As a reader, it is so frustrating to have a stack of books that I've been looking forward to reading only to discover that they are all duds. So after a week of furiously flipping through pages of books in a desperate attempt to fall in love with the characters and get sucked into their stories, I returned to the library for a fresh crop. It wasn't my intention to pick up a novel about British Royalty. But apparently the Royal Wedding hype must have been speaking to me because I picked up Becoming Queen Victoria on the day of William and Kate's wedding.
Actually, this book is not just the biography of Queen Victoria; but it is also about her cousin, Princess Charlotte ~ the would-be queen had she not died in child birth. I found Princess Charlotte's story so much more interesting than that of the queen's. Charlotte's upbringing was drastically different from that of Victoria's. Locked away from the public eye and provided with very little education, Charlotte was never properly prepared for her role as future Sovereign. The royal family at the time, to put it lightly, was a bit crazy. One has to wonder how a country can maintain its dignity and power when it has not just one mentally ill king bound in straight jacket but his successor as well. Add philandering, drunk dukes chasing women from one brothel to the next all while the king's daughters are forced to live a spinster's life by keeping them locked in the palace and it's a wonder the country even survived. Then when the beloved Charlotte dies, a sudden scramble begins for these 40 - 50 something year old princes/dukes to marry and produce the next heir to the throne.
Thus, was born Victoria, daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Victoria, Duchess of Kent. Unlike her cousin Charlotte, Victoria's manipulative, deceiving mother pulled every string she could to provide Victoria with the best education and preparation for her role as future queen; and she knew she had to work fast. With the death of her father a year after she was born and with an aging, ill uncle as Sovereign ruler, it was likely that Victoria would take the throne at an early age. She became Queen of England when she was only 18 years old.
I was a little worried that when I started this book that it would read like a history book and provide me with an endless list of dates for wars, battles, and signed peace treaties; but it read more like a story. I was surprised to learn that both Kings George III and IV suffered from mental illness and that George III's sons were so frivolous with their habits. It made me wonder what would have happened had Princess Charlotte survived and become queen. How would Britain's history have been changed, especially since her upbringing was so drastically different than Victoria's? It was certainly an entertaining read, but not something that left me enthralled.
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