Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover. Conclusion

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Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Dowager Queen, Duchess of Kent, Duke of Cumberland, Ernest Augustus, King William IV of the United Kingdom and Hanover, Lord Essex, Lord Melbourne, Malta, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Reform Bill, Victoria of Kent, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saafeld, Witley Court

At the time of their marriage, William, Duke of Clarence was not heir-presumptive to the throne, but became so when his brother Frederick, Duke of York, died childless in 1827. Given the small likelihood of his older brothers producing heirs, and William’s relative youth and good health, it had long been considered extremely likely that he would become king in due course.

In 1830, on the death of his elder brother, George IV, William acceded to the throne. One of King William’s first acts was to confer the Rangership of Bushy Park (for 33 years held by himself) on Queen Adelaide. This act allowed Adelaide to remain at Bushy House for her lifetime.

William and Adelaide were crowned on September 8, 1831 at Westminster Abbey. Adelaide was deeply religious and took the service very seriously. William despised the ceremony and acted throughout, it is presumed deliberately, as if he was “a character in a comic opera”, making a mockery of what he thought to be a ridiculous charade. Adelaide, alone among those attending received praise for her “dignity, repose and characteristic grace”.

Adelaide was beloved by the British people for her piety, modesty, charity, and her tragic childbirth history. A large portion of her household income was given to charitable causes. She also treated the young Princess Victoria of Kent (William’s heir presumptive and later Queen Victoria) with kindness, despite her inability to produce an heir and the open hostility between her husband and Victoria’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Kent.

Queen Adelaide refused to have women of questionable virtue attend her Court. The Clerk of the Privy Council, Charles Greville, wrote, “The Queen is a prude and refuses to have the ladies come décolletées to her parties. George IV, who liked ample expanses of that kind, would not let them be covered.”

Queen Adelaide attempted, perhaps unsuccessfully, to influence the King politically. She never spoke about politics in public; however, she was strongly Tory. It is unclear how much of William’s attitudes during the passage of the Reform Act 1832 were due to her influence.

The Press, the public, and courtiers assumed that she was agitating behind the scenes against reform, but she was careful to be non-committal in public. As a result of her alleged partiality, she became unpopular with reformers. False rumours circulated that she was having an affair with her Lord Chamberlain, the Tory Lord Howe, but almost everyone at court knew that Adelaide was inflexibly pious and was always faithful to her husband.

The Whig prime minister, Lord Grey, had Lord Howe removed from Adelaide’s household. Attempts to reinstate him after the Reform Bill had passed were not successful, as Lord Grey and Lord Howe could not agree as to how independent Howe could be of the government.

In October 1834, a great fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminster, which Adelaide considered divine retribution for the vagaries of reform. When the King dismissed the Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne, The Times newspaper blamed the Queen’s influence, though she seems to have had very little to do with it. Influenced by her similarly reactionary brother-in-law, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, she did write to the King against reform of the Church of Ireland.

Both William and Adelaide were fond of their niece, Princess Victoria of Kent, and wanted her to be closer to them. Their efforts were frustrated by Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. The Duchess refused to acknowledge Adelaide’s precedence, left letters from Adelaide unanswered, and commandeered space in the royal stables and apartments for her use.

The King, aggrieved at what he took to be disrespect from the Duchess to his wife, bluntly announced in the presence of Adelaide, the Duchess, Victoria, and many guests, that the Duchess was “incompetent to act with propriety”, that he had been “grossly and continually insulted by that person”, and that he hoped to have the satisfaction of living beyond Victoria’s age of majority so that the Duchess of Kent would never be regent.

Everyone was aghast at the vehemence of the speech, and all three ladies were deeply upset. The breach between the Duchess and the King and Queen was never fully healed, but Victoria always viewed both of them with kindness.

Queen dowager

Queen Adelaide was dangerously ill in April 1837, at around the same time that she was present at her mother’s deathbed in Meiningen, but she recovered. By June, it became evident that the King was fatally ill himself.

Adelaide stayed beside William’s deathbed devotedly, not going to bed herself for more than ten days. William IV died from heart failure in the early hours of the morning of June 20, 1837 at Windsor Castle, where he was buried. Victoria was proclaimed as queen, but subject to the rights of any issue that might be born to Adelaide on the remotely possible chance that she was pregnant.

