Death of Queen Victoria

Death of Queen Victoria

When Queen Victoria died at the age of 81 on 22nd January 1901, it took her family, court and subjects by surprise.
Very few had been able to contemplate the mortality of the monarch, who had ruled over Britain and its empire for almost 64 years.

Her death marked the end of the Victorian era, and sparked chaos, confusion and arguments……

The year 1900 had been awful for Queen Victoria.

– The Boer War (1899–1902, weighed heavily on her mind.

– In April, her eldest son the Prince of Wales, had been shot at, as he travelled through Belgium, by a young boy protesting against the war.

– Her eldest daughter – Vicky, the Dowager Empress of Germany – had been diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, that had spread to her spine.
The empress was languishing in great pain in her castle in Kronberg.

– In August 1900, a telegram had arrived announcing that her favourite son – the chain-smoking, heavy drinking Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh – had died from throat cancer – she wrote….

“Oh! God! my poor darling Affie gone too! My 3rd Grown up child.
It is hard at 81!”

– A few weeks later she received the news that her much-loved grandson Prince Christian Victor, eldest son of her daughter Princess Helena, had succumbed to enteric fever while serving with the British Army in South Africa.

– On Christmas day, Jane, Lady Churchill, the queen’s oldest and most trusted friend, was found dead in her bed while staying with the queen at Osborne House.

After an awful year, Queen Victoria ended 1900, with issues of her own.
-Her voracious appetite had disappeared.

-She had lost almost half her body weight.

-She was confined to a wheelchair.

-She was almost blind.

-She had lapses of memory and moments of confusion….

Victoria’s view of her own future was bleak:

“Another year begun, I am feeling so weak and unwell, that I enter upon it sadly.”

Events took a dramatic turn for the worse from the 17th January, as the queen suffered a series of strokes, and the entire royal family was suddenly summoned to the Isle of Wight.

The queen began to fade away, as the family crowded into her small bedroom – where the Bishop of Winchester and the Rector of St Mildred’s Church chanted prayers and hymns.

The kaiser sat motionless at her left side for more than two hours, propping her up with his one good arm, while Sir James Reid, her personal physician, sat on her right holding her hand.

The queen, conscious but unable to see, lamented repeatedly:
“Sir James, I’m very ill.”

Each time Reid replied:
“Your Majesty will soon be better.”

A young nurse knelt on the back of the bed, supporting the queen’s head.

As the room filled, the sound of sobbing and weeping mingled with the religious chanting of the clerics.
Each son, daughter and grandchild was summoned by name to kiss the queen’s hand, and say farewell.

The government ground to a halt as the queen was no longer able to carry out her constitutional duties.

There were talks of a regency, while Osborne House – already overflowing with guests – was bombarded with anxious telegrams and telephone calls, and journalists gathered outside the gates.

Shortly after 6.30pm on Tuesday 22 January 1901, a public announcement was pinned to the gate of Osbourne House, Isle of Wight.

“Osborne House, January 22, 6.45pm
Her Majesty the Queen breathed her last at 6.30pm, surrounded by her children and grand-children.”

When the end came, Osborne House was surrounded by police to prevent the news leaking out, before the new king Edward VII had concluded the formalities.

What followed was chaos and confusion, and arguments.

Panic broke out in the royal household, as they realised that all precedents were 64 years out of date, and nobody knew what to do.

There was no one alive who could remember how to bury a reigning Monarch, and this queen had asked for a full military state funeral.

Previous royal funerals had been private candlelit affairs, only taking place at night, but Victoria had requested a full military state funeral.

No embalming, no lying-in-state, no mourning black….
She wanted a white funeral, purple and white, with white ponies and a gun carriage, and the first burial of a monarch outside the confines of Westminster Abbey and St. George’s Chapel, since George I.

The arguments started almost as soon as the Queen breathed her last-

-A casting of a death mask was ordered by the kaiser, causing uproar among the royal family as it was known the queen had disliked the use of such masks.

-The Earl Marshal (the royal officer in charge of organising royal ceremonies and processions) and the Lord Chamberlain (in charge of the royal household) were at loggerheads as to who should take charge.

-The new king’s household refused to take over responsibility until the queen was buried – yet the old queen’s household no longer held any authority.

-The Accession council was hastily convened, where the Lord Mayor had to be forcibly ejected, much to the consternation of those present.

-The Duke of York was suddenly struck down with a dangerous illness.

-The royal undertaker arrived from London, but forgot to bring the coffin.

-The Lord Chamberlain refused to cooperate with the Earl Marshal.

-The Kaiser turned on the Bishop of Winchester, who had been the queen’s favourite cleric- saying that-
“if he were his cleric he would have him hauled out into the
courtyard by the neck, and shot”.

Victoria’s assistant private secretary, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, travelled to London, to discover the Earl Marshal’s office in total chaos with nothing arranged.

In desperation, he called on Lord Roberts, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the British Army, who gave Ponsonby full control to organise the military as he saw fit.
There were only a few days left to organise the ceremony….

The royal coffin, which was built by a local carpenter, finally arrived at Osborne House.
Mrs Tuck, the queen’s devoted dresser, and her personal physician Dr Reid, prepared the queen for her coffin.

The queen had refused to be embalmed, so charcoal was scattered on the floor of the coffin, to combat the smell and absorb the moisture.

They cut off Victoria’s hair, dressed her in a white silk dressing gown, with garter ribbon and star, and placed her wedding veil over her face.

The royal dukes, the kaiser and the new king, were then summoned, to lift her body into the coffin.

After the family left, Dr Reid and Mrs Tuck, carried out the Queens secret final wishes – not to be revealed to her children-

-The wedding ring of the mother of her personal servant, John Brown, was placed on her finger.

– a photograph of Brown and a lock of his hair were laid beside her, – Brown’s pocket handkerchief, all carefully hidden from view.

The queen was now ready for her final journey……

Throughout her long reign, Victoria saw –

10 prime ministers:

5 Archbishops of Canterbury:

6 commanders-in-chief:

18 presidents of the United States:

11 Viceroys of Canada:

16 Viceroys of India:

She had also outlived all nine of her bridesmaids.