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| The foundations for Queen's record reign were set by Victoria | The foundations for Queen's record reign were set by Victoria |
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| When Queen Victoria breathed her last in her bedroom at Osborne House at 6.30pm on 22 January 1901, she had reigned for 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes. At some point on Wednesday – no one can say exactly when since it is unknown when her father died in his sleep – Queen Elizabeth II will pass that landmark and become the longest reigning British monarch: 63 years and 216 days since 6 February 1952. | When Queen Victoria breathed her last in her bedroom at Osborne House at 6.30pm on 22 January 1901, she had reigned for 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes. At some point on Wednesday – no one can say exactly when since it is unknown when her father died in his sleep – Queen Elizabeth II will pass that landmark and become the longest reigning British monarch: 63 years and 216 days since 6 February 1952. |
| Unlike her great-great-grandmother, who had rarely been seen in public for years and when she did appear was largely immobile, the Queen will be out and about on her record-breaking day. Victoria died a mere stripling of 81, but Elizabeth II is still going strong at 89. As it is September, the anniversary will be passed in Scotland where the Queen always spends this time of year – Victoria would have approved. | Unlike her great-great-grandmother, who had rarely been seen in public for years and when she did appear was largely immobile, the Queen will be out and about on her record-breaking day. Victoria died a mere stripling of 81, but Elizabeth II is still going strong at 89. As it is September, the anniversary will be passed in Scotland where the Queen always spends this time of year – Victoria would have approved. |
| On Wednesday she will tour the borders by train, with the Duke of Edinburgh as usual at her side. Buckingham Palace’s communications office has insisted this is the royal couple going about their normal business, still dutiful seven decades in, but they have made special arrangements for mass media coverage, just in case: media accreditation closed more than a fortnight ago. | On Wednesday she will tour the borders by train, with the Duke of Edinburgh as usual at her side. Buckingham Palace’s communications office has insisted this is the royal couple going about their normal business, still dutiful seven decades in, but they have made special arrangements for mass media coverage, just in case: media accreditation closed more than a fortnight ago. |
| The two marathon reigns mean that Britain has had a female head of state for nearly 130 of the last 180 years. The current Queen’s reign will not ultimately be called the second Elizabethan age, unlike the Victorian era in the 19th century – attempts in the 1950s to suggest Britain was entering a new Elizabethan period soon petered out – and it would be difficult to argue the Queen has placed a dynamic stamp upon the country. But while Britain changed unimaginably during Victoria and Elizabeth II’s reigns, the example of the first monarch has been followed by the current one, and not just in choosing Balmoral as a holiday destination. | The two marathon reigns mean that Britain has had a female head of state for nearly 130 of the last 180 years. The current Queen’s reign will not ultimately be called the second Elizabethan age, unlike the Victorian era in the 19th century – attempts in the 1950s to suggest Britain was entering a new Elizabethan period soon petered out – and it would be difficult to argue the Queen has placed a dynamic stamp upon the country. But while Britain changed unimaginably during Victoria and Elizabeth II’s reigns, the example of the first monarch has been followed by the current one, and not just in choosing Balmoral as a holiday destination. |
| Victoria’s reign saw a shift in Britain out of the 19th century into the 20th, from a largely rural population of about 18 million to a mainly urban one of more than 38 million. The industrial revolution produced a stream of inventions and innovations, many designed to make life easier for a burgeoning middle class; from a land where the first railways were only just beginning to snake across the landscape to one where the first cars were appearing and a prototype aircraft would shortly be taking off. | Victoria’s reign saw a shift in Britain out of the 19th century into the 20th, from a largely rural population of about 18 million to a mainly urban one of more than 38 million. The industrial revolution produced a stream of inventions and innovations, many designed to make life easier for a burgeoning middle class; from a land where the first railways were only just beginning to snake across the landscape to one where the first cars were appearing and a prototype aircraft would shortly be taking off. |
