Queen Victoria was a monarch who reigned over Britain for decades, but inside of her bedchamber
inside of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, she would slip in and out of consciousness.
The Queen was 81 when she died on the 22nd January 1901, and she had been ill for some
time.
She was a Queen who oversaw a huge amount of change across her nation, and when she
died it was a huge shock and the royal family could not comprehend what was happening.
There was also no-one alive that had planned a royal funeral before, and because of this
there was some question marks over how to do this and the royal ettiqute.
But for some time Victoria had been in mourning, following the early death off her husband
Prince Albert, but in the moments after her death there was a lot of confusion as to the
late Queen’s wishes.
But Victoria had stipulated what she did not want to happen after her death, but there
was one wish that was not adhered to as Kaiser Wilhelm II insisted on a death mask being
cast of Queen Victoria.
This was not what she wanted.
But what is the story of the haunting death mask of Queen Victoria?
The year 1900 was considered by Queen Victoria her horrible year, as the Boer (Boar) war
had been fought with Britain in Africa, and she was anxious about the ongoing conflict.
But her eldest son the Prince of Wales whilst he was travelling through Belgium had been
shot by a young boy who was protesting against the war.
But her eldest daughter Vicky who was the Dowager Empress of Germany had also been diagnosed
with an aggressive form of breast cancer that was quickly spreading to other parts of her
body.
She was inside a castle in Germany in a lot of pain which made Victoria even more heartbroken.
But then in August 1900, Bictoria’s favourite son Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh died and
he was a heavy smoker who was suffering from throat cancer.
Victoria would write in her diary, ‘Oh god, my poor darling Affie gone too!
My third grown up child.
It is hard at 81.’
More bad news came when her beloved grandson Prince Christian Victoria the son of Princess
Helena died, as he was suffering from a fever whilst he was with the British Army in South
Africa.
Her closest friends were also dying, and Victoria by the end of 1900 was at her wits end.
She was also not very well, and she had lost a lot of weight as she was not eating, and
she was also bound to a wheelchair.
Victoria also had bouts of confusion, and she had reigned for so long that no one knew
any different.
In her diary she wrote, ‘Another year begun, I am feeling so weak and unwell, that I enter
upon it sadly.’
Victoria was inside of Osborne House her favourite residence, but as her health faltered the
members of the royal family were summoned to her bedside.
The doctors had to deal with the family who did not know what was happening, and they
could not accept that Victoria was dying and approaching her final days.
She was delirious, but Princess Helena and Beatrice could nor accept their mother was
dying and they tried to be as normal as possible.
But some members of the royal family saw the summons to the residence as an inconvenience,
and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany Victoria’s grandson had to cancel large scale celebrations
at the time to come to the Isle of Wight.
But he knew the scale of the situation.
The British newspapers and tabloids would get wind of the news that the Queen was ill,
but inside of the house Victoria was going down hill quickly.
She would have times where she would rally, and she would say ‘I would like to live
a little longer, as I have a few things to settle.’
But from the 17th January 1901, the Queen experienced a number of serious strokes and
further members of the royal family were summoned.
Government business came to a pause, as she could not perform her duties, and inside of
Osborne House there were a huge number of guests.
Inside of Victoria’s bedroom, there was the Bishop of Winchester and also another
priest who were there to sing hymns and chant prayers for her, and Kaiser Wilhelm II would
sit there for hours by her side.
She was reassured by her doctors, but the state Victoria was in was distressing for
the royal family, and everyone was crying.
Then it was time for each son, daughter and grandchild one by one to see the Queen one
final time and to bid her farewell.
At half past 6 in the evening of the 22nd January 1901, Queen Victoria died at the age
of 81 inside of her bedroom in Osborne House.
The news of her death came out before the new King Edward VII had even accepted the
crown properly, and news of her death spread quickly around the world and newspapers printed
special editions.
The Bells of St Paul’s cathedral tolled across London and people wore black with shop
windows covered in mourning cloth.
But there was panic in the royal family as they did not know how to plan a full military
state funeral.
But she would instruct her doctors to place a number of secret items inside of her coffin,
however one of the specific instructions that Victoria left for her death is that she did
not want to be embalmed, and she did not also want a death mask casting of her face in her
final moments.
The embalming process would have helped her remains stave off decay for some time, however
the death mask was a common thing for monarchs and important European figures to have cast
of their faces following their deaths.
But it was known that Victoria had a sincere disdain for death masks and their practice,
and because of this she banned any such mask being cast of her face in her death.
It was not the most flattering image of the Queen and she wanted her subjects to remember
her as the powerful Empress of India, not a withering away old lady who was suffering.
But the issues with the planning of her funeral and the infighting around this seemed to allow
Kaiser Wilhelm II to order a death mask to be cast of his grandmother.
The Earl Marshal and the Lord Chamberlain were arguing as to who should take charge
of the proceedings.
The Earl Marshal is the royal officer in charge of organising royal ceremonies and processions,
with the chamberlain being in charge of the royal household.
These could not decide on who would take authority, and also to make things worse the King’s
household refused to take over responsibility until Queen Victoria had been buried.
The Accession council was hastily gathered and the Lord Mayor had to be removed from
this, and it was a shambles.
Death Masks before were cast immediately after death as it would help those who made effigies
and tombs’ jobs a lot easier as they could use this for their sculptures.
But as mentioned Victoria did not want one of these, but at some point following her
death whilst still at Osborne House, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the death mask to be cast
of Victoria’s face.
This would have been done in the moments following her death before she was placed inside of
the coffin along with the artefacts requested by the Queen.
But because of the dislike Victoria had, the casting of the death mask upset many members
of the royal family as they believed that Victoria’s remains and wishes were being
violated by the powerful Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The mask that was cast was done so by the royal physicians, and it shows a very unflattering
and sick image of the Queen.
Her eyes are closed tightly shut, with her lips pursed together and she does not look
like she would want to be remembered in this way.
Why the Kaiser wanted this casting it’s not known, he may have wanted to take it back
to Germany as a way of remembering his grandmother, or he may have ordered this as a way of rubbing
up his relatives, in the same way he would when the First World War would break out years
later.
But the calamities continued with regards to Victoria’s funeral and the preparations
for her death, as the royal undertaker had forgotten the coffin when he came to the Isle
of Wight.
This meant that a local carpenter had to make the box that the Queen would be buried inside
of.
But the funeral procession was huge in it’s scale and her coffin would cross the Solent
flanked by battleships and the best ships of the Royal Navy who fired their guns as
the small yacht the Alberta passed by carrying the Queen’s coffin.
The Queen eventually was taken to St Georges’ Chapel inside Windsor Castle for her funeral,
and even her funeral was without calamity.
The front of the procession marched off too early and it could not be stopped, and the
gun carriage was then dragged towards the chapel by hand by sailors.
The service itself was without chaos as two Archbishops arrived an hour too early, and
guests were practically dragged from their seats to spread them out to give the impression
that the church was fuller.
But Queen Victoria’s death mask was a haunting and shocking image of the queen in her final
moments.
For someone who had reigned for so long and who had overseen so much change, she did not
want to be remembered with a plaster cast of her in face in her dying moments.
But the request was granted when Kaiser Wilhelm asked for a mask to be taken despite the fact
it upset a number of the royals.
They did not approve of Victoria’s final wishes not being adhered to, and they were
shocked that this went forward.
Victoria herself was a Queen who would be very image conscious, and she was keen not
to be remembered in this way.
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