“I
am sorry poor old Tennyson thought himself bound to write an ode on
our fat Vic’s Jubilee: have you seen it? It is like Martin Tupper
for all the world.” *
By
the time of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, William
Morris was an ardent Socialist, and he clearly wasn't that keen on
what the Queen represented. To mock her and the whole establishment of the
monarchy, he had a collection of colorful nicknames for her. He
called her “fat Vic” for obvious reasons; “Widow Guelph”, which drew on an old name from her family, transforming her into an
ordinary widow rather than a royal; and “Empress Brown”, which
saucily played on her close friendship with her servant, John Brown,
after she'd become Empress of India.
Morris died the year before Fat Vic's diamond jubilee, but had he lived to
see it, he wouldn't have liked it one bit.
* For the quotation, see p39 of this article.
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