Abstract

I choose this theme because I think that even though it does not have the enough
power to rule entirely, the Monarchy plays an important role in the United Kingdom and
that it is relevant to find out about its crises. The fist chapter is about the only king,
Charles I, in the Monarchy’s history that has been executed for his mistakes. The second
chapter presents Queen Victoria, the longest reigning monarch. The third main chapter
draws to attention the only king that abdicated, Edward III and the last one brings to light
the death of Princess Diana.

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 Introduction

The British people have had a monarchy for over a thousand years. The
relationship between the monarch and the people has suffered some serious crises in the
country’s history, but the monarchy always seems to recover.
The biggest crisis in the monarchy’s history came in 1649 when the King was
actually condemned to death by parliament. Charles I wanted the monarchy to have more
power, and in 1629 he dismissed the parliament and ruled for eleven years without it.
In 1649 a Civil War broke out between the Royalists and the supporters of
parliament, the Roundheads under Oliver Cromwell. The Roundheads won, Charles was
beheaded and the monarchy abolished. England was, in effect, a republic for eleven
years, governed by Lord Protector (first Cromwell then his son). But in 1660 the age of
Restoration began when Charles’s son, Charles II, was made King.
When Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861, the Queen suffered a
terrible depression. She withdrew from public life and spent more time at her palaces in
Scotland and on Isle of Wight than she did in London. For over 20 years she performed
no national duties. People became critical of the monarchy and, in a time of huge
industrial and scientific progress, members of the parliament began to talk about
republicanism. But Victoria recovered and in 1897 her Diamond Jubilee, celebrating a
record 60 years on the throne, was a great public relations success with a huge
processions, ceremonies and public celebrations.
When George V died in January 1936, his heir Edward was in love with a twice-
divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson. His family and the government disapproved
of Mrs. Simpson, but Edward wanted to marry her. In the end he was forced to choose
between his love and the throne. In December of that year, five months off his planned
coronation and with war threatening the world, Edward VIII addressed the nation by
radio and told them that “I have found impossible to carry on the heavy burden of
responsibility and to discharge the duties of King … without the help and support of the
woman I love”. His brother George VI took his place at the coronation, and proved to be

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a strong monarch. When George’s daughter, Princess Elisabeth came to the throne in
1952 the monarchy was once again extremely popular.
In the modern times, people began to see the monarchy as outdated, but the royal
family was given a tremendous boost in 1981, when Prince Charles married the popular
Princess Diana. Diana became an international superstar, more popular than her husband
from whom she divorce in 1996.
When she died in a car crash in 1997 many people accused the royal family of
treating her badly during her marriage and abandoning her after the divorce.
The Queen and Prince Charles suffered a huge drop in popularity and they were
advised to modernize and become less formal and distant. Celebrations for the Queen’s
Golden Jubilee in 2002 were deliberately low-key, as the organizers feared that the public
would not be interested.

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Chapter I. Revolution: Charles I of England

Charles I
King of England, Scots and Ireland
Reign 27 March 1625 — 30 January 1649
Coronation 2 February 1626
Predecessor James I of England
Successor Charles II de jure
Oliver Cromwell, de facto (as leader of the Commonwealth of England)
Consort Henrietta Maria of France
Issue
Charles II
Mary, Princess Royal
James II and VII
Elizabeth of England
Anne of England
Henry, Duke of Gloucester
Henrietta Anne of England
Titles and styles
HM The King
The Prince of Wales
The Duke of York
The Duke of Albany
The Prince Charles
Royal house
House of Stuart
Father James I of England
MotherAnne of Denmark
Born 19 November 1600
Dunfermline, Scotland
Baptised 23 December 1601

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Dunfermline, Scotland
Died 30 January 1649 (aged 47)
Whitehall, England
Burial 7 February 1649
Windsor, England

1.1 Early life

The second son of James VI, King of Scots and Anne of Denmark and Norway,
Charles was born at Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. He was an
underdeveloped child who was still unable to walk or talk at the age of three. When
Elizabeth I died in March 1603 and James VI became King of England as James I,
Charles was originally left in Scotland in the care of nurses and servants because it was
feared that the journey would damage his fragile health.
Charles was not as well-regarded as his elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales;
Charles himself adored Henry and tried to emulate him. In 1603, Charles was created
Duke of Albany in Scotland. Two years later, Charles was created Duke of York, as was
then customary in the case of the Sovereign's second son. When his elder brother died at
the age of 18 of typhoid in 1612, two weeks before Charles's 12th birthday, Charles
became heir apparent and was subsequently created the Prince of Wales and Earl of
Chester in November 1616. His sister Elizabeth married in 1613 to Frederick V, Elector
Palatine and moved to Heidelberg.
Charles was a very different character to his father James I and had none of the
latter's political skill. Both kings were advocates of Divine Right monarchy, but James
listened to the views of his subjects and favoured moderation, compromise and
consensus. Charles I was shy and diffident, but also self-righteous, stubborn, opinionated,
determined and confrontational. Charles believed he had no need to compromise or even
explain his policies and that he was only answerable to God. He famously said: "Kings
are not bound to give an account of their actions but to God alone", "I mean to show what
I should speak in actions". Those actions were open to misinterpretation, and there were
fears as early as 1626 that he was a potential tyrant.

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 1.2 Early reign
On 11 May 1625 Charles was married to Henrietta Maria of France, nine years his
junior, by proxy. His first Parliament, which he opened in May, was opposed to his
marriage to Henrietta Maria, a Roman Catholic, because it feared that Charles would lift
restrictions on Roman Catholics and undermine the official establishment of
Protestantism. Although he agreed with Parliament that he would not relax restrictions
relating to recusants, he promised to do exactly that in a secret marriage treaty with Louis
XIII. The couple was married in person on 13 June 1625, in Canterbury. Charles was
crowned on 2 February 1626 at Westminster Abbey, but without his wife at his side due
to the controversy. They had nine children, with three sons and three daughters surviving
infancy.
Distrust of Charles's religious policies was increased by the controversy
surrounding the ecclesiastic Richard Montagu. In a pamphlet, Montagu argued against
the teachings of John Calvin, immediately bringing himself into disrepute amongst the
Puritans. A Puritan member of the House of Commons, John Pym, attacked Montagu's
pamphlet during debate, prompting Montagu to request the aid of Charles I in a pamphlet
entitled "Appello Caesarem" (Latin "I appeal to Caesar", a reference to an appeal against
Jewish persecution made by Saint Paul the Apostle). Charles I made the cleric one of his
royal chaplains, increasing many Puritans' suspicions as to where he would lead the
Church.
Charles's primary concern during his early reign was foreign policy. The Thirty
Years' War, originally confined to Bohemia, was spiralling out of control into a wider
war between Protestants and Catholics in Europe.
The war with Spain went badly, largely due to Buckingham's incompetent
leadership. Despite Parliament's protests, however, Charles refused to dismiss him,
dismissing Parliament instead.

