Victoria Rules

As the parades and other Victoria Day festivities begin, it is time to remember the great monarch herself, whom you may imagine looking like Judi Dench or Emily Blunt, as your fancy takes you.

Alexandrina Victoria, to use her full name, was born at Kensington Palace in 1819, the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III, and Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg. She was made Queen in 1837, at the age of eighteen. She ruled until 1901, through Great Britain's most powerful imperial decades. Her close advisers over those years included Lord Melbourne, Benjamin Disraeli, and her uncle Leopold, King of Belgium.

The great love of her life, as probably everyone knows, was Prince Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who brought England the Christmas tree. The royal couple enjoyed spending musical evenings with Felix Mendelssohn. Victoria, it is said, had an attractive singing voice.

Victoria and Albert were both twenty years old when they were married. He died of typhoid fever twenty-one years later. For the next forty years, Victoria had Albert's water bowl filled each morning and his clothes laid out each night. Their children--four sons, five daughters--and grandchildren became players in virtually all the crowned dynasties of Europe. 

I give you the Queen! Break out the Champagne.