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Famous Jubilees
Queen Victoria
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Victoria of the United Kingdom
Early life
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Victoria's father, HRH
The Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, was the fourth son
of George
III. The Duke of Kent, like many other sons of George III, did
not marry during his youth. The eldest son HRH
Prince George, Prince of Wales (the future George IV) did marry,
but had only a daughter, HRH
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales. When she then died in 1817,
the remaining sons of George III scrambled to marry and beget so
that the line of George III might continue. Thus, at the age of
fifty, the Duke of Kent married Viktoria
of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the sister of Leopold
I, King of the Belgians and widow of Karl,
Prince of Leiningen. Victoria, the only child of the couple,
was born in 1819.
From birth, she was known as HRH Princess Victoria of Kent. Princess
Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, died eight months after she
was born. Her grandfather, George III, died blind and insane less
than a week later. Princess Victoria's uncle, the Prince of Wales,
inherited the Crown, becoming George IV. Though she occupied a high
position in the line of succession, Victoria was taught only German,
the first language of both her mother and her governess, during
her early years. After she became three years old however, she was
schooled in English.
She eventually learned to speak Italian,
Greek,
Latin, and French.
Her educator was the Reverend George
Davys and her governess was Louise
Lehzen.
When Princess Victoria of Kent was eleven years old, her uncle,
George IV, died childless, leaving the Throne to his brother, William
IV. As the new King was childless, the young Princess Victoria
became heiress-presumptive
to the Throne. Since the law at that time made no special provision
for a child monarch, Victoria would have been eligible to govern
the realm as would an adult. In order to prevent such a scenario,
Parliament passed the Regency
Act 1831, under which it was provided that Victoria's mother,
the Duchess of Kent, would act as Regent during the Queen's minority.
Ignoring precedent, Parliament did not create a Council to limit
the powers of the Regent.
Princess Victoria met her future husband, Prince
Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, when she was sixteen years old.
Prince Albert was Victoria's first cousin; his father was the brother
of the Duchess of Kent. Princess Victoria's uncle, King William
IV, disapproved of the match, but his objections failed to dissuade
the couple. Many scholars have suggested that Prince Albert was
not in love with young Victoria, and that he entered into a relationship
with her in order to gain social status (he was a minor German Prince)
and out of a sense of duty (his family desired the match).
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Early reign
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William IV died on 20
June 1837, leaving
the Throne to Victoria. As the young Queen had just turned eighteen
years old, no Regency was necessary. By Salic
law, no woman could rule Hanover,
a realm which had shared a monarch with Britain since 1714.
Thus, Hanover went not to Victoria, but to her uncle, Ernest
Augustus. As the young Queen was as yet unmarried and childless,
Ernest Augustus was also the heir-presumptive to the British Throne.
When Victoria ascended the Throne, the government was controlled
by the Whig Party,
which had been in power since 1830.
The Whig Prime Minister, William
Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, at once became a powerful influence
in the life of the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on
him for advice. (Some even referred to Victoria as "Mrs Melbourne.")
The Melbourne ministry would not stay in power for long; it was
growing unpopular and, moreover, faced considerable difficulty in
governing the British colonies. In Canada,
the United Kingdom faced an insurrection (see Rebellions
of 1837), and in Jamaica,
the colonial legislature had protested British policies by refusing
to pass any laws. In 1839,
unable to cope with the problems overseas, the ministry of Lord
Melbourne resigned.
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A young Victoria is depicted at her coronation.
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The Queen charged Sir
Robert Peel, a Tory, with the formation of a new administration,
but was faced with a debacle known as the Bedchamber Crisis. At
the time, it was customary for appointments to the Royal
Household to be based on the patronage
system (that is, for the Prime Minister to appoint members of
the Royal Household on the basis of their party loyalties). Many
of the Queen's Ladies of the Bedchamber were wives of Whigs, but
Sir Robert Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. Victoria
strongly objected to the removal of these ladies, whom she regarded
as close friends rather than as members of a ceremonial institution.
Sir Robert Peel felt that he could not govern under the restrictions
imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission,
allowing Melbourne to return to office.