1.3 Personal Rule

Sir Anthony van Dyck, Charles I's court painter, created the famous "Charles I,
King of England, from Three Angles", commonly known as the "Triple Portrait". This oil

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painting, of around 1636, was created in order that the Italian sculptor, Bernini, could
create a marble bust of Charles.
In January 1629, Charles opened the second session of the Parliament, which had
been prorogued in June 1628, with a moderate speech on the tonnage and poundage issue.
Members of the House of Commons began to voice their opposition in light of the Rolle
case. Rolle was an MP who had his goods confiscated for not paying tonnage and
poundage. This was seen by many MPs as a breach of the Petition of Right, who argued
that the freedom from arrest privilege extended to goods. When Charles ordered a
parliamentary adjournment in March, members held the Speaker, John Finch, down in his
chair whilst three resolutions against Charles were read aloud. The last of these
resolutions declared that anyone who paid tonnage or poundage not authorised by
Parliament would "be reputed a betrayer of the liberties of England, and an enemy to the
same". Though the resolution was not formally passed, many members declared their
approval. The fact that a number of MPs had to be detained in Parliament is relevant in
understanding that there was no universal opposition towards the King. Nevertheless, the
provocation was too much for Charles, who dissolved parliament the same day.Charles
resolved not to be forced to rely on Parliament for further monetary aid. Immediately, he
made peace with France and Spain. The following eleven years, during which Charles
ruled without a Parliament, have been known as both the Eleven Years Tyranny or
simply as the Personal Rule.Due to an unstable absolute power, assassination or capture
was at risk for the king and many close nobles including instructors Thomas Hobbes and
John Pym.

1.4 Religious conflicts

Charles wished to move the Church of England away from Calvinism in a more
traditional and sacramental direction. This goal was shared by his main political adviser,
Archbishop William Laud. Laud was appointed by Charles as the Archbishop of
Canterbury in 1633 and started a series of unpopular reforms in an attempt to impose
order and authority on the church. Laud attempted to ensure religious uniformity by
dismissing non-conformist clergymen and closing Puritan organizations. This was
actively hostile to the Reformist tendencies of many of his English and Scottish subjects.

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His policy was obnoxious to Calvinist theology, and insisted that the Church of England's
liturgy be celebrated using the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Laud was
also an advocate of Arminian theology, a view whose emphasis on the ability to reject
salvation was viewed as heretical and virtually "Catholic" by strict Calvinists.
To punish those who refused to accept his reforms, Laud used the two most feared
and most arbitrary courts in the land, the Court of High Commission and the Court of
Star Chamber. The former could compel individuals to provide self-incriminating
testimony, whilst the latter could inflict any punishment whatsoever (including torture),
with the sole exception of death.
The lawlessness of the Court of Star Chamber under Charles far exceeded that
under any of his predecessors. Under Charles's reign, defendants were regularly hauled
before the Court without indictment, due process of the law, or right to confront
witnesses, and their testimonies were routinely extracted by the King and his courtiers
through extensive torture.
In 1639, when the First Bishops' War broke out, Charles sought to collect taxes
from his subjects, who refused to yield any further. Charles's war ended in a humiliating
truce in June of the same year. In the Pacification of Berwick, Charles agreed to grant his
Scottish subjects civil and ecclesiastical freedoms.
Charles's military failure in the First Bishops' War in turn caused a financial and
military crisis for Charles, which caused the end of Personal Rule. Due to his financial
weakness, Charles was forced to call Parliament into session by 1640 in an attempt to
raise funds. While the ruling class grievances with the changes to government and
finance during the Personal Rule period were a contributing factor in the Scottish
Rebellion, it was mainly due to the key issue of religion that Charles was forced to
confront the ruling class in Parliament for the first time in eleven years. In essence, it was
Charles's and Laud's confrontational religious modifications that ended what the Whig
historians refer to as "The Eleven Years of Tyranny".

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 1.5 The “Short” and “Long” Parliaments
Disputes regarding the interpretation of the peace treaty between Charles and the
Church of Scotland led to further conflict. To subdue the Scots, Charles needed more
money; therefore, he took the fateful step of recalling Parliament in April 1640. Although
Charles offered to repeal ship money, and the House of Commons agreed to allow
Charles to raise the funds for war, an impasse was reached when Parliament demanded
the discussion of various abuses of power during the Personal Rule. As both sides refused
to give ground on this matter, Parliament was dissolved in May 1640, less than a month
after it assembled; thus, the Parliament became known as the “Short Parliament”.
In the meantime, Charles attempted to defeat the Scots, but failed miserably. The
humiliating Treaty of Ripon, signed after the end of the Second Bishops’ War in October
1640, required the King to pay the expenses of the Scottish army he had just fought.
Charles took the unusual step of summoning the magnum concilium, the ancient council
of all the Peers of the Realm, who were considered the King’s hereditary counsellors. The
magnum concilium had not been summoned for centuries. On the advice of the peers,
Charles summoned another Parliament, which, in contrast with its predecessor, became
known as the Long Parliament.
The Long Parliament assembled in November 1640 under the leadership of John
Pym, and proved just as difficult for Charles as the Short Parliament. Although the
members of the House of Commons thought of themselves as conservatives defending
the King, Church and Parliamentary government against innovations in religion and the
tyranny of Charles’s advisors, Charles viewed many of them as dangerous rebels trying to
undermine his rule.
In November 1641, the House of Commons passed the Grand Remonstrance,
denouncing all the abuses of power Charles had committed since the beginning of his
reign. The tension was heightened when the Irish rebelled against Protestant English rule
and rumours of Charles’s complicity reached Parliament. An army was required to put
down the rebellion but many members of the House of Commons feared that Charles
might later use it against Parliament itself. The Militia Bill was intended to wrest control
of the army from the King, but Charles refused to agree to it. However, Parliament
decreed The Protestation as an attempt to lessen the conflict.

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 When rumours reached Charles that Parliament intended to impeach his Catholic
Queen, Henrietta Maria, he took drastic action. It was possibly Henrietta who persuaded
him to arrest the five members of the House of Commons who were perceived to be the
most troublesome on charges of high treason, but the MPs had already slipped away by
the time Charles arrived. Charles entered the House of Commons with an armed force on
4 January 1642, but found that his opponents had already escaped. This move was
politically disastrous for Charles. It caused acute embarrassment for the monarch and
essentially triggered the total breakdown of government in England. Afterwards, Charles
could no longer feel safe in London and he began travelling north to raise an army against
Parliament; the Queen, at the same time, went abroad to raise money to pay for it.

