Thursday 7 April 2011

A History Lesson :-)

The book "We Two" is about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. I purchased it on a recent visit to Canada after seeing the movie "The Young Victoria". Victoria wrote profusely, and although alot of what she had written was destroyed by one of her daughters who followed her mum's desire for them not to reach anyone else's hands, some of them did escape destruction. We also have letters that were written by Prince Albert, and also history that was generally known of events that occurred during Queen Victoria's reign.

In looking for more info on "Queen Vickie" I found this interesting bit (6 Youtube videos) on "The Jubilee Plot":

The Jubilee Plot was a failed assignation (sic: assassination) attempt on Queen Victoria during her Golden Jubilee which was held on June 20th 1887. It was intended to blow up Westminster Abbey, Queen Victoria and half the British Cabinet. The organizer of the assassination attempt was later said to be Francis Millen of Clan na Gael. However, he had been a spy in the service of the British authorities for several years (from 1885 under Edward Jenkinson of the of the Home Office with the approval of the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury), and was encouraged by them to draw in more Fenians, who could be captured. A bombing attempt of this order could also be used to discredit the increasingly troublesome (from the British governments point of view) Irish Parliamentary Party and other Irish Nationalists.
In June various newspapers reported that a plot to assassinate the Queen with bombs planted in Westminster Abbey had been discovered. In the following October a recently-deceased American was declared by the Assistant Commissioner of the police, James Monro, to have been the financier of the plot. Two Irishmen who visited Cohen, Callan and Harkins were arrested and charged with bringing dynamite into the country. In fact, both of them had been followed by police ever since their arrival in Britain in June. After their trial, Monro exposed Millen as the organizer of the plot but Millen was allowed to escape to the United States where he died in mysterious circumstances. Callan and Harkins were sentenced to fifteen years each in prison.
Earlier in the year The Times had begun publishing a series of features called Parnellism and Crime. All the letters had been supplied by Dublin journalist Richard Pigott and purported to show that Charles Stewart Parnell approved of violence by Nationalists. The letters were shown to be forgeries, written by Pigott and sold to The Times. The case against Parnell collapsed. Pigott committed suicide and in a subsequent libel action The Times had to pay Parnell £5,000 damages.


MumblesOg 



Part 1



Part 2


Part 3



Part 4




Part 5



Part 6

4 comments:

  1. Very interesting. I did not know Victoria was a writer nor did I know that she wanted her writings destroyed. Great post!


    Gregg Metcalf
    Colossians 1:28-29

    Gospel-driven Disciples

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  2. Hi "Emperor" Gregg :) sorry I couldn't resist...

    Queen Victoria kept a diary from the time she was very young up through her reign after Prince Albert's death. There were numerous volumes that told the most intimate thoughts of the monarch about everything political and personal. I'm about halfway through the book "We Two" which includes some direct quotes of what we still have from her writings. She wrote these journals for herself, to express the thoughts that she could not confide to anyone else. The things she wrote about when she was still under the thumb of her mother, prior to her 18th birthday, were heavily censored because her mother and her mother's advisor, Lord Conroy, regularly read everything that "little Vickie" wrote, even her letters were read prior to being sent out, as well as any letters that she received.

    Something I find very interesting about Queen Victoria is the strong influence she had allowed Prince Albert to have on her reign. Prior to his death he was king in all but title, and when she used the "royal we" it could be inferred that she meant Prince Albert and herself as the one flesh of holy matrimony.

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  3. We haven't gotten up to this point in our world history yet. I'll have to keep this in mind when we get there.

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  4. Hi Ma,

    I'm watching another series on Youtube that is focusing on Prince Albert.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJVFmWNHrI

    They really make him out to be a monster, which isn't really how I read it in the book "We Two" and not how he was portrayed in "The Young Victoria"...but it can certainly be inferred from many of the facts that are given about him in the book. He certainly was ambitious, and he did like taking control and having everything orderly. Taken to an extreme, these can be very terrible traits.

    I put myself in their position and think it would be very difficult to not take myself too seriously if given such "powers" and half a chance. :-P

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