Graduate Student - The Problem with Female Rule: Young Queen Victoria and Her Ladies in Waiting

Andrea Croasdale's Graduate Student Thesis

As a child, Queen Victoria received both a typical nineteenth-century female education, focusing on domestic accomplishments, and a more particular male education from her uncles, kings themselves, on how a monarch ought to rule. In Victoria's mind, there was no conflict: she was a woman at home with her household, but could step outside her gender role and exhibit male traits in her role as queen. Although Queen Victoria personally experienced no difficulty in separating her female and male lives, early in the teenager's reign it became clear that, as a result of having a female monarch, there would be problems regarding the proper role of her ladies in waiting. Croasdale's analysis of both the Hastings Scandal and the Bedchamber Crisis, highlights the problems concerning the queen’s household and the impact that these political crises had on young queen's development.