| Elizabeth’s reign has seen the population rise from 50 million to 63 million: a country, where in 1952 only one in 10 homes had a telephone and there were just half a million televisions, has transformed into a land of Kindles and iPads, emails, tweets and texting. The Queen has even tweeted herself: well, sort of - when she appeared to send her first, from the Science Museum in October last year, it was unsportingly noticed by the media that the message had been discreetly dispatched from an aide’s iPhone. Nevertheless she does have 724,000 Twitter followers. | Elizabeth’s reign has seen the population rise from 50 million to 63 million: a country, where in 1952 only one in 10 homes had a telephone and there were just half a million televisions, has transformed into a land of Kindles and iPads, emails, tweets and texting. The Queen has even tweeted herself: well, sort of - when she appeared to send her first, from the Science Museum in October last year, it was unsportingly noticed by the media that the message had been discreetly dispatched from an aide’s iPhone. Nevertheless she does have 724,000 Twitter followers. |
| The young Queen Victoria, following the example of her Georgian forebears, was prepared to intervene in politics, though with limited success. She managed to temporarily block the appointment of Robert Peel’s Tory government in 1839 – the last occasion when a monarch did so – and made little secret later of her disdain for William Gladstone, who nevertheless served as her prime minister on and off for 12 years. | The young Queen Victoria, following the example of her Georgian forebears, was prepared to intervene in politics, though with limited success. She managed to temporarily block the appointment of Robert Peel’s Tory government in 1839 – the last occasion when a monarch did so – and made little secret later of her disdain for William Gladstone, who nevertheless served as her prime minister on and off for 12 years. |
| The Queen has never been remotely so brazen, though she was manipulated by Harold Macmillan over his successor as prime minister in 1963. She took his advice when he resigned after a prostate cancer scare and sent for Alec Douglas-Home rather than wait for the Tories to choose their own leader. | The Queen has never been remotely so brazen, though she was manipulated by Harold Macmillan over his successor as prime minister in 1963. She took his advice when he resigned after a prostate cancer scare and sent for Alec Douglas-Home rather than wait for the Tories to choose their own leader. |
| Victoria’s private journals fizz with opinions and she published two wildly popular books of sketches about the Highlands (and had to be dissuaded from writing a eulogistic biography of her Highland servant John Brown after his death in 1883), but there is no indication that the Queen keeps a diary or has any plans to write a book. Her opinions of her 12 prime ministers – the oldest, Churchill, born in 1874, the most recent, Cameron, younger than any of her children – are deeply, stoically, opaque. | Victoria’s private journals fizz with opinions and she published two wildly popular books of sketches about the Highlands (and had to be dissuaded from writing a eulogistic biography of her Highland servant John Brown after his death in 1883), but there is no indication that the Queen keeps a diary or has any plans to write a book. Her opinions of her 12 prime ministers – the oldest, Churchill, born in 1874, the most recent, Cameron, younger than any of her children – are deeply, stoically, opaque. |
| Yet Victoria was a prototype in several respects: the creator of a middle-class, respectable, dutiful monarchy. It is a pattern which successive monarchs have followed (with one notable exception): a recognisable family institution, like its subjects, yet not. The first photographs of the royal family in the 1850s showed a studied informality, to such an extent that the engagement photograph of Bertie, the Prince of Wales, to the Danish princess Alexandra in 1862 was criticised as being in bad taste because the bride-to-be was shown with her hand resting on his shoulder. They were dressed just like an ordinary couple too and, without ceremonial robes, how could you recognise their majesty? | Yet Victoria was a prototype in several respects: the creator of a middle-class, respectable, dutiful monarchy. It is a pattern which successive monarchs have followed (with one notable exception): a recognisable family institution, like its subjects, yet not. The first photographs of the royal family in the 1850s showed a studied informality, to such an extent that the engagement photograph of Bertie, the Prince of Wales, to the Danish princess Alexandra in 1862 was criticised as being in bad taste because the bride-to-be was shown with her hand resting on his shoulder. They were dressed just like an ordinary couple too and, without ceremonial robes, how could you recognise their majesty? |
