VICTOR AMEDEUS II. (1666–1732), duke of Savoy and first king of Sardinia, was the son of Duke Charles Emmanuel II. and Jeanne de Savoie-Nemours. Born at Turin, he lost his father in 1675, and spent his youth under the regency of his mother, known as "Madama Reale " (madame royale), an able but ambitious and overbearing woman. He assumed the reins of government at the age of sixteen, and married Princess Anne, daughter of Philip of Orleans and Henrietta of Engiand, and niece of Louis XIV., king of France. That sovereign was determined to dominate the young duke of Savoy, who from the first resented the monarch's insolent bearing. In 1685 Victor was forced by Louis to persecute his Waldensian subjects, because they had given shelter to the French Huguenot refugees after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. With the unwelcome help of a French army under Marshal Catinat, he invaded the Waldensian valleys, and after a difficult campaign, characterized by great cruelty, he subjugated them. Nevertheless, he became more anxious than ever to emancipate himself from French thraldom, and his first sign of independence was his visit to Venice in 1687, where he conferred on political affairs with Prince Eugène of Savoy and other personages, without consulting Louis. About this time the duke plunged into a whirl of dissipation, and chose the beautiful but unscrupulous Contessa di Verrua as his mistress, neglecting his faithful and devoted wife. Louis having discovered Victor's intrigues with the emperor, tried to precipitate hostilities by demanding his participation in a second expedition against the Waldensians. The duke unwillingly complied, but when the French entered Piedmont and demanded the cession of the fortresses of Turin and Verrua, he refused, and while still professing to negotiate with Louis, joined the league of Austria, Spain and Venice. War was declared in 1690, but at the battle of Staffarda (18th of August 1691), Victor, in spite of his great courage and skill, was defeated by the French under Catinat. Other reverses followed, but the attack on Cuneo was heroically repulsed by the citizens. The war dragged on with varying success, until the severe defeat of the allies at Marsiglia and their selfish neglect of Victor's interests induced him to open negotiations with France once more. Louis agreed to restore most of the fortresses he had captured and to make other concessions; a treaty was signed in 1696, and Victor appointed generalissimo of the Franco-Piedmontese forces in Italy operating against the imperialists. By the treaty of Ryswick (1697) a general peace was concluded. On the outbreak of the war of the Spanish Succession in 1700 the duke was again on the French side, but the insolence of Louis and of Philip V. of Spain towards him induced him, at the end of the two years for which he had bound himself to them, to go over to the imperialists (1704). At first the French were successful and captured several Piedmontese fortresses, but after besieging Turin, which was skilfully defended by the duke, for several months, they were completely defeated by Victor and Prince Eugène of Savoy (1706), and eventually driven out of the other towns they had captured. By the peace of Utrecht (1713) the Powers conferred the kingdom of Sicily on Victor Amedeus, whose government proved efficient and at first popular. But after a brief stay in the island he returned to Piedmont and left his new possessions to a viceroy, which caused much discontent among the Sicilians; and when the Quadruple Alliance decreed in 1718 that Sicily should be restored to Spain, Victor was unable to offer any opposition, and had to content himself with receiving Sardinia in exchange.

The last years of Victor Amedeus's life were saddened by domestic troubles. In 1715 his eldest son died, and in 1728 he lost his queen. After her death, much against the advice of his remaining son and heir, Carlino (afterwards Charles Emmanuel III.), he married the Contessa di San Sebastiano, whom he created Marchesa di Spigno, abdicated the crown and retired to Chambéry to end his days (1730). But his second wife, an ambitious intrigante, soon tired of her quiet life, and induced him to return to Turin and attempt to revoke his abdication. This led to a quarrel with his son, who with quite unnecessary harshness, partly due to his minister the Marquis d'Ormea,

arrested his father and confined him at Rivoli and later at Moncalieri; there Victor, overwhelmed with sorrow, died on the 31st of October 1732. Victor Amedeus, although accused not without reason of bad faith in his diplomatic dealings and of cruelty, was undoubtedly a great soldier and a still greater administrator. He not only won for his country a high place in the council of nations, but he doubled its revenues and increased its prosperity and industries, and he also emphasized its character as an Italian state. His infidelity to his wife and his harshness towards his son Carlino are blemishes on a splendid career, but he more than expiated these faults by his tragic end.

