Haddo House
Haddo House is a Scottish stately home located near Tarves in Aberdeenshire 20 miles north of Aberdeen. It has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1979; the Gordons, who became the Earls of Aberdeen and Marquesses of Aberdeen, have lived on the site for over 500 years. Haddo House sits in or near the site of the old Kellie Castle, the family's previous dwelling, burnt down by the Covenanters and dates from 1732; the interior of the house though is late Victorian in style, having undergone refurbishment in 1880 by Wright and Mansfield. Haddo contains a large art collection, including a series of 85 castles by James Giles, an early work by Claude Lorrain and a Madonna believed to be by Raphael. There are several portraits of 19th-century British politicians. A specially-made display cabinet contains the Cabot Commemorative State Dinner Service; the hand-painted porcelain service with twenty-four settings for an eight-course meal was made by members of the Woman's Art Association of Canada in 1897.
The Canadian government declined to pay the CDN$1,000 asking price. It was purchased by members of the House and Senate of Canada and presented on 12 June 1898 to Lady Aberdeen on the occasion of her husband ending his term as Governor-General of Canada. John Smith did the design work for the kitchens and peripheral buildings in 1843, he built the gate houses at the North and South entrances. Constructed in a rough coarse granite, these single storey buildings are in a Tudor style. Haddo House's most notable former resident was George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, the British prime minister from 1852–1855. Another notable period in its history was during WW2 when the house became a maternity hospital for the evacuated mothers of Glasgow. Nearly 1200 babies were born at Haddo Emergency Hospital, as it was known, many still come back to visit known affectionately as the Haddo Babies; the house has a small chapel attached. In the grounds is a theatre, Haddo House Hall, rehearsal rooms, known as the Peatyards.
Haddo House Choral & Operatic Society, a large and vibrant choral society formed in 1945, has its operations base there. For over sixty years it has been noted for its annual operatic productions. Haddo House at the National Trust for Scotland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the office, under its various names, was more known as the viceroy, his wife was known as the vicereine. The government of Ireland in practice was in the hands of the Lord Deputy up to the 17th century, of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Although in the Middle Ages some Lords Deputy were Irish noblemen, only men from Great Britain peers, were appointed to the office of Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant possessed a number of overlapping roles. He was the representative of the King. Grand Master of the Order of St. PatrickPrior to the Act of Union 1800 which abolished the Irish parliament, the Lord Lieutenant formally delivered the Speech from the Throne outlining his Government's policies, his Government exercised effective control of parliament through the extensive exercise of the powers of patronage, namely the awarding of peerages and state honours.
Critics accused successive viceroys of using their patronage power as a corrupt means of controlling parliament. On one day in July 1777, Lord Buckinghamshire as Lord Lieutenant promoted 5 viscounts to earls, 7 barons to viscounts, created 18 new barons; the power of patronage was used to bribe MPs and peers into supporting the Act of Union 1800, with many of those who changed sides and supported the Union in Parliament awarded peerages and honours for doing so. The Lord Lieutenant was advised in the governance by the Irish Privy Council, a body of appointed figures and hereditary title holders, which met in the Council Chamber in Dublin Castle and on occasion in other locations; the chief constitutional figures in the viceregal court were: Chief Secretary for Ireland: From 1660 the chief administrator, but by the end of the 19th century the prime minister in the administration, with the Lord Lieutenant becoming a form of constitutional monarch. Under-Secretary for Ireland: The head of the civil service in Ireland.
Lord Justices: Three office-holders who acted in the Lord Lieutenant's stead during his absence. The Lord Justices were before 1800 the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh as Primate of All Ireland. Lords Lieutenant were appointed for no set term but served for "His/Her Majesty's pleasure"; when a ministry fell, the Lord Lieutenant was replaced by a supporter of the new ministry. Until the 16th century, Irish or Anglo-Irish noblemen such as the 8th Earl of Kildare and the 9th Earl of Kildare traditionally held the post of Justiciar or Lord Deputy. Following the plantations, noblemen from Great Britain were given the post; the last Irish Catholic to hold the position was Lord Tyrconnell from 1685–91, during the brief Catholic Ascendancy in the reign of James II, ended by the Williamite war in Ireland. Until 1767 none of the latter lived full-time in Ireland. Instead they resided in Ireland during meetings of the Irish Parliament.
