Queen Victoria’s Last Christmas: A Dim and Blurred Affair

A bust of Queen Victoria. Image from Wikimedia Commons


Queen Victoria spent her last Christmas in relative quiet and peace at Osborne. The Queen, up to the end, was a stickler for the things she was accustomed to. Holly and mistletoe were decorated in Osborne and the Christmas tree maintained its honoured place in the royal retreat.

While people in all parts of the country were getting ready for Christmas, the here cooks were roasting the Queen's baron of beef in the great kitchen of Windsor Castle—a ceremony that was witnessed every year by hundreds of people, who derived amusement from the basting operations as long as they can stand the heat from a great ocean range. About a hundred bundles of wood, as many billets, and half-a-ton of coals are used to cook a joint of beef weighing close upon 200 lbs.

Covered in thick cartridge paper, it revolved slowly on the spit, the motive power of the machinery being the smoke-Jack. Ten to twelve hours was sufficient for the roasting, and then it was placed in a cool larder, and was afterwards carefully packed, together with a boar's head, a couple of woodcock nnd game pies that took days to make, and all were despatched to Osborne and placed on the Queen's side table on 'Christmas Day, with the Queen's monogram upon the joint in shredded horseradish.

The Queen, by this time, however, could not enjoy this fare, since her eating habits were already sparse and irregular. She would take tea little more than arrowroot mixed with milk and consume Bengers food, a typical invalid diet which well illustrates the weakness of one who had enjoyed such a royal love of eating. She was also instructed to take a ‘a little milk and whisky several times a day’, wrote Delia Millar in the book Queen Victoria’s life in the Scottish Highlands.

The Duke and Duchess of Connaught and their children, joined Princess Christian and Princess Henry and their families, in spending Christmas with the Queen. Their Royal Highnesses, together with Princess Henry of Battenberg, Princess Ena of Battenberg and her three brothers, went to Whippingham on the Monday before Christmas Day and distributed the Queen's gifts to the children attending the school. 

In the Durbar Room at Osborne, where Queen Victoria held both ceremonial dinners and theatrical entertainments, a great Christmas tree would be found, where gifts are laid on the tables. The aged Queen loved to personally hand in her gifts to her loyal servants, but by her last Christmas, she was having a hard time since she could hardly see to distribute her presents writing: “I felt very melancholy, as I see so very badly,” she wrote in her journal. While the great hall was illumined, it could not be denied that her last Christmas was a dim one.

The Queen was horrified when she learned of the sudden death of Jane, Baroness Churchill, at Osborne on Christmas morning. The Dowager Lady Churchill was still in perfect health on Christmas Eve, but when her maid brought her a cup of early-morning tea, she found her mistress dead in bed. She was the Queen’s lady of the Bedchamber and confidante. Since her husband’s death in 1886, Lady Churchill had spent the most part of her time with the Queen at Windsor, at Balmoral, or at Osborne. A short memorial service was held for Jane in the Drawing Room at Osborne. Princess Beatrice played the harmonium and the mourning queen mused sadly: “The loss to me is not to be told… and that it should happen here is too sad.” Shorly before her death, Jane told her own maid that the Queen seemed by now “a dying woman.” Indeed, barely a month after Christmas, Queen Victoria would pass away.

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