Queen Victoria’s private journals, which she wrote daily from age 13 till her death at 81 on January 22, 1901, reveal her love and passion for her husband, Prince Albert, with whom she had nine children.
However, the journals are heavily edited and a lot of detail was removed from the original diaries written by the queen. So the details about her relationships with Scottish manservant John Brown, which led to salacious rumours in England at the time of her marriage, and with her Indian secretary, Munshi Abdul Karim, are not there.
“I felt so happy when the ring was put on, and by my precious Albert,” she writes about the wedding with Albert in February 1840. The queen, who reigned for 63 years, was madly in love with her husband and her diaries show her love explicitly. “I never never spent such an evening!” she writes about the wedding night. “My dearest dearest dear Albert sat on a footstall by my side, and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness, I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, and we kissed each other again and again! His beauty, his sweetness and gentleness — really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband!”
“To lie by his side, and in his arms, and on his dear bosom, and be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief!” she describes the honeymoon bliss in her journal. “When day dawned (for we did not sleep much) and I beheld that beautiful face by my side, it was more than I can express! Oh! was ever woman so blessed as I am.” Victoria’s journals, which total 141 volumes comprising 43,765 pages, have been made available at www.queenvictoriasjou-rnals.org [1], the website whi-ch was launched to coincide with the 193rd anniversary of her birth on May 24.
Links:
[1] http://www.queenvictoriasjou-rnals.org