Sources About Victoria

           The majority of my sources for the I-Search essay I found on Wilson Web. These included two articles from History Today. The other source I found through Google News.

            My first source was an article from the Lewiston Evening Journal, printed on Dec 30^th, 1890 entitled “Doll From Queen Victoria”. It’s about Olmstead Ferris, the inventor of popcorn, and how he introduced himself and popcorn to Queen Victoria. He was instructed in the manners of court and how to address the Queen but when the time came for them to meet he walked up to her and offered his hand to her which pleased the Queen greatly. After the interview Ferris asked for a token to bring back to the States for his daughter and Victoria gave him a doll. Here is the full article: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IdEoAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A2sFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2658,4559580&dq=queen+victoria&hl=en

            Another source I found was an article called “Dear John” by Bendor Grosvenor, printed in History Today. The whole article is about Victoria’s servant John Brown and the relationship between them. There has always been speculation about whether or not Victoria and Brown were romantically involved. The idea that they were is supported by a letter sent by Victoria to Lord Cranbrook that Grosvenor quotes and discusses in his article. He says that the attitude towards Brown’s death that Victoria takes is very like to that of the death of her husband Albert and that it is also contradicts what is written in her diary which Victoria requested be edited by her daughter Beatrice after her death.

            This last source is about the “The Bedchamber Crisis”. The article is “Queen Victoria and the Palace Martyr” by Kate Williams and it was also printed in History Today. “The Bedchamber Crisis” happened very early on in Victoria’s reign which explains why it was a massive affair. Not only was Victoria inexperienced but she was also not yet established with the people as a monarch. Victoria, greatly influenced by her friend and advisor, Lord Melbourne gave the positions of ladies-in-waiting to the wives of Lord Melbourne’s Whig friends. This was just fine until the Tories were about to take over Parliament. Their leader Robert Peel requested that some of the Queen’s ladies be replaced by Tory supporters but she refused. Peel, not wishing to have a split between the monarchy and Parliament allowed Lord Melbourne to keep his position in Parliament. This combined with the Lady Flora Hastings scandal, where the royal household believed Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent’s lady-in-waiting, who was from a prominent Tory family, to be pregnant with the child of Sir John Conroy, the Duchess’s personal advisor. Lady Flora denied these claims, eventually falling ill, and dying. It was later discovered that the disease that killed her caused her liver to swell, making her look pregnant. All of these proceedings made Victoria very unpopular with the public, who criticized her saying that she had killed Lady Flora. She only regained her people’s good favor when she married Prince Albert.