MULTIZ321
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BLUEWATER BY SPINNAKER HHI
ROYAL HOLIDAY CLUB RHC (POINTS)
The Final Days of Queen Victoria
By Stewart Richards/ History Extra: The Official Website for BBC History Magazine and BBC World Histories Magazine/ historyextra.com
"The final days of Queen Victoria
When Queen Victoria died at the age of 81 on 22 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. Here, Stewart Richards considers Queen Victoria’s final moments, the chaotic preparations for her state funeral on 2 February 1901, and the secret items placed inside her coffin…
1900 had been Queen Victoria’s annus horribilis: “a horrible year, nothing but sadness and horrors of one kind & another,” she wrote.
The Boer War (1899–1902, fought between Great Britain and two Afrikaner republics) weighed heavily on her mind, and the lifting of the sieges against Mafeking and Ladysmith in early 1900 had done little to relieve her anxiety. 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, and 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. “Oh! God! my poor darling Affie gone too! My 3rd Grown up child. It is hard at 81!” she wrote.
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. “I am sending for my mourning trappings” observed Marie Mallet, maid of honour to the queen, “we never escape jet for long”....."
Richard
By Stewart Richards/ History Extra: The Official Website for BBC History Magazine and BBC World Histories Magazine/ historyextra.com
"The final days of Queen Victoria
When Queen Victoria died at the age of 81 on 22 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. Here, Stewart Richards considers Queen Victoria’s final moments, the chaotic preparations for her state funeral on 2 February 1901, and the secret items placed inside her coffin…
1900 had been Queen Victoria’s annus horribilis: “a horrible year, nothing but sadness and horrors of one kind & another,” she wrote.
The Boer War (1899–1902, fought between Great Britain and two Afrikaner republics) weighed heavily on her mind, and the lifting of the sieges against Mafeking and Ladysmith in early 1900 had done little to relieve her anxiety. 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, and 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. “Oh! God! my poor darling Affie gone too! My 3rd Grown up child. It is hard at 81!” she wrote.
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. “I am sending for my mourning trappings” observed Marie Mallet, maid of honour to the queen, “we never escape jet for long”....."
Richard