1830s.”
On becoming queen, she was mentored by prime minister Viscount Melbourne and sidelined her overbearing mother.
She married her German first cousin prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840 and was besotted with him. She survived the first of several assassination attempts later that year.
When Albert died in 1861, she plunged into mourning, retreated from public view and wore black for the rest of her life.
She formed a close bond with her Scottish manservant John Brown through the 1860s and 70s.
Amid rising republican sentiment, Victoria began to appear in public again starting in the 1870s.
Victoria’s nine children married into continental royalty, making her the “grandmother of Europe”.
Her 1887 golden jubilee and diamond jubilee in 1897 were celebrated throughout the empire, with Victoria seen to embody British greatness.
States, cities, mountains, lakes, streets, squares, buildings and monuments around the world still carry her name.
“Under Victoria, the British empire was expanding to an enormous extent and she got given this grand title of empress of India. British power was at its height,” Gimson said.
“Under Elizabeth II, the British empire has vanished. She and the whole British nation have had to cope with a period of relative decline, although the standard of living has gone up colossally.”
Queen Elizabeth’s beginnings resemble those of Victoria and neither was born to be a future queen.
Elizabeth only did so because her father became king after her childless uncle Edward VIII was forced to abdicate to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson.
After a somewhat cloistered youth, Elizabeth married Prince Philip, her second cousin once removed.
The great statesman Winston Churchill — who entered parliament in 1900 — was the first of her 12 British prime ministers and a mentor.
Victoria got much more heavily involved in politics than Elizabeth would see prudent to do, however. The Times columnist Matthew Parris said Elizabeth “works much harder” than Victoria, but little else has changed since.
“We must not let in daylight upon magic remains the guiding principle,” he wrote. Buried in Windsor, west of London, Victoria died in 1901 aged 81, but Elizabeth is still fully active at 89.