Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India

Woken early on the morning of the 20th of June, 1837, a month after her eighteenth birthday, to receive the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Charnberlain and four other gentlemen from Windsor, Princess Victoria greeted them in a white nightgown and shawl, and her feet in slippers. After the announcement was made that she was now Queen, the first words spoken by the young Queen were to the Archbishop of Canterbury: "I beg your Grace to pray for me!" They knelt down together, and so with prayer to God the new reign was inaugurated.

Her first Privy Council was summoned for 11.00 a.m., princes, peers and high officers of the State wondering how the royal 'girl' would demean herself. England had seen other women mount the throne - Mary was 37, Elizabeth 25 and Anne 38. Victoria was only just 18. She read the speech Lord Melbourne had prepared for her and passed through the long ordeal of a multitude of men swearing allegiance and kissing her hand. This she did with calm simplicity and dignity.

Artist Sir Davld Wilkie wrote "She is eminently beautiful, her features nicely formed, her skin smooth, her hair worn close to her face in a most simple way; glossy and clean looking. Her manner, though trained to act the Sovereign, is yet simple and natural. She has all the decision, thought and self possession of a queen of older years."

On the following day when the ceremony of the Proclamation took place, the Queen passed through the streets crowded with her subjects to St. James's Palace, where according to custom she had to make her appearance at a certain window. In an atmosphere of great pageantry the Garter King-at-Arms read the Proclamation, announcing the accession of Queen Alexandrina Victoria to the throne of these realms - "to whom we acknowledge all faith, and constant obedience, with all humble and hearty affection, beseeching God, by whom kings and queens do reign, to bless the royal Princess Alexandrina Victoria with long and happy years to reign. God Save the Queen!"

Then the band struck up the National Anthem, guns were fired in the Park close by, and answered by the guns at the Tower, and the acclamations in the Palace Court were taken up by the thousands outside till it seemed as if a great thrill of joy spread over London and thence over all the land at the accession of the Maiden Queen.

On the 17th of July the Queen went to sit for the first tirne upon the throne of her ancestors in the House of Lords, and to read her speech proroguing Parliament. The noted actress, Fanny Kemble, was present and describes the Queen thus: "The Queen was not handsome, but very pretty, and the singularity of her great position lent a sentimental and poetical charm to her youthful face and figure. The serene, serious sweetness of her candid brow and clear soft eyes gave dignity to the girlish countenance, while the want of height only added to the effect of extreme youth of the round but slender person, and gracefully moulded hands and arms. The Queen's ......... enunciation was as perfect as the intonation was melodious, and I think it is impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than that of the Queen's English by the English Queen."

In her lineage Queen Victoria represented nearly the whole past Sovereignty of the land. The blood of Cerdic, the first Saxon King, and of William the Conqueror, flowed in her veins. She was born on 24th May, 1819, crowned at Westminster in 1838, and died on 22nd January, 1901, aged 81 years.

On February 4, 1840, Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whom she dearly loved. He was a man of innate tact and came to share the growing popularity of the Queen. However, the year 1861 was a year of mourning and sadness on account of the death of the Prince Consort, "Albert the Good". Never in the history of the nation had the death of a royal prince caused such deep and universal grief. Her deep grief over her loss led for a time to the Queen's virtual withdrawal from public life, almost until the celebration of the Jubilee, in 1887. Her Diamond Jubilee in 1896, however, was celebrated with great public enthusiasm.

Queen Victoria's long reign of 63 years covers a most important period in British history, including as it does the most important stage of the industrial revolution, an era of phenomenal progress in scientific discovery and technique, and political changes of the first magnitude. It may be said that the whole of Victoria's reign was a series of Parliamentary conflicts as a result of which the people as a whole were drawn into active participation in the government of the country.

Queen Victoria died in the midst of the South African War (1899-1902), after a reign and a life longer than that of any other British sovereign. She had nine children, four sons and five daughters, Edward VII being her second eldest child.

Robert Hardrnan in the UK Mail writes:

"Like the empire she once ruled, the sun never sets on her memory. This month, 100 years after her death, her name remains everywhere part of day to day life in the Pacific Ocean, in deepest Africa and at both the North and South Poles.

Hers is a name which came to embody an age, an entire architectural genre and a set of values. But it is also a name immortalised by everything from a fjord in Greenland to a London Tube line and captured in memorials galore. As dawn rises on Mount Victoria in Fiji, it is still dark on Mount Victoria, Papua Nevv Guinea. When it is lunchtime on the shores of Lake Victoria in Africa and Afghanistan, they are having tea at Lake Victoria, Australia, and are asleep at Lake Victoria, Canada.

It is an extraordinary tribute to a woman who seldom left Britain that she should still have around two percent of the world's land mass named after her - not to mention the Victoria Sea and other waters.

When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, the impact was unprecedented. Not only had she ruled a large chunk of the world for longer than most people had been alive, but she was the first monarch that most people could recognise."

