THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON 162 MAP OF THE SEAT OF WAR. PLAN OF SEVASTOPOL FULLY INVESTED BY THE ALLIES 184 200 A POPULAR HISTORY OF ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF VICTORIA. K CHAPTER I. THE ACCESSION. ING WILLIAM IV. was dead (June 20, 1837), and the Princess Victoria, the only child of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George III., became queen of England. This was something more than the close of one royal life and the dawn of a new reign. Without the foundations of society or of the throne being shaken, without the occurrence of any of those dangerous shocks which exhaust and shorten a nation's life, it was the opening of a new era in the career of England. Henceforth the sovereign was to advance freely with the nation in a more liberal and sometimes even a venturesome path. Queen Victoria was to accept simply and frankly the place made for her by her country's progress in consequence of the Reform Bill and the increasing authority of the House of Commons; without relinquishing her rightful share in the government, a share more real and more important than has often been believed, she was never to embarrass the truly sovereign action of the country itself in the conduct of its own affairs. She was destined to become, par excellence, 13 |