Her father died when she was 8 months old, so she was raised by her mother and uncles and a governess, Louise Lehzen. Contrary to popular belief, Victoria grew up in England and was only German by ancestry; she could not even rule Hanover in Germany as her male ancestors had because in Hanover a woman could not be the ruler.
In 1840 she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and they had nine children. Albert was a man of culture and taste and passed these things on to his wife. When he died of typhoid in 1862, Victoria mourned deeply and dressed in black for the rest of her life; for a long time she also refused to participate in any public events, a great annoyance to the politicians of the day who felt it was her duty to represent the country. She did form a close friendship with her Scottish groom, John Brown (chronicled in the movie "Mrs. Brown") which worried her friends and family. When Brown died she worried them even more by making another close friendship with her Indian secretary Abdul Karin.
Victoria did not always get along with politicians, especially those of the Liberal party; she did like Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. She also liked the prestige of the British Empire and was very pleased to be officially titled "Empress of India" in 1877. She was also a very popular queen in her later years, after she started appearing in public again. She died after the longest reign in British history in January 1901 and was succeeded by her son Edward VII.
Oddly, Queen Victoria had some ideas which were greatly ahead of her time, despite her conservatism. For example, in the arena of royal marriage, she wrote as early as the 1870's that she saw no reason why a prince or princess could not marry someone of inferior rank. She even went so far as to accord the morganatic wives of princes the royal status they were denied in Germany, where royal rules were stricter.
It was in religion that Victoria was the most progressive. She did not believe in Satan or hell, attributing them to the posturing of the clergy. She also constantly criticized the British aristocracy's fear of Catholicism, calling it insulting to the "many good Roman Catholics" (quoted in Longford). Furthermore, she was quick to recognize the values and truths of Islam and Hinduism. When the Crown took over rule of India in the 1850's it was primarily through her (unconstitutional) intervention that freedom of worship was guaranteed to Hindus and Muslims.
Victoria was also strongly opposed to racism. She fumed that her (white) British officers and soldiers refused to serve alongside Africans and Indians. She is said to have trashed her office when the Court refused to accept the presence of the Munshi, her Indian servant. (Although it is not clear whether the Court's objections were racist, the Queen certainly thought they were.)
One area in which the Queen was notably conservative was on the question of women and the vote. She remained opposed to female doctors, except in obstetrics, and was opposed to female suffrage. It is the privilege of a woman in power to believe that women should obey men.
What, then, is love? A wind whispering among the roses - no, a yellow phosphorescence in the blood. A danse macabre in which even the oldest and frailest hearts are obliged to join. It is like the marguerite which opens wide as night draws on, and like the anemone which closes at breath and dies at a touch. Such is love. It can ruin a man, raise him up again, then brand him anew. Such its fickleness it can favour me today, tomorrow you, tomorrow night a stranger. But such also is its constancy it can hold fast like an inviolable seal, can blaze unquenched until the hour of death. What, then, is the nature of love?
Professional wrestler with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Accolades: Won the WWE Women's Championship title on 17th October 2002 at the Survivor Series in a hardcore rules match, the first such match for the Women's title.
Entrance theme: Russian girl duo T.A.T.U.'s All The Things She Said, sparking rumours that her on-screen "relationship" with nemesis Trish Stratus might go deeper.
Real Name: Lisa Marie Varon
The developers of the much-acclaimed Europa Universalis I and II and Hearts of Iron strike again. This time they move into a new and even less visited period of history than with Europa Universalis. Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun allows the player to take the lead of one the world's nations, large or small, during the nineteenth century (the Victorian Period). Around one hundred and twenty nations are available for play, all needing different strategies and styles, all with varying degrees of difficulty; from the world hegemony that is the United Kingdom, to Oranje, China, Peru or even Cambodia.
Politics, economics, technology, war and colonization are all represented in this game. The game moves in real time, which throws many players off. Real time is increasingly seen as the domain of the watered down (and frankly sad) strategy games, but it works well for Paradox's games. The ability to pause and still issue commands helps to make the game feel more traditional.
Political Engine:
Victoria is a groundbreaking game in the political area. How many different ideals would you expect to have to deal with in a game? Well, just as a starters list here we have Conservative, Liberal, Socialist, Reactionary and many others. Your people's political beliefs change due to the social and economic situation of your nation and the policies that work one decade may not work the next or even the next year. Minorities can have hugely different political ideals, especially when they are oppressed or feel threatened.
Your political choices also make a difference. Is your leading party a protectionist, state capitalist nation with tendencies towards pro-military spending, atheism and oppression of the nation's minorities? Well that will influence how you can set your policies. It will influence how each group reacts to your government and it will even influence how you can establish social reforms.
Speaking of social reforms. Where will your country sit in the issues of health care, minimum wages, pensions, voting rights and many other things? Will you allow only the land owning classes to vote? The rich? Or everyone? Will you provide health care to your citizens? These are just some examples of decisions you can make and decisions that the making of, or not making, will influence your nation and its people.
The Victoria political engine is in depth, detailed and beautiful, but most importantly, it stays out of your hair for the most part. You can make your changes, you can make your decisions and it won't destroy you straight away or even at all. Though there is a large push away from monarchies, they are not impossible to keep as long as you meet the citizen's needs in other ways or keep yur country growing and peaceful.
Economic Engine:
Victoria's economic engine is suffering some upheaval right now. As usual with the release of a Paradox game, the players chime in and recommend improvements. Also as usual, Paradox listens and responds. The current patch (1.02) fixed some major things in the game, making it much more difficult to make any nation, say for example Ethiopia, a world power, but it suffers a few drawbacks. It is very much expected that with the current improvements due to the last patch and Paradox's tendency to listen to its player's ideas and criticisms that the next patch should be expected before the end of December 2003 and should completely improve the economic model.
As it is, the economy is completely playable, though at current it is difficult to expand and grow, to say the least. Industrialization takes much effort and time. Overall, building factories and promoting workers to advanced levels is the way to go. Resources needed for production and to supply your people are bought from the world market. The market itself is pretty fluid. You can always continue to sell things to the market; the price will just continue to drop as the supply rises or vice versa, though the goods must be on the market for you to buy them.
Domestically you can control much of your economy. As stated before, the building of factories is the main way to improve your economy, railroads and technology being the next most important way of increasing your economic gain. You can determine how much money you wish to spend for education, police, military and social spending, as well as how high to set tariffs on goods bought by your country and where to set the taxes on your poor, middle class and rich citizens.
Technology Engine:
The technology engine is rather simple. You can choose from one of five categories:
Army: Military improvements as pertaining to the land arm of your forces (rifles, tanks, command principles, et cetera).
Navy: Military improvements as pertaining to the naval arm of your forces (naval guns, steamers, cruisers, et cetera).
Culture: Cultu
