What was Queen Victoria's relationship with her parents?

Answer 1

Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent, died when she was only eight months old, leaving many debts. The Duchess brought Victoria up at Kensington Palace and, under the influence of the ambitious Sir John Conroy, instituted the "Kensington System", whereby the child was not allowed to be alone at any time. She even had to hold somebody's hand when she went downstairs, right up until the time she was eighteen. Victoria's only friend was her governess, Baroness Lehzen, who supported the princess in every way possible.

Victoria was mentally abused by Conroy, with her mother's connivance, especially as she approached her majority. Conroy had counted on her becoming Queen before she reached eighteen and tried to force her to sign a paper appointing him as her Private Secretary. Although under appalling pressure, Victoria refused. When she became Queen a month after her eighteenth birthday, she dismissed Conroy from her household although he continued to exert an unhealthy influence over the Duchess. From the day of Victoria's accession, there was a rift between her and the Duchess. For the next two years, relations between mother and daughter were extremely strained, amply demonstrated by the Lady Flora Hastings scandal, when the Duchess supported the maligned Lady Flora and the Queen believed her to be pregnant by Conroy.

One of Victoria's first acts as Queen was to pay all her father's debts.

Eventually, under the influence of the Duke of Wellington, Conroy left the Duchess, and, in time, with the help of Prince Albert, mother and daughter became reconciled. Victoria was always aware that her mother had only had her daughter's best interests at heart, but that she had been left without a husband to help guide her, and so, fallen prey to Conroy. Wellington is quoted as "supposing" that the Duchess and Conroy were lovers. However, after the reconciliation, mother and daughter realised how very much they loved each other. When the Duchess died in March 1861, eight months before Prince Albert, Victoria was completely bereft and Albert feared for her sanity in the violence of her grief.

Answer 2

Queen Victoria had a well-documented history of familial strife, beginning with a series of sexual abuses at the hands of her stepfather, King James III. This contributed to her decision at 17 to abdicate from the British hierarchy and become Queen of Ireland.