1.6 English Civil War

The Civil War started on 26 October 1642 with the inconclusive Battle of Edgehill
and continued indecisively through 1643 and 1644, until the Battle of Naseby tipped the
military balance decisively in favour of Parliament. There followed a great number of
defeats for the Royalists, and then the Siege of Oxford, from which Charles escaped in
April 1646. He put himself into the hands of the Scottish Presbyterian army at Newark,
and was taken to nearby Southwell while his “hosts” decided what to do with him. The
Presbyterians finally arrived at an agreement with Parliament and delivered Charles to
them in 1647. He was imprisoned at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, until cornet
George Joyce took him by force to Newmarket in the name of the New Model Army. At
this time, mutual suspicion had developed between the New Model Army and Parliament,
and Charles was eager to exploit it.
He was then transferred first to Oatlands and then to Hampton Court, where more
involved but fruitless negotiations took place. He was persuaded that it would be in his
best interests to escape - perhaps abroad, perhaps to France, or perhaps to the custody of
Colonel Robert Hammond, Parliamentary Governor of the Isle of Wight. He decided on
the last course, believing Hammond to be sympathetic, and fled on 11
November.Hammond, however, was opposed to Charles, whom he confined in
Carisbrooke Castle.

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 1.7 Trial
Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and there after to Windsor
Castle. In January 1649, in response to Charles’s defiance of Parliament even after defeat,
and his encouraging the second Civil War while in captivity, the House of Commons
passed an Act of Parliament creating a court for Charles’s trial. After the first Civil War,
the parliamentarians still accepted the premise that the King, although wrong, had been
able to justify his fight, and that he would still be entitled to limited powers as King under
a new constitutional settlement. It was now felt that by provoking the second Civil War
even while defeated and in captivity, Charles showed himself incorrigible, dishonourable,
and responsible for unjustifiable bloodshed.
The idea of trying a king was a novel one; previous monarchs had been deposed,
but had never been brought to trial as monarchs. The High Court of Justice established by
the Act consisted of 135 Commissioners (all firm Parliamentarians); the prosecution was
led by Solicitor General John Cook.
His trial on charges of high treason and “other high crimes” began on 20 January
1649, but Charles refused to enter a plea, claiming that no court had jurisdiction over a
monarch. The court, by contrast, proposed that no man is above the law. Over a period of
a week, when Charles was asked to plead three times, he refused. It was then normal
practice to take a refusal to plead as pro confesso: an admission of guilt, which meant that
the prosecution could not call witnesses to its case. However, the trial did hear witnesses.
Fifty-nine of the Commissioners signed Charles’s death warrant, on 29 January 1649.
After the ruling, he was led from St. James’s Palace, where he was confined, to the
Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected in front of the
Banqueting House.

1.8 Execution
This contemporary German print depicts Charles I's decapitation at 12 O'clock at
night because the public were too keen to see Charles decapitated.
His last words were, "I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no
disturbance can be."

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 In an unprecedented gesture, one of the revolutionary leaders, Oliver Cromwell,
allowed the King's head to be sewn back on his body so the family could pay its respects.
Charles was buried in private and at night on 7 February 1649, in the Henry VIII vault
inside St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. The King's son, King Charles II, later
planned an elaborate royal mausoleum, but it was never built. With the monarchy
overthrown, power was assumed by a Council of State, which included Oliver Cromwell,
then Lord General of the Parliamentary Army. The Long Parliament (known by then as
the Rump Parliament) which had been called by Charles I in 1640 continued to exist until
Cromwell forcibly disbanded it in 1653. Cromwell then became Lord Protector of
England, Scotland and Ireland; a monarch in all but name: he was even "invested" on the
royal coronation chair. Upon his death in 1658, Cromwell was briefly succeeded by his
son, Richard Cromwell. Richard Cromwell was an ineffective ruler, and the Long
Parliament was reinstated in 1659. The Long Parliament dissolved itself in 1660, and the
first elections in twenty years led to the election of a Convention Parliament which
restored Charles I's eldest son to the monarchy as Charles II.

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Chapter II. Retirement: Victoria of the United
Kingdom

Victoria
Queen of the United Kingdom, Empress of India
Reign 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Coronation 28 June 1838
Predecessor William IV
Successor Edward VII
Consort Albert, Prince Consort
Issue
Victoria, German Empress, Queen of Prussia and Princess Royal
Edward VII
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein
Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Arthur, Duke of Connaught
Leopold, Duke of Albany
Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
Full name
Alexandrina Victoria
Titles and styles
HM The Queen
HRH Princess Victoria of Kent
Royal house House of Hanover
Royal anthem God Save the Queen
Father Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent
Mother Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Born 24 May 1819(1819-05-24)

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Kensington Palace, London
Baptised 24 June 1819
Kensington Palace, London
Died 22 January 1901 (aged 81)
Osborne House, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom
Burial 2 February 1901
Frogmore, Windsor, Berkshire, United Kingdom

2.1 Early life

At the age of 50, Edward, the Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of
George III, married a widow, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Victoria, the
couple’s only child, was born in Kensington Palace, London on 24 May 1819. At birth
she was fifth in line for the British crown, but her grandfather was elderly, and his
children had failed to produce legitimate issue.
Victoria was christened in the Cupola Room of Kensington Palace on 24 June 1819 by
the Archbishop of Canterbury (Charles Manners-Sutton). Although christened
Alexandrina Victoria - and from birth formally styled Her Royal Highness Princess
Victoria of Kent - Victoria was called Drina within the family. She was taught German,
English, Italian, Greek, Chinese, and French, arithmetic, music and her favourite subject,
history.
Victoria’s father died of after a brief illness, just eight months after she was born.
Her grandfather, King George III, died six days later. Her uncle, the Prince of Wales,
inherited the Crown, becoming King George IV, but he too died childless when Victoria
was only 11. The crown now passed to his brother, the Duke of Clarence and St
Andrews, who became King William IV.

2.2 Heiress to the Throne

King George III’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales and future King George IV, had
only one child, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales. When she died in 1817 the

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remaining unmarried sons of King George III scrambled to marry and father children to
guarantee the line of succession.
Although William was the father of ten illegitimate children by his mistress, the actress
Dorothy Jordan, he had no surviving legitimate children. As a result, the young Princess
Victoria, his niece, became heiress presumptive.

Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Princess Victoria met her future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,
when she was just 16 years old in 1836. But it was not until a second meeting in 1839
that she said of him, “ …dear Albert… He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so
amiable too. He has besides, the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance
you can possibly see.”Prince Albert was Victoria’s first cousin; his father was her
mother’s brother, Ernst. As a monarch, Victoria had to propose to him. Their marriage
proved to be very happy.

