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Queen Alexandria Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, in London, on 24 May 1819, as the only child of the fourth son of King Georg III, Edward, duke of Kent. She hadn`t had a happy childhood.
Her father died very early, shortly after she was born and victoria became heir to the throne because her uncles had no legitimate children who survived. Victoria had a gift for drawing and painting and kept a regular jurnal all trough her life. At the age of 18, after her uncle William IV died childless, Victoria became Queen of England.
She was crowned in 1837 and married three years later prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha, they met eachother when they were 17. Although she used to marry an other man but she proposed marriage with Prince Albert, who took later a very important part in the art science, trade and industry.
Queen Victoria is associted with Britain`s great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and empire. In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by two men: her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and her husband. She was deeply attached to Albert and sank into depression after he died in 1861 at the age of 42. Her Marriage to Prince Albert Brought 9 children between 1840 and 1857. Most of her children married into other royal families of Europe.
Victoria herself was reluctant to resume a full public life. She was persuaded to open Parliament in person in 1866 and 1867 , but she was widely criticised for living in seclusion and quite a strong republican movement developed.
In foreign policy her influance was used to support peace and reconciliation. In 1875 she helped to avert a second Franco- German war. Her popularity grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from the 1870s onwards. In 1877 she became Empress of India.
Victoria `s ppolitiacal power moved away from the suvereig. A series of Acts changed the social and economic base. This acts included the Second Reform Act of 1867; the introdaction if secret ballot in 1877 and the Representation of the Peoples Act in 1884. Victoria showed a high level of prestige and her knowledge to fix all political situations. This was demonstrated by her mediation between the Commons and the Lords.It was during Victoria`s reign that the modern idea of the constitutional monarch began to envolve, but not only the political base was improved by her, she supported many charities involved in education, hospitals and other areas. In her later years sche became the symbol of the British Empire.
Victoria continued her dutie to the end. The Boer War in South Africa overshadowed the end of her reign. She died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 january 1901 after the reign which lasted almost 64 years.
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