The first queen dowager in over a century (Charles II’s widow, Catherine of Braganza, had died in 1705, and Mary of Modena, wife of the deposed James II, died in 1718), Adelaide survived her husband by twelve years.

In early October 1838, for health reasons, Adelaide travelled to Malta aboard HMS Hastings, stopping at Gibraltar on the way, and staying on Malta for three months. Lacking a Protestant church on Malta, the queen dowager paid for the construction of St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral in Valletta. In the summer of 1844, she paid her last visit to her native country, visiting Altenstein Palace and Meiningen.

Queen Adelaide had been given the use of Marlborough House, Pall Mall in 1831, and held it until her death in 1849. She also had the use of Bushy House and Bushy Park at Hampton Court. Suffering from chronic illness, Adelaide often moved her place of residence in a vain search for health, staying at the country houses of various British aristocracy.

Dowager Queen Adelaide became a tenant of William Ward and took up residence at the latter’s newly purchased house, Witley Court in Worcestershire, from 1842 until 1846. While at Witley Court, she had two chaplains – Rev. John Ryle Wood, Canon of Worcester and Rev. Thomas Pearson, Rector of Great Witley. She financed the first village school in Great Witley.

From 1846 to 1848, she rented Cassiobury House from Lord Essex. During her time there, she played host to Victoria and Albert. Within three years, Adelaide had moved on again, renting Bentley Priory in Stanmore from Lord Abercorn.

Semi-invalid by 1847, Adelaide was advised to try the climate of Madeira for the winter that year, for her health. She donated money to the poor of the island and paid for the construction of a road from Ribeiro Seco to Camara de Lobos.

Queen Adelaide’s last public appearance was to lay the foundation stone of the church of St John the Evangelist, Great Stanmore. She gave the font and when the church was completed after her death, the east window was dedicated to her memory.

She died during the reign of her niece Queen Victoria on December 2, 1849 of natural causes at Bentley Priory in Middlesex. She was buried at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. She wrote instructions for her funeral during an illness in 1841 at Sudbury Hall:

“I die in all humility … we are alike before the throne of God, and I request therefore that my mortal remains be conveyed to the grave without pomp or state … to have as private and quiet a funeral as possible. I particularly desire not to be laid out in state … I die in peace and wish to be carried to the fount in peace, and free from the vanities and pomp of this world.”

July 17, 1918: Assassination of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his Family.

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Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Christian IX of Denmark, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, German Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Russian Revolution

From the Emperor’s Desk: In the past on this blog I’ve written detailed accounts of the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II and his family. Today I will focus on genealogy, his marriage and briefly cover his reign.

Nicholas II (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich was born in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo south of Saint Petersburg, during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Alexander II. He was the eldest child of then-Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and his wife, Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna (née Princess Dagmar of Denmark).

Grand Duke Nicholas’ father was heir apparent to the Russian throne as the second but eldest surviving son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He had five younger siblings: Alexander (1869–1870), George (1871–1899), Xenia (1875–1960), Michael (1878–1918) and Olga (1882–1960). Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexander’s death in 1894. He was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other.

His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna (née Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine). His maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark (née Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel). Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia (1708–1728), daughter of Peter I the Great.

Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mother’s siblings included Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of the Hellenes, as well as the United Kingdom’s Queen Alexandra of King Edward VII.

Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and German Emperor Wilhelm II were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway (neé Princess Maud of the United Kingdom), as well as King Christian X of Denmark and King Constantine I of Greece.

Nicholas II and Wilhelm II were in turn second cousins once-removed, as each descended from King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, as well as third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandsons of Emperor Paul I of Russia.

In addition to being second cousins with the German Emperor through descent from Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his wife Princess Wilhelmine of Baden. Nicholas and Alexandra were also third cousins once-removed, as they were both descendants of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

In 1884, Nicholas’s coming-of-age ceremony was held at the Winter Palace, where he pledged his loyalty to his father. Later that year, Nicholas’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, married Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his late wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (who had died in 1878), and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

At the wedding in St. Petersburg, the sixteen-year-old Tsesarevich met with and admired the bride’s youngest surviving sister, twelve-year-old Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine. Those feelings of admiration blossomed into love following her visit to St. Petersburg five years later in 1889. Princess Alix had feelings for him in turn.