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Marriage
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The Queen married Prince Albert on 10
February 1840
at the Chapel
Royal in St
James's Palace; four days before, Victoria granted her husband
the style "His Royal Highness." Prince Albert was commonly
known as the "Prince Consort," though he did not formally
obtain the title until 1857.
Prince Albert was never granted a peerage dignity.
During Victoria's first pregnancy, eighteen-year old Edward
Oxford attempted to assassinate the Queen whilst she was riding
in a carriage with Prince Albert in London. Oxford fired twice,
but both bullets missed. He was tried for high
treason, but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. His plea
was questioned by many; Oxford may merely have been seeking notoriety.
Many suggested that a Chartist
conspiracy was behind the assassination attempt; others attributed
the plot to supporters of the heir-presumptive, the King of Hanover.
These conspiracy theories afflicted the country with a wave of patriotism
and loyalty.
The shooting had no effect on the Queen's health or on her pregnancy.
The first child of the royal couple, named Victoria,
was born on 21
November 1840. Eight more children would be born during the
exceptionally happy marriage between Victoria and Prince Albert.
Albert was not only the Queen's companion, but also an important
political advisor, replacing Lord Melbourne as the dominant figure
in her life. Having found a partner, Victoria no longer relied on
the Whig ladies at her court for companionship. Thus, when Whigs
under Melbourne lost the elections of 1841
and were replaced by the Tories under Peel, the Bedchamber Crisis
was not repeated. Victoria continued to secretly correspond with
Lord Melbourne, whose influence, however, faded away as that of
Prince Albert increased.
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HRH Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria.
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On 13
June 1842, Victoria
made her first journey by train, travelling from Slough
(near Windsor
Castle) to Paddington
(in London) in
a special royal carriage provided by the Great
Western Railway. Accompanying her were her husband, Prince Albert,
and the engineer of the Great Western line, Isambard
Kingdom Brunel.
Three attempts to assassinate the Queen occurred in 1842. On 29
May, John
Francis (most likely seeking to gain notoriety) pointed a pistol
at the Queen (then in a carriage), but misfired. The next day, he
again attempted to fire at the Queen, but missed. He was convicted
of high treason,
but his death sentence was commuted to transportation
for life. Prince Albert felt that the attempts were encouraged
by Oxford's acquittal in 1840. On 3
July, just days after Francis' sentence was commuted, another
boy, John
William Bean, attempted to shoot the Queen. Although his gun
was loaded only with paper and tobacco, his crime was still punishable
by death. Feeling that such a penalty would be too harsh, Prince
Albert encouraged Parliament to pass an act, under which aiming
a firearm at the Queen, striking her, throwing any object at her,
and producing any firearm or other dangerous weapon in her presence
with the intent of alarming her, were made punishable by seven years
imprisonment and flogging. Bean was thus sentenced to eighteen months
imprisonment; neither he, nor any person who violated the act in
the future, was flogged.
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Early Victorian politics
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Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn
Laws. Many Tories (by then known also as Conservatives) were
opposed to the repeal, but some Tories (the "Peelites")
and most Whigs supported it. Peel resigned in 1846,
after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by the Lord
John Russell. Russell's administration, though Whig, was not
favoured by the Queen. Particularly offensive to Victoria was the
Foreign
Secretary, Henry
John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who often acted without
consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen. In 1849,
Victoria lodged a complaint with Lord John Russell, claiming that
Palmerston had sent official despatches to foreign leaders without
her knowledge. She repeated her remonstrance in 1850,
but to no avail. It was only in 1851
that Lord Palmerston was removed from office; he had on that occasion
announced the British government's approval for a coup d'état
in France without previously consulting the Prime Minister.
The period during which Russell was Prime Minister also proved
personally distressing to Queen Victoria. In 1849, an unemployed
and disgruntled Irishman named William
Hamilton attempted to alarm the Queen by discharging a powder-filled
pistol in her presence. Hamilton was charged under the 1842 act;
he pled guilty and received the maximum sentence of seven years
of penal transportation. In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when
she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-Army officer, Robert
Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her
with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her. Pate was later
tried; he failed to prove his insanity, and received the same sentence
as Hamilton.
