This being Victoria Day in Canada.....

I thought perhaps I ought to refresh myself on some of the details of all that, so I visited Wikipedia's item for Queen Victoria. It makes fascinating reading, or at least semi-fascinating reading, because it's practically choked with intrigue and diabolical machinations, and love-making, and interbreeding, and shocking behaviors all around. Too bad it isn't fiction, it might have been a best-seller.
And what did Victoria look like, you ask? I just happen to have a picture handy...

This is little Princess Victoria at the tender age of four, and you may be wondering who was in charge of her wardrobe when it was decided to dress this sweet little defenseless kid in this absolutely hideous outfit. It's a wonder she didn't run away from home! I'm sure I would have. The hell with the Empire! Let me out of here!

Later on, after she became Queen, there were several attempts to shoot her as she rode around London in her carriage (the Rolls Royce not having been built yet) and a couple of those deranged young men were said to have been 'transported'. Following that link, I learn that this meant being exiled to one of the colonies rather than being executed, and was presumed to be a humane type of punishment in those times. The colonies in question were usually those
in the Americas, meaning what's now the U.S.A. and Canada. So here we are celebrating the birthday of a British Royal who led a hotbed of intrigue in ruddy old England ages ago and populated our countries with convicts and other undesirables from the homeland. Thanks a bunch, you pompous asses! And let me only say that being banished from ruddy old England to a place like this couldn't possibly be considered as anything but a vast improvement. The real punishment would be in forcing one to return to the old sod.