Tony Rennell, author of Last Days of Glory - an account of the shock which swept the empire at the time of her death - says that because of all the statues and pictures and stamps, people really knew what their monarch looked like and, because they had identified with her so strongly, it was very important that she was remembered - hence all the Victoria memorials around the world. Even in India, as Mary Ann Steggles, Canadian art historian, University of Manitoba, has found, there are still those who revere the memory of the old Queen Empress. "It is strange but you can still go to the Victoria memorials in Calcutta and find little gifts and food left by her statue", she says.

Why was Queen Victoria so revered? From the age of 11 years she had made up her mind "to be good". Hers was not a life of self pleasing. Her aim in life was to serve her family and her country. All her reign she wanted to be of use, to make a difference. She felt the mission of Britain was to protect the poor native peoples and advance their civilisation, hospitals, etc. Elizabeth Langford in Victoria R. I. says: "She was incomparably the best Queen the world had got and more than one foreign nation still struggling under a rule of tyranny, self-indulgence or fatuity, wished she were theirs."

The "Victorian Age" was marked by a belief in, and a striving after, improvement not only in the material sphere but also in the sphere of morals and the spirit. Queen Victoria embodied the prejudices and convictions that were dominant in her time - she thought and felt as the bulk of her people thought and felt. Above all she had a firm Christian conviction and a strong faith. Over the doors of Prince Albert's Mausoleum she had had written

"Vale desideratissime. Farewell most beloved.

Here at length I shall rest with thee,

with thee in Christ I shall rise again."

The anthem for the service had been written by Tennyson.

"Life's dream is past,

All its sin, its sadness.

Brightly at last,

Dawns a day of gladness."

As faith has dwindled, and moral standards have been eroded, so the greatness of Britain has ebbed away. No longer the head, she is fast becoming the tail, a sad example of growing apostasy. Let us pray earnestly for her return to faith and to her great God.

Taken from B.I.W.F. Monthly Notes, 6 Palmerston Street, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

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MORE ON QUEEN VICTORIA "THE GOOD"

Her Protestantism

In a little volume published, in 1898, by C.A. Pearson Limited, and entitled "The Private Life of Queen Victoria," by "One of Her Majesty's Servants," I read:- "The Queen has never attended any High Church public service, nor permitted the private services she attends to be conducted with the aid of vestments, candles, processions, or other ornamental accessories. Indeed, her greatest delight was to attend the poor little church at Crathie, and to communicate after the Presbyterian manner, in her turn with the rest of the simple Highland congregation." The same writer says:- "There is one point on which Her Majesty has been, and always will be inflexible. No matter of what opinion or what rank in the Church the preacher of the day may be he must wear a Black Gown when delivering his sermon before the Queen."

Her Love for The Lord's Day

One Saturday evening Her Majesty Queen Victoria arrived unexpectedly at Osborne House, a beautiful home where she occasionally stayed.

The next day was the Lord's Day, but the local tradesmen, with one exception, came to Osborne House and presented their business cards, requesting orders.

On Monday, the Queen looked over the business cards and asked, "Are all the tradesmen's cards here?"

"No, your Majesty, there is one man, a grocer, who refused to send his card because it was Sunday."

Immediately the Queen replied, "I am very thankful there is one man who honours God more than his business. I will give him the order for the groceries."

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Wind is invisible in its working. So is the Holy Spirit in operation. John 3:8.

Wind is purifying in its passage. Evil vapours and dangerous fogs are dis- persed by its power. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us. I Peter 1:2

Wind is directed in Its going. Psalm 148:8 Uncontrollable by man, yet controlled by God. The Holy Spirit always moves according to the Word.

Wind Is effective in Its ministry. It brings rain. I Kings 18:45. Revival comes from the Holy Spirit.

Wind is transforming in its presence. It affects climate. Winters are milder; summers cooler by the action of the wind. Ecclesiastes 1:6.

Wind is varied In its operation. I Kings 19:11. Song of Solomon 4:16. From gentle zephyr to terrible tornado. The Holy Spirit can soothe or smash. His manifestations are many. I Corinthians 12:4, 11.

Wind is wonderful in its employment. Ships and mills are driven by its power. God's wind drives the Church. Acts 2:2.

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A highly respected Danish linguistic expert Dr. Ann Kristensen has reached the same conclusion (that we have proclaimed for years) that the Cimmerians who later became the Celts can be positively identifed as a section of the so-called "Lost Ten Tribes of Israel" in deporation.

Dr Kristensen was sceptical at first but the more she researched into Assyrian sources she found the Cimmerians making their first appearance in recorded history around 714 B.C. in the very area of modern Iran where the Assyrians had settled the deported tribes of Israel a few years earlier. She reaches conclusions that the Gimira or Cimmerians are lost Israelites.

