title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: In continuous attempts to prevent Dahmer from attacking him, Edwards repeated that he was Dahmer's friend and that he was not going to run away. Edwards had decided he was going to either jump from a window or run through the unlocked front door upon the next available opportunity. When Edwards next stated he needed to use the bathroom, he asked if they could sit with a beer in the living room, where there was air conditioning. Dahmer consented, and the pair walked to the living room when Edwards exited the bathroom. Inside the living room, Edwards waited until he observed Dahmer have a momentary lapse of concentration before requesting to use the bathroom again. When Edwards rose from the couch, he noted Dahmer was not holding the handcuffs, whereupon Edwards punched him in the face, knocking Dahmer off balance, and ran out the front door.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: At 11:30 p.m. on July 22, Edwards flagged down two Milwaukee police officers, Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller, at the corner of North 25th Street. The officers noted Edwards had a handcuff attached to his wrist, whereupon he explained to the officers that a "freak" had placed the handcuffs upon him and asked if the police could remove them. When the officers' handcuff keys failed to fit the brand of handcuffs, Edwards agreed to accompany the officers to the apartment where, Edwards stated, he had spent the previous five hours before escaping.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: When the officers and Edwards arrived at Apartment 213, Dahmer invited the trio inside and acknowledged he had placed the handcuffs upon Edwards, although he offered no explanation as to why he had done so. At this point, Edwards divulged to the officers that Dahmer had also brandished a large knife upon him and that this had happened in the bedroom. Dahmer made no comment to this revelation, indicating to one of the officers, Mueller, that the key to the handcuffs was in his bedside dresser. As Mueller entered the bedroom, Dahmer attempted to pass Mueller to retrieve the key himself, whereupon the second officer present, Rauth, informed him to "back off".


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: In the bedroom, Mueller noted there was a large knife beneath the bed. He saw an open drawer which, upon closer inspection, contained scores of Polaroid pictures—many of which were of human bodies in various stages of dismemberment. Mueller noted the decor indicated they had been taken in the same apartment in which they were standing. Mueller walked into the living room to show them to his partner, uttering the words, "These are for real."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: When Dahmer saw that Mueller was holding several of his Polaroids, he fought with the officers in an effort to resist arrest. The officers quickly overpowered him, cuffed his hands behind his back, and called a second squad car for backup. At this point, Mueller opened the refrigerator to reveal the freshly severed head of a black male on the bottom shelf. As Dahmer lay pinned on the floor beneath Rauth, he turned his head towards the officers and muttered the words: "For what I did I should be dead."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: A more detailed search of the apartment, conducted by the Milwaukee police's Criminal Investigation Bureau, revealed a total of four severed heads in Dahmer's kitchen. A total of seven skulls—some painted, some bleached—were found in Dahmer's bedroom and inside a closet. Investigators discovered collected blood drippings upon a tray at the bottom of Dahmer's refrigerator, plus two human hearts and a portion of arm muscle, each wrapped inside plastic bags upon the shelves. In Dahmer's freezer, investigators discovered an entire torso, plus a bag of human organs and flesh stuck to the ice at the bottom.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Elsewhere in Apartment 213, investigators discovered two entire skeletons, a pair of severed hands, two severed and preserved penises, a mummified scalp and, in the 57-gallon drum, three further dismembered torsos dissolving in the acid solution. A total of 74 Polaroid pictures detailing the dismemberment of Dahmer's victims were found. In reference to the recovery of body parts and artifacts at 924 North 25th Street, the chief medical examiner later stated: "It was more like dismantling someone's museum than an actual crime scene."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Beginning in the early hours of July 23, 1991, Dahmer was questioned by Detective Patrick Kennedy as to the murders he had committed and the evidence found at his apartment. Over the following two weeks, Kennedy and, later, Detective Dennis Murphy conducted numerous interviews with Dahmer which, when combined, totaled over 60 hours. Dahmer waived his right to have a lawyer present throughout his interrogations, adding he wished to confess all as he had "created this horror and it only makes sense I do everything to put an end to it." He readily admitted to having murdered sixteen young men in Wisconsin since 1987, with one further victim—Steven Hicks—killed in Ohio in 1978.