Victoria
- For other meanings, see Victoria.
I am not amused.
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, more commonly known as Queen Victoria, was a powerful and influential monarch on Earth in the 19th century, ruling from 1837 to 1901. Her reign, known as the Victorian Era, was marked by tremendous strides in technology and the arts in Britain and elsewhere. Victoria is known to have met the Doctor at least twice: once during her coronation ceremony in 1838, and in 1879 she experienced an adventure with the the Doctor that led to her technically banishing the Time Lord from her country and leading her to form the Torchwood Institute, as the British Empire's defense against the dark forces which the Doctor seemed to consort.
Biography
I have rewarded you, Sir Doctor, and now you are exiled from this empire never to return. I don’t know who you are, the two of you, or where you’re from but I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death, and I will not allow it. You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good and how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now, leave my world and never return!
The Third Doctor claimed to have attended Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838. (DW: The Curse of Peladon)
- On meeting the Queen a second time, the Doctor did not mention this event to her, nor did she recognize him, which is understandable since he would have regenerated many times since then.
However, Queen Victoria did encounter the Doctor and Rose Tyler in 1879 Scotland while on route to Torchwood House. (DW: Tooth and Claw)
Queen Victoria's late husband Prince Albert had known Sir George MacLeish, the owner of Torchwood House. (WEB: visittorchwood.co.uk)
Following an adventure with an alien werewolf, the Queen knighted both Rose and the Doctor for saving her; however she abruptly had a change of heart and banished the Doctor from the British Empire. Shortly after, she founded the Torchwood Institute, taking the name from the estate where she encountered the Doctor. Despite his having saved her life, Victoria had the Doctor listed as "an enemy of the Crown" in Torchwood's original charter. (DW: Tooth and Claw), as related by Yvonne Hartman (DW: Army of Ghosts). Among other matters, the Queen took an interest in the Cardiff rift. (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)
The queen seemed very guarded about a bite the werewolf may have given her leading Rose and the Doctor to jokingly speculate that the werewolf curse subsequently got passed down through the royal line. (DW: Tooth and Claw)
- Since it is later established that one of Victoria's ancestors, Elizabeth I, considered the Tenth Doctor an enemy (DW: The Shakespeare Code), the possibility exists that Victoria might have had knowledge of the Doctor prior to meeting him.
Four years later, in 1883, the being calling itself Josiah Samuel Smith trained the deranged Redvers Fenn-Cooper (who had an invitation to go to Buckingham Palace to meet the queen) as an assassin, in order that he might kill her, enabling Smith to take over the throne. Fenn-Cooper believed the monarch to be a wild animal called the "Crowned Saxe-Coburg". (DW: Ghost Light)
Minor reference
Mentioning his companion Victoria Waterfield to her, Sarah Jane Smith jokingly suggested to the Doctor that Queen Victoria had travelled in the TARDIS with him. (DW: Pyramids of Mars)
External links
- December 1899 address of Queen Victoria to the Torchwood Institute (Torchwood website)
- August 1883 address to the Torchwood Institute on the Cardiff rift (Torchwood website)
- December 1884 address on the importance of secrecy (Torchwood website)
- July 1882 speech to the Torchwood Institute (Torchwood website)
- account of Queen Victoria's visits to Torchwood House (Torchwood House website)
