistan. The monarchies of both nations were abolished upon the establishment of the Republic of India in 1950 and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.

The Emperor or Empress took little direct part in government. The exercise of sovereign powers was delegated from the Emperor or Empress, either by statute or by convention, to the Viceroy and Governor-General of India who were appointed by the Emperor or Empress, or to offices such as the secretary of state for India.

Victoria, Empress of India

The appointed Viceroy and Governor-General was also the ex-officio head of the Imperial Legislative Council, and its two houses, the Central Legislative Assembly and the Council of State as the delegation on behalf of the Emperor or Empress, along with the governors of provinces. They performed these duties with the advice and consent of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Government of India.

Executive power was exercised by His/Her Imperial Majesty’s Government in the presidencies and provinces (via the viceroy and governor-general) and the princely states via suzerainty. They had the support of the Armed Forces in India, such as the British Indian Army and Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service and other Crown Servants Secret Services (as the emperor or empress received certain foreign intelligence reports before the Viceroy did).

Edward VII, Emperor of India

Judicial power was vested in the various Crown Courts in India, which by statute had judicial independence from the Government.

History

After the nominal Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed at the conclusion of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (10 May 10, 1857 – November 1, 1858), the government of the United Kingdom decided to transfer control of British India and its princely states from the mercantile East India Company (EIC) to the Crown, thus marking the beginning of the British Raj.

The EIC was officially dissolved on June 1, 1874, and the British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, decided to offer Queen Victoria the title “Empress of India” shortly afterwards. Victoria accepted this style on May 1, 1876.

The first Delhi Durbar (which served as an imperial coronation) was held in her honour eight months later on January 1, 1877.

George V, Emperor of India

The idea of having Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India was not particularly new, as Lord Ellenborough had already suggested it in 1843 upon becoming the governor-general of India. By 1874, Major-General Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s private secretary, had ordered English charters to be scrutinised for imperial titles, with Edgar and Stephen mentioned as sound precedents.

The Queen, possibly irritated by the sallies of the republicans, the tendency to democracy, and the realisation that her influence was manifestly on the decline, was urging the move. Another factor may have been that the Queen’s first child, Victoria, was married to Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia, the heir apparent to the German Empire. Upon becoming empress, she would outrank her mother.

By January 1876, the Queen’s insistence was so great that Benjamin Disraeli felt that he could procrastinate no longer. Initially, Victoria had actually considered the style “Empress of Great Britain, Ireland, and India”, but Disraeli had persuaded the Queen to limit the title to India in order to avoid controversy. Hence, the title Kaisar-i-Hind was coined in 1876 by the orientalist G.W. Leitner as the official imperial title for the British monarch in India.

Edward VIII, Emperor of India

The term Kaisar-i-Hind means Emperor of India in the vernacular of the Hindi and Urdu languages. The word kaisar, meaning ’emperor’, is a derivative of the Roman imperial title caesar (via Persian, Turkish – see Kaiser-i-Rum – and the Greek Καίσαρ), and is cognate with the German title Kaiser, which was borrowed from the Latin at an earlier date.

Many in the United Kingdom, however, regarded the assumption of the title as an obvious development from the 1858 Government of India Act, which resulted in the founding of the British Raj. The public were of the opinion that the title of “queen” was no longer adequate for the ceremonial ruler of what was often referred to informally as the Indian Empire. The new styling underlined the fact that the native states were no longer a mere agglomeration but a collective entity.

When King Edward VII ascended to the throne on January 22, 1901, he continued the imperial tradition laid down by his mother, Queen Victoria, by adopting the title Emperor of India. Three subsequent British monarchs followed in his footsteps, and it continued to be used even after India had become independent on August 15, 1947. It was not until June 22, 1948 that the style was officially abolished during the reign of George VI.

The first Emperor to visit India was George V. For his imperial coronation ceremony at the Delhi Durbar, the Imperial Crown of India was created.

George VI, Emperor of India

When signing off Indian business, the British King-Emperor or Queen-Empress used the initials R I (Rex/Regina Imperator/Imperatrix) or the abbreviation Ind. Imp. (Indiae Imperator/Imperatrix) after their name (while Victoria used the initials R I, the wives of king-emperors simply used R). When a male monarch held the title, his wife used the style Queen-Empress, despite the fact that she was not a reigning monarch in her own right.