See D. Carutti, Storia del Regno di Vittorio Amedeo II. (Turin, 1856); and E. Parri, Vittorio Amedio II. ed Eugenio di Savoia (Milan, 1888). The Marchesa Vitelleschi's work, The Romance of Savoy (2 vols., London, 1905), is based on original authorities, and is the most complete monograph on the subject.

VICTOR EMMANUEL II. (1820-1878), king of Sardinia and first king of Italy, was born at Turin on the 14th of March 1820, and was the son of Charles Albert, prince of SavoyCarignano, who became king of Sardinia in 1831. Brought up in the bigoted and chilling atmosphere of the Piedmontese court, he received a rigid military and religious training, but little intellectual education. In 1842 he was married to Adelaide, daughter of the Austrian Archduke Rainer, as the king desired at that time to improve his relations with Austria. The young couple led a somewhat dreary life, hidebound by court etiquette, which Victor Emmanuel hated. He played no part in politics during his father's lifetime, but took an active interest in military matters. When the war with Austria broke out in 1848, he was delighted at the prospect of distinguishing himself, and was given the command of a division. At Goito he was slightly wounded and displayed great bravery, and after Custozza defended the rearguard to the last (25th of July 1848). In the campaign of March 1849 he commanded the same division. After the disastrous defeat at Novara on the 23rd of March, Charles Albert, having rejected the peace terms offered by the Austrian field-marshal Radetzky, abdicated in favour of his son, and withdrew to a monastery in Portugal, where he died a few months later. Victor Emmanuel repaired to Radetzky's camp, where he was received with every sign of respect, and the field-marshal offered not only to waive the claim that Austria should occupy a part of Piedmont, but to give him an extension of territory, provided he revoked the constitution and substituted the old blue Piedmontese flag for the Italian tricolour, which savoured too much of revolution. But although the young king had not yet sworn to observe the charter, and in any case the other Italian princes had all violated their constitutional promises, he rejected the offer. Consequently he had to agree to the temporary Austrian occupation of the territory comprised within the Po, the Sesia and the Ticino, and of half the citadel of Alessandria, to disband his Lombard, Polish and Hungarian volunteers, and to withdraw his fleet from the Adriatic; but he secured an amnesty for all the Lombards compromised in the recent revolution, having even threatened to go to war again if it were not granted. It was the maintenance of the constitution in the face of the overwhelming tide of reaction that established his position as the champion of Italian freedom and earned him the sobriquet of Rè Galantuomo (the honest king). But the task entrusted to him was a most difficult one: the army disorganized, the treasury empty, the people despondent if not actively disloyal, and he himself reviled, misunderstood, and, like his father, accused of treachery. Parliament having rejected the peace treaty, the king dissolved the assembly; in the famous proclamation from Moncalieri he appealed to the people's loyalty, and the new Chamber ratified the treaty (9th of January 1850). This same year, Cavour (a.v.) was appointed minister of agriculture in D'Azeglio's cabinet, and in 1852, after the fall of the latter, he became prime minister, a post which with brief interruptions he held until his death.

In having Cavour as his chief adviser Victor Emmanuel was

which served to embitter Austro-Italian relations. On the 9th of January 1878, Victor Emmanuel died of fever in Rome, and was buried in the Pantheon. He was succeeded by his son Humbert.

Bluff, hearty, good-natured and simple in his habits, yet he always had a high idea of his own kingly dignity, and his really statesmanlike qualities often surprised foreign diplomats, who were deceived by his homely exterior. As a soldier he was very brave, but he did not show great qualities as a military leader in the campaign of 1866. He was a keen sportsman and would spend many days at a time pursuing chamois or steinbock in the Alpine fastnesses of Piedmont with nothing but bread and cheese to eat. He always used the dialect of Piedmont when conversing with natives of that country, and he had a vast fund of humorous anecdotes and proverbs with which to illustrate his arguments. He had a great weakness for female society, and kept several mistresses; one of them, the beautiful Rosa Vercellone, he created Countess Mirafiori e Fontanafredda and married morganatically in 1869; she bore him one son.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Besides the general works on Italy and Savoy see V. Bersezio, Il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II. (8 vols., Turin, 1869); G. Massari, La Vita ed il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II. (2 vols., Milan, 1878); N. Bianchi, Storia della Diplomazia Europea in Italia (8 vols., Turin, 1865). (L. V.*)

