"...I enter upon it sadly..."

The following was an entry in the diary of Lord Edward Pelham-Clinton, Master of the Household for Queen Victoria. 

January 21, 1901

The Queen was very bad last night and hope almost given up, but there is a slight rally this morning.  The German Emperor, Prince of Wales, Duke and Duchess of Connaught and Duke of York with Sir Francis Knollys and Holford arrive about 11.15 a.m. from London.  I am at home all morning, feeling very seedy; walk to Osborne Cottage in afternoon.  At 5 p.m. bulletin says – ‘The slight improvement is maintained.’  Sir Robert Barlow M.D. arrives.  Royal dinner of (11).  Household dinner of (15).

*********

(Victoria's death notice in a special edition of the London Gazette.  Photo credit: historyvortex.org)

Lord Edward was with the family at Osborne in 1901 when Victoria began to show signs of failing.  This was unusual for a woman who had enjoyed largely good health for most of her long life.  Her final illness was thought to have begun with the death of her son Alfred from throat and tongue cancer in July 1900.

Alfred was Victoria’s third child to predecease her.  Alice had died of diphtheria in December 1878, on the seventeenth anniversary of Albert’s death.  Leopold had died in March 1884 after a lifetime of health problems stemming from his hemophilia and suspected epilepsy.  Victoria had also survived three of her sons-in-law and several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends, and long-time servants.  And, of course, she had survived her beloved Albert.  Victoria was now coming to the end of her own road.

But it was Alfred’s death that seemed to really make Victoria feel her own mortality.  Shortly after he died, she began complaining more about problems with her sleep, appetite (or lack thereof), and increased pain.  Her servants and attendants noticed Victoria looking thinner, older, and more tired.  Vicky’s continued decline due to cancer – she was now receiving several morphine injections daily just to keep functioning – made Victoria despair that she would soon outlive a fourth child.

“Another year has begun,” the Queen wrote in her journal on the first day of 1901, “and I am feeling so weak and unwell that I enter upon it sadly."  She was able to take short drives with her daughters Beatrice and Helena in the next few days, and on January 13 she was able to get some work done by dictated her work to Helena.  That day, Victoria wrote her last entry in the journal she’d been keeping for seventy years. 

By January 16, Victoria was hardly getting out of bed, although she kept declaring that she must get up and around.  Upon speaking it was clear that her speech and memory were distorted.  It is believed that the Queen had had a small stroke sometime that day or shortly before.  Victoria’s family was summoned.  Even Wilhelm, Vicky’s son and now the German Emperor, decided to make the trip to Britain upon hearing his grandmother had taken a turn for the worse.

Victoria was in and out of consciousness over the next week.  On January 19, a bulletin was issued to the public that announced her illness and break from official business for the time being.  During one of her more lucid moments, Victoria told Louise that she didn’t want to die quite yet, as she had a lot of work still yet to do.  She asked periodically for her dog Turi, and confused her doctor (Sir James Reid) for Bertie.  Beatrice’s son Leopold played his violin to soothe his grandmother’s nerves. 

Most of Wilhelm’s maternal relatives found him egotistical and tiresome; they dreaded his arrival, expected him to create drama at the most inopportune time.  But Wilhelm surprised his aunts, uncles, and cousins, declaring that he simply wanted to say goodbye to his grandmother.  He said he would stay out of Victoria’s room if he aunts and uncles wished, but on January 22, Bertie took his nephew in.  By coincidence, it was Wilhelm and Dr. Reid who were with Victoria when she died at around 6:30 PM that evening. 

All of Victoria’s surviving children and children-in-law (save Vicky, ill in Germany) were nearby when she died.  Arthur and Christian of Schleswig-Holstein were the last to arrive, but got there just before Victoria passed away.  But not everyone got there on time - Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine and her husband Louis of Battenberg arrived at Osborne just after the Queen had passed on. 

A reign of 63 years and seven months, an entire era, and the life of a lady who had seen a great deal in her long life had come to an end.

Please return tomorrow to read the second half of this entry covering Victoria's funeral and the aftermath.