January 22, 1901: Death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Empress of India.

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Empress of India, Frogmore, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Edward, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, The Duke of Kent, Victorian Era

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death. On May 1, 1876, she adopted the additional title of Empress of India. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III and Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the fourth daughter and seventh child of Franz Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf. After both her father the Duke of Kent and his father, King George III, died within a week of one another in January 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father’s three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue (King George IV died 1830, Frederick, Duke of York died 1827, King William IV died 1837).

The United Kingdom was an established constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

In February of 1840 Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe” and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism in the United Kingdom temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

In July 1900, Victoria’s second son Alfred (“Affie”) died. “Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too”, she wrote in her journal. “It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another.”

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt “weak and unwell”, and by mid-January she was “drowsy … dazed, [and] confused.” She died on Tuesday January 22, 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor, King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, German Emperor Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request.

On January 25, King Edward VII, Wilhelm II and her third son, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, helped lift her body into the coffin. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February 2, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park.

With a reign of 63 years, seven months and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on September 9, 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover. Her son and successor Edward VII belonged to her husband’s House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, her eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominio. He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to “undervalue the name of Albert” and diminish the status of his father with whom the “name should stand alone.” The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the national church, in deference to protests that the previous Edwards were English kings who had “been excluded from Scotland by battle”.

History of Styles and Titles Part IV: Emperor of Britain.

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British Empire, Emperor of India, Empress of India, King George III of Great Britain, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King Henry VIII of England, Queen Mary I of England, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, William the Conqueror

British Emperor

Although in the past the style of British Emperor has been (retroactively) applied to a few mythical and historical rulers of Great Britain, Ireland or the United Kingdom, it is sometimes used as a colloquialism to designate either Plantagenet and Tudor caesaropapism or, more frequently, the British sovereign of the Empire of India.

Mythical British kings

The mythical British ruler King Arthur is referred to in medieval Welsh texts as ameraudur (meaning “emperor”). The Welsh poem Geraint, son of Erbin, written in the 10th or 11th century, describes a battle at a port-settlement and mentions Arthur in passing. The work is a praise-poem and elegy for the 6th-century king Geraint, provides the earliest known reference to Arthur as “emperor”.

Britannic Empire

The Britannic Empire was a short-lived breakaway state of the Roman empire in the late Roman Period. It was formed as a result of the revolt by the naval commander Carausius. It ended when Carausius’s usurper, Allectus, was defeated by the Emperor Constantius I in 296.

Imperial ambitions (930–1066)

Several Kings of England displayed imperial ambition in the period from 930 to 1066, using a variety of what would be considered imperial titles. The most common title was basileus, but imperator, princeps, augustus, and caesar were all used sporadically.
* Athelstan (c. 895–939), a collector of imperial relics, had himself proclaimed “imperator” in 930, six years after the death of the last Carolingian emperor. Variants that he used throughout his reign include such formulations as “king of the Anglo-Saxons and emperor of the Northumbrians” (Rex Angulsexna and Norþhymbra imperator). He was also one of many to use the Anglo-Saxon title of Bretwalda (“wielder of the strength of Britain,” sometimes rendered Brutenwealde).
* Edgar the Peaceful (c. 943–975) legendarily took homage from eight lesser kings during an excursion on the River Dee. During his lifetime, he issued royal charters proclaiming himself as Anglorum Basileus and totius Albionis Basileus, among other variants.
* Ethelred the Unready (c. 966–1016) was noted for being especially fond of high titles during his reign.
* Canute the Great (994/995–1035) ruled England, Norway, and Denmark through personal union and lacked formal imperial title during his lifetime, though he followed Anglo-Saxon tradition. The lands which he ruled are commonly referred to as the North Sea Empire.
* Edward the Confessor (c. 1003–1066) continued the occasional use of imperial titles after the restoration of the House of Wessex, but the kings of England largely ceased referring to themselves as emperors following the Norman conquest.

Norman Era: Empress Maud (Matilda)
In this case the epithet “Empress” was rather used to distinguish this person from other princesses called Matilda or Maud. Matilda was not Empress of Britain; she took her title from her previous marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich V.