2.3 Early reign

Accession to the Throne
On 24 May 1837 Victoria turned 18, meaning that a regency was no longer
necessary. On 20 June 1837, Victoria was awakened by her mother to find that William
IV had died from heart failure at the age of 71. Victoria was now Queen of the United
Kingdom. Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838.
At the time of her accession, the government was controlled by the Whig Party,
which had been in power, except for brief intervals, since 1830. The Whig Prime
Minister, Lord Melbourne, at once became a powerful influence in the life of the
politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice. However, the Melbourne
ministry would not stay in power for long; it was growing unpopular and, moreover,
faced considerable difficulty in governing the British colonies. In 1839 Lord Melbourne
resigned.
Victoria's principal adviser was her uncle King Leopold I of Belgium (her mother's
brother, and the widower of Princess Charlotte). The Queen then commissioned Sir

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Robert Peel, a Tory, to form a new ministry, but was faced with a crisis known as the
Bedchamber Crisis. At the time, it was customary for appointments to the Royal
Household to be based on the patronage system (that is, for the Prime Minister to appoint
members of the Royal Household on the basis of their party loyalties). Many of the
Queen's Ladies of the Bedchamber were wives of Whigs, but Sir Robert Peel expected to
replace them with wives of Tories. Victoria strongly objected to the removal of these
ladies, whom she regarded as close friends rather than as members of a ceremonial
institution. Sir Robert Peel felt that he could not govern under the restrictions imposed by
the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to
office.

Marriage and assassination attempts

The Queen married her first cousin, Prince Albert, on 10 February 1840, in the
Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace, London. Albert became not only the Queen's
companion, but also an important political advisor, replacing Lord Melbourne as the
dominant figure in the first half of her life.
During Victoria's first pregnancy, eighteen-year old Edward Oxford attempted to
assassinate the Queen while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert in London.
Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed. He was tried for high treason, but was
acquitted on the grounds of insanity. The shooting had no effect on the Queen's health or
on her pregnancy and the first of the royal couple's nine children, named Victoria, was
born on 21 November 1840.
Two further attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria occurred in May and July 1842.

2.4 Early Victorian politics and further

assassination attempts
Peel's ministry soon faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many
Tories - by then known also as Conservatives - were opposed to the repeal, but some
Tories (the "Peelites") and most Whigs supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the
repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell. Russell's ministry,

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though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen. Particularly offensive to Victoria was the
Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the
Prime Minister, or the Queen.
In 1849, Victoria lodged a complaint with Lord John Russell, claiming that
Palmerston had sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge. She
repeated her remonstrance in 1850, but to no avail. It was only in 1851 that Lord
Palmerston was removed from office; he had on that occasion announced the British
government's approval for President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without
prior consultation of the Prime Minister.
The period during which Russell was prime minister also proved personally
distressing to Queen Victoria. In 1849, an unemployed and disgruntled Irishman named
William Hamilton attempted to alarm the Queen by firing a powder-filled pistol as her
carriage passed along Constitution Hill, London. Hamilton was charged under the 1842
act; he pleaded guilty and received the maximum sentence of seven years of penal
transportation.

2.5 Ireland
The young Queen Victoria fell in love with Ireland, choosing to holiday in
Killarney in Kerry. Her love of the island was matched by initial Irish warmth towards
the young Queen. In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight that over four years cost the
lives of over one million Irish people and saw the emigration of another million. In
response to what came to be called the Irish Potato Famine, the Queen personally donated
2000 pounds sterling to the starving Irish people.
The policies of her minister Lord John Russell were often blamed for exacerbating
the severity of the famine, killing a million Irishmen, which adversely affected the
Queen’s popularity in Ireland.
Victoria was a strong supporter of the Irish. Victoria’s first official visit to Ireland,
in 1849, was specifically arranged by Lord Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the
head of the British administration, to try both to draw attention off the famine and also to
alert British politicians through the Queen’s presence to the seriousness of the crisis in
Ireland. Despite the negative impact of the famine on the Queen’s popularity she

17
remained popular enough for nationalists at party meetings to finish by singing God Save
the Queen.
By the 1870s and 1880s the monarchy’s appeal in Ireland had diminished
substantially, partly because Victoria refused to visit Ireland in protest at the Dublin
Corporation’s decision not to congratulate her son, the Prince of Wales on both his
marriage to Princess Alexandra of Denmark and on the birth of the royal couple’s oldest
son, Prince Albert Victor.
Victoria refused repeated pressure from a number of prime ministers, lords
lieutenant and even members of the Royal Family, to establish a royal residence in
Ireland.
Victoria paid her last visit to Ireland in 1900, when she came to appeal to Irishmen
to join the British Army and fight in the Second Boer War. Nationalist opposition to her
visit was spearheaded by Arthur Griffith, who established an organisation to unite the
opposition.

2.6 Widowhood
Albert, the Prince Consort, died of typhoid fever on 14 December 1861 due to the
primitive sanitary conditions of Windsor Castle. His death devastated Victoria,who
entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided
public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion
earned her the name "Widow of Windsor". She blamed her son Edward, the Prince of
Wales, for his father's death, since news of the Prince's poor conduct had come to his
father in November, leading Prince Albert to travel to Cambridge to confront his son.
Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public greatly diminished the popularity of the
monarchy, and even encouraged the growth of the republican movement. Although she
did undertake her official government duties, she chose to remain secluded in her royal
residences, Balmoral in Scotland, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and Windsor
Castle. During this time, one of the most important pieces of legislation of the nineteenth
century — the Reform Act 1867 — was passed by Parliament. Lord Palmerston was
vigorously opposed to electoral reform, but his ministry ended upon his death in 1865. He

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was followed by Earl Russell (the former Lord John Russell), and afterwards by Lord
Derby, during whose ministry the Reform Act was passed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was a staunch supporter of the expansion and
preservation of the British Empire. He introduced the Royal Titles Act 1876 which
created Queen Victoria Empress of India, raising her from queen to empress, the same
level as the German Emperor and the Russian Tsar for the purposes of protocol.

2.7 Later years

Diamond Jubilee
On 22 September 1896, Victoria surpassed George III as the longest reigning
monarch in English, Scottish, and British history. The Queen requested all special public
celebrations of the event to be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee.
The Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, proposed that the Diamond Jubilee be made
a festival of the British Empire.
The Prime Ministers of all the self-governing dominions and colonies were invited. The
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee procession included troops from every British colony and
dominion, together with soldiers sent by Indian Princes and Chiefs as a mark of respect to
Victoria, the Empress of India. The Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion marked
by great outpourings of affection for the septuagenarian Queen. A service of thanksgiving
was held outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. Queen Victoria sat in her carriage throughout the
service. Queen Victoria wore her usual black mourning dress trimmed with white lace.

Death
Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood Victoria spent
Christmas at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She died there from a cerebral
haemorrhage on 22 January 1901, at the age of 81. At her deathbed she was attended by
her son, the future King, and her oldest grandson, German Emperor William II. As she
had wished, her own sons lifted her into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and
her wedding veil. Her funeral was held on 2 February, and after two days of lying-in-
state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor

19
Great Park. Since Victoria disliked black funerals, London was instead festooned in
purple and white.Victoria had reigned for a total of 63 years, seven months and two days
—the longest of any British monarch.