In April 1894, Nicholas joined his Uncle Sergei and Aunt Elisabeth on a journey to Coburg, Germany, for the wedding of Elizabeth’s and Alix’s brother, Ernst Ludwig , Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, to their mutual first cousin Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (Nicholas II’s aunt).

Other guests included Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, German Emperor Wilhelm II, the Empress Friedrich (Emperor Wilhelm’s mother and Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter), Nicholas’s uncle, the Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom) and the bride’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Once in Coburg Nicholas proposed to Alix, but she rejected his proposal, as a devout Lutheran she was reluctant to convert to Russian Orthodoxy. But Emperor Wilhelm II later informed her she had a duty to marry Nicholas and to convert, as her sister Elisabeth had done in 1892.

Thus once she changed her mind, Nicholas and Alix became officially engaged on April 20, 1894. Nicholas’s parents initially hesitated to give the engagement their blessing, as Alix had made poor impressions during her visits to Russia. They gave their consent only when they saw Emperor Alexander III’s health deteriorating.

By that autumn, Emperor Alexander III lay dying. Upon learning that he would live only a fortnight, the Emperor had Nicholas summon Alix to the imperial palace at Livadia. Alix arrived on October 22; the Emperor insisted on receiving her in full uniform.

From his deathbed, he told his son to heed the advice of Witte, his most capable minister. Ten days later, Alexander III died at the age of forty-nine, leaving twenty-six-year-old Nicholas as Emperor of Russia.

That evening, Nicholas was consecrated by his father’s priest as Tsar Nicholas II and, the following day, Alix was received into the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Alexandra Feodorovna with the title of Grand Duchess and the style of Imperial Highness.

Nicholas and Alix’s wedding was originally scheduled for the spring of 1895, but it was moved forward at Nicholas’s insistence. Staggering under the weight of his new office, he had no intention of allowing the one person who gave him confidence to leave his side.

Instead, Nicholas’s wedding to Alix took place on November 26, 1894, which was the birthday of the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, and court mourning could be slightly relaxed. Alexandra wore the traditional dress of Romanov brides, and Nicholas a hussar’s uniform. Nicholas and Alexandra, each holding a lit candle, faced the palace priest and were married a few minutes before one in the afternoon.

During his reign, Emperor Nicholas II gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas’s commitment to autocratic rule and an unwillingness to work with the Duma.

Nicholas II signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which was designed to counter Germany’s attempts to gain influence in the Middle East; it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the British Empire.

He aimed to strengthen the Franco-Russian Alliance and proposed the unsuccessful Hague Convention of 1899 to promote disarmament and solve international disputes peacefully. Domestically, he was criticised for his government’s repression of political opponents and his perceived fault or inaction during the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Jewish pogroms, Bloody Sunday and the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution.

His popularity was further damaged by the Russo-Japanese War, which saw the Russian Baltic Fleet annihilated at the Battle of Tsushima, together with the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea and the Japanese annexation of the south of Sakhalin Island.

During the July Crisis, which occured after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, Nicholas supported Serbia and approved the mobilization of the Russian Army on July 30, 1914.

In response, Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914 and its ally France on August 3, 1914, starting the Great War, later known as the First World War.

The severe military losses led to a collapse of morale at the front and at home; a general strike and a mutiny of the garrison in Petrograd sparked the February Revolution and the disintegration of the monarchy’s authority.

By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty’s 304-year rule of Russia (1613–1917).

After abdicating for himself and his son, the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed on July 17, 1918.

July 11, 1866: Birth of Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine

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German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Grand Duke Louis IV of Hess and by Rhine, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Princess Irene of Hesse and By Rhine, Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

From the Emperor’s Desk: In this entry I will only cover her birth until marriage.

Princess Irene Luise Marie Anne of Hesse and by Rhine (July 11, 1866 – November 11, 1953) was the third child and third daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elizabeth of Prussia. She was the wife of Prince Heinrich of Prussia, a younger brother of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and her first cousin. The SS Prinzessin Irene, a liner of the North German Lloyd was named after her.

