The nineteenth century was the last century, the monarchy as the constitutional form in Europe so dominant that most of the revolutions re-monarchies followed. At the same time, it was a time in which the monarchy was under particular pressure: The idea of a God gnadentums convinced, less and less, revolutions, and revolution attempts were a constant challenge, and the press was always inclined more to report accurately and critically about operations at the yard.
Hardly a figure to represent this ambivalence as Queen Victoria. She reigned a long time, and finally completely unchallenged. By their family Connections to almost all European dynasties she was at the age to the matriarch of monarch International, the lost in 1917, a series of your Throne. As the first “media monarch” (John Plunkett) experienced the Transition to the mass press. They welcomed the symbolic exaltation of the monarchy by crowning the Empress of India, accepted but at the same time their real power loss: In the year of their thirtieth government anniversary, Walter Bagehot described the monarchy as a mere “disguise” the actual change of power between the parties; the monarchical prerogative is only to encourage the claim to be consulted, and to warn – but not, also belongs. It had been at the beginning of Victoria’s reign is still obvious that you sought to make political decisions on personnel.
Victoria fascinated – and a Wealth of biographies and films, to reveal the promise, supposed or real, secrets of the small, somewhat corpulent lady, or to explain an example of the success of the British monarchy, or the history of the British history of the nineteenth century refer to. A new addition to the growing list is the book by the Australian historian and journalist Julia Baird, the Victoria as “the most powerful Queen and the most famous working mother your time”.
an Isolated Childhood, a happy marriage
This comprehensive work is clearly written and, not least, interspersed with novel-like scenes on the theme about the smells in the birth room of Victoria or the facial Expressions of her father during the rushed trip with his highly pregnant wife to England, and legible. Baird, the Canon tells the history of an unhappy and isolated Childhood, of the Prime Minister Melbourne’s first government-dominated years of happy marriage with Prince Albert, the years as a reclusive widow, and the return in the field of view of the Queen admiring Public.
she emphasizes the close relations with the Indian servant Abdul Karim and the Scottish gamekeeper, John Brown, and emphasizes the new archive finds, especially from the estate of the Royal Leibarzts Sir James Reid, the information on the tomb of the Queen contain messages, which would have seen the Royal archives rather not published offerings.
However, it is not a tell-all book, especially since the preference of Victoria for handsome men already enjoyed the time, no secret was (and for the movies “Mrs. Brown” in 1997 and “Victoria and Abdul” by 2017 already well known); the book is a classic biography with occasional excursions into the General history. There are some exciting accents, such as the reference to the Opioid crisis of the nineteenth century, as “Laudanum” as a painkiller and to soothe young children, was widespread. However, there are also some uncertainties in the historical Details.