2.8 Legacy
Queen Victoria's reign marked the gradual establishment of modern constitutional
monarchy. A series of legal reforms saw the House of Commons' power increase, at the
expense of the House of Lords and the monarchy, with the monarch's role becoming
gradually more symbolic. Since Victoria's reign the monarch has had only, in Walter
Bagehot's words, "the right to be consulted, the right to advise, and the right to warn".
As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis
on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals
that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had
discredited the monarchy. Victoria's reign created for Britain the concept of the 'family
monarchy' with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify.
Internationally Victoria was a major figure, not just in image or in terms of
Britain's influence through the empire, but also because of family links throughout
Europe's royal families, earning her the affectionate nickname "the grandmother of
Europe". For example, three of the main monarchs with countries involved in the First
World War on the opposing side were either grandchildren of Victoria's or married to a
grandchild of hers. Eight of Victoria's nine children married members of European royal
families, and the other, Princess Louise, married the Marquis of Lorne, a future
Governor-General of Canada.

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Chapter III. Abdication: Edward VIII of the
United Kingdom
Edward VIII
King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British
Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India
Reign 20 January – 11 December 1936
Predecessor George V
Successor George VI
Spouse Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (post-abdication)
Full name
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David
Titles and styles
HRH The Duke of Windsor
HM The King
HRH The Prince of Wales
HRH The Duke of Cornwall
HRH Prince Edward of Wales
HRH Prince Edward of Cornwall and York
HRH Prince Edward of York
HH Prince Edward of York
Royal house House of Windsor
Royal anthem God Save the King
Father George V
Mother Mary of Teck
Born 23 June 1894(1894-06-23)
White Lodge, Richmond, London, England
Baptised 16 July, 1894
White Lodge, Richmond, London, England
Died 28 May 1972 (aged 77)
Paris, France

21
Burial 5 June, 1972
Frogmore, Berkshire, England

3.1 Early life

Edward VIII was born on 23 June 1894, at White Lodge, Richmond, Surrey,
England. He was the eldest son of The Duke of York (later King George V), and The
Duchess of York (formerly Princess Victoria Mary of Teck). His father was the second
son of The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and The Princess of Wales (formerly
Princess Alexandra of Denmark). His mother was the eldest daughter of The Duke of
Teck and The Duchess of Teck (formerly Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge). As a
great grandson of Queen Victoria in the male line, Edward was styled His Highness
Prince Edward of York at his birth.
He was baptised in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894, by
Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury.Edward VIII was named after his late
uncle, who was known to his family as “Eddy” or Edward, and his great-grandfather
King Christian IX of Denmark. The name Albert was included at the behest of Queen
Victoria. His last four names – George, Andrew, Patrick and David – came from the
Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The Prince was nevertheless, for
the rest of his life, known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David.
Edward’s parents, The Duke and Duchess of York, were often removed from their
children’s upbringing, like other upper-class English parents of the day. His father,
though a harsh disciplinarian, was demonstrably affectionate and his mother displayed a
frolicksome side when dealing with her children that belies her austere public image. She
was amused by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French master,and
encouraged them to confide matters in her which it would have provoked his father to
know.

3.2 Prince of Wales

Edward automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay when his
father, George V, ascended the throne on 6 May 1910. The new King created him Prince

22
of Wales and Earl of Chester on 23 June 1910, and officially invested him as such in a
special ceremony at Caernarfon Castle on 13 July 1911. For the first time since 1616 (and
the evidence for that ceremony is thin) this investiture took place in Wales at the
instigation of the Welsh politician David Lloyd George, Constable of the Castle, who at
that time held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal
government.Lloyd George invented a rather fanciful ceremonial which took the form of a
Welsh pageant, coaching the prince to utter some sentences in Welsh.

Military career
When the First World War (1914–1918) broke out, Edward had reached the
minimum age for active service and was keen to participate. He had joined the army,
serving with the Grenadier Guards, in June 1914, and although Edward was willing to
serve on the front lines, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, refused to allow
it, citing the immense harm that the capture of the heir to the throne would cause.
Despite this, Edward witnessed trench warfare firsthand and attempted to visit the
front line as often as he could, leading to his award of the Military Cross in 1916. His role
in the war, although limited, led to his great popularity among veterans of the conflict.As
of 1911 he was also a Midshipman in the Royal Navy, making Lieutenant in 1913.
Edward undertook his first military flight in 1918 and later gained his pilot's licence.On
his succession he became Admiral of the Fleet in the Navy, Field Marshal in the Army,
and Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

Romances
In 1930, King George V gave Edward a home, Fort Belvedere, near Sunningdale in
Berkshire. There Edward had relationships with a series of married women including
half-British half-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward, American film actress
Mildred Harris and Lady Furness (born Thelma Morgan) an American woman of part-
Chilean ancestry, who introduced the Prince to fellow American Wallis Simpson. Mrs.
Simpson had divorced her first husband in 1927 and subsequently married Ernest
Simpson, a half-British half-American businessman. Mrs. Simpson and the Prince of
Wales, it is generally accepted, became lovers while Lady Furness travelled abroad,

23
though Edward adamantly insisted to his father the King that he was not intimate with her
and that it was not appropriate to describe her as his mistress.
King George V was disappointed in Edward's failure to settle down in life and
disgusted by his many affairs with married women. He was reluctant to see Edward
inherit the Crown. Edward's relationship with Mrs. Simpson further weakened his poor
relationship with his father. Although the King and Queen met Mrs. Simpson at
Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later refused to receive her. But Edward had now fallen
in love with Wallis and the couple grew ever closer.
Edward's affair with the American divorced led to such grave concern that the
couple was followed by members of the Metropolitan police Special Branch, to examine
in secret the nature of their relationship.

3.3Reign
King George V died on 20 January 1936, and Edward ascended the throne as King
Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his
own accession to the throne from a window of St. James’s Palace in the company of the
then still-married Mrs. Simpson. It was also at this time that Edward VIII became the first
monarch of the Commonwealth Realms to fly in an aeroplane, when he flew from
Sandringham to London for his Accession Council.
Edward caused unease in government circles with actions that were interpreted as
interference in political matters. On visiting the depressed coal mining villages in South
Wales the King’s observation that “something must be done” for the unemployed coal
miners was seen as directly critical of the Government, though it has never been clear
whether the King had anything in particular in mind.
On 16 July 1936 an attempt was made on the King’s life. An Irish malcontent,
Jerome Brannigan (otherwise known as George Andrew McMahon) produced a loaded
revolver as the King rode on horseback at Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace.
Police spotted the gun and pounced on him; he was quickly arrested. At Brannigan’s trial,
he alleged that “a foreign power” had approached him to kill Edward. The court sent him
to jail for a year.

24
 By October it was becoming clear that the new King planned to marry Mrs.
Simpson, especially when divorce proceedings between Mr. and Mrs. Simpson were
brought at Ipswich Crown Court. Preparations for all contingencies were made, including
the prospect of the coronation of King Edward and Queen Wallis. Because of the
religious implications of any marriage, plans were made to hold a secular coronation
ceremony not in the traditional religious location, Westminster Abbey, but in the
Banqueting House in Whitehall.