VICTOR EMMANUEL III. (1869

), king of Italy, son of King Humbert I. and Queen Margherita of Savoy, was born at Naples on the 11th of November 1869. Carefully educated by his mother and under the direction of Colonel Osio, he outgrew the weakness of his childhood and became expert in horsemanship and military exercises. Entering the army at an early age he passed through the various grades and, soon after attaining his majority, was appointed to the command of the Florence Army Corps. During frequent journeys to Germany he enlarged his military experience, and upon his appointment to the command of the Naples Army Corps in 1896 displayed sound military and administrative capacity. A keen huntsman, and passionately fond of the sea, he extended his yachting and hunting excursions as far east as Syria and as far north as Spitsbergen. As representative of King Humbert he attended the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. in 1896, the Victorian Jubilee celebrations of 1897, and the festivities connected with the coming of age of the German crown prince in 1900. The prince's intellectual and artistic leanings were well known; in particular, he has made a magnificent collection of historic Italian coins, on which subject he became a recognized authority. At the time of the assassination of his father, King Humbert (the 29th of July 1900), he was returning from a yachting cruise in the eastern Mediterranean. Landing at Reggio di Calabria he hastened to Monza, where he conducted with firmness and tact the preparations for the burial of King Humbert and for his own formal accession, which took place on the 9th and 11th of August 1900. On the 24th of October 1896 he married Princess Elena of Montenegro, who, on the 1st of June 1901, bore him a daughter named Yolanda Margherita, on the 19th of November 1902 a second daughter named Mafalda, and on the 15th of September 1904 a son, Prince Humbert.

VICTORIA (ALEXANDRINA VICTORIA), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India (1819-1901), only child of Edward, duke of Kent, fourth son of King George III., and of Princess Victoria Mary Louisa of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (widow of Prince Emich Karl of Leiningen, by whom she already had two children), was born at Kensington Palace on the 24th of May 1819. The duke and duchess of Kent had been living at Amorbach, in Franconia, owing to their straitened circumstances, but they returned to London on purpose that their child should be born in England. In 1817 the death of Princess Charlotte (only child of the prince regent, afterwards George IV., and wife of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, afterwards king of the Belgians), had left the ultimate succession to the throne of England, in the younger

generation, so uncertain that the three unmarried sons of George III., the dukes of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), Kent and Cambridge, all married in the following year, the two elder on the same day. All three had children, but the duke of Clarence's two baby daughters died in infancy, in 1819 and 1821; and the duke of Cambridge's son George, born on the 26th of March 1819, was only two months old when the birth of the duke of Kent's daughter put her before him in the succession. The question as to what name the child should bear was not settled without bickerings. The duke of Kent wished her to be christened Elizabeth, and the prince regent wanted Georgiana, while the tsar Alexander I., who had promised to stand sponsor, stipulated for Alexandrina. The baptism was performed in a drawing-room of Kensington Palace on the 24th of June by Dr Manners Sutton, archbishop of Canterbury. The prince regent, who was present, named the child Alexandrina; then, being requested by the duke of Kent to give a second name, he said, rather abruptly, "Let her be called Victoria, after her mother, but this name must come after the other."1 Six weeks after her christening the princess was vaccinated, this being the first occasion on which a member of the royal family underwent the operation. In January 1820 the duke of Kent died, five days before his brother succeeded to the throne as George IV. The widowed duchess of Kent was now a woman of thirty-four, handsome, homely, a German at heart, and with little liking for English ways. But she was a woman of experience, and shrewd; and fortunately she had a safe and affectionate adviser in her brother, Prince Leopold of Coburg, afterwards (1831) king of the Belgians, who as the husband of the late Princess Charlotte had once been a prospective prince consort of England. His former doctor and private secretary, Baron Stockmar (q.v.), a man of encyclopaedic information and remarkable judgment, who had given special attention to the problems of a sovereign's position in England, was afterwards to play an important rôle in Queen Victoria's life; and Leopold himself took a fatherly interest in the young princess's education, and contributed some thousands of pounds annually to the duchess of Kent's income. Prince Leopold still lived at this time at Claremont, where Princess Charlotte had died, and this became the duchess of Kent's occasional English home; but she was much addicted to travelling, and spent several months every year in visits to watering-places. It was said at court that she liked the demonstrative homage of crowds; but she had good reason to fear lest her child should be taken away from her to be educated according to the views of George IV. Between the king and his sister-in-law there was little love, and when the death of the duke of Clarence's second infant daughter Elizabeth in 1821 made it pretty certain that Princess Victoria would eventually become queen, the duchess felt that the king might possibly obtain the support of his ministers if he insisted that the future sovereign should be brought up under masters and mistresses designated by himself. The little princess could not have received a better education than that which was given her under Prince Leopold's direction. Her uncle considered that she ought to be kept as long as possible from the knowledge of her position, which might raise a large growth of pride or vanity in her and make her unmanageable; so Victoria was twelve years old before she knew that she was to wear a crown. Until she became queen she never slept a night away from her mother's room, and she was not allowed to converse with any grown-up person, friend, tutor or servant without the duchess of Kent or the Baroness Lehzen, her private governess, being present. Louise Lehzen, a native of Coburg, had come to England as governess to the Princess Feodore of Leiningen, the duchess of Kent's daughter

