It is this simplicity and ‘homeliness’ of the Queen which were so often misunderstood by those who could not realize how much she was at one with her people.  The Queen was never more happy than when she was visiting some poor sufferer and comforting those in sorrow.  Her memory for the little events which made up the lives and happiness of those far below her in social rank was amazing.  She was a great and a truly democratic Queen.  She gave the greater portion of her Jubilee present toward a fund to establish institutions to provide nurses for the sick poor.

During the latter years of her reign, when she was less and less to be seen at public functions and ceremonies, many complaints were made about her reputed neglect of royal duties.  She felt the injustice of such statements very keenly and with good reason.  No allowances were made for her poor health, for her years, for the family losses which left her every year more and more a lonely woman.  Her duties, ever increasing in number and extent, left her no time, even if she had possessed the inclination, to take part in pomp and ceremony.

The outburst of loyalty and affection on the occasion of her two Jubilee celebrations proved that she still reigned supreme in the nation’s heart.

The Queen was not only a great monarch, but also a great statesman.  Consider for a moment the many and bewildering changes which took place in her own and other countries during her reign.  Our country was almost continually at war in some portion of the globe.  The British Army fought side by side with the French against Russia in the Crimea, and against the rebels in the Indian Mutiny; two Boer wars were fought in South Africa in 1881, and 1899-1902.  There were also lesser wars in China, Afghanistan, Abyssinia, Zululand and Egypt.

The Queen lived to see France change from a Monarchy to a Republic; to see Germany beat France to her knees and become a united Empire, thanks to the foresight of her great statesman Bismarck, and her great general von Moltke.  During the same year (1870) the Italian army entered Rome, as soon as the French garrison had been withdrawn, and Italy became a united country under King Victor Emmanuel.

Despite the fact that the map of Europe was continually changing, England managed to keep clear of international strife, and this was in no small degree due to the personal influence of the Queen.

The England of her early years would be an absolutely foreign country to us, if by some magic touch we were to be transplanted back down the line of years.  It was different in thought, feeling, and outlook.  The extraordinary changes in the modes of travelling, by means of which numbers of people who had never even thought of any other country beside their own, were enabled to visit other lands, broke down, bit by bit, the barrier between the Continent and ourselves.  England became less of an insular and more of a continental power.