Her siblings included Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, wife of Prince Louis of Battenberg, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and (Alix) Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, wife of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. Like her younger sister, the Empress, Irene was a carrier of the hemophilia gene, and Irene would lose her sisters Alix and Elisabeth in Russia to the Bolsheviks.

She received her first name, which was taken from the Greek word for “peace”, because she was born at the end of the Austro-Prussian War. Alice considered Irene an unattractive child and once wrote to her sister Victoria that Irene was “not pretty.” She would never be considered a great beauty like her sisters Elisabeth and Alix, but she did have a pleasant, even disposition. Princess Alice brought up her daughters simply.

Despite her mother’s assertion Princess Irene was not attractive, as the author of this blog, Liam, I wholeheartedly disagree and from the pictures I have posted I think HRH was very pretty.

Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, kneeling at left, with her grandmother Queen Victoria and, from left to right, her sister Elisabeth, brother Ernest Louis, sister Victoria and, sitting, her sister Alix in February 1879, two months after the deaths of her mother and sister Marie.

The family was devastated in 1873 when Irene’s haemophiliac younger brother Friedrich, nicknamed “Frittie”, fell through an open window, struck his head on the balustrade and died hours later of a brain hemorrhage. In the months following the toddler’s death, Alice frequently took her children to his grave to pray and was melancholy on anniversaries associated with him. In the autumn of 1878 Irene, her siblings (except for Elizabeth) and her father became ill with diphtheria.

Her younger sister Princess Marie, nicknamed “May”, died of the disease. Her mother, exhausted from nursing the children, also became infected. Knowing she was in danger of dying, Princess Alice dictated her will, including instructions about how to bring up her daughters and how to run the household. She died of diphtheria on December 14, 1878.

Irene married Prince Heinrich of Prussia, the third child and second son of Friedrich III, German Emperor and Victoria, Princess Royal on May 24, 1888 at the chapel of the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. As their mothers were sisters, Irene and Heinrich were first cousins.

Their marriage displeased Queen Victoria because she had not been told about the courtship until they had already decided to marry. At the time of the ceremony, Irene’s uncle and father-in-law, the German Emperor Friedrich III, was dying of throat cancer, and less than a month after the ceremony, Irene’s cousin and brother-in-law ascended the throne as German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Prince Heinrich of Prussia and Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine

Heinrich’s mother, Empress Victoria, was fond of Irene. However, Empress Victoria was shocked because Irene did not wear a shawl or scarf to disguise her pregnancy when she was pregnant with her first son, the haemophiliac Prince Waldemar, in 1889. Empress Victoria, who was fascinated by politics and current events, also couldn’t understand why Heinrich and Irene never read a newspaper. However, the couple were happily married and they were known as “The Very Amiables” by their relatives because of their pleasant natures. The marriage produced three sons.

July 1, 1861: Wedding of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine

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Alice of the United Kingdom, Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Willem of the Netherlands

Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (April 25, 1843 – December 14, 1878) was Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine from June 13, 1877 until her death in 1878 as the wife of Grand Duke Ludwig IV. She was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Alice was the first of Queen Victoria’s nine children to die, and one of three to predecease their mother, who died in 1901.

Alice’s matrimonial plans were begun in 1860 by her mother. Queen Victoria had expressed her wish that her children should marry for love, but this did not mean that her choice of suitors would necessarily be extended to anybody outside the royal houses of Europe.

Raising a British subject to royalty, however high their rank, was politically objectionable, and also wasted any opportunity for a useful foreign alliance. The Queen instructed her daughter Victoria, recently married to Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, to produce a list of eligible princes in Europe.

Her search produced only two suitable candidates: the Prince of Orange (the eldest son of King Williem III of the Netherlands and his first wife, Princess Sophie of Württemberg); and Prince Albrecht of Prussia, cousin to Victoria’s husband Friedrich Wilhelm.

The Prince of Orange was soon discounted. He journeyed to Windsor Castle so that Queen Victoria could look him over in person, but he proved unpalatable to Alice. The prince too showed little interest in Alice, despite strong pressure from his pro-British mother, Queen Sophie of the Netherlands. Prince Albert, too, was spurned, with Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia remarking that his cousin would not do for “one who deserves the very best”.

