Victoria, by her own account, “was brought up very simply,” principally at Kensington Palace, where her closest companions, other than her German-born mother, the duchess of Kent, were her half sister, Féodore, and her governess, Louise (afterward the Baroness) Lehzen, a native of Coburg. Find out who really invented movable type, who Winston Churchill called "Mum," and when the first sonic boom was heard. Get hooked on history as this quiz sorts out the past. After his death and George IV’s accession in 1820, Victoria became third in the line of succession to the throne after the duke of York (died 1827) and the duke of Clarence (subsequently William IV), whose own children died in infancy. His only child was christened Alexandrina Victoria. The winner in the race to father the next ruler of Britain was Edward, duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. In 1818, therefore, three of his sons, the dukes of Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge, married to provide for the succession. On the death in 1817 of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the prince regent (later George IV), there was no surviving legitimate offspring of George III’s 15 children. When she died and her son Edward VII moved from Marlborough House to Buckingham Palace, the change was one of social rather than of political focus there was no doubt about the monarchy’s continuance. When Victoria became queen, the political role of the crown was by no means clear nor was the permanence of the throne itself. Most significantly, Victoria was a queen determined to retain political power, yet unwillingly and unwittingly she presided over the transformation of the sovereign’s political role into a ceremonial one and thus preserved the British monarchy. She resisted technological change even while mechanical and technological innovations reshaped the face of European civilization. She had no interest in social issues, yet the 19th century in Britain was an age of reform. Although she hated pregnancy and childbirth, detested babies, and was uncomfortable in the presence of children, Victoria reigned in a society that idealized both motherhood and the family. The queen, however, rejected important Victorian values and developments. Almost four decades later Victoria’s governess recalled that the future queen reacted to the discovery by declaring, “I will be good.” This combination of earnestness and egotism marked Victoria as a child of the age that bears her name. Victoria first learned of her future role as a young princess during a history lesson when she was 10 years old. She and her husband, Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had nine children, through whose marriages were descended many of the royal families of Europe. During her reign the British monarchy took on its modern ceremonial character. She was the last of the house of Hanover and gave her name to an era, the Victorian Age. Victoria, in full Alexandrina Victoria, (born May 24, 1819, Kensington Palace, London, England-died January 22, 1901, Osborne, near Cowes, Isle of Wight), queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901) and empress of India (1876–1901).
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