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Most of Dahmer's victims had been rendered unconscious prior to their murder, although some had died as a result of having acid or boiling water injected into their brain. As he had no memory of the killing of his second victim, Steven Tuomi, he was unsure whether he was unconscious when beaten to death, although he did concede it was possible that his viewing the exposed chest of Tuomi while in a drunken stupor may have led him to unsuccessfully attempt to tear Tuomi's heart from his chest. Almost all the murders Dahmer committed after moving into the Oxford Apartments had involved a ritual of posing the victims' bodies in suggestive positions—typically with the chest thrust outwards—prior to dismemberment.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer readily admitted to engaging in necrophilia with several of his victims' bodies, including performing sexual acts with their viscera as he dismembered their bodies in his bathtub. Having noted that much of the blood pooled inside his victims' chest after death, Dahmer first removed their internal organs, then suspended the torso so the blood drained into his bathtub, before dicing any organs he did not wish to retain and paring the flesh from the body. The bones he wished to dispose of were pulverized or acidified, with Soilax and bleach solutions used to aid in the preservation of the skeletons and skulls he wished to keep. Dahmer confessed to having consumed the hearts, liver, biceps, and portions of thigh of three victims he had killed at the Oxford Apartments (Raymond Smith, Ernest Miller and Oliver Lacy), and to have retained the flesh and organs of other victims for intended consumption. Typically, Dahmer would tenderize the body parts he intended to consume prior to preparing meals flavored with various condiments.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Referencing his reasons for consuming his victims, Dahmer stated he had initially consumed portions of his victims due to "curiosity" before adding: "I suppose, in an odd way, it made me feel they were even more a permanent part of me."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Describing the increase in his rate of killing in the two months prior to his arrest, Dahmer stated he had been "completely swept along" with his compulsion to kill, adding: "It was an incessant and never-ending desire to be with someone at whatever cost. Someone good looking, really nice looking. It just filled my thoughts all day long." When asked as to why he had preserved a total of seven skulls and the entire skeletons of two victims, Dahmer stated he had been in the process of constructing a private altar of victims' skulls which he had intended to display on the black table located in his living room and upon which he had photographed the bodies of many of his victims.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: This display of skulls was to be adorned at each side with the complete skeletons of Miller and Lacy. The four severed heads found in his kitchen were to have all flesh removed and used in this altar, as was the skull of at least one future victim. Incense sticks were to be placed at each end of the black table, above which Dahmer intended to place a large blue lamp with extending blue globe lights. The entire construction was to be placed before a window covered with a black, opaque shower curtain, in front of which Dahmer intended to sit in a black leather chair.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: When asked in a November 18, 1991, interview whom the altar was dedicated to, Dahmer replied: "Myself ... It was a place where I could feel at home." He further described his intended altar as a "place for meditation", from where he believed he could draw a sense of power, adding: "If this [his arrest] had happened six months later, that's what they would have found."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On July 25, 1991, Dahmer was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. By August 22, he had been charged with a further eleven murders committed in Wisconsin. On September 14, investigators in Ohio, having uncovered hundreds of bone fragments in woodland behind the address in which Dahmer had confessed to killing his first victim, formally identified two molars and a vertebra with X-ray records of Hicks. Three days later, Dahmer was charged by authorities in Ohio with Hicks's murder.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer was not charged with the attempted murder of Edwards, nor with the murder of Tuomi. He was not charged with Tuomi's murder because the Milwaukee County District Attorney only brought charges where murder could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and Dahmer had no memory of actually committing this particular murder, for which no physical evidence of the crime existed. At a scheduled preliminary hearing on January 13, 1992, Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to 15 counts of murder.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer's trial began on January 30, 1992. He was tried in Milwaukee for the 15 counts of first-degree murder before Judge Laurence Gram. By pleading guilty on January 13 to the charges brought against him, Dahmer had waived his rights to a trial to establish guilt, as defined in Wisconsin law. Attorneys at Dahmer's trial debated whether he suffered from either a mental or a personality disorder. The prosecution claimed that any disorders did not deprive Dahmer of the ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to deprive him of the ability to resist his impulses. The defense argued that Dahmer suffered from a mental disease and was driven by obsessions and impulses he was unable to control.