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Biography detailing the lives of Queen Victoria and her daughters
Author's Note:
Victoria and her daughters... why? In the course of my travels–Canada, India and Singapore– I have seen the Great Mother figure of Queen Victoria surveying tropical bamboos and northern firs like a goddess dispensing mysterious manna from her orb and sceptre. In an alien land it was somehow reassuring to gaze upon those rotund, maternal and majestic contours, that half-benign, half-chiding expression which seemed to be forever asking of all and sundry: 'My beloved subjects, are you doing your duty? Are you leading useful lives?' Despite myself, I began to look upon her with filial respect, and it was a great shock to find her removed from plinth and lying on her back in the new Republic of Guyana, her hand still caressing the imperial orb designed as a globe, among a tangle of cast-iron lions and crowns. Close by she continues to be remembered by botanists, for there is a pool full of the world's largest water-lily, named after her: 'Victoria Regina'.
I began to wonder what the Queen had been like as a mother in her own home, with her daughters, those five princesses–Vicky, Alice, Helena, Louise and Beatrice– chiefly known to posterity for the dread disease of haemophilia which they transmitted to the royal houses of Europe. What were they like? How did they react to one another? What role did they play in the life of their mother? How typical were they of their age? Was that sugary-sweet song 'Home, Sweet Home' that tinkled in every cluttered Victorian drawing-room a reality in the vast royal palaces? Feminine curiosity and a penchant for Victoriana prompted me to try to find the answers.
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