In 1851, the first
World Fair,
known as the Great
Exhibition of 1851, was held. Organised by Prince Albert, the
exhibition was officially opened by the Queen on 1
May 1851. Despite the fears of many, it proved an incredible
success, with its profits being used to endow the South
Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum).
Lord John Russell's ministry collapsed in 1852,
when the Whig Prime Minister was replaced by a Conservative, Edward
Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby. Lord Derby did not stay in
power for long, for he failed to maintain a majority in Parliament;
he resigned less then a year after entering office. At this point,
Victoria was anxious to put an end to this period of weak ministries.
Both the Queen and her husband vigorously encouraged the formation
of a strong coalition between the Whigs and the Peelite Tories.
Such a ministry was indeed formed, with the Peelite George
Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen at its head.
One of the most significant acts of the new ministry was to bring
the United Kingdom into the Crimean
War in 1854,
on the side of the Ottoman
Empire and against Russia.
Immediately before the entry of the United Kingdom, rumours that
the Queen and Prince Albert preferred the Russian side diminished
the popularity of the royal couple. Nonetheless, Victoria publicly
encouraged unequivocal support for the troops. After the conclusion
of the war, she instituted the Victoria
Cross, an award for valour.
His management of the war in the Crimea questioned by many, Lord
Aberdeen resigned in 1855,
to be replaced by Lord Palmerston, with whom the Queen had reconciled.
Palmerston too was forced out of office due to the unpopular conduct
of a military conflict, the Chinese
Crisis, in 1857.
He was replaced by Lord Derby. Amongst the notable events of Derby's
administration was the Sepoy
Mutiny against the rule of the British
East India Company over India.
After the mutiny was crushed, India was put under the direct rule
of the Crown (though the title "Empress of India" was
not instituted immediately). Derby's second ministry fared no better
than his first; it fell in 1859,
allowing Palmerston to return to power.
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Widowhood
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The Prince Consort died in 1861,
devastating Victoria, who entered a semi-permanent state of mourning
and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public
appearances and rarely set foot outside London in the following
years, her seclusion earning her the nickname "Widow of Windsor."
She regarded her son, the Prince of Wales, as an indiscreet and
frivolous youth, blaming him for his father's death. Victoria began
to increasingly rely on a Scottish manservant, John
Brown; although a romantic connexion and even a secret marriage
have been alleged, they have not been conclusively proven. Rumours
of an affair and marriage earned Victoria the nickname "Mrs
Brown."
Victoria's isolation from the public greatly diminished the popularity
of the monarchy, and even encouraged the growth of the republican
movement. Although she did perform her official duties, she did
not actively participate in the government, remaining secluded in
her royal residence. Meanwhile, one of the most important pieces
of legislation of the nineteenth century—the Reform
Act 1867—was passed by Parliament. Lord Palmerston was
vigorously opposed to electoral reform, but his ministry ended upon
his death in 1865.
He was followed by the Earl Russell (the former Lord John Russell),
and afterwards by Lord Derby, during whose administration the Reform
Act was passed.
In 1868, a man
who would prove to be Victoria's favourite Prime Minister, the Conservative
Benjamin
Disraeli, entered office. His ministry, however, soon collapsed,
and he was replaced by William
Ewart Gladstone, a member of the Liberal
Party (as the Whig-Peelite Coalition had become known). Gladstone
was famously at odds with both Victoria and Disraeli during his
political career. The Queen disliked Gladstone, as well as his policies,
as much as she admired Disraeli. It was during Gladstone's ministry,
in the early 1870s,
that the Queen began to gradually emerge from a state of perpetual
mourning and isolation. With the encouragement of her family, she
became more active.
In 1872, Victoria
endured her sixth encounter involving a gun. As she was dismounting
a carriage, a seventeen-year old Irishman, Arthur
O'Connor, rushed towards her with a pistol in one hand and a
petition to free Irish prisoners in the other. The gun was not loaded;
the youth's aim was most likely to alarm Victoria into accepting
the petition. John Brown, who was at the Queen's side, knocked the
boy to the ground before Victoria could even view the pistol; he
was rewarded with a gold medal for his bravery. O'Connor was sentenced
to penal transportation and to corporal punishment, as allowed by
the Act of 1842, but Victoria remitted the latter part of the sentence.
