Viva Victoria Regina!

Whilst running errands over in St. Paul yesterday, Steef and I came across a little (and I do mean small) used bookstore called Sixth Chamber.

Both being bookworms, of course we had to stop in and check it out. Steef bought a couple of books on architecture and I ended up buying a couple on British history--specifically about the royal family.

The main book that caught my eye was a biography of Queen Victoria , The Life and Times of Victoria by Dorothy Marshall. I guess it attracted me because 1) it's a biography, and I like to read those--I think it's because I like to write memoir stories, so I am drawn to those by and about others. 2) It contains many pictures of Victoria in her younger days--you don't see many of those. One usually sees the iconic "queen in mourning/Diamond Jubilee" photo everywhere:




(Whenever I see this image, I always think of Eddie Izzard's line about her: "One of our more frumpy queens...")

3) Hey--it's Victoria. Probably the most interesting of that royal lot. Although, I do hear Princess Margaret may have been the wild one for her time...

(Please refrain from any and all 'Big queen reading about a big queen' or similarly themed jokes)

I got as far as the chapter where Victoria proposes to Albert (Yes, she proposed to him. Etiquette rules and all that rot, what) when I tried to remember the Hanover/Saxe-Coburg/Windsor lineage and how Elizabeth II is related, etc. It becomes such a muddle after a point, especially when they name themselves after each other (I swear, the guys are either a Charles, Edward, George, or Henry--didn't these people ever have the concept of variety???).

I referred to a slim volume I picked up a couple of years ago in anticipation of a trip to London (which fell through) called, simply, Kings & Queens of England & Scotland by the regally, charmingly, and so veddy British named author Plantagenet Somerset Fry.

To avoid having to go back and forth between the two books, I made a little post-it-note chart of the points I felt I needed/wanted to remember:

• Victoria & Albert's eldest son Edward VII became king
• Edward's eldest son, Victoria's grandson, Albert Victor, was once suspected to be Jack the Ripper. He died of influenza (or syphllis, if you buy the JtR conspiracy theory).
• Edward's next son, became King George V. He married Mary (May) of Teck.
• George's eldest son, Victoria's great-grandson, was Edward VIII. He's the one who abdicated in 1936 to marry that twice-divorced American hussy Wallis Simpson.
• His brother became King George VI.
• George VI's daughter, Victoria's great-great-granddaughter is Queen Elizabeth II.

Whew. In order to preserve some sanity and actually enjoy the book, I resolved to ignore trying to keep Victoria's antecedents straight in my head.

Oh, yes. The other book is about the two princes who were locked away in the Tower of London, never to be seen again. Of course, the eldest was named Edward. Their father was also an Edward and their grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were each a Henry.

Sigh.