Victoria's lonely childhood ran on a strict code called the Kensington System
The future Queen Victoria slept in her mother's bedroom every night, rarely met other children and was kept from most of her father's family. The rules, devised by her mother and the domineering comptroller John Conroy, aimed to make her weak and dependent. Victoria later summed up her childhood as rather melancholy.
Her birth itself answered a crisis. When Princess Charlotte, the only legitimate grandchild of George III, died in 1817, his unmarried sons came under pressure to marry and produce heirs. Edward, Duke of Kent, married a widowed German princess, and their only child was born at Kensington Palace in 1819. She was christened Alexandrina, after her godfather Tsar Alexander I, and Victoria, after her mother. Her father died before she was a year old, and one uncle after another died without legitimate surviving children, leaving her heir presumptive when William IV took the throne in 1830.
Childhood had its small comforts: lessons in French, German, Italian and Latin, her dolls, and a King Charles Spaniel called Dash. At ten she wrote a children's tale with her own pictures, The Adventures of Alice Laselles, which only reached print in 2015. Her mother and Conroy paraded her on tours around England and Wales, irritating King William, who saw them as royal progresses presenting Victoria as his rival. She repeatedly refused their pressure to make Conroy her private secretary, and once queen, she banned him from her presence.
William, distrusting her mother, declared that he wanted to survive until Victoria turned 18 so no regency would be needed. He managed it by less than a month. Early on 20 June 1837, she was woken to be told she was queen, and met the messengers alone in her dressing gown.
She married her cousin Prince Albert in 1840, a match promoted by her uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians; her diary praised Albert's blue eyes and delightful expression. Their nine children married across Europe, earning her the nickname grandmother of Europe. After Albert died in 1861 she withdrew into deep mourning, but her popularity later recovered. In 1876 Parliament added the title Empress of India. She died in 1901 after a reign of 63 years and 216 days, longer than any predecessor.
Source: Queen Victoria