In "WHO WERE THE CIMMERIANS AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM" - translated by Jorgen Laessoe of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Dr Kristensen wrote:

"There is scarcely reason any longer to doubt the exciting and verily astonishing assertion propounded by students of the Ten Tribes, that the Israelites deported from Bit Humria of the House of Omri are identical with the Gimirraja of the Assyrian sources. Everything indicates that the Israelite deportees did not vanish from the picture but that, abroad, under new conditions they continued to leave their mark on History.

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(The following is taken from "The Times" 3/2/2001)

A turn to Mecca by Civil Service

By

Jill Sherman, Whitehall Editor

Whitehall offices are being stripped of furniture and paintings to allow Muslim staff to get out their mats and pray two or three times a day.

The Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry have now allocated special prayer rooms for Muslims as part of a Civil Service drive to woo ethnic minorities. The Home Office also allows Jewish staff to go home early on Fridays in a broader initiative to let employees practice religious customs.

Whitehall has been criticised for failing to promote ethnic minorities and expecting them to adapt easily to the white, predominantly male culture which pervades the Civil Service.

But following instructions from Tony Blair, departments are implementing a string of initiatives to be ethnic minority friendly.

About 5.3 per cent of the 400,000 civil servants are from ethnic minorities, and the Prime Minister has set tough targets to get more into senior jobs. The Home Office has three permanent prayer rooms based in the Passport Office and the Prison Service, London and the Immigration Service in Croydon. They have all been stripped of furniture in line with Muslim practice and contain prayer mats and washing facilities.

"The prayer rooms are well used and widely appreciated," said a Home Office spokesman. "The Home Office attaches great importance to cultural diversity."

"Managers are encouraged to be flexible about time made up for periods spent on religious duties," said the spokesman.

The Department of Trade and Industry, which has nearly 1000 ethnic minority staff, has allocated three prayer rooms in each of the main headquarters buildings in Central London.

The rooms have also been stripped bare and individuals of any religion are allowed to use them."They are a quiet place for prayer or meditation," said a DTI spokesman.

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The European Court of 'Justice' reacted vehemently to an item in the Eurofile column published in The Daily telegraph on 28th October by the veteran investigative reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (renowned for the seminal leg-work he undertook during his tour of duty for the newspaper in Washington, in unearthing multiple scandals surrounding the Clinton Administration). Evans-Pritchard reported that the Advocate General of the Court had pronounced that criticism of the European Union collective could be restricted without violating freedom of speech, on the ground that it was akin to blasphemy. The Court then proceeded on a course of deception, in the following manner. It told the House of Commons Library, the European media and other callers that this assertion was totally untrue. But it failed to post the Advocate General's opinion on the Court's website, as normally happens - referring callers instead to a separate case, which was posted on the website but which contained no references to blasphemy, thus throwing everyone off the scent. Two weeks later, under protest, the Court posted the offensive opinion on its website, stating that it had been 'mislaid'. The European Court of 'Justice' further lied that there had been a misunderstanding, for which it now apologised, but added that The Daily Telegraph had misconstrued the Advocate General's opinion. The reason for the Court's lies and deceit is that the ruling threatens a primary principle of English law - namely, that a governing body cannot restrict criticism in order to protect its reputation - although in this case of course the EU has no reputation to protect, since as every informed observer whose mind is not controlled knows perfectly well, the EU collective functions by means of pressure, intimidation, harassment, coercion, lies and confusion: in other words, its reputation stinks. In his column of 11 th November, Ambrose noted that the Advocate General's 'point was not made lightly. It was a central building block' of his argument that 'the EU can legitimately punish dissent'. With the Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed at the European Council in Nice, the stage is set for persistent critics such as your correspondent to court eventual arrest, following a 'knock on the door in the middle of the night', and to be jailed for blasphemy. One further obvious point should be added: blasphemy represents pouring odium on God; so the 'builders of Europe' seek not only to usurp the nation state but the Almighty, as well. In short, since there is no God (the European Union being atheistic), the God of the EU collective is to be the EU itself. This is consistent with the norm in all intended or actual dictatorships.

(With acknowledgments to the "Soviet Analyst", 108 Horseferry Road, London, SWIP 2EF)

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BEHOLD! the mountain of the Lord

in latter days shall rise

On mountain tops above the hills,

And draw the wondering eyes.

To this the joyful nations round

All tribes and tongues, shall flow;

Up to the Hill of God, they'll say,

And to His house we'll go.

The beam that shines from Zion's hill

Shall lighten every land;

The King who reigns in Salem's towers

Shall all the world command.

Among the nations He shall judge,

His judgement's truth shall guide;

His sceptre shall protect the just,

And quell the sinner's pride.

No strife shall rage, nor hostile feuds

Disturb those peaceful years;

To ploughshares men shall beat their swords,

To pruning hooks their spears.

No longer hosts encountering hosts

Shall crowds of slain deplore;

They hang the trumpet in the hall,

And study war no more.

Come then, 0 house of Jacob! come

To worship at His shrine;

And walking in the light of God,

With holy beauties shine.

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