Why Did Queen Victoria Wear Black for 40 Years? Grief, Power and the 'Grandmother of Europe'

Queen Victoria wore black because she never stopped mourning her husband, Prince Albert, who died of typhoid fever on 14 December 1861. From then until her own death in 1901 she dressed in mourning, avoided public appearances for years, and became known as the "Widow of Windsor". That image of a small, stern woman in black is how most people picture her today. But the black dress hides a much livelier story: a teenage queen who chose her own husband, survived several attempts on her life, ruled for more than 63 years and gave her name to an entire age.

A princess raised behind closed doors

Alexandrina Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Her father, the Duke of Kent, died the following year, and she was brought up by her mother under a strict set of rules known as the "Kensington System". When her uncle William IV died, she became queen on 20 June 1837, aged just 18. After a childhood spent under her mother's close control, she was suddenly the most powerful woman in the country.

She was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1838. In her early years the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, became her trusted political teacher and almost a father figure.

A queen who proposed

As the reigning monarch, Victoria did not wait to be asked. On 15 October 1839 Victoria asked her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to marry her, and they wed on 10 February 1840. The marriage was passionate and productive. The couple had nine children, and Albert became her closest adviser.

Surviving six attempts on her life

Victoria was a frequent target. The first attack came in 1840, by Edward Oxford. More followed in 1842, 1849, 1850 and 1872. In 1850 Robert Pate attacked her and actually injured her. Each time, public sympathy for the queen grew. Her calm courage helped make her popular.

The death that changed everything

In December 1861 Albert died of typhoid fever at only 42. Victoria was devastated. Her mother had died earlier the same year, and now she lost the person on whom she relied most. She went into deep mourning, wore black for the rest of her life and withdrew from London and public duties. The country noticed. For years she rarely opened Parliament or appeared at ceremonies, and criticism grew that a monarch who was never seen was hard to justify.

So the black dress was not simply fashion. It was a public statement of grief that lasted forty years, and for a time it put the monarchy itself in danger.

John Brown and the Munshi

In her loneliness Victoria came to depend on a Scottish servant, John Brown. Their closeness caused gossip at court and in the press, and the story was later dramatised in the 1997 film Mrs Brown. Later, in 1887, she employed a young Indian man, Abdul Karim, as a waiter and soon promoted him to "Munshi", or teacher. He taught her Urdu and worked as her clerk. Her family and household resented him, but Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice, and he stayed with her until her death.

Empress of India and the jubilees

Victoria slowly returned to public life. From 1 May 1876 she took the title Empress of India, proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar on 1 January 1877. In 1887 her Golden Jubilee, marking fifty years on the throne, was celebrated with a banquet for fifty kings and princes and a service at Westminster Abbey. Her popularity had returned.

On 23 September 1896 she passed her grandfather George III as the longest-reigning British monarch, and the Diamond Jubilee of 1897 turned into a festival of the Empire, with a six-mile procession through London and an open-air service outside St Paul's Cathedral.

The Victorian age

Her reign saw Britain change faster than ever before. The Victorian era, from 1837 to 1901, saw the British Empire expand rapidly and Britain become the leading industrial and trading nation, the "workshop of the world". Railways transformed travel, the telegraph and later the telephone transformed communication, and by 1901 more than three in four people in Britain lived in towns and cities, compared with about one in five a century earlier. Reform Acts in 1832, 1867 and 1884 gradually widened the right to vote, though women were still excluded.

The "Grandmother of Europe"

Victoria's nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, which earned her the nickname "grandmother of Europe". Her descendants sat on thrones from Britain to Russia. They also carried a hidden inheritance: haemophilia. Her son Leopold had the disease, two daughters were carriers, and it later appeared in Tsarevich Alexei of Russia and in two Spanish princes. Historians think it most likely began as a spontaneous genetic mutation.

Was she really "not amused"?

The famous line "We are not amused" is attributed to her, but there is no direct evidence she ever said it, and she herself denied it. Members of her household recorded that she often laughed heartily. The stern widow of popular memory was only part of the woman.

A white farewell

Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901, aged 81. Fittingly for a woman who had worn black for forty years, she asked for a white funeral, and she was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. She was buried beside Albert at Frogmore. Her reign of 63 years and seven months remained the longest of any British monarch until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed it in 2015.

Learn with Queen Victoria: English phrases about grief and royalty

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to be in mourning	to show sadness after a death	The queen was in mourning for decades.
to withdraw from public life	to stop appearing in public	She withdrew from public life after 1861.
to make a comeback	to become popular again	By 1887 she had made a comeback.
the end of an era	the finish of an important period	Her death was the end of an era.
to rule with an iron hand	to control strictly	Her mother ruled the house with an iron hand.

Try this: Write three English sentences about a famous person who changed their image, using "to make a comeback" and "the end of an era".