Just eighteen when she succeeded her uncle, William IV, she became 
          Queen of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837. On 28 June 1838 she was 
          crowned at Westminster and one of her first acts was to distance 
          herself from her mother and her mother's advisor, Sir John Conroy. 
          Soon it became obvious that she had a clear grasp of constitutional 
          principles and the scope of her own prerogatives. Maintaining constant 
          correspondence with her uncle and mentor, King Leopold I of Belgium, 
          she was devoted to her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. In 1839 
          when Melbourne's government fell and Victoria refused to dismiss the 
          current ladies of the bedchamber, Peel resigned and Melbourne returned 
          until 1841, becoming both prime minister and trusted friend to 
          Victoria. 
              When her two Saxe-Coburg cousins came to England, she fell in love
          with the younger, Prince Albert. Married in 1840, nine children were 
          produced with all surviving. In the early years of her reign she was 
          strongly influenced by her husband with whom she lived and worked in 
          the closest harmony. Consequently, on Albert's death when she was in 
          her early forties, she was so grief-stricken that she withdrew from 
          all public life which made her temporarily unpopular. 
              However, Disraeli then achieved having her acknowledged as Empress 
          of India and this returned her to her subject's favour. Both 
          experienced and shrewd, her political flair brought a powerful 
          influence to bear on the conduct of foreign affairs. This, in turn, 
          was made easier through the marriage alliances of some of her children 
          into foreign dynasties. 
              Although she preferred ministers with conservative principles, 
          such as Melbourne and Disraeli, rather than the more radical, such as 
          Palmerston and Gladstone, in the long run Victoria's judgment of men 
          and events was rarely to be faulted. Partly due to the influence of 
          Prince Albert, she preferred Germany, which was probably the reason 
          later for her son-and-heir's own preference for France. 
              Even though she remained in seclusion for most of her life, she 
          never allowed her heir "Bertie" any involvement in state affairs, and 
          this was no doubt the cause of the numerous misadventures in which, 
          sometimes not of his own doing, he was involved. Had Victoria been 
          unpopular in her early years because of the sad affair of the 
          unmarried lady-in-waiting Flora Hastings (whose flatulence from 
          stomach-cancer made her suspect of being pregnant), Bertie became 
          entangled in divorce-cases and gambling scandals. Yet Victoria always 
          stood by him. 
               Although also fond of her grandson, the German Emperor Wilhelm 
          II; she also considered that "fresh blood" to be needed in her family. 
          Consequently she allowed the Battenberg-marriages for, first, a 
          granddaughter and then her youngest daughter, Beatrice. Partly because 
          of princely alliances being expensive, she had previously allowed her 
          daughter Louise to marry the future Duke of Argyll, and then yet 
          another granddaughter, also another Louise, to marry Alexander Duff 
          whom she made Duke of Fife. 
 

Source: Leo van de Pas