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Beaconsfield and Gladstone
This anti-Semitic
cartoon depicts Disraeli as a Jewish peddlerwoman offering Victoria an
imperial crown.
Disraeli returned to power in 1874,
at which time an imperialist sentiment was espoused by many in the country,
including the new Prime Minister and the Queen, as well as many in Europe.
In 1876, encouraged by
Disraeli, the Queen assumed the title "Empress of India," which
was officially recognised under the Royal
Titles Act. Victoria rewarded her Prime Minister by creating him Earl
of Beaconsfield.
Lord Beaconsfield's administration fell in 1880,
and the Liberals returned to power. Attempting to keep Gladstone from
returning to office, the Queen offered leadership of the ministry to Spencer
Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington. Lord Hartington declined the opportunity,
and Victoria could do little but appoint Gladstone Prime Minister.
The last of the series of attempts on Victoria's life came in 1882.
A Scottish madman, Roderick
Maclean, fired a bullet towards the Queen, then seated in her carriage,
but missed. Since 1842, each individual attempting to attack the Queen
had been tried for a misdemeanour (punishable by seven years of penal
servitude), but Maclean was tried for high treason (punishable by death).
He was acquitted, having been found insane, and was committed to an asylum.
Victoria expressed great annoyance at the verdict of "not guilty,
but insane," and encouraged the introduction of the verdict of "guilty,
but insane" in the following year.
Victoria's conflicts with Gladstone continued during her later years.
She was forced to accept his proposed electoral reforms, including the
Representation
of the People Act 1884, which considerably augmented the electorate.
Gladstone's government fell in 1885,
to be replaced by the ministry of a Conservative, Robert
Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. Gladstone returned to power
in 1886, and he introduced
the Irish
Home Rule Bill, which sought to grant Ireland a separate legislature.
Victoria was opposed to the bill, which she believed would undermine the
British Empire. When the bill was rejected, Gladstone resigned, allowing
Victoria to appoint Lord Salisbury to resume the premiership.
Later years
The Royal Family in 1880.
In 1887, the United Kingdom
celebrated Victoria's Golden
Jubilee. Victoria marked 20
June 1887—the fiftieth anniversary of her accession—with
a banquet, to which fifty European Kings and Princes were invited. On
the next day, she participated in a procession that, in the words of Mark
Twain, "stretched to the limit of sight in both directions."
At the time, Victoria was an extremely popular monarch. The scandal of
a rumoured relationship with her servant had been quieted following John
Brown's death in 1883,
allowing the Queen to be perceived as a symbol of morality.
Victoria was required to tolerate a ministry of William Ewart Gladstone
one more time, in 1892.
After the last of his Irish Home Rule Bills was defeated, he retired in
1894, to be replaced by
the Imperialist Liberal, Archibald
Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery. Lord Rosebery was succeeded in 1895
by Lord Salisbury, who served for the remainder of Victoria's reign.
By September 1896, Victoria
had ruled longer than any other English, Scottish, or British monarch.
In accordance with the Queen's request, all special public celebrations
of the event were delayed until 1897,
the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The Colonial
Secretary, Joseph
Chamberlain, proposed that the Jubilee be made a festival of the British
Empire. Thus, the Prime Ministers of all the self-governing colonies were
invited along with their families. The procession in which the Queen participated
included troops from each British colony and dependency, together with
soldiers sent by Indian Princes and Chiefs (who were subordinate to Victoria,
the Empress of India). The Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion
marked by great outpourings of affection for the septuagenarian
Queen, who was by then confined to a wheelchair.
During Victoria's last years, the United Kingdom was involved in the
Boer War, which received
the enthusiastic support of the Queen. Victoria's personal life was marked
by many personal tragedies, including the death of her son, the Duke
of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the fatal illness of her daughter, the Empress
of Germany, and the death of two of her grandsons. Her last ceremonial
public function came in 1899, when she laid the foundation stone for new
buildings of the South Kensington Museum, which became known as the Victoria
and Albert Museum.
Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria
spent Christmas in
Osborne House
(which Prince Albert had designed himself) on the Isle
of Wight. She died there on 22
January 1901, having
reigned for sixty-three years, seven months, and two days, more than any
British monarch before or since. Her funeral occurred on 2
February; after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred in the
Frogmore
Mausoleum beside her husband.
Victoria was succeeded by her son, who reigned as Edward VII. Victoria's
death brought an end to the rule of the House of Hanover in the United
Kingdom; Edward VII, like his father Prince Albert, belonged to the House
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Edward VII's son and successor, George
V, changed the name of the Royal House to Windsor
during the First World
War. (The name "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" was associated with the
enemy of the United Kingdom during the war, Germany,
led by her grandson Kaiser
Wilhelm.)
Legacy
A statue of Victoria stands in the city centre
of Bristol, England.
Eight of Victoria's nine children married members of European royal families,
and the other, HRH
The Princess Louise, married a Scottish Duke. Many of her other descendants
also married into the Royal Houses of Europe, earning Victoria the name
"Grandmother of Europe." Victoria was the first known carrier
of hæmophilia
in the royal line, but it is unclear how she acquired it. She may have
acquired it as a result of a sperm
mutation, her father having been fifty-two years old when Victoria was
conceived. It is also possible that she acquired it from her mother, but
there is no known history of hæmophilia in her maternal family.
Though she did not suffer from the disease, she passed it on to at least
three of her children. The most famous hæmophilia victim among her
descendants was her great-grandson, Alexei,
Tsarevich of Russia. As of 2004,
the European monarchs and former monarchs descended from Victoria are:
the Queen
of the United Kingdom, the King
of Norway, the King
of Sweden, the Queen
of Denmark, the King
of Spain, the King
of the Hellenes (deposed) and the King
of Romania (deposed).
Several places in the World have been named for Victoria, including an
Australian
state, the capitals
of British Columbia and Saskatchewan,
Canada, the capital
of the Seychelles, Africa's
largest lake, and the World's
largest waterfalls. See also List
of places named for Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria experienced unpopularity during the first years of her
widowhood, but afterwards became extremely well-liked during the 1880s
and 1890s. In 2002, the
British
Broadcasting Corporation conducted a poll regarding the 100
Greatest Britons; Victoria attained the eighteenth place.
Innovations of the Victorian era include postage
stamps, the first of which—the Penny
Black (issued 1840)—featured
an image of the Queen, and the railway,
which Victoria was the first British Sovereign to ride.
Style and arms
Victoria's first official style as monarch was "Victoria, by the
Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen,
Defender of the Faith." The phrase "Empress of India" was
added in 1876.
Victoria's arms were: Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant
in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory
Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland).
These same arms have been used by every British monarch since Victoria.
Issue
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Name
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Birth
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Death
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Notes
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HRH
The Princess Victoria, Princess Royal
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21 November
1840
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5 August 1901
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married 1858, Friedrich
III, German Emperor and King of Prussia; had issue
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HM
King Edward VII
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9 November
1841
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6 May 1910
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married 1863, Princess
Alexandra of Denmark; had issue
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HRH
The Princess Alice
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25 April 1843
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14 December
1878
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married 1862, HRH
Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue
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HRH
The Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh
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6 August 1844
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31 July 1900
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married 1874, Grand
Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia; had issue
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HRH
The Princess Helena
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25 May 1846
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9 June 1923
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married 1866, HRH
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg;
had issue
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HRH
The Princess Louise
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18 March 1848
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3 December
1939
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married 1871, John
Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll; no issue
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HRH
The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
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1 May 1850
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16 January
1942
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married 1879, Princess
Louise Marguerite of Prussia; had issue
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HRH
The Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany
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7 April 1853
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28 March 1884
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married 1882, Princess
Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont; had issue
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HRH
The Princess Beatrice
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14 April 1857
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26 October
1944
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married 1885, HRH
Prince Henry of Battenberg; had issue
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See also
References
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_of_the_United_Kingdom"
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