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Defense experts argued that Dahmer was insane due to his necrophilic drive—his compulsion to have sexual encounters with corpses. Defense expert Fred Berlin testified that Dahmer was unable to conform his conduct at the time that he committed the crimes due to his paraphilia or, more specifically, necrophilia. Judith Becker, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, was the second expert witness for the defense. Becker diagnosed Dahmer as a necrophiliac, although she added Dahmer had informed her he preferred comatose sexual partners to deceased ones "75 percent" of the time. The final defense expert to testify, forensic psychiatrist Carl Wahlstrom, diagnosed Dahmer with necrophilia, borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, alcohol dependence, and a psychotic disorder.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On February 8, Fred Fosdal testified on behalf of the prosecution. Fosdal testified to his belief that Dahmer was without mental disease or defect at the time he committed the murders. He described Dahmer as a calculating and cunning individual, able to differentiate between right and wrong, with the ability to control his actions, and whose lust overpowered his morals. Although Fosdal did state his belief that Dahmer was a paraphiliac, his conclusion was that Dahmer was not a sadist.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: The second and final witness to appear for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, began his testimony on February 12. Dietz testified that he did not believe Dahmer had any form of mental disease or defect at the time that he committed the crimes, stating that "Dahmer went to great lengths to be alone with his victim and to have no witnesses." He explained that there was ample evidence that Dahmer prepared in advance for each murder, therefore, his crimes were not impulsive. Although Dietz did concede any acquisition of a paraphilia was not a matter of personal choice, he stated his belief that Dahmer's habit of becoming intoxicated prior to committing each of the murders was significant; "If he had an impulse to kill or a compulsion to kill", Dietz testified, "he wouldn't have to drink alcohol to overcome it. He only has to drink alcohol to overcome it because he is inhibited against killing."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dietz noted that Dahmer strongly identified with the villains of "The Exorcist III" and "Return of the Jedi", particularly the level of power held by these characters. Expounding on the significance of these movies on Dahmer's psyche and many of the murders committed at the Oxford Apartments, Dietz explained that Dahmer occasionally viewed scenes from these films before searching for a victim. Dietz diagnosed Dahmer with substance use disorder, paraphilia, and schizotypal personality disorder.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Two court-appointed mental health professionals—testifying independently of either prosecution or defense—were forensic psychiatrist George Palermo and clinical psychologist Samuel Friedman. Palermo stated that the murders were the result of a "pent-up aggression within himself [Dahmer]. He killed those men because he wanted to kill the source of his homosexual attraction to them. In killing them, he killed what he hated in himself." Palermo concluded that Dahmer had a severe mixed personality disorder, with antisocial, obsessive-compulsive, sadistic, fetishistic, borderline and necrophilic features, but otherwise legally sane.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Friedman testified that it was a longing for companionship that caused Dahmer to kill and testified that Dahmer was not psychotic. He described Dahmer as "amiable, pleasant to be with, courteous, with a sense of humor, conventionally handsome, and charming in manner. He was, and still is, a bright young man." He diagnosed Dahmer with a personality disorder not otherwise specified featuring borderline, obsessive-compulsive, and sadistic traits.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: The trial lasted two weeks. On February 14, both attorneys delivered their closing arguments to the jury. Each attorney was allowed to speak for two hours. Defense attorney Gerald Boyle argued first. Repeatedly referring to the testimony of the mental health professionals—almost all of whom had agreed Dahmer was afflicted with a mental disease—Boyle argued that Dahmer's compulsive killings had been a result of "a sickness he discovered, not chose." Boyle portrayed Dahmer as a desperately lonely and profoundly sick individual "so out of control he could not conform his conduct any more."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Following the defense counsel's 75-minute closing argument, Michael McCann delivered his closing argument for the prosecution, describing Dahmer as a sane man, in full control of his actions, who simply strove to avoid detection. McCann described Dahmer as a calculating individual who killed to control his victims and retained their bodies "merely to afford" himself a prolonged period of sexual pleasure. McCann argued that by pleading guilty but insane to the charges, Dahmer was seeking to escape responsibility for his crimes.