With both of the leading candidates now discounted, Princess Victoria suggested Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, a minor German royal, the nephew of the Grand Duke Charles of Hesse and by Rhine. the first son and child of Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine (1809 – 1877) and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (1815 – 1885), granddaughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Princess Victoria had gone to the court of Hesse to inspect Ludwig’s sister, Princess Anna, as a potential bride for her brother, the Prince of Wales.

Although not favorably impressed with Princess Anna, she was impressed with Ludwig and his brother Prince Heinrich. Both were invited to Windsor Castle in 1860, ostensibly so they could watch the Ascot Races in the company of the royal family, but in reality, the visit was a chance for the Queen to inspect her potential son-in-law. The Queen admired both Ludwig and Heinrich, but noted how well Ludwig and Alice got along together. When the Hessian family departed, Ludwig requested Alice’s photograph, and Alice made it clear that she was attracted to him.

Alice was engaged to Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine on April 30, 1861, following the Queen’s consent. The Queen persuaded the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, to secure the agreement of Parliament for Alice to receive a dowry of £30,000 (£2.98 million as of 2022). Although the amount was considered generous at the time, Prince Albert remarked that “she will not be able to do great things with it” in the little realm of Hesse, compared to the riches that her sister Victoria would inherit as future Queen of Prussia and German Empress.

Furthermore, the couple’s future home in Darmstadt, the Grand Ducal seat, was uncertain. Although Queen Victoria expected that a new palace would be built, the people of Darmstadt did not want to meet that expense, and the resulting controversy caused resentment there. This meant that Alice was unpopular in Darmstadt before she even arrived.

Between the engagement and the wedding, Alice’s father Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, died on December 14, 1861. Despite the Queen’s grief, she ordered that the wedding should continue as planned.

On July 1, 1862, Alice and Ludwig were married privately in the dining room of Osborne House, which was converted into a temporary chapel. The Queen was ushered in by her four sons, acting as a living screen blocking her from view, and took her place in an armchair near the altar.

Alice was given away by her uncle, Albert’s brother Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and was flanked by four bridesmaids: her younger sisters, Princesses Helena, Louise and Beatrice, as well as Ludwig’s sister Princess Anna.

For the ceremony, Alice wore a simple white dress, with a veil of Honiton lace and a wreath of orange blossom and myrtle, but was required to wear black mourning clothes before and after the ceremony. The Queen, sitting in an armchair, struggled to hold back her tears, and was shielded from view by the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, her second son, who cried throughout the service.

The weather at Osborne was dreary, with winds blowing up from the Channel. The Queen wrote to her eldest daughter, Victoria, that the ceremony was “more of a funeral than a wedding”, and remarked to Alfred, Lord Tennyson that it was “the saddest day I can remember”. The ceremony—described by Gerard Noel as “the saddest royal wedding in modern times”—was over by 4 pm, and the couple set off for their honeymoon at St Claire in Ryde, a house lent to them by the Vernon Harcourt family.

Alice’s entourage consisted of Lady Churchill, General Seymour and Baron Westerweller (a Hessian courtier). Alice was careful not to displease the Queen after her marriage. When the Queen visited the couple at St Claire, Alice tried not to appear “too happy”. Despite this, Alice’s displays of romantic bliss made the Queen jealous of her daughter’s happiness.

June 26, 1899: Birth of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia

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1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Ekaterinburg, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, House of Romanov, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (June 26,1899 – July 17, 1918) was the third daughter of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (neé Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine). Her murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Nikolaevna and the family name is Romanova.

Maria was born on June 26, 1899. She was the third child and daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. She weighed 4.5 kg at birth. The birth of a third daughter led to widespread disappointment in Russia. Grand Duke Constantin Constantinovich, Nicholas’ cousin, wrote, “And so there’s no Heir. The whole of Russia will be disappointed by this news.” Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, Alexandra’s grandmother and Maria’s great-grandmother, wrote, “I regret the third girl for the country. I know that an heir would be more welcome than a daughter.” Nicholas insisted that he was happy with Maria’s birth, and he told Alexandra “I dare complain the least, having such happiness on earth, having a treasure like you my beloved Alix, and already the three little cherubs.”

