Queen Victoria · Chapter
Old Age explained
This chapter covers Queen Victoria's later years, focusing on her expanding family, her retreat to Balmoral, her sincere and transparent personality, her constitutional role, and her embrace of imperialism, culminating in the 1897 Jubilee.
What happens
This chapter covers Queen Victoria's later years, focusing on her expanding family, her retreat to Balmoral, her sincere and transparent personality, her constitutional role, and her embrace of imperialism, culminating in the 1897 Jubilee.
Themes in this chapter
Family and Dynasty
Victoria's widening family circle, her role as matriarch, and her troubles with the Prince of Wales.
Public Perception and Popularity
The Queen's sincere and transparent personality endears her to the public; the 1897 Jubilee demonstrates widespread adoration.
Monarchy and Constitutional Role
Discussion of Victoria's despotic tendencies, her passive role in constitutional developments, and the decline of Crown power.
Power and Independence
Victoria's desire to impose her will, her opposition to Ministers, and her eventual yielding to facts.
Characters to notice
- Queen Victoria
Central figure; described in old age, her sincerity, her love for Balmoral, her family concerns, and her imperial enthusiasm.
- Prince of Wales
His independent behavior and involvement in a divorce case cause the Queen distress.
- King Leopold
His death in 1865 is noted as removing the predominant figure of the older generation.
- John Thadeus Delane
Editor of The Times; the Queen asks him to write articles about the frivolity of the Higher Classes.
- Lady Lyttelton
Quoted describing the Queen's transparency and truthfulness.
- Sir Theodore Martin
Recipient of the Queen's furious letter about Women's Suffrage.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Mentioned as a great Minister who influenced the Queen's imperial views.
- William Ewart Gladstone
Mentioned as a great Minister who held power during the decline of the Crown's influence.
Key passages
“There is a transparency in her truth that is very striking—not a shade of exaggeration in describing feelings or facts; like very few other people I ever knew.”
Lady Lyttelton observed that the Queen's honesty was remarkably clear and without any exaggeration.
Illustrates Victoria's sincerity as a key personality trait.
“The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety.”
Victoria was furious about the women's suffrage movement and wanted to stop it, believing it would destroy womanly propriety.
Shows the Queen's strong opposition to women's rights.
“From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!”
The Queen expressed heartfelt gratitude to her subjects and asked for God's blessing upon them.
Her message after the 1897 Jubilee reflects her bond with the public.
