Queen Victoria (1819-1901) took her responsibilities as Empress of India quite seriously. On her 70th birthday she undertook lessons in Hindustani and got to the point where she wrote in Hindustani in her diaries.
Queen Victoria’s diary from January 11, (actually, it was January 14), 1892, written in Urdu/Hindi and English: “Today I and my family were almost in greater sorrow and grief than they had ever been before as my young grandson Prince Albert Victor of Wales died this morning at nine o’clock.”
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