3.4 Abdication
On 16 November 1936, Edward invited Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to
Buckingham Palace and expressed his desire to marry Wallis Simpson when she became
free to re-marry. Baldwin informed the King that his subjects would deem the marriage
morally unacceptable, largely because remarriage after divorce was opposed by the
Church, and the people would not tolerate Wallis as Queen.
Edward proposed an alternative solution of a morganatic marriage, in which
Edward would remain King but Wallis would not become Queen. She would enjoy some
lesser title instead, and any children they might have would not inherit the throne. This
too was rejected by the British Cabinet as well as other Dominion governments,whose
views were sought pursuant to the Statute of Westminster 1931.
The King informed Baldwin that he would abdicate if he could not marry her.
Baldwin then presented Edward with three choices: give up the idea of marriage; marry
Mrs. Simpson against his ministers’ wishes; or abdicate.It was clear that Edward was not
prepared to give up Mrs. Simpson. By marrying against the advice of his ministers, he
would cause the government to resign, prompting a constitutional crisis. He chose to
abdicate.
Edward duly signed the instruments of abdication at Fort Belvedere on 10
December 1936, in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke of
Gloucester and The Duke of Kent. The next day, he performed his last act as King when
he gave royal assent to His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, which applied
to the United Kingdom. The provisions of the Statute of Westminster required that the

25
parliaments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions each pass a separate Act allowing
the abdication.
On the night of 11 December 1936, Edward, now reverted to the title of Prince Edward,
made a broadcast to the nation and the Empire, explaining his decision to abdicate. He
famously said, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and
to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the
woman I love.”
After the broadcast, Edward departed the United Kingdom for Austria, though he
was unable to join Mrs. Simpson until her divorce became absolute, several months
later.His brother, Prince Albert, Duke of York succeeded to the throne as George VI, with
his elder daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, first in the line of succession, as the heiress
presumptive.

3.5 Duke of Windsor

On 12 December 1936, at his Accession Privy Council, George VI announced he
was to make his brother Duke of Windsor, and also re-admit him to the highest degrees
of the various British Orders of Knighthood. He wanted this to be the first act of his
reign, although the formal documents were not signed until 8 March of the following
year. But during the interim, Edward was universally known as the Duke of Windsor.
The King's decision to create Edward a royal duke ensured that he could neither stand for
election to the House of Commons nor speak on political subjects in the House of Lords.
However, letters patent dated 27 May 1937, which re-conferred upon the Duke of
Windsor the "title, style, or attribute of Royal Highness", specifically stated that "his wife
and descendants, if any, shall not hold said title or attribute". The Duke of Windsor
married Mrs. Simpson, who had changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, in a
private ceremony on 3 June 1937, at Chateau de Candé, near Tours, Indre-et-Loire,
France. The new king, George VI, absolutely forbade members of the Royal Family to
attend—Edward had particularly wanted Prince Henry and George (the Dukes of
Gloucester and Kent) and Lord Louis Mountbatten (Earl Mountbatten of Burma after
1947) to be there—and this continued for many years to rankle with the now ducal

26
couple, notwithstanding the obvious awkwardnesses involved should royalty have been
on hand because of the King's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The denial of the style "HRH" to the Duchess of Windsor caused conflict, as did
the financial settlement—the government declined to include the Duke or the Duchess on
the Civil List and the Duke's allowance was paid personally by the King. But the Duke
had compromised his position with the King by concealing the extent of his financial
worth when they informally agreed on the amount of the sinecure the King would pay.
Edward's worth had accumulated from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall paid to
him as Prince of Wales and ordinarily at the disposal of an incoming king. This led to
strained relations between the Duke of Windsor and the rest of the Royal Family for
decades. Edward became embittered against his own mother.

3.6 Later life

The couple returned once again to France to live at 4 rue du Champ d'Entraînement
on the Neuilly-sur-Seine side of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, where the City of Paris
provided him with a house and the French government exempted him from income tax.
Effectively taking on the role of minor celebrities, the couple were for a time in the 1950s
and 1960s regarded as part of café society. They hosted parties and shuttled between
Paris and New York; many of those who met the Windsors socially, including Gore
Vidal, reported on the vacuity of the Duke's conversation.
In the late 1960s, the Duke's health deteriorated. In 1972, Queen Elizabeth visited
the Windsors while on a state visit to France, however only the Duchess appeared with
the Royal party for a photocall. On 28 May of that year the Duke, who was a smoker
from an early age, died at his home in Paris from throat cancer. His body was returned to
Britain, lying in state at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle; an unexpectedly large
number of people filed by the coffin. The funeral service was held in the chapel on 5 June
in the presence of the Queen, the royal family, and the Duchess of Windsor, and the
coffin was buried in the Royal Burial Grounds behind the Royal Mausoleum of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert at Frogmore. Increasingly senile and frail, the Duchess died 14
years later, and was buried alongside her husband simply as "Wallis, Duchess of
Windsor".

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Chapter IV. Tragedy: Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana
Princess of Wales
Spouse Charles, Prince of Wales
(1981 – 1996)
Issue
Prince William of Wales
Prince Henry of Wales
Full name
Diana Frances Spencer
Titles and styles
Diana, Princess of Wales
HRH The Princess of Wales
Lady Diana Spencer
The Hon Diana Spencer
Royal house House of Windsor
Father Edward, Earl Spencer
Mother Frances Shand Kydd
Born 1 July 1961(1961-07-01)
Park House, Sandringham
Baptised St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham
Died 31 August 1997 (aged 36)
Paris, France
Burial Althorp, Northamptonshire

4.1 Early life

Diana Frances Spencer was the youngest daughter of Edward John Spencer,
Viscount Althorp, later John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, and his first wife, Frances
Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (formerly the Honourable Frances Burke Roche). She was
born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England and baptised there at St. Mary

28
Magdalene Church by the Rt. Rev. Percy Herbert (rector of the church and former Bishop
of Norwich and Blackburn). She was the third child to the couple, her four siblings being;
The Lady Sarah Spencer (born 19 March 1955), The Lady Jane Spencer (born 11
February 1957), The Honourable John Spencer (born and died 12 January 1960), and
Charles Spencer (born 20 May 1964).
During her parents’ acrimonious divorce in 1969, (over Lady Althorp’s affair with
wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd) Diana’s mother took her and her younger brother to
live in an apartment in London’s Knightsbridge, where Diana attended a local day school.
That Christmas the Spencer children went to celebrate with their father and he
subsequently refused to allow them to return to London at their mother. Lady Althorp
sued for custody of her children, but Lady Althorp’s mother’s testimony against her
daughter during the trial contributed to the court’s decision to award custody of Diana
and her brother to their father. On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer,
7th Earl Spencer in 1975, Diana’s father became the 8th Earl Spencer, at which time she
became Lady Diana Spencer and moved from her childhood home at Park House to her
family’s sixteenth-century ancestral home of Althorp.
In 1976 Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of
romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, after being named as the “other party” in the Earl and
Viscountess Althorp’s divorce. During this time Diana travelled up and down the
country, living between her parents’ homes - with her father at the Spencer seat in
Northamptonshire, and with her mother, who had moved to the Island of Seil of the west
coast of Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her new stepmother.
And for that they dubbed her “acid Raine”.

