Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria came to the throne almost without resources, under threat from republicanism, in a period of social, political and economic turbulence. She died, having revived the failing image of the British monarchy, head of one of the world's richest families. Victoria was the first monarch in British history to combine the "public" role of head of state with the "private" one of wife and mother. Alone among married women, she was not governed by laws which involved surrendering both name and fortune to one's husband. Yet she herself did not support the movement for women's rights and the dominant image which she eventually left was at best an ambivalent one for women.