Excerpt from Queen Victoria, Her Gracious Life and Glorious Reign: A Complete Story of the Career of the Marvelous Queen and Empress and a Life of the New King, Edward VII; With a Brief History of England The Story of the Life of Victoria, Queen and Empress, is the Story of England for Sixty-four years. Her career was so closely allied with that of the Glorious Empire over which she reigned for so long a period that the His tory of one is the History of the other. Called to the Throne when less than one month over eighteen years of age, she assumed the duties of her exalted station with modesty, bore herself with dignity and at once demonstrated that, while she had the frail body of a woman, she possessed, like Queen Elizabeth, the heart of a King of England. Victoria made few, if any, mistakes. She chose, as her advisers, the wisest, most learned, most capable and best equipped Statesmen in the Realm; she encouraged, by her example, the practice of all the virtues; as a mother, she elevated the Domestic Circle by caring for her children herself, and never left them to the mercies of nurses and attendants. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

“A widely and deeply researched, elegantly written, and vital portrayal of [Queen Victoria’s] place in colonial Indian affairs.”(Journal of Modern History) In this engaging and controversial book, Miles Taylor shows how both Victoria and Albert were spellbound by India, and argues that the Queen was humanely, intelligently, and passionately involved with the country throughout her reign and not just in the last decades. Taylor also reveals the way in which Victoria’s influence as empress contributed significantly to India’s modernization, both political and economic. This is, in a number of respects, a fresh account of imperial rule in India, suggesting that it was one of Victoria’s successes. “Readers encounter a detail-attentive and independently minded monarch . . . .Information, offered with verve and occasional humor, fills chapters of Empress with little-known details of Victoria’s active rule as Empress.” —Adrienne Munich, Victorian Studies “This is a nuanced portrait of an empire rich in contradiction.” —Catherine Hall, author of Civilising Subjects “Beautifully written and subtly crafted, this book provides a critical history of the cultural, political, and diplomatic significance of Queen Victoria's role as Empress of India.” —Tristram Hunt, Director of Victoria and Albert Museum “This is a highly intelligent, wonderfully lucid and well researched book that rests on an impressive array of Indian as well as European sources. It makes a powerful case for re-assessing Queen Victoria's own role and political and religious ideas in regard to the subcontinent.” —Linda Colley, author of Britons

It seems to me that the life of Queen Victoria cannot well be told without a prefacing sketch of her cousin, the Princess Charlotte, who, had she lived, would have been her Queen, and who was in many respects her prototype. It is certain, I think, that Charlotte Augusta of Wales, that lovely miracle-flower of a loveless marriage, blooming into a noble and gracious womanhood, amid the petty strifes and disgraceful intrigues of a corrupt Court, by her virtues and graces, by her high spirit and frank and fearless character, prepared the way in the loyal hearts of the British people, for the fair young kinswoman, who, twenty-one years after her own sad death, reigned in her stead. Through all the bright life of the Princess Charlotte—from her beautiful childhood to her no less beautiful maturity—the English people had regarded her proudly and lovingly as their sovereign, who was to be; they had patience with the melancholy madness of the poor old King, her grandfather, and with the scandalous irregularities of the Prince Regent, her father, in looking forward to happier and better things under a good woman's reign; and after all those fair hopes had been coffined with her, and buried in darkness and silence, their hearts naturally turned to the royal little girl, who might possibly fill the place left so drearily vacant. England had always been happy and prosperous under Queens, and a Queen, please God, they would yet have. The Princess Charlotte was the only child of the marriage of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Her childhood was overshadowed by the hopeless estrangement of her parents. She seems to have especially loved her mother, and by the courage and independence she displayed in her championship of that good- hearted but most eccentric and imprudent woman, endeared herself to the English people, who equally admired her pluck and her filial piety—on the maternal side. They took a fond delight in relating stories of rebellion against her august papa, and even against her awful grandmamma, Queen Charlotte. They told how once, when a mere slip of a girl, being forbidden to pay her usual visit to her poor mother, she insisted on going, and on the Queen undertaking to detain her by force, resisted, struggling right valiantly, and after damaging and setting comically awry the royal mob-cap, broke away, ran out of the palace, sprang into a hackney-coach, and promising the driver a guinea, was soon at her mother's house and in her mother's arms. There is another—a Court version of this hackney-coach story—which states that it was not the Queen, but the Prince Regent that the Princess ran away from—so that there could have been no assault on a mob-cap. But the common people of that day preferred the version I have given, as more piquant, especially as old Queen Charlotte was known to be the most solemnly grand of grandmammas, and a personage of such prodigious dignity that it was popularly supposed that only Kings and Queens, with their crowns actually on their heads, were permitted to sit in her presence.