The question of her name, as that of one who was to be queen, remained even up to her accession to the throne a much-debated one. In August 1831, in a discussion in parliament upon a grant to the duchess of Kent, Sir M. W. Ridley suggested changing it to Elizabeth as more accordant to the feelings of the people "; and the idea of a change seems to have been powerfully supported. In 1836 William IV. approved of a proposal to change it to Charlotte; but, to the princess's own delight, it was given up.

by her first husband, and she became teacher to the Princess Victoria when the latter was five years old. George IV. in 1827 made her a baroness of Hanover, and she continued as lady-inattendance after the duchess of Northumberland was appointed official governess in 1830, but actually performed the functions first of governess and then of private secretary till 1842, when she left the court and returned to Germany, where she died in 1870. The Rev. George Davys, afterwards bishop of Peterborough, taught the princess Latin; Mr J. B. Sale, music; Mr Westall, history; and Mr Thomas Steward, the writing master of Westminster School, instructed her in penmanship. In 1830 George IV. died, and the duke of York (George III.'s second son) having died childless in 1827, the duke of Clarence became king as William IV. Princess Victoria now became the direct heir to the throne. William IV. cherished affectionate feelings towards his niece; unfortunately he took offence at the duchess of Kent for declining to let her child come and live at his court for several months in each year, and through the whole of his reign there was strife between the two; and Prince Leopold was no longer in England to act as peacemaker. In the early hours of the 20th of June 1837, William IV. died. His thoughts had dwelt often on his niece, and he repeatedly said that he was sure she would be "a good woman and a good queen. It will touch every sailor's heart to have a girl queen to fight for. They'll be tattooing her face on their arms, and I'll be bound they'll all think she was christened after Nelson's ship." Dr Howley, archbishop of Canterbury, and the marquis of Conyngham, bearing the news of the king's death, started in a landau with four horses for Kensington, which they reached at five o'clock. Their servants rang, knocked and thumped; and when at last admittance was gained, the primate and the marquis were shown into a lower room and there left to wait. Presently a maid appeared and said that the Princess Victoria was "in sweet sleep and could not be disturbed." Dr Howley, who was nothing if not pompous, answered that he had come on state business, to which everything, even sleep, must give place. The princess was accordingly roused, and quickly came downstairs in a dressing-gown, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders. Her own account of this interview, written the same day in her journal (Letters, i. p. 97), shows her to have been quite prepared.

The privy council assembled at Kensington in the morning; and the usual oaths were administered to the queen by Lord Chancellor Cottenham, after which all present did homage. There was a touching incident when the queen's uncles, the dukes of Cumberland and Sussex, two old men, came forward to perform their obeisance. The queen blushed, and descending from her throne, kissed them both, without allowing them to kneel. By the death of William IV., the duke of Cumberland had become King Ernest of Hanover, and immediately after the ceremony he made haste to reach his kingdom. Had Queen Victoria died without issue, this prince, who was arrogant, ill-tempered and rash, would have become king of Great Britain; and, as nothing but mischief could have resulted from this, the young queen's life became very precious in the sight of her people. She, of course, retained the late king's ministers in their offices, and it was under Lord Melbourne's direction that the privy council drew up their declaration to the kingdom. This document described the queen as Alexandrina Victoria, and all the peers who subscribed the roll in the House of Lords on the 20th of June swore allegiance to her under those names. It was not till the following day that the sovereign's style was altered to Victoria simply, and this necessitated the issuing of a new declaration and a re-signing of the peers' roll. The public proclamation of the queen took place on the 21st at St James's Palace with great pomp.