4.2 Royal descent

Diana was born into an aristocratic family of royal Stuart descent.On her mother’s
side, Diana had Irish, Scottish, English, and American ancestry. Her great-grandmother
was the New York heiress Frances Work. On her father’s side, she was a descendant of
King Charles II of England through four illegitimate sons.

29
 The Spencers had been close to the British Royal Family for centuries, rising in
royal favour during the 1600s. Diana’s maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a
long-time friend and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
In August 2007, the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston,
Massachusetts, published Richard K. Evans’s The Ancestry of Diana, Princess of Wales,
for Twelve Generations, a comprehensive account of the Princess’s forebears in all lines.

4.3 Education
Diana was first educated at Silfield School in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, then at
Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls' School (later reorganised as the
New School at West Heath, a special school for boys and girls) in Sevenoaks, Kent,
where she was regarded as a poor student, having attempted and failed all of her O-levels
twice.In 1977, at the age of 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin
Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first
met her future husband, who was dating her sister, Lady Sarah. Diana reportedly excelled
in swimming and diving and is said to have longed to be a ballerina but did not study
ballet seriously and she was too tall for such a career.
Once it was clear that she would not earn any formal educational qualifications, Diana
begged her parents to allow her to move to London, a request granted before she was
seventeen. An apartment was purchased for her at Coleherne Court in the Earls Court
area, and she lived there until 1981 with three flatmates.

4.4 Marriage
Prince Charles’ love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he
was linked to numerous glamorous and aristocratic women. In his early thirties, he was
under increasing pressure to marry. Legally, the only requirement was that he could not
marry a Roman Catholic; a member of the Church of England was preferred. In order to
gain the approval of his family and their advisers, any potential bride was expected to
have a royal or aristocratic background, be a virgin, as well as be Protestant. Diana met
these qualifications.

30
Engagement and wedding
Their engagement became official February 24, 1981 and they married at St Paul’s
Cathedral on 29 July 1981, watched by a global audience of 28.40 million.

Problems and separation

In the late 1980s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first
suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of
Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the
marriage’s demise. Charles resumed his old, pre-marital affair with Camilla Parker
Bowles, while Diana had an affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt. She later
confirmed the affair with Hewitt in a television interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC
programme Panorama. Charles had confirmed his own affair over a year earlier in a
televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.
Diana was also alleged to have had a relationship with James Gilbey, her telephone
partner in the so-called Squidgygate affair. Another supposed lover was her
detective/bodyguard Barry Mannakee, who was assigned to the Princess’s security detail,
although the Princess adamantly denied a sexual relationship with him. After her
separation from Prince Charles, she was said to have become involved with the married
art dealer Oliver Hoare, to whom she admitted making numerous telephone calls, and
with the rugby player Will Carling. Other men rumoured to have been her lovers, both
before and after her divorce, included the property developer Christopher Whalley, the
banker Philip Waterhouse, the singer Bryan Adams, and John F. Kennedy, Jr.. There is
little evidence to support the idea that her relationships with these men were anything
more than friendships.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9 December 1992, by which
time her relations with some of the Royal Family, excepting the Duchess of York, Sarah
Ferguson, were difficult

31
 Divorce
Their divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.
Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17,000,000 along with a legal
order preventing her from discussing the details.
Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued by Queen
Elizabeth II containing general rules to regulate the titles of people who married into the
Royal Family after divorce. In accordance with those rules, as she was no longer married
to the Prince of Wales, and so had ceased to be a Royal by-marriage, Diana lost the title,
Her Royal Highness and instead was called, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Buckingham Palace stated that Diana was still officially a member of the Royal
Family, since she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne.

4.5 Personal life after divorce

After the divorce, Diana retained her apartment in Kensington Palace, completely
redecorated, and it remained her home until her death. She gave her staff members a pay
rise.
She publicly dated the respected heart surgeon from Pakistan, Hasnat Khan, who
was called “the love of her life”, for almost two years, before Khan ended the relationship
due to cultural differences.She soon after began her relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed,
with whom she was publicly intimate. These details were confirmed by witnesses at her
inquest in November/December 2007.
After her divorce, Diana worked particularly for the Red Cross and campaigned to
rid the world of land mines. Her work was always on a humanitarian rather than a
political level. She was extremely aware of her status as mother of a future King and was
prepared to do anything to prevent harm to her sons. She pursued her own interests in
philanthropy, music, fashion and travel - although she still required royal consent to take
her children on holiday or to represent the UK abroad. Without a holiday or weekend
home, Diana spent most of her time in London, often without her sons, who were with
Prince Charles or at boarding school. She assuaged her loneliness with visits to the gym
and cinema, private charity work, incognito midnight walks through Central London and

32
by compulsively watching her favourite soap operas (EastEnders and Brookside) with a
‘TV dinner’ in the isolation of her apartment.
The alternative ‘court’ she cultivated was sometimes seen as unconventional and
controversial. Included within it were numerous New Age healers and spiritualists, the
feminist empowerment therapist Susie Orbach, well known personalities such as Gianni
Versace, George Michael, Elton John, and Michael Barrymore with whom she would
visit Soho nightclubs, bohemian members of the aristocracy such as Annabel Goldsmith,
university students, several tabloid journalists and Stephen Twigg, nicknamed ‘Rasputin’
for his influence. It was apparently Twigg who helped Diana realise her potential as an
INFP, and introduced her to Jungian theories in general, which she had previously
derided as an interest of her ex-husband.

4.6 Charity work

Starting in the mid- to late 1980s, the Princess of Wales became well known for her
support of several charity projects. This stemmed naturally from her role as Princess of
Wales - she was expected to engage in hospital visitations where she comforted the sick
and in so doing, assumed the patronage of various charitable organisations - and from an
interest in certain illnesses and health-related matters. Owing to Public Relations efforts
in which she agreed to appear as a figurehead, Diana used her influential status to
positively assist the campaign against landmines, a cause which won the Nobel Prizein
1997 in tribute, and with helping to decrease discrimination against victims of AIDS.