The “Imperium Maius” issue

Although several English monarchs flirted with the idea of “imperial” power, this never led to an official change of the title of “King/Queen” to that of “Emperor/Empress”.

Imperium maius

In Christian Europe the use of the title emperor was more than an affectation. A king recognises that the church is an equal or superior in the religious sphere; emperors do not. This was illustrated by Henry VIII of England who started to use the word imperium in his dispute with Pope Clement VII over the annulment of his first marriage. The distinction began to blur when kings began to claim divine rights.

English kings and the imperium maius

William II, Duke of Normandy (who became William I “the Conqueror”) thought it important enough to request and get a papal blessing for his conquest of England. Richard I refused to show deference to Heinrich VI, Holy Roman Emperor when held prisoner by him, declaring “I am born of a rank which recognizes no superior but God.

William I, King of England and Duke of Normandy

After Henry I agreed to the Concordat of London in 1107, the English kings recognised the supremacy of the Pope in matters spiritual. For example, when Thomas Becket was murdered, Henry II was forced to recognise that, although he ruled temporal matters, spiritual matters came under the authority of the Church in Rome.

This changed with the dispute between Henry VIII and Pope Clement VII over Henry’s wish to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. The Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) explicitly stated that:

Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same.

The next year the First Act of Supremacy (1534) explicitly tied the head of church to the imperial crown:

The only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm.

The Crown of Ireland Act, passed by the Irish Parliament in 1541 (effective 1542), changed the traditional title used by the Monarchs of England for the reign over Ireland, from Lord of Ireland to King of Ireland and naming Henry head of the Church of Ireland, for similar reasons.

During the reign of Mary I, the First Act of Supremacy was annulled, but during the reign of Elizabeth I the Second Act of Supremacy, with similar wording to the First Act, was passed in 1559. During the English Interregnum the laws were annulled, but the acts which caused the laws to be in abeyance were themselves deemed to be null and void by the Parliaments of the English Restoration, so by act of Parliament the Crown of England (and later the British and UK crowns) are imperial crowns.

George III as Emperor

In 1801 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created after the merging of the British and Irish parliaments. It was suggested that George III be declared Emperor of the British Isles. The King declined and became king of “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”

Parliament used the terms “empire” and “imperial”. Blackstone commented in 1765 “The meaning … of the legislature, when it uses these terms of empire and imperial, and applies them to the realm and crown of England, is only to assert that our king is equally sovereign and independent within these his dominions, as any emperor is in his empire.”

British monarchs with the title Emperor/Empress of India (1876–1948)

The British government led by the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, conferred the additional title Empress of India on Queen Victoria by an Act of Parliament, reputedly to assuage the monarch’s irritation at being, as a mere Queen, notionally inferior to her daughter, the future German Empress; the Indian Imperial designation was also formally justified as the expression of Britain succeeding the former Mughal as paramount ruler of the subcontinent, using indirect rule through hundreds of princely states formally under protection, not colonies, but accepting the British Sovereign as their “feudal” suzerain.

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and 1st Empress of India

George VI, King of the United Kingdom and last Emperor of India

The title of Emperor of India was not immediately relinquished by George VI when India and Pakistan gained independence on 15 August 1947, as he continued to be king of each of the two new dominions, but he abandoned the title with effect from June 22, 1948.

200th Anniversary of the Birth of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom: May 24, 1819.

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Birthday, Duchess of Kent, Empress of India, George III, George IV, King William IV of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of the Belgians, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Leopld of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold I, Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld., Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, The Duke of Kent

Following the death of Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales in November 1817, the only legitimate grandchild of George III at the time, the royal succession began to look uncertain. The Prince Regent and his younger brother Frederick, the Duke of York, though married, were estranged from their wives and had no surviving legitimate children. King George’s surviving daughters were all past likely childbearing age. The unmarried sons of King George III, the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Cambridge, all rushed to contract lawful marriages and provide an heir to the throne. The fifth son of King George III, the Duke of Cumberland, was already married but had no living children at that time, whilst the marriage of the sixth son, the Duke of Sussex, was void because he had married in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

However, it was not that simple. For the Duke of Kent providing for the succession was not his sole motivator in finding a wife. Even before he disposed of the amiable Madame de Saint Laurent, the Duke of Kent had been secretly looking for a legitimate wife for financial reasons rather than dynastic reasons. The Duke of Kent knew that once he contracted a legitimate marriage he would be granted a steady income by Parliament. Princess Charlotte was still alive at this time and he promised her, along with her consort, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, to furnish continuity for the throne of Hanover.

