IT might have happened more than 110 years ago, but the intimate details of the last Diamond Jubilee have been laid bare.
Readers will now have access to Queen Victoria’s innermost thoughts thanks to work by Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
The library has worked with the Royal Archives to make her personal journals available online.
It took eight months’ work to make the 141 volumes available to the public in their entirety for the first time. Queen Victoria began the journals at the age of 13 and in total there are 43,000 pages.
She wrote vividly about her Diamond Jubilee celebrations: “All vied one with another to give me a heartfelt, loyal and affectionate welcome. I was deeply touched and gratified.
“The day had become very fine and very hot. Telegrams kept pouring in. It was quite impossible even to open them.
“All the family, foreign royalties, special Ambassadors and Envoys were invited. I sat between the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Prince of Naples.”
The journals trace important moments in political and social history including her meetings with Prime Ministers, The Great Exhibition and the Crimean War.
More intimate moments about her life with Prince Albert are also revealed by the journals.
On February 10, 1840, the day of her wedding, she wrote: “I felt so happy when the ring was put on, and by my precious Albert.
“He clasped me in his arms, and we kissed each other again and again!”
Librarian Dr Sarah Thomas said: “This initiative is a highly-engaging and significant partnership across three organisations for the benefit of public and scholarly access to fascinating historical documents.”
David Ryan, assistant keeper of the Royal Archives, said: “The virtue of digital access is its ability to reveal the thoughts of Queen Victoria to millions around the world, providing them with a record of the important political and cultural events surrounding a monarch whose name defined an age.”
lThe journals were made available online with the help of information company ProQuest. They are available via queenvictoriasjournals.org
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