QUEEN VICTORIA

BY E. Gordon Browne, M.A.

WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

London
George G. HARRAP & company
2 & 3 Portsmouth Street Kingsway W.C. 
MCMXV

Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh, Great Britain

Contents

Chapter
   I. A look back
  II.  Childhood days
 III.  Early years
  IV.  Husband and wife
   V. Family life
  VI.  Strife
 VII.  The children of England
VIII.  Ministering women
  IX.  Balmoral
   X. The great exhibition
  XI.  Albert the good
 XII.  Friends and advisers
XIII.  Queen and empire
 XIV.  Stress and strain
  XV.  Victoria the great

Illustrations

Queen Victoria
the queen’s first Council at Kensington palace
Kensington palace
the Duke and duchess of Kent
the announcement of the queen’s accession
Prince Albert
Buckingham palace
Florence Nightingale
queen Victoria in the Highlands
the Albert memorial
sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne, and Benjamin Disraeli
the secret of England’s greatness
the Victoria and Albert museum

CHAPTER I:  A Look Back

In the old legend of Rip Van Winkle with which the American writer Washington Irving has made us so familiar, the ne’er-do-weel Rip wanders off into the Kaatskill Mountains with his dog and gun in order to escape from his wife’s scolding tongue.  Here he meets the spectre crew of Captain Hudson, and, after partaking of their hospitality, falls into a deep sleep which lasts for twenty years.  The latter part of the story describes the changes which he finds on his return to his native village:  nearly all the old, familiar faces are gone; manners, dress, and speech are all changed.  He feels like a stranger in a strange land.

Now, it is a good thing sometimes to take a look back, to try to count over the changes for good or for evil which have taken place in this country of ours; to try to understand clearly why the reign of a great Queen should have left its mark upon our history in such a way that men speak of the Victorian Age as one of the greatest ages that have ever been.