| Pictures of the royals then, as now, were highly popular. Victoria might have lived in semi-seclusion from public events after the death of Prince Albert, but more than 400 official photographs of her were published in the last 40 years of her reign, more than anyone else in public life, except for her son and his wife. The photographers were not above massaging their portraits of the Queen either. They show signs of retouching, slimming down the royal waist and smoothing the face of wrinkles. The queen, less than 5ft tall and increasingly plump, stood on a box, concealed under her train, for formal, standing portraits. Her appearance was well-known across the empire which she never visited: statues sprang up from Calcutta to Auckland and the Queen’s image was used to sell products from cocoa to toilet soap. | Pictures of the royals then, as now, were highly popular. Victoria might have lived in semi-seclusion from public events after the death of Prince Albert, but more than 400 official photographs of her were published in the last 40 years of her reign, more than anyone else in public life, except for her son and his wife. The photographers were not above massaging their portraits of the Queen either. They show signs of retouching, slimming down the royal waist and smoothing the face of wrinkles. The queen, less than 5ft tall and increasingly plump, stood on a box, concealed under her train, for formal, standing portraits. Her appearance was well-known across the empire which she never visited: statues sprang up from Calcutta to Auckland and the Queen’s image was used to sell products from cocoa to toilet soap. |
| Queen Victoria did not go in for walkabouts. When she and Albert first stayed at the Brighton Pavilion in 1841 they found themselves surrounded by tourists and errand boys when they went out for a walk, with members of the public peering under her bonnet to see what she looked like. So they sold the place and built Osborne House on the Isle of Wight instead. One reason she preferred to take the train (and so helped popularise the railways) was that it protected her from dust and crowds. | Queen Victoria did not go in for walkabouts. When she and Albert first stayed at the Brighton Pavilion in 1841 they found themselves surrounded by tourists and errand boys when they went out for a walk, with members of the public peering under her bonnet to see what she looked like. So they sold the place and built Osborne House on the Isle of Wight instead. One reason she preferred to take the train (and so helped popularise the railways) was that it protected her from dust and crowds. |
| Seclusion did not protect her from the press however: royal reporters stalked her through the heather at Balmoral, for newspapers soon discovered that news about the royals sold: the Times nearly doubled its circulation the day after the royal wedding in 1863. Daylight was let in on the royal magic years before the journalist Walter Bagehot coined the phrase in 1867. | Seclusion did not protect her from the press however: royal reporters stalked her through the heather at Balmoral, for newspapers soon discovered that news about the royals sold: the Times nearly doubled its circulation the day after the royal wedding in 1863. Daylight was let in on the royal magic years before the journalist Walter Bagehot coined the phrase in 1867. |
| But the royals needed to show themselves then, as now. When Victoria went into seclusion after Albert’s death the republican movement increased in popularity, though it rapidly waned again when Bertie fell dangerously ill in 1871. As Lord Salisbury, Victoria’s last prime minister, wrote in the Saturday Review: “Seclusion is one of the few luxuries in which royal personages may not indulge … loyalty needs a life of almost unintermitted publicity to sustain it.” Lord Halifax told Victoria’s private secretary: “The mass of the people … want to see a crown and sceptre and all that sort of thing. They want the gilding for their money.” | But the royals needed to show themselves then, as now. When Victoria went into seclusion after Albert’s death the republican movement increased in popularity, though it rapidly waned again when Bertie fell dangerously ill in 1871. As Lord Salisbury, Victoria’s last prime minister, wrote in the Saturday Review: “Seclusion is one of the few luxuries in which royal personages may not indulge … loyalty needs a life of almost unintermitted publicity to sustain it.” Lord Halifax told Victoria’s private secretary: “The mass of the people … want to see a crown and sceptre and all that sort of thing. They want the gilding for their money.” |
