6 Revelations From Queen Victoria’s Diaries

Princess Victoria ascended to the throne at 18 after her uncle William IV died in 1837. While saddened by his demise, she was determined to be an effective leader: “Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil[l] my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many … things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.”

Born in 1819 at Kensington Palace, Victoria led an extremely sheltered upbringing. Her overprotective mother, the Duchess of Kent, insisted her daughter be supervised at all times and even slept in Victoria’s room until she became queen.

That said, the Duchess made sure her daughter was prepared for the throne. “She was very good at introducing the teenage Victoria to London society,” says Miles Taylor, a professor of history at the Centre for British Studies at Humboldt University of Berlin and author of Empress: Queen Victoria and India. “She makes sure any traces of a slight German accent (inherited from her mother) go away and Victoria is ready for her role.”

Inexperienced with politics, Victoria relied heavily on Lord Melbourne, her first prime minister, for guidance. She developed an abiding affection for him, writing in her journals that he was a “very straightforward, honest, clever and good man.” She reflected on his “kind and agreeable manner” and referred to “Lord M.”—as she called him—as “fatherly.” Victoria’s own father died when she was an infant.

“She comes to the throne at such a young age,” says Arianne Chernock, a professor of history at Boston University and author of The Right to Rule and the Rights of Women: Queen Victoria and the Women's Movement. “In the first three years of her reign, he’s absolutely critical in offering guidance. In their correspondence, too, you see them debating everything, from marriage to the key diplomatic issues of the day.”

By 1836, the young queen was smitten with her first cousin, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a duchy in what is now Germany. (Their families had hoped for such an alliance.) In her diary, she wrote obsessively about the dashing young man, including this passage: “Albert … is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful.”

They wed in 1840. She found her marriage emotionally and physically fulfilling. Despite having a headache on her wedding night, she wrote: “I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! … bliss beyond belief! Oh!”

“It is amazing how frank Victoria can be in certain passages,” Chernock says. “The woman who emerges was romantic, really adored her husband and took pleasure in bed. A lot of it is quite intimate.” Adds Taylor: “Victoria had nine children in 17 years. Do the math.”

After Albert’s 1861 death, likely from typhus, Victoria was inconsolable. She wore black in mourning for her husband for the rest of her life. “This was a genuine romance—quite unusual for that time,” Chernock says.

At just 19, Victoria faced her first political test as monarch. After a close vote showed his Whig party losing control of Parliament, Lord Melbourne announced he would resign as prime minister. Reluctant to release her most trusted adviser, the queen nonetheless invited Conservative Sir Robert Peel to form a government. He asked Victoria to make a show of support by replacing some of her Whig-leaning “ladies of the bedchamber,” or ladies-in-waiting, with Conservative ones.

The queen refused, noting in her journal that this was “repugnant to her feelings” since she considered these women friends, not political pawns. She addressed her Privy Council of ministers with her answer to the so-called "Bedchamber Crisis," and later wrote: “The room was full, but I hardly knew who was there. Lord M. I saw, looking at me with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me. I then read my short Declaration. I felt my hands shook, but I did not make one mistake."

Without the queen’s support, Peel announced he could not form a government, and Melbourne returned as prime minister. (Peel assumed the job after the next general election.) By that time, Victoria was married to Albert, who advised her to replace three of her ladies-in-waiting with Conservatives.

As queen of the British Empire—so vast, “the sun never set”—Victoria became a symbol of the 19th century’s growing women’s rights movement. Her power gave many women hope they could escape the strict repression of the day, despite the fact that the queen privately did not support women’s suffrage at all.

The century’s longest-reigning monarch famously wrote that “we women are not made for governing” and that “this mad, wicked folly of ‘Women’s Rights,’ with all the attendant horrors” was a “dangerous & unchristian & unnatural cry.” Nonetheless, she understood many women were unfairly treated and need broader protection.

“When it comes to the subject of women’s political rights, she was opposed, although most Victorians weren’t aware of this until after her death,” Chernock said. “However, her journals show the range of perspective she held on other women’s lives. She was quite sympathetic to women who needed employment. She understood that marriage could be quite precarious, and some women were in vulnerable positions because men controlled much of their lives.”

In 1887, an Indian servant arrived at Windsor Castle in time for the queen’s Golden Jubilee. Abdul Karim, a Muslim, became particularly close to Victoria, who described him as “a perfect gentleman.” In her diary, she recorded her first impressions: “[He] is much lighter, tall and with a fine, serious countenance. His father is a native doctor at Agra.”

Initially brought to the palace as a servant, Karim soon became her teacher and friend. He introduced Victoria—the Empress of India, who had never traveled to that part of her domain—to Indian food, culture and language. A curious and receptive student, she wrote in her diary: “I am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is a great interest to me for both the language and the people, I have naturally never come into real contact with before.”

Her friendship with him grew increasingly warm and maternal, and she soon promoted her trusted servant to “Munshi,” or private secretary. Until the end of her life, he traveled with her, serving as her closest confidant—despite outrage from many in the royal household, who disparaged Karim as a dark-skinned Muslim. She granted him property, commissioned multiple portraits of him and often closed letters to him with "your closest friend" or "your loving mother."

When Victoria died in 1901, her son Edward VII immediately had all letters Karim had received from the queen seized and burned, ordered any references to him expunged from her diaries—and quickly shipped him and his wife back to India. Despite these orders, Victoria had made him wealthy by granting him a pension and land in Agra. He died in 1909.