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W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and this is the

Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan and me William Durham pool and this is the final episode on Queen Victoria. Previously on this podcast we left you with two seismic events or three seismic events in fact in Queen Victoria's life.

We had the great exhibition which secures Britain's place as the world's superpower in the

eyes of Britain and the world. We had the mutiny, the first war of independence in

India in 1857 and how that changes in at least in India the image of British rule and also how Queen Victoria is out of step

you know that girl who would not be told by her privy counsel what to do and what to say

and to make John Conroy her advisor is the same woman who sort of flies in the face of all of these demands of retribution

is actually you know what no stop that's not what I want I think one of the things that we see at this point as the great exhibition is reaching

its climax is this is also the moment when monarchies are at their absolute peak.

It isn't just that Empire is at its peak in 1851.

This is the moment when so much of the world is ruled by monarchs and many of them related by marriage or otherwise to Queen Victoria.

At this point if we were to do a survey you have the Romanovs in Russia that we looked at last year in our Russian

series you've got Louis Napoleon in France, Franz Joseph in Austria, Hungary

followed not long after by the Willemine Imperial monarchy of Germany.

To these continental empires were added overseas annexes, the Portuguese in Brazil, the French in Mexico, will be it briefly, and the Dutch and Indonesia.

Only the Spanish colonial empire is in retreat. So this is the heyday of

vice-regal rule, but what happens in 1857 a few months later as we saw in the

last episode is this moment when this is all punctured by the largest act of

...