Maria’s siblings were Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, and Tsarevich Alexei of Russia. Maria’s Russian title (Velikaya Knyazhna Великая Княжна) is most precisely translated as “Grand Princess”, meaning that Maria, as an “Imperial Highness” was higher in rank than other Princesses in Europe who were “Royal Highnesses”. “Grand Duchess” is the most widely used English translation of the title. However, in keeping with her parents’ desire to raise Maria and her siblings simply, even servants addressed the Grand Duchess by her first name and patronym, Maria Nikolaevna. She was also called by the French version of her name, “Marie”, or by the Russian nicknames “Masha” or “Mashka”.

At age eleven, Maria apparently developed a painful crush on one of the young men she had met. “Try not to let your thoughts dwell too much on him, that’s what our Friend said,” Alexandra wrote to her on December 6, 1910. Alexandra advised her third daughter to keep her feelings hidden because others might say unkind things to her about her crush. “One must not let others see what one feels inside, when one knows it’s considered not proper. I know he likes you as a little sister and would like to help you not to care too much, because he knows you, a little Grand Duchess, must not care for him so.

Until his own assassination in 1979, her first cousin Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, kept a photograph of Maria beside his bed in memory of the crush he had upon her. In 1910, Louis met the Romanov sisters. He later reflected that “they were lovely, and terribly sweet, far more beautiful than their photographs,” and he said that “I was crackers about Marie, and was determined to marry her. She was absolutely lovely.”

Maria was a noted beauty. She had light brown hair and large blue eyes that were known in the family as “Marie’s saucers.” Maria, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Maria’s great-aunt, declared that Maria was “a real beauty… with enormous blue eyes.” Her mother’s friend Lili Dehn wrote that she “was exceeding fair, dowered with the classic beauty of the Romanoffs.” A gentleman at the Imperial court said that the infant Maria “had the face of one of Botticelli’s angels.” Her French tutor Pierre Gilliard said Maria was tall and well-built, with rosy cheeks. Tatiana Botkina thought the expression in Maria’s eyes was “soft and gentle”. Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, her mother’s lady-in-waiting, reflected that “[Maria] was like Olga in colouring and features, but all on a more vivid scale. She had the same charming smile, the same shape of face.” Sophie Buxhoeveden said that her eyes were “magnificent, of a deep blue,” and that “her hair had golden lights in it.”

During her lifetime, Maria, too young to become a Red Cross nurse like her elder sisters during World War I, was patroness of a hospital and instead visited wounded soldiers. Throughout her lifetime she was noted for her interest in the lives of the soldiers. The flirtatious Maria had a number of innocent crushes on the young men she met, beginning in early childhood. She hoped to marry and have a large family.

Maria and her entire family were assassinated on July 17, 1918.

She was an elder sister of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, whose alleged escape from the assassination of the imperial family was rumored for nearly 90 years. However, it was later proven that Anastasia did not escape and that those who claimed to be her were imposters. In the 1990s, it was suggested that Maria might have been the grand duchess whose remains were missing from the Romanov grave that was discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia and exhumed in 1991. Further remains were discovered in 2007, and DNA analysis subsequently proved that the entire Imperial family had been murdered in 1918. A funeral for the remains of Maria and Alexei to be buried with their family in October 2015 was postponed indefinitely by the Russian Orthodox Church, which took custody of the remains in December and declared without explanation that the case required further study; the 44 partial bone fragments remain stored in a Russian state repository.

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.

June 20, 1837: Death of King William IV of the United Kingdom and the accession of his niece as Queen Victoria.

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Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Alexandria Victoria of Kent, Edward Duke of Kent, George III of the United Kingdom, King of Hanover, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, William IV of the United Kingdom

William IV (William Henry; August 21, 1765 – June 20, 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from June 26, 1830 until his death in 1837. William was the third son of King George III and his wife Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. William succeeded his elder brother King George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of Britain’s House of Hanover.

William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, spending time in North America and the Caribbean, and was later nicknamed the “Sailor King”. In 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. In 1827, he was appointed as Britain’s first Lord High Admiral since 1709.