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On February 15, the court reconvened to hear the verdict: Dahmer was ruled to be sane and not suffering from a mental disorder at the time of each of the 15 murders for which he was tried, although in each count, two of the twelve jurors signified their dissent. Formal sentencing was postponed until February 17. On this date, Dahmer's attorney announced his client wished to address the court. Dahmer then approached a lectern and read from a statement prepared by himself and his defense as he faced the judge.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: In this statement, Dahmer emphasized that he had never desired freedom following his arrest, and that he "frankly" wished for his own death. He further stressed that none of his murders had been motivated by hatred, that he understood that nothing he either said or did could "undo the terrible harm" he had caused to the families of his victims and the city of Milwaukee, and that he and his doctors believed his criminal behavior had been motivated by mental disorders. Dahmer added that this medical knowledge had given him "some peace", and that although he understood that society would never forgive him, he hoped God would.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer closed his statement with: "I know my time in prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get because of what I have done. Thank you, your honor, and I am prepared for your sentence, which I know will be the maximum. I ask for no consideration." He then returned to his seat to await formal sentencing.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer was then sentenced to life imprisonment plus ten years upon the first two counts. The remaining thirteen counts carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment plus seventy years. The death penalty was not an option for Judge Gram to consider at the penalty phase, as Wisconsin had abolished capital punishment in 1853.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Upon hearing of Dahmer's sentencing, his father Lionel and stepmother Shari requested to be allowed a ten-minute private meeting with their son before he was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, to begin his sentence. This request was granted and the trio exchanged hugs and well-wishes before Dahmer was escorted away.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Three months after his conviction in Milwaukee, Dahmer was extradited to Ohio to be tried for the murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks. In a court hearing lasting just 45 minutes, Dahmer again pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment on May 1, 1992.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Upon sentencing, Dahmer was transferred to the Columbia Correctional Institution. For the first year of his incarceration, Dahmer was placed in solitary confinement due to concerns for his physical safety should he come into contact with fellow inmates. He received ample correspondence from individuals across the world, with several individuals donating money which he spent on items such as cassette recordings, stationery, cigarettes, and magazines. Upon Dahmer's request, after one year in solitary confinement, he was transferred to a less secure unit, where he was assigned a two-hour daily work detail cleaning the toilet block. This work detail later expanded to include cleaning the prison gymnasium.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Shortly after completing his lengthy confessions in 1991, Dahmer had requested to Detective Murphy that he be given a copy of the Bible. This request was granted and Dahmer gradually devoted himself to Christianity and became a born-again Christian. On his father's urging, he also read creationist books from the Institute for Creation Research. In May 1994, Dahmer was baptized by Roy Ratcliff, a minister in the Church of Christ and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University whom he had met on April 20. This service was conducted in the prison whirlpool.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Following Dahmer's baptism, Ratcliff visited him on a weekly basis. The two regularly discussed the prospect of death, and Ratcliff later divulged that, in the months prior to his murder, Dahmer had questioned whether he was sinning against God by continuing to live. Referring to his crimes in a 1994 interview with Stone Phillips on "Dateline NBC", Dahmer had stated: "If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On July 3, 1994, a fellow inmate, Osvaldo Durruthy, attempted to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor embedded in a toothbrush as Dahmer sat in the prison chapel after the weekly church service was concluded. Dahmer received superficial wounds and was not seriously hurt in this incident. According to Dahmer's family, he had long been ready to die, and accepted any punishment which he might endure in prison. In addition to his father and stepmother maintaining regular contact, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, also maintained regular contact with her son. Prior to his arrest, the two had not seen each other since Christmas 1983. Joyce related that in her weekly phone calls, whenever she expressed concerns for her son's physical well-being, Dahmer responded with comments to the effect of: "It doesn't matter, Mom. I don't care if something happens to me."