Long Live The Queen

Queen Victoria rules Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace once again with three exhibitions celebrating her vibrant life. Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop gets a royal peek

- Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

Queen Victoria is often remembered through the dignifi ed photographic portraits of her later years: a short, plump monarch and dowdy widow who wore black for 40 years, mourning her beloved husband.

However, as part of the celebrations for the bicentenary of her birth, three exhibitions are putting the spotlight on the younger, fun-loving Victoria. Remembering her childhood at Kensington Palace is a revamp of the permanent exhibition, Victoria: A Royal Childhood, while Victoria: Woman and Crown, also at Kensington Palace, examines her more private persona, looking beyond her carefully managed public image. Queen Victoria’s Palace at Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, takes us through her transformation of what would become the seat of the British monarchy as we know it today.

Victoria: A Royal Childhood challenges certain preconceived ideas many people have. “The assumption is that the princess had quite a difficult childhood, but all the research points to the contrary. She had quite an enjoyable time at Kensington Palace. All her journals point to friends visiting her, riding a donkey, ice skating on the lake, playing in the garden with her half-sister,” says Claudia Williams, the exhibition’s curator.

“She was quite a fiery little girl,” Williams adds, “but her relationship with her mother was a very loving one, at least in her early childhood. Her struggles with her mother only appeared later, when she was a teenager and when Sir John Conroy tried to have her appoint him as her private secretary.”