In the Drawing Room at Kew Palace on July 11, 1818, William married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise-Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. William apparently remained faithful to the young princess

William’s marriage, which lasted almost twenty years until his death, was a happy one. Adelaide took both William and his finances in hand. For their first year of marriage, the couple lived in economical fashion in Germany. William is not known to have had mistresses after his marriage. The couple had two short-lived daughters and Adelaide suffered three miscarriages. Despite this, false rumours that she was pregnant persisted into William’s reign—he dismissed them as “damned stuff”.

As his two older brothers, King George IV and Frederick, Duke of York, died without leaving legitimate issue, William inherited the throne when he was 64 years old.

His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the British electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act 1832. Although William did not engage in politics as much as his brother or his father, he was the last monarch to appoint a British prime minister contrary to the will of Parliament. He granted his German kingdom a short-lived liberal constitution.

At the time of his death on June 20, 1837, William had no surviving legitimate children, but he was survived by eight of the ten illegitimate children he had by the actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he cohabited for twenty years.

Since the Salic Law was in effect in the Kingdom of Hanover, William IV was succeeded by his niece Queen Victoria in the United Kingdom, and his brother King Ernst-August in Hanover.

Victoria receives the news of her accession from Lord Conyngham (left) and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Engraving after painting by Henry Tanworth Wells, 1887.

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. She adopted the additional title of Empress of India on May 1, 1876. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors and the second longest in British history.

The Victorian Era 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 Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After both the Duke of Kent and George III died in 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, the last being King William IV, died without surviving legitimate issue.

Though a constitutional monarch, privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

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

Their 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. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

June 15, 1888: Death of Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia

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Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Crown Prince of Prussia, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm I, German Empire, House of Hohenzollern, Liberal, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Royal, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of the United Kingdom

Friedrich III (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl; October 18, 1831 – June 15, 1888) Friedrich III was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days between March and June 1888, during the Year of the Three Emperors.

Known informally as “Fritz”, was a scion of the House of Hohenzollern, rulers of Prussia, then the most powerful of the German states he was the only son of Emperor Wilhelm I who was the second son of King Friedrich Wilhelm III and, having been raised in the military traditions of the Hohenzollerns, developed into a strict disciplinarian.

German Emperor Friedrich III as Crown Prince of Prussia

Fritz’s father, Emperor Wilhelm I, King of Prussia married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, herself the Augusta was the second daughter of Charles Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

Princess Augusta had been raised in the more intellectual and artistic atmosphere of Weimar, which gave its citizens greater participation in politics and limited the powers of its rulers through a constitution; Augusta was well known across Europe for her liberal views.

Because of their differences, the couple did not have a happy marriage and, as a result, Friedrich grew up in a troubled household, which left him with memories of a lonely childhood. He had one sister, Louise (later Grand Duchess of Baden), who was seven years his junior and very close to him.

Friedrich III was raised in his family’s tradition of military service. Although celebrated as a young man for his leadership and successes during the Second Schleswig, Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, he nevertheless professed a hatred of warfare and was praised by friends and enemies alike for his humane conduct.

Following the unification of Germany in 1871 his father, then King of Prussia, became the German Emperor. Upon Wilhelm’s death at the age of ninety on March 9, 1888, the thrones passed to Frederick, who had by then been German Crown Prince for seventeen years and Crown Prince of Prussia for twenty-seven years.

Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom

Friedrich married Victoria, Princess Royal, oldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The couple were well-matched; their shared liberal ideology led them to seek greater representation for commoners in the government.

Friedrich, in spite of his conservative militaristic family background, had developed liberal tendencies as a result of his ties with Britain and his studies at the University of Bonn.

As the Crown Prince, he often opposed the conservative German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, particularly in speaking out against Bismarck’s policy of uniting Germany through force, and in urging that the power of the Chancellorship be curbed. Liberals in both Germany and Britain hoped that as emperor, Frederick would move to liberalise the German Empire.

Frederick and Victoria were great admirers of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. They planned to rule as co-monarchs, like Albert and Queen Victoria, and to reform what they saw as flaws in the executive branch that Bismarck had created for himself.