The queen opened her first parliament in person, and in a well-written speech, which she read with much feeling, adverted to her youth and to the necessity which existed for her being guided by enlightened advisers. When both houses had voted loyal addresses, the question of the Civil List was considered, and a week or two later a message was brought to parliament

requesting an increase of the grant formerly made to the duchess of Kent. Government recommended an addition of £30,000 a year, which was voted, and before the close of the year a Civil List Bill was passed, settling £385,000 a year on the queen. The duchess of Kent and her brothers, King Leopold and the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had always hoped to arrange that the queen should marry her cousin, Albert (q.v.) of Saxe-CoburgGotha, and the prince himself had been made acquainted with this plan from his earliest years. In 1836 Prince Albert, who was born in the same year as his future wife, had come on a visit to England with his father and with his brother, Prince Ernest, and his handsome face, gentle disposition and playful humour had produced a favourable impression on the princess. The duchess of Kent had communicated her projects to Lord Melbourne, and they were known to many other statesmen, and to persons in society; but the gossip of drawing-rooms during the years 1837-38 continually represented that the young queen had fallen in love with Prince This or Lord That, and the more imaginative babblers hinted at post-chaises waiting outside Kensington Gardens in the night, private marriages and so forth. The coronation took place on the 28th of June 1838. No more touching ceremony of the kind had ever been performed in Westminster Abbey. Anne was a middle-aged married The coro woman at the time of her coronation; she waddled nation. and wheezed, and made no majestic appearance upon her throne. Mary was odious to her Protestant subjects, Elizabeth to those of the unreformed religion, and both these queens succeeded to the crown in times of general sadness; but the youthful Queen Victoria had no enemies except a few Chartists, and the land was peaceful and prosperous when she began to reign over it. The cost of George IV.'s coronation amounted to £240,000; that of William IV. had amounted to £50,000 only; and in asking £70,000 the government had judged that things could be done with suitable luxury, but without waste. The traditional banquet in Westminster Hall, with the throwing down of the glove by the king's champion in armour, had been dispensed with at the coronation of William IV., and it was resolved not to revive it. But it was arranged that the sovereign's procession to the abbey through the streets should be made a finer show than on previous occasions; and it drew to London 400,000 country visitors. Three ambassadors for different reasons became objects of great interest on the occasion. Marshal Soult, Wellington's old foe, received a hearty popular welcome as a military hero; Prince Esterhazy, who represented Austria, dazzled society by his Magyar uniform, which was encrusted all over, even to the boots, with pearls and diamonds; while the Turkish ambassador, Sarim Effendi, caused much diversion by his bewilderment. He was so wonder-struck that he could not walk to his place, but stood as if he had lost his senses, and kept muttering, "All this for a woman!'

The

"Bedchamber Plot."

Within a year the court was brought into sudden disfavour with the country by two events of unequal importance, but both exciting. The first was the case of Lady Flora Hastings. In February 1839 this young lady, a daughter of the marquis of Hastings, and a maid of honour to the duchess of Kent, was accused by certain ladies of the bedchamber of immoral conduct. The charge having been laid before Lord Melbourne, he communicated it to Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and the result was that Lady Flora was subjected to the indignity of a medical examination, which, while it cleared her character, seriously affected her health. In fact, she died in the following July, and it was then discovered that the physical appearances which first provoked suspicion against her had been due to enlargement of the liver. The queen's conduct towards Lady Flora was kind and sisterly from the beginning to the end of this painful business; but the scandal was made public through some indignant letters which the marchioness of Hastings addressed to Lord Melbourne praying for the punishment of her daughter's traducers, and the general opinion was that Lady Flora had been grossly treated at the instigation of some private court enemies. While the agitation about the affair was yet unappeased, the political