However the British cabinet decided in 1765 that full-time residency should be required to enable the Lord Lieutenant to keep a full-time eye on public affairs in Ireland. In addition to the restriction that only English or British noblemen could be appointed to the viceroyalty, a further restriction following the Glorious Revolution excluded Roman Catholics, though it was the faith of the overwhelming majority on the island of Ireland, from holding the office; the office was restricted to members of the Anglican faith. The first Catholic appointed to the post since the reign of the Catholic King James II was in fact the last viceroy, Lord FitzAlan of Derwent, in April 1921, his appointment was possible because the Government of Ireland Act 1920 ended the prohibition on Catholics being appointed to the position. FitzAlan was the only Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to hold office when Ireland was partitioned into Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland; the post ebbed and flowed in importance, being used on occasion as a form of exile for prominent British politicians who had fallen afoul of the Court of St. James's or Westminster.
On other occasions it was a stepping stone to a future career. Two Lords Lieutenant, Lord Hartington and the Duke of Portland, went from Dublin Castle to 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister of Great Britain, in 1756 and 1783 respectively. By the mid-to-late 19th century the post had declined from being a powerful political office to that of being a symbolic quasi-monarchical figure who reigned, not ruled, over the Irish administration. Instead it was the Chief Secretary for Ireland who became central, with he, not the Lord Lieutenant, sitting on occasion in the British cabinet; the official residence of the Lord Lieutenant was the Viceregal Apartments in Dublin Castle, where the Viceregal Court was based. Other summer or alternative residences used by Lord Lieutenant or Lords Deputy included Abbeville in Kinsealy, Chapelizod House, in which the Lord Lieutenant lived while Dublin Castle was being rebuilt following a fire but which he left due to the building being haunted, Leixlip Castle and St. Wolstan's in Celbridge.
The Geraldine Lords Deputy, the 8th Earl of Kildare and the 9th Earl of Kildare, being native Irish, both lived in, among other locations, their castl
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, it employs over 20,950 staff in total. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time and fixed-contract staff are included; the BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, charged to all British households and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up; the fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has funded the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, online services in Arabic and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture, it is known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both. Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920, it was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast; the company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform and entertain"; the financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.
The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired; the BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis; the crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently; the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives in a manner of its own choosing; the resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment
Governor General of Canada
The Governor General of Canada is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch Queen Elizabeth II. The person of the sovereign is shared both with the 15 other Commonwealth realms and the 10 provinces of Canada, but resides predominantly in her oldest and most populous realm, the United Kingdom; the Queen, on the advice of her Canadian prime minister, appoints a governor general to carry out most of her constitutional and ceremonial duties. The commission is for an unfixed period of time—known as serving at Her Majesty's pleasure—though five years is the normal convention. Beginning in 1959, it has been traditional to rotate between anglophone and francophone officeholders—although many recent governors general have been bilingual. Once in office, the governor general maintains direct contact with the Queen, wherever she may be at the time; the office began in the 16th and 17th centuries with the Crown-appointed governors of the French colony of Canada followed by the British governors of Canada in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Subsequently, the office is, along with the Crown, the oldest continuous institution in Canada. The present incarnation of the office emerged with Canadian Confederation and the passing of the British North America Act, 1867, which defines the role of the governor general as "carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in the Name of the Queen, by whatever Title he is designated". Although the post still represented the government of the United Kingdom, the office was Canadianized until, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 and the establishment of a separate and uniquely Canadian monarchy, the governor general become the direct personal representative of the independently and uniquely Canadian sovereign, the monarch in his Canadian council. Throughout this process of increasing Canadian independence, the role of governor general took on additional responsibilities. For example, in 1904, the Militia Act granted permission for the governor general to use the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian militia, in the name of the sovereign and actual Commander-in-Chief, in 1927 the first official international visit by a governor general was made.
In 1947, King George VI issued letters patent allowing the viceroy to carry out all of the monarch's powers on his or her behalf. As a result, the day-to-day duties of the monarch are carried out by the governor general, although, as a matter of law, the governor general is not in the same constitutional position as the sovereign. In accordance with the Constitution Act, 1982, any constitutional amendment that affects the Crown, including the office of the Governor General, requires the unanimous consent of each provincial legislature as well as the federal parliament; the current governor general is Julie Payette, who has served since 2 October 2017. The Government of Canada spells the title governor general without a hyphen; the Canadian media still use the governor-general spelling. As governor is the noun in the title, it is pluralized. Moreover, both terms are capitalized; the position of governor general is mandated by both the Constitution Act, 1867 and the letters patent issued in 1947 by King George VI.
