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Quote of the Day: “We Are Not Amused”
Let’s face it, no one really knows exactly when (or even if) Queen Victoria uttered her famous line. Some say that it was in response to an indelicate joke told to Her Majesty and her ladies-in-waiting by a male equerry; others say that it was her reaction to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. Still others say that Victoria would never have made such a remark (indeed, she is said to have denied it herself), and that she had a robust, earthy sense of humor, and an infectious giggle and laugh. None of that is obvious in contemporary portraits of the lady (although having one’s photograph taken at the time was a lengthy and, I should think in her case, just based on her outfits, a sweaty process). But any number of contemporary movies (Mrs. Brown, Victoria, and Abdul, The Young Victoria, as well as the recent multi-year ITV/PBS television serialization have shown her human side. Although sometimes it’s hard to know with this sort of thing where history ends, revisionism begins, and what role marketing and ratings play in the introduction of the occasional bits of tasteful, even if just implied, bodice-ripping.
Alexandrina Victoria was born two hundred two years ago on 24th May 1819. Like her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth, Victoria became Queen at a very young age (it was in 1837, and she was eighteen). And until Elizabeth surpassed her as both the longest-reigning and longest-lived British monarch, Victoria held both records.
When Victoria was born, several Founding Fathers of the United States were still alive. And when she died in 1901, Dwight Eisenhower, the man who was President when I was born, was ten years old. Such a young country, this United States.
Published in General
I liked her adventures in the book “Artful,” a delightful sequel to “Oliver Twist” and prequel to “Dracula.”
I don’t know that one. Thanks.
Too bad it appears to be in its death throes.
Well, there is that.
We always see that picture of her as a plump, dowdy spinster. The truth is, she was a looker in her youth . . .
Aren’t we all? 🤣🤣🤣
The end of the Roman Republic was hardly its death throes.
My fave Queen Victoria story, from the website Lost in the Myths of History:
Lady Longford, in her wonderful ‘Victoria R.I.’ recounts a humorous story of a meal at which the Queen was sitting next to an elderly admiral who was very hard of hearing. The Queen asked about the progress of repairs to a wrecked ship but the admiral did not catch her words. Out of the politeness, the Queen tried a different conversation, “How is your sister?” “Ah,” said the admiral, suddenly realizing what had first been said, “She’ll be fine, ma’am, when we turn her over and scrape the barnacles off her bottom!” The Queen was so overcome with laughter that she had to hide her face in her handkerchief.