4.7 Death
On 31 August 1997, Diana died after a high speed car accident in the Pont d'Alma
road tunnel in Paris along with Dodi Al-Fayed and the acting security manager of the
Hôtel Ritz Paris, Henri Paul, who was instructed to drive the hired Mercedes-Benz
through Paris secretly eluding the paparazzi. Their black 1994 Mercedes-Benz S280
crashed into the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel. The two-lane tunnel was built without
metal barriers between the pillars, so a slight change in vehicle direction could easily

33
result in a head-on collision with a tunnel pillar. None of the four occupants wore
seatbelts.
Blood analysis showed that Henri Paul was illegally intoxicated with alcohol whilst
driving. He drove at high speed in order to evade the pursuing paparazzi. Tests showed
he had consumed amounts of alcohol three times that of the French legal limit. Fayed's
bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, who was in the passenger seat, was closest to the point of
impact and yet he was the only survivor of the crash. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed were
killed instantly, and Diana — unbelted in the back seat- slid forward during the impact
and, having been violently thrown around the interior, "submarined" under the seat in
front of her, suffering massive damage to her heart with subsequent internal bleeding.She
was eventually, after considerable delay, transported by ambulance to the Hôpital Pitié-
Salpêtrière, but on the way she went into cardiac arrest twice. Despite lengthy
resuscitation attempts, including internal cardiac massage, she died at 4 a.m. local time.
Her funeral on 6 September 1997 was broadcast and watched by an estimated 2.5 billion
people worldwide.

Grave
Diana was buried on 6 September 1997. The Prince of Wales, her sons, her mother,
siblings, a close friend, and a clergyman were present. Diana wore a black long sleeved
dress designed by Catherine Walker; she had chosen that particular dress a few weeks
before. Diana was buried with a set of rosary beads in her hands, a gift she received from
Mother Teresa, who died the week after Diana. Her grave is on an island in the grounds
of Althorp Park, her family home.
The original plan was for her to be buried in the Spencer family vault at the local
church in nearby Great Brington, but Diana's brother, Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, said
that he was concerned about public safety and security and the onslaught of visitors that
might overwhelm Great Brington. He decided that he wanted his sister to be buried where
her grave could be easily cared for and visited in privacy by her sons and other relations.
The island is in an ornamental lake known as The Round Oval within Althorp
Park's Pleasure Garden. A path with thirty-six oak trees, marking each year of her life,
leads to the Oval. Four black swans swim in the lake, symbolising sentinels guarding the

34
island. In the water there are several water lilies. White roses and lilies were Diana's
favourite flowers.

Memorials
Immediately after her death, many sites around the world became briefly ad hoc
memorials to Diana, where the public left flowers and other tributes. The biggest was
outside the gates of Kensington Palace.

Conspiracy theories
The death of Diana has been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories,
supported by Mohamed Fayed, whose son died in the accident. Her former father in law,
Prince Philip, seems to be at the heart of most of them but her ex-husband has also been
named, and was questioned by the Metropolitan Police in 2005. Some other theories have
included claims that MI6 or the CIA were involved.
Conspiracy theorists have also claimed that Paul's blood samples were swapped
with blood from someone else - who was drunk — and contended that the driver had not
been drinking on the night Diana died.
Another particular claim, appearing on the internet, has stated that the princess was
battered to death in the back of the ambulance, by assassins disguised as paramedics.
Nonetheless, in 2004 the authorities ordered an independent inquiry by Lord Stevens,
former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and he suggested that the case was "far
more complex than any of us thought" and reported "new forensic evidence" and
witnesses. The French authorities have also decided to reopen the case. Lord Stevens'
report, Operation Paget, was published on December 14, 2006 and dismissed all
allegations of conspiracy as without foundation.

35
 Conclusion

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of
Scotland and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution.
Charles famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England.
He was an advocate of the Divine Right of Kings, and many in England feared that he
was attempting to gain absolute power. Many of his actions, particularly the levying of
taxes without Parliament's consent, caused widespread opposition.
Religious conflicts permeated Charles's reign. He married a Catholic Princess,
Henrietta Maria of France, over the objections of Parliament and public opinion. Many of
Charles's subjects felt this brought the Church of England too close to Roman
Catholicism. Charles’s later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the
Bishops’ Wars that weakened England's government and helped precipitate his downfall.
His last years were marked by the English Civil War, in which he was opposed by
the forces of Parliament, which challenged his attempts to increase his own power, and
by Puritans, who were hostile to his religious policies and Catholic sympathy. Charles
was defeated in both Civil Wars (I 1942 - 1945; II 1948 - 1949) and afterwards was
captured, tried, convicted, and executed for high treason. The monarchy was then
abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England was declared. Charles's
son, Charles II, became King after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the Queen of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first
Empress of India from 1 May 1876, until her death on 22 January 1901. Her reign lasted
63 years and seven months, longer than that of any other British monarch.
Although Victoria ascended the throne at a time when the United Kingdom was
already an established constitutional monarchy in which the king or queen held few
political powers, she still served as a very important symbolic figure of her time. The
Victorian era represented the height of the Industrial Revolution, a period of significant
social, economic, and technological progress in the United Kingdom. Victoria's reign was

36
marked by a great expansion of the British Empire; during this period it reached its
zenith, becoming the foremost global power of the time.
Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; later The
Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972) was King of the United
Kingdom from the death of his father, George V (1910–1936), on 20 January 1936, until
his abdication on 11 December 1936.
As a young man he served in World War I, undertook several foreign tours on
behalf of his father, and was associated with a succession of older married women.
Only months into his reign, Edward forced a constitutional crisis by proposing
marriage to the American divorced Wallis Simpson. Although legally Edward could have
married Mrs. Simpson and remained king, his various prime ministers opposed the
marriage, arguing that the people would never accept her as queen. Edward knew that the
ministry of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin would resign if the marriage went
ahead; this could have dragged the King into a general election thus ruining irreparably
his status as a politically neutral constitutional monarch. Rather than give up Mrs.
Simpson, Edward chose to abdicate, making him the only monarch of Britain, and indeed
any Commonwealth Realm, to have voluntarily relinquished the throne. He is one of the
shortest-reigning monarchs in British history, and was never crowned.
After his abdication he reverted to the style of a son of the sovereign, The Prince
Edward, and was created Duke of Windsor on 8 March 1937.
Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances; born Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August
1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and
Henry (Harry), are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and
fifteen other Commonwealth Realms.
A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles,
Diana remained the focus of near-constant media scrutiny in the United Kingdom and
around the world up to and during her marriage, and after her subsequent divorce. Her
sudden death in a car accident was followed by a spontaneous and prolonged show of
public mourning. Contemporary responses to Diana's life and legacy have been mixed but
a popular fascination with the Princess endures, and conspiracy theories about her death
are currently the subject of an inquest.

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 Appendix

Charles I Portrait by Henrietta Maria (c. 1633) by

Anthony van Dyck, 1636 Sir Anthony van Dyck

This contemporary German print Queen Victoria

depicts Charles I's decapitation.

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Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in a Edward VIII official portrait by
photograph taken in 1854 before John St Helier Lander, 1936
an evening Court.

Left-facing currency portrait of Edward VIII U.S. President Richard Nixon and the
Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1970

Opening of community centre, John Travolta and Diana dancing

Bristol, May 1987 at the White House

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 Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page5.asp

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