The office of Chancellor, responsible to the Emperor, would be replaced with a British-style cabinet, with ministers responsible to the Reichstag. Government policy would be based on the consensus of the cabinet. Frederick “described the Imperial Constitution as ingeniously contrived chaos.” According to Michael Balfour:

The Crown Prince and Princess shared the outlook of the Progressive Party, and Bismarck was haunted by the fear that should the old Emperor die—and he was now in his seventies—they would call on one of the Progressive leaders to become Chancellor. He sought to guard against such a turn by keeping the Crown Prince from a position of any influence and by using foul means as well as fair to make him unpopular.

However, Friedrich’s illness, suffering from cancer of the larynx, prevented him from effectively establishing policies and measures to achieve this, and such moves as he was able to make were later abandoned by his son and successor, Wilhelm II. The timing of Friedrich III’s death and the length of his reign are important topics among historians.

His premature demise is considered a potential turning point in German history; and whether or not he would have made the Empire more liberal if he had lived longer is still a popular discussion among historians.

May 26, 1867: Birth of Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, Empress of India

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Albert Victor of Clarence and Avondale, Duke of Teck, Francis, King George V of the United Kingdom, Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Victoria Mary (“May”) of Teck was born on May 26, 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the same room where Queen Victoria, her first cousin once removed, had been born 48 years and 2 days earlier. Queen Victoria came to visit the baby, writing that she was “a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair”.

Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein in the Austrian Empire). Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and the third child and younger daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel.

She was baptised in the Chapel Royal of Kensington Palace on July 27, 1867 by Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury. From an early age, she was known to her family, friends and the public by the diminutive name of “May”, after her birth month.

May’s upbringing was “merry but fairly strict”. She was the eldest of four children, and the only daughter, and “learned to exercise her native discretion, firmness, and tact” by resolving her three younger brothers’ petty boyhood squabbles.

They played with their cousins, the children of the Prince of Wales, who were similar in age. She grew up at Kensington Palace and White Lodge, in Richmond Park, which was granted by Queen Victoria on permanent loan.

HRH The Duke of Clarence and Avondale and HSH Princess Victoria Mary of Teck

She was educated at home by her mother and governess (as were her brothers until they were sent to boarding schools). The Duchess of Teck spent an unusually long time with her children for a lady of her time and class, and enlisted May in various charitable endeavours, which included visiting the tenements of the poor.

Although May was a great-grandchild of George III, she was only a minor member of the British royal family. Her father, the Duke of Teck, had no inheritance or wealth and carried the lower royal style of Serene Highness because his parents’ marriage was morganatic.

The Duchess of Teck was granted a parliamentary annuity of £5,000 and received about £4,000 a year from her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, but she donated lavishly to dozens of charities. Prince Francis was deeply in debt and moved his family abroad with a small staff in 1883, in order to economise. They travelled throughout Europe, visiting their various relations. For a time they stayed in Florence, Italy, where May enjoyed visiting the art galleries, churches, and museums. She was fluent in English, German, and French.

At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark (future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra), but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an influenza pandemic.

The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor’s only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband’s accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.

As Queen Consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George’s death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne.

To her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.She supported her second son, Prince Albert, Duke of York, who assumed the throne as King George VI, in the wake of his brothers Abdication. He was King until his death in 1952.He was succeeded by his eldest daughter and Queen Mary’s granddaughter, Elizabeth II.The death of a third child profoundly affected her.

Mary remarked to Princess Marie Louise: “I have lost three sons through death, but I have never been privileged to be there to say a last farewell to them.”

Other than losing her second son George VI in 1952, she lost Prince John (1905 – 1919) her fifth son and youngest of her six children, when he of died at Sandringham in 1919, following a severe seizure, and was buried at nearby St Mary Magdalene Church.

She was also preceded by Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902 – 1942) her fourth son who was killed in a military air-crash on August 25, 1942.

Mary died on March 24, 1953 in her sleep at the age of 85, ten weeks before her granddaughter’s coronation. She had let it be known that should she die, the coronation should not be postponed. Her remains lay in state at Westminster Hall, where large numbers of mourners filed past her coffin.

She is buried beside her husband in the nave of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, (1897 – 1958), was an American-born British Conservative politician, author and diarist. He wrote about Queen Mary, that she was “above politics … magnificent, humorous, worldly, in fact nearly sublime, though cold and hard. But what a grand Queen.”

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”.