Sons, Servants and Statesmen: The Men in Queen Victoria's Life - Softcover

Kiste, John Van Der

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0750937882 ISBN 13: 9780750937887

Publisher: The History Press, 2006

Synopsis

Explores aspects of Victoria's life, focusing on four roles - mentors, family, ministers and servants. This book tells about her close and faithful relationship with Albert, one of the great royal love stories, but her relationships with her sons were much more stormy. Also, she showed a decided partiality for Disraeli but disliked Gladstone.

About this title

Synopsis:

How was Queen Victoria influenced by her closest male ministers, relatives, advisers and servants? John Van der Kiste is the first to explore this aspect of Victoria's life; focusing on four roles - mentors, family, ministers and servants. A soldier's daughter, Victoria lost her father at the age of eight months. Although her uncle Leopold did his best to be a substitute father, the absence of her real father probably influenced her throughout her life, not least in choosing her husband. Her close and faithful relationship with Albert is one of the great royal love stories but her relationships with her sons were much more stormy. However, with most of her heads of government she enjoyed relatively cordial relations - in widowhood she showed a decided partiality for Disraeli, who acquired for her the title Empress of India, but disliked Gladstone, complaining that he "speaks to me as if I were a public meeting". Queen Victoria's relationships with her servants are also explored, from the liberal influence exerted over the increasingly conservative queen by her private secretary, Ponsonby, to the outspoken John Brown and the Indian Munshi, who both antagonised those around her.

About the Author:

John Van der Kiste, has written nearly 20 books on British and European royalty, including William and Mary, and, with Coryne Hall, Once a Grand Duchess: Xenia, Sister of Nicholas II. He also writes historical articles and reviews for local and national journals, and has contributed to the New Dictionary of National Biography.

About this edition

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0750937882
• ISBN 13: 9780750937887
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256