Queen Victoria & Her Prime Ministers

Of the ten Victorian Prime Ministers, there were some, like the maverick Palmerston, who never ceased to exasperate Queen Victoria, while others, like the charming Disraeli, could do no wrong in her eyes. From the dour and dull to the eccentric and flamboyant, they came and went through her palaces, and their extensive communications show that, far from being the perpetually mourning and self-absorbed 'widow of Windsor', she continued to play an active role in the political life of the country and the Empire from the earliest days of her sixty-two reign to the final weeks of her life.