As such, on the recommendation of his or her Canadian prime minister, the Canadian monarch appoints the governor general by commission issued under the royal sign-manual and Great Seal of Canada. That individual is, from until being sworn-in, referred to as the governor general-designate. Besides the administration of the oaths of office, there is no set formula for the swearing-in of a governor general-designate. Though there may therefore be variations to the following, the appointee will travel to Ottawa, there receiving an official welcome and taking up residence at 7 Rideau Gate, will begin preparations for their upcoming role, meeting with various high level officials to ensure a smooth transition between governors general; the sovereign will hold an audience with the appointee and will at that time induct both the governor general-designate and his or her spouse into the Order of Canada as Companions, as well as appointing the former as a Commander of both the Order of Military Merit and the Order of Merit of the Police Forces.
The incumbent will serve for at least five years, though this is only a developed convention, the governor general still technically acts at Her Majesty's pleasure. The prime minister may therefore recommend to the Queen that the viceroy remain in her service for a longer period of time, sometimes upwards of more than seven years. A governor general may resign, two have died in office. In such a circumstance, or if the governor general leaves the country for longer than one month, the Chief Justice of Canada serves as Administrator of the Government and exercises all powers of the governor general. In a speech on the subject of confederation, made in 1866 to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, John A. Macdonald said of the planned governor: "We place no restriction on Her Majesty's prerogative in the selection of her representative... The sovereign has unrestricted freedom of choice... We leave that to Her Majes
House of Lords
The House of Lords known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is else by heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster; the full name of the house is the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Unlike the elected House of Commons, members of the House of Lords are appointed; the membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England. Of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they include some hereditary peers including four dukes. Membership was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland, but under the House of Lords Act 1999, the right to membership was restricted to 92 hereditary peers.
Since 2008, only one of them is female. While the House of Commons has a defined number of seats membership, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed; the House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament in the world to be larger than its lower house. The House of Lords scrutinises bills, it reviews and amends Bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent Bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay Bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons, independent from the electoral process. Bills can be introduced into the House of Commons. While members of the Lords may take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are drawn from the Commons; the House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library. The Queen's Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament.
In addition to its role as the upper house, until the establishment of the Supreme Court in 2009, the House of Lords, through the Law Lords, acted as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom judicial system. The House has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. Today's Parliament of the United Kingdom descends, in practice, from the Parliament of England, though the Treaty of Union of 1706 and the Acts of Union that ratified the Treaty in 1707 and created a new Parliament of Great Britain to replace the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland; this new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland. The House of Lords developed from the "Great Council"; this royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics and representatives of the counties of England and Wales. The first English Parliament is considered to be the "Model Parliament", which included archbishops, abbots, earls and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it.
The power of Parliament grew fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined. For example, during much of the reign of Edward II, the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, the shire and borough representatives powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not by custom or royal charter, but by an authoritative statute, passed by Parliament itself. During the reign of Edward II's successor, Edward III, Parliament separated into two distinct chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords; the authority of Parliament continued to grow, during the early 15th century both Houses exercised powers to an extent not seen before. The Lords were far more powerful than the Commons because of the great influence of the great landowners and the prelates of the realm; the power of the nobility declined during the civil wars of the late 15th century, known as the Wars of the Roses. Much of the nobility was killed on the battlefield or executed for participation in the war, many aristocratic estates were lost to the Crown.
Moreover, feudalism was dying, the feudal armies controlled by the barons became obsolete. Henry VII established the supremacy of the monarch, symbolised by the "Crown Imperial"; the domination of the Sovereign continued to grow during the reigns of the Tudor monarchs in the 16th century. The Crown was at the height of its power during the reign of Henry VIII; the House of Lords remained more powerful than the House of Commons, but the Lower House continued to grow in influence, reaching a zenith in relation to the House of Lords during the middle 17th century. Conflicts between the King and the Parliament led to the English Civil War during the 1640s. In 1649, after the defeat and execution of King Charles I, the Commonwealth of England was declared, but the nation was under the overall control of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, S
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has different boundaries; the Aberdeenshire council area includes all of the area of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire, as well as part of Banffshire. The county boundaries are used for a few purposes, namely land registration and lieutenancy. Aberdeenshire Council is headquartered at Woodhill House, in Aberdeen, making it the only Scottish council whose headquarters are located outside its jurisdiction. Aberdeen itself forms a different council area. Aberdeenshire borders onto Angus and Perth and Kinross to the south and Moray to the west and Aberdeen City to the east. Traditionally, it has been economically dependent upon the primary sector and related processing industries. Over the last 40 years, the development of the oil and gas industry and associated service sector has broadened Aberdeenshire's economic base, contributed to a rapid population growth of some 50% since 1975.
