Emma VS

“Victoria's courtiers generally shared the views of her administrators and colonial staff in India, which were that Indians were decidedly inferior to Europeans. Victoria, however, perhaps having less cause to worry about her status being challenged, was less prone to this, 'There is no hatred to a brown skin - none,' she wrote, even in the wake of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.”
― Lucy Worsley, Queen Victoria: The authoritative biography of Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by beloved historian Lucy Worsley OBE

“Many people envied her position as the winner of the Baby Race and the wearer of the crown. But when she discovered she was to be queen, Victoria already knew that it was the breaking, not the making, of her life. 'I cried much,' she said. Her mother had prepared her for the lonely royal trap in which bother of their lives would be lived, a trap that tightly clasped so many Victorian women but which squeezed and nipped at a queen perhaps most damagingly of all. 'You cannot escape your own feelings,' Victoire told Victoria, all those years ago, 'you cannot escape ... from the situation you are born in'. You cannot escape. It was true. You cannot escape.”
― Lucy Worsley, Queen Victoria: The authoritative biography of Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by beloved historian Lucy Worsley OBE

“Historian Dorothy Thompson has pointed out the double standard at work here. A king's having a mistress was regrettable, but ultimately acceptable. The possibility, though, of a female ruler having a sexual relationship outside of marriage, causes dismay and prurient ridicule.”
― Lucy Worsley, Queen Victoria: The authoritative biography of Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by beloved historian Lucy Worsley OBE

“This bonnet, worn with resolution, had caused some upset. Her government had asked its queen to appear more ... queenly. 'The symbol that unties this vast Empire is a Crown not a bonnet,' complained Lord Roseberry. But Victoria stoutly refused, and 'the bonnet triumphed'.”
― Lucy Worsley, Queen Victoria: The authoritative biography of Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, by beloved historian Lucy Worsley OBE