28.6. 1838 Coronation of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria only wore her regal mask when receiving official visitors. Otherwise, she was cheerful and had a sense of humour. Her coronation took place at the end of June 1838.

The news that she was to become Queen of Great Britain came to the eighteen-year-old young lady in the early hours of 20 June. June 1837, wearing only a dressing gown, moments after her uncle William IV died of consumption. Surprisingly, she is said to have received the news calmly, and at 11 a.m. the same day she met with William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne 'for the first Council of State'.

Victoria chose Buckingham Palace as her residence, but as she was not married she had to accommodate her mother as chaperone. "She, among other things, did not take note of the fact that she too had to apply in advance for access to her daughter's royal rooms, and so it happened that she might interrupt her meetings with ministers. The young queen naturally did not like this, but the Viscount Melbourne was quick to give good advice in this case too. Namely, that if she married, she could send her mother back to Kensington Palace with a clear conscience - and the problem would be over," writes Stanislava Jarolimkova in World Personalities as You May Not Know Them.

Before Victoria could follow that advice, she was about to be crowned. This glory took place at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1838, a ceremony said to have lasted five hours but was not very successful. Victoria is said to have asked in a whisper what she should do at that moment, the archbishop putting the coronation ring on her unconsciousand the bishops handed her the coronation apple at the wrong time.

The subjects otherwise received this less than 165 centimetres tall and quite handsome monarch with fine features very kindly and greeted her spontaneously during her carriage rides through the town, to which she quickly and happily got used to. "They evidently liked very much that she did not try to be the personification of dignity. She only put on her regal mask when receiving official visitors. Otherwise she was cheerful and had a sense of humour. Perhaps the only thing she missed was dancing, because if she could, she would have danced all night," Jarolímková adds.

During Victoria's reign, her family became something like today's celebrities and represented a kind of prototype of today'sof the much more media-savvy British monarchy, and the press of the time kept a close eye on how the monarch performed at every stage of her reign. "Her likeness of an elderly lady in mourning clothes became a logo placed on the packaging of popular products such as oatmeal oatmeal, coffee or tea," writes Iwona Kienzler in Europe's Most Influential Sovereigns of Noble and Ill-Blooded Blood.

Source:
Stanislava Jarolímková, World Personalities as You May Not Know Them
Iwona Kienzler, Europe is of the Female Lineage - The Most Influential Sovereigns of Noble and Non-Natural Blood
http://victorian-era.org/