Its land represents 8% of Scotland's overall territory. It covers an area of 6,313 square kilometres. Aberdeenshire has a rich historic heritage, it is the locus of a large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow and Cairn Lee. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, who arrived from the south around 2000–1800 BC. Stone circles and cairns were constructed predominantly in this era. In the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, who have left little history, were believed to have resided along the coast; the Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area, were no than 800–900 AD. The Romans were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the inhabitants early on, there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer and Monymusk. Since medieval times there have been a number of traditional paths that crossed the Mounth through present-day Aberdeenshire from the Scottish Lowlands to the Highlands.
Some of the most well known and important trackways are the Causey Mounth and Elsick Mounth. Aberdeenshire played an important role in the fighting between the Scottish clans. Clan MacBeth and the Clan Canmore were two of the larger clans. Macbeth fell at Lumphanan in 1057. During the Anglo-Norman penetration, other families arrives such as House of Balliol, Clan Bruce, Clan Cumming; when the fighting amongst these newcomers resulted in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the English king Edward I traveled across the area twice, in 1296 and 1303. In 1307, Robert the Bruce was victorious near Inverurie. Along with his victory came new families, namely the Forbeses and the Gordons; these new families set the stage for the upcoming rivalries during the 15th centuries. This rivalry grew worse during and after the Protestant Reformation, when religion was another reason for conflict between the clans; the Gordon family adhered to the Forbes to Protestantism. Aberdeenshire was the historic seat of the clan Dempster.
Three universities were founded in the area prior to the 17th century, King's College in Old Aberdeen, Marischal College in Aberdeen, the University of Fraserburgh. After the end of the Revolution of 1688, an extended peaceful period was interrupted only by such fleeting events such as the Rising of 1715 and the Rising of 1745; the latter resulted in the end of the ascendancy of Episcopalianism and the feudal power of landowners. An era began of industrial progress. During the 17th century, Aberdeenshire was the location of more fighting, centered on the Marquess of Montrose and the English Civil Wars; this period saw increased wealth due to the increase in trade with Germany and the Low Countries. The present council area is named after the historic county of Aberdeenshire, which has different boundaries and was abandoned as an administrative area in 1975 under the Local Government Act 1973, it was replaced by Grampian Regional Council and five district councils: Banff and Buchan, Gordon and Deeside, Moray and the City of Aberdeen.
Local government functions were shared between the two levels. In 1996, under the Local Government etc Act 1994, the Banff and Buchan district, Gordon district and Kincardine and Deeside district were merged to form the present Aberdeenshire council area. Moray and the City of Aberdeen were made their own council areas; the present Aberdeenshire council area consists of all of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire, as well as northeast portions of Banffshire. The population of the council area has risen over 50% since 1971 to 261,800, representing 4.7% of Scotland's total. Aberdeenshire's population has increased by 9.1% since 2001, while Scotland's total population grew by 3.8%. The census lists a high proportion of under 16s and fewer people of working-age compared with the Scottish average. Aberdeenshire is one of the most homogeneous regions of the UK. In 2011 82.2% of residents identified as'White Scottish', followed by 12.3% who are'White British'. The largest ethnic minority group are Asian Scottish/British at 0.8%.
The fourteen biggest settlements in Aberdeenshire are: Peterhead Fraserburgh (12,54
Queen Victoria
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. On 1 May 1876, she adopted the additional title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke and the King died in 1820, Victoria was raised under close supervision by her mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, she inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was an established constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held little direct political power. Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840, their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria avoided public appearances.
As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political and military change within the United Kingdom, was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire, she was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Her son and successor, Edward VII, initiated the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III; until 1817, Edward's niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children.
In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower; the Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, was born at 4.15 a.m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace, she was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent's eldest brother, the Prince Regent. At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: George, the Prince Regent; the Prince Regent had no surviving children, the Duke of York had no children. The Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarence's legitimate daughters died as infants.
The first of these was Princess Charlotte, born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820. A week her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was third in line to the throne after York and Clarence. Clarence's second daughter was Princess Elizabeth of Clarence who lived for twelve weeks from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821 and, while Elizabeth lived, Victoria was fourth in line; the Duke of York died in 1827. When George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, Clarence, as William IV, Victoria became heir presumptive; the Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victoria's mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor. King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be regent, in 1836 he declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victoria's 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided. Victoria described her childhood as "rather melancholy".
Her mother was protective, Victoria was raised isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, rumoured to be the Duchess's lover. The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable, was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them; the Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King William's illegitimate children. Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash, her lessons included French, German and Latin, but she spoke only English at home. In 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way. Similar journeys to oth
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