HRH The Duchess of Kent

The Duke of Kent also realized that in Hanover, where the Salic Law applied to the German kingdom, only male heirs could reign in Hanover, therefore, if Princess Charlotte became Queen of the United Kingdom this would separate the personal union of the two countries and a secession of her oldest surviving childless uncles would, one after another, become the King of Hanover. The Duke of Kent envisioned that he would one day be the King of Hanover. For that he would need a Queen and an heir.

The Duke of Kent’s idea of a suitable bride was a wealthy woman with proper Royal Ancestry for an approved royal marriage. Because the Duke of Kent had been helpful to his niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and her husband Prince Leopold, they were eager to match the Duke with Leopold’s younger sister the Dowager Princess of Leiningen. The Duke agreed to visit the widowed Princess Victoria in Darmstadt, one of the larger cities close to the borders of a Amorbach, after which he dispatched a lengthy letter expressing his affection and proposing marriage believing she would make an appropriate Queen of Hanover. With the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales, who died giving birth to a stillborn son in November 1817, the Duke of Kent realized that the succession to the British throne was now in jeopardy and this expediated his marriage to the Dowager Princess of Leiningen.

In Coburg Germany, on May 29, 1818 at 9:30 in the evening the Dowager Princess of Leiningen (aged 32) was married in the Lutheran rights to the Duke of Kent (aged 52) a man she had only met once before. The Duke was arrayed in his English field marshal’s uniform, while the Princess was resplendent in pale silk lace. Afterwards, the new Duchess of Kent wrote in her diary that she had hoped that in her second marriage she would find the happiness that she never found in the first.

Within four days after the wedding the Duke and Duchess of Kent left for England. And at Kew Palace on July 13, 1818 at four in the afternoon, they were married again this time in accordance to the Church of England. However, the ceremony was doubled for there was also two brides for the Prince Regent to give away. Not only was the Duke of Kent marrying Princess Victoria once again, Prince William, Duke of Clarence and the 25 year old Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (August 13, 1792 – December 2, 1849) [the daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg] were united as well. The Archbishop Bishop of Canterbury officiated the ceremony assisted by the Bishop of London. Since King George III was blind and incapacitated, fragile old Queen Charlotte, mother of both of the Dukes, was the chief celebrant at the wedding banquet.

HRH The Duke of Kent

Because of the Duke of Kent’s financial situation the newlyweds moved back to Germany. By November 18, 1818 the Duke of Kent sent a letter to the Prince Regent’s private secretary, Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, indicating that the Duchess of Kent was pregnant and that the child was due in May the following year. The Duke of Kent believed it would be his duty to bring the Duchess back to England early in April so that the Royal birth could take place in England. The Duke also petitioned his brother the Prince Regent to allocate funds sufficient for the move and the care of his growing family.

The Duke and Duchess of Kent’s only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a.m. on May 24, 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on June 24, 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace. She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent’s eldest brother, George, the Prince Regent.

At birth, Alexandria-Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: George, the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, the Duke of York; William, the Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria’s father, Edward, the Duke of Kent. The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children.

HM Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India.

With Alexandrina-Victoria being fifth in line to the succession to the throne, her ascending the British throne was not assured. She could have been supplanted by a brother born to the Duke and Duchess of Kent, or any children from the union of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence. However, the Duke of Clarence’s legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on March 27, 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria’s father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather, George III died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after York and Clarence. The Duke Clarence’s second daughter was Princess Elizabeth of Clarence who lived for twelve weeks from December 10, 1820 to 4 March 1821 and, while Elizabeth lived, Victoria was fourth in line. The Childless Duke of York died in 1827 which paved the way for Victoria’s own succession after her uncles, George IV and William IV.