| It is a lesson subsequent royals, not least the Queen, have taken firmly to heart. It accounts for many of the royal ceremonials: the precision, the timing, the symbolism and the pageantry, much of which, however traditional it seems, is relatively recently devised: the flummery of the state opening of parliament dates back to Edward VII, the royal Maundy was revived in the 1920s, the Garter ceremony in 1946. | It is a lesson subsequent royals, not least the Queen, have taken firmly to heart. It accounts for many of the royal ceremonials: the precision, the timing, the symbolism and the pageantry, much of which, however traditional it seems, is relatively recently devised: the flummery of the state opening of parliament dates back to Edward VII, the royal Maundy was revived in the 1920s, the Garter ceremony in 1946. |
| Previous royal events such as coronations and weddings were semi-private, seen only by the privileged few, and were often chaotic and bungled. Now they tend to run like clockwork – what really annoys the Queen is being late for any engagement – and as one former official said: “The vast majority of people are attracted to the traditional institution: they don’t want a parade of Mondeos down the Mall. They like the music and the uniforms, the fuss, the jingling harnesses on the horses and the shouted orders. They like to see the state perform in public.” | Previous royal events such as coronations and weddings were semi-private, seen only by the privileged few, and were often chaotic and bungled. Now they tend to run like clockwork – what really annoys the Queen is being late for any engagement – and as one former official said: “The vast majority of people are attracted to the traditional institution: they don’t want a parade of Mondeos down the Mall. They like the music and the uniforms, the fuss, the jingling harnesses on the horses and the shouted orders. They like to see the state perform in public.” |
| Of course it is an act, disguising the less creditable aspects of royal life. We know that the home life of Queen Victoria and her children, especially Bertie with his string of mistresses, was hardly spotless and the media glare on the current Queen’s offspring has relentlessly picked out their foibles. | Of course it is an act, disguising the less creditable aspects of royal life. We know that the home life of Queen Victoria and her children, especially Bertie with his string of mistresses, was hardly spotless and the media glare on the current Queen’s offspring has relentlessly picked out their foibles. |
| The paparazzi have not gone away and social media’s gaze is relentless. In Bertie’s day he could be deflected into good works of a sort royals had not really done before: visiting hospitals, opening factories, sitting down to banquets (he really enjoyed those) and tapping up friends and acquaintances for charitable donations to good causes. He even – critics of Prince Charles take note – sat on royal commissions of inquiry, one into slum housing conditions in the East End of London, another into the conditions of the aged poor and made speeches calling for action. Members of the public are still more likely to encounter a royal when they are engaged in charitable activity than on any other occasion. | The paparazzi have not gone away and social media’s gaze is relentless. In Bertie’s day he could be deflected into good works of a sort royals had not really done before: visiting hospitals, opening factories, sitting down to banquets (he really enjoyed those) and tapping up friends and acquaintances for charitable donations to good causes. He even – critics of Prince Charles take note – sat on royal commissions of inquiry, one into slum housing conditions in the East End of London, another into the conditions of the aged poor and made speeches calling for action. Members of the public are still more likely to encounter a royal when they are engaged in charitable activity than on any other occasion. |
| On the night Queen Victoria died, the Manchester Guardian published a 12-page supplement about her reign. Its black-edged editorial, presumably written by the editor CP Scott, spoke of “the worst news of all … a final pang of loss” and added: “It has long been the firm belief of everybody … that the Queen was a woman honest, kind, loyal in all her acts and thoughts (setting herself) to see clearly what her duty was and to do it faithfully … she was what every English man and woman would most wish the most prominent of all English women to be.” Queen Elizabeth II appears to have followed that successful recipe religiously. | On the night Queen Victoria died, the Manchester Guardian published a 12-page supplement about her reign. Its black-edged editorial, presumably written by the editor CP Scott, spoke of “the worst news of all … a final pang of loss” and added: “It has long been the firm belief of everybody … that the Queen was a woman honest, kind, loyal in all her acts and thoughts (setting herself) to see clearly what her duty was and to do it faithfully … she was what every English man and woman would most wish the most prominent of all English women to be.” Queen Elizabeth II appears to have followed that successful recipe religiously. |
| Stephen Bates, a former Guardian royal correspondent, is the author of Royalty Inc: Britain’s Best-Known Brand, published by Aurum Press |