QUEEN VICTORIA (GREAT BRITAIN) - MILITARY APPOINTMENT SIGNED 06/20/1854 CO-SIGNED BY: PRIME MINISTER HENRY JOHN TEMPLE (GREAT BRITAIN) - HFSID 164737

QUEEN VICTORIA and PRIME MINISTER HENRY JOHN TEMPLE (GREAT BRITAIN)

Military appointment signed by Queen Victoria in 1854, commissioning a 1st lieutenant to the Royal Regiment of Artillery
Military Appointment signed: "Victoria Reg" as Queen Victoria and "H.J. Temple" as Home Secretary. 1 pages, 16x11¾. Buckingham Palace, London, England. June 20, 1854. Signed at upper left corner, with wafer embossed seal. Docketed on verso. The Queen commands the appointment of Edward Chichester Botton, Gentleman as a 1st Lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Despite the impressive size of his own family, with the death of King George III, the crown passed through his children in quick succession, first to his eldest son George IV (1820-1830), than to his third son William IV (1830-1837), and eventually to one of his more unlikely heirs, his granddaughter by his fourth son, Princess Victoria. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and the Empress of India (1819-1901) ascended the throne at the young age of 18, beginning the longest reign in British history and ruling over a time soon to be known as the Victorian Era. This time period was remembered for its industrial, cultural, political, scientific and military change within the United Kingdom with massive growth of the British Empire. More of a national icon rather than a direct political power, Victoria's name was synonymous with strict standards of personal morality. Her great affection for her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, remains a renowned love story in her history; they had nine children together, all married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "Grandmother of Europe". Her reign lasted sixty-three years and seven months, and with her death so ended the House of Hanover in the British monarchy, and her legacy of her detailed correspondence and journals have displayed her previously unknown political straight-talking which was emotional, obstinate, and honest. Prime Minister Henry John Temple of Great Britain (1784-1865), popularly known as Lord Palmerston due to his Irish Peerage title as the 3rd Viscount Palmerston, was Britain's Secretary of State for War (1809-1828), Foreign Secretary (1830-1834, 1835-1841, 1846-1851) and Prime Minister (1855-1858, 1859-1865). He held office almost continuously for nearly half a century from 1807 until his death. Because he held an Irish peerage rather than an English one, he was able to sit in the House of Commons. Disliked by Queen Victoria and often abrasive in dealing with foreign governments - he held a lifelong antipathy to the United States - Palmerston was nevertheless effective in promoting British interests. Although he opposed slavery, Palmerston sympathized with the Confederacy on the grounds that a breakup of the United States would benefit Britain. Folds, creases, not near signature. Light ink transfer. Lightly soiled. Otherwise in fine condition.