Queen Victoria Queen of Great Britain and Ireland; Empress of India (1819-1901)
Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England on June 20, 1837, and reigned until her death on January 22, 1901—the longest reign in British history. In 1840 she married her first cousin, Prince Albert, and the marriage proved to be a happy one. When Albert died in 1861, Victoria went into mourning and never really emerged from it. She dressed in black for the remainder of her life and lived almost entirely in seclusion. Although she was popular, particularly in the early decades of her reign and in her final years, she survived several assassination attempts. On May 1, 1876, the title Empress of India was added to her many royal titles. She took the role seriously, for in the late 1860s she had begun to learn the Hindi and Punjabi languages.
By the nineteenth century the British monarch lacked the power that kings and queens in earlier centuries had wielded. Victoria, though, was a dominating figure, to the extent that the era in which she reigned is still referred to...
