Queen Victoria: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Captain Darling:''' ''I'm as British as Queen Victoria!''"<br />

 

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) reigned over [[The British Empire|the largest empire the world has ever seen]]. She was a hugely important figure, causing sweeping changes in the history of many parts of the world, and inspiring her people. She was not simply a [[Lie Back and Think of England|prudish]] [[Grande Dame|old woman with no sense of humour]], and in fact [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|probably never said, "We are not amused"]].

** The story may have arisen from an incident where a courtier told a filthy joke in front of a number of small children at lunch. Her "we" was meant to encompass the confused and worried girls, who either didn't understand the joke or were upset by it.

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] humorously in the Tooth and Claw episode of ''[[Doctor Who]]'', where a running gag was Rose trying to get Her Majesty to say it to win a bet with the Doctor.

*** As the discussion for that trope's page concluded, in order to make the quote more in line with the Victoria's ''actual'' conduct, it must be reinterpreted as advice on what to do when ''not'' having any sex.

** A possible example is the claim that she detested a northern city so much that she always had the curtains closed on her train when passing through it--the reason why this is suspicious is that it's claimed by multiple places, including Newcastle and Edinburgh.

* [[The Federation]]: [[The British Empire]] under Victoria is one of the [[Trope Codifier|Trope Codifiers]]. Towards the end of her reign, there was talk of establishing a literal Federation (well, "Imperial Federation") with a central Parliament to set Empire-wide policy; Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland (at the time separate from Canada), and of course the United Kingdom would be its initial members. The idea eventually morphed into the Commonwealth of Nations.

** Her letters also naturally record [[Young Future Famous People]] incidents of this type, such as Victoria sending Leopold's young son Leopold junior a steam engine to play with and commenting on his industriousness--Leopold II would later become one of the greatest villains of history due to his actions in the Congo Free State.

* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: [[Averted Trope|Averted]]; even those who [[Your Mileage May Vary|don't like the country's practices]] have to admit that she did a good job <s>ruling</s> ''reigning over'' her own country.

** Debatable as she's still known amongst some as [[The Irish Question|'The Famine Queen']].

* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: Queen Victoria may have *reigned* over the British Empire, but the real power was in the hands of her prime ministers. That's how a Westminster parliamentary democracy works: the sovereign reigns, but Parliament rules.

* [[The Mourning After]]: She never really did recover from the death of Albert.

*** Then possibly ''again'' with Abdul Karim after Brown's death.

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: When the Queen was inconsolable after Prince Albert's death, her youngest daughter Princess Beatrice (then aged five) became her main source of support, and at one point while a child Beatrice declared that she would never marry and stay with her mother to support her -- as time passed, it became clear that Victoria intended to hold Beatrice to this. She continued to live with her mother, and was single well into her twenties, with Victoria doing her best to interfere with a number of possible suitors. When Beatrice announced her intention to marry Prince Henry of Battenberg (who she had met at a wedding), Victoria refused to speak with her for ''seven months'' despite them continuing to live in the same house, and finally consented to the marriage only when the couple promised to continue to live with her. Beatrice continued to live with Victoria until the Queen's death in 1901, at which point she spent the next thirty years editing her mother's journals.

** Victoria intended for there to be a Victoria and an Albert in every generation of the senior royal family, whenever possible. The trend died out almost immediately after her death, although some royals still carry one of those names as a middle name (Prince Andrew's middle name is Albert, for instance).

* [[Parental Substitute]]: Arguably her uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, and her first Prime Minister [[Viscount Melbourne]]; Victoria's own father, the Duke of Kent, died when she was an infant.

* [[Shoot the Dog]]: Once literally happened when her cousin Ferdinand accidentally shot Albert's favourite dog Eos.

* [[Sugar and Ice]]: Just read her journal entries on Albert.

** Ditto for most [[Wedding and Engagement Tropes]]. The huge white dress, huger cake with figurines on top, and other frills we commonly associate with weddings were inspired by Victoria's (and at least one by her eldest daughter's).

* [[Team Mom]]: To the whole Empire.

* [[Unrequited Love Switcheroo]]: Victoria, Albert, his brother and another girl as teenagers...eventually it worked out.

* [[Victorian Britain]]: The [[Trope Namer]].

* One of ''[[The Royal Diaries]]'' books is "written" by Queen Victoria when she is in her late preteens/early teens.

** Incidentally, in real life Victoria really was an obssessive journal writer, even by the standards of the times.

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Tooth and Claw". A running subplot in the episode is a bet between the Doctor and his companion Rose whether or not they could get the Queen to say "I am not amused".

 

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