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On the morning of November 28, 1994, Dahmer left his cell to conduct his assigned work detail. Accompanying him were two fellow inmates, Jesse Anderson and Christopher Scarver. The trio were left unsupervised in the showers of the prison gym for approximately 20 minutes. At approximately 8:10 a.m. Dahmer was discovered on the floor of the bathrooms of the gym suffering from extreme head wounds; he had been severely bludgeoned about the head and face with a metal bar. His head had also been repeatedly struck against the wall in the assault. Although Dahmer was still alive and was rushed to a nearby hospital, he was pronounced dead one hour later. Anderson had been beaten with the same instrument, and died two days later from his wounds.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Scarver, who was serving a life sentence for a murder committed in 1990, informed authorities he had first attacked Dahmer with the metal bar as Dahmer was cleaning a staff locker room, before attacking Anderson as Anderson cleaned an inmate locker room. According to Scarver, Dahmer did not yell or make any noise as he was attacked. Immediately after attacking both men, Scarver, who was thought to be schizophrenic, returned to his cell and informed a prison guard: "God told me to do it. Jesse Anderson and Jeffrey Dahmer are dead." Scarver was adamant he had not planned the attacks in advance, although he later divulged to investigators he had concealed the 20-inch iron bar used to kill both men in his clothing shortly before the killings.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Upon learning of his death, Dahmer's mother Joyce responded angrily to the media: "Now is everybody happy? Now that he's bludgeoned to death, is that good enough for everyone?" The response of the families of Dahmer's victims was mixed: some celebrated the news, while others were saddened. Catherine Lacy, the mother of victim Oliver Lacy, remarked: "The hurt is worse now, because he's not suffering like we are." The district attorney who prosecuted Dahmer cautioned against turning Scarver into a folk hero, saying that Dahmer's death was still murder. On May 15, 1995, Scarver was sentenced to two additional terms of life imprisonment for the murders of Dahmer and Anderson.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer had stated in his will that he wished for no services to be conducted and that he wished to be cremated. In September 1995, Dahmer's body was cremated, and his ashes divided between his parents. Owing to a disagreement between his parents as to whether Dahmer's brain should be retained for medical research, this organ was initially retained, but also cremated in December 1995.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: On August 5, 1991, as the nature and scale of Dahmer's crimes initially came to light, a candlelight vigil to celebrate and heal the Milwaukee community was attended by more than 400 people. Present at the vigil were community leaders, gay rights activists, and family members of several of Dahmer's victims. Organizers stated the purpose of the vigil was to enable Milwaukeeans to "share their feelings of pain and anger over what happened".


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer's murders were committed at a time of heightened racial tension in Milwaukee. A professor of community studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Walter Farrell, later stated race relations in the city had been "in a state of disrepair for nearly a decade" at the time of Dahmer's arrest. In an August 1991 interview given to the Christian Science Monitor, Farrell stated that news of the murders, as well as the conduct of Milwaukee police officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish with regards to victim Konerak Sinthasomphone, exacerbated and highlighted racial tensions within the city.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Milwaukee's gay scene was generally underground and transient in nature at the time of Dahmer's murders, with many sexually active gay men using aliases. Many in the city's gay community were nervous of the intentions of others after the extent of Dahmer's murders became known, although the fear and distrust generated by Dahmer's crimes was short-lived. As the 1990s progressed, the usage of aliases became less common among members of Milwaukee's gay community.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: The Oxford Apartments at 924 North 25th Street, where Dahmer had killed twelve of his victims, were demolished in November 1992. The site is now a vacant lot. Alternate plans to convert the site into either a memorial garden, a playground, or to reconstruct new housing have failed to materialize.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Dahmer's estate was awarded to the families of eleven of his victims who had sued for damages. In 1996, Thomas Jacobson, a lawyer representing eight of the families, announced a planned auction of Dahmer's estate. Although victims' relatives stated the motivation was not greed, the announcement sparked controversy. A civic group, Milwaukee Civic Pride, was quickly established in an effort to raise the funds to purchase and destroy many of Dahmer's possessions. The group pledged $407,225, including a $100,000 gift by Milwaukee real estate developer Joseph Zilber, for purchase of Dahmer's estate; five of the eight families represented by Jacobson agreed to the terms, and Dahmer's possessions were subsequently destroyed and buried in an undisclosed Illinois landfill.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Lionel Dahmer is retired and now lives with his second wife, Shari. Both have refused to change their surname and have professed their love of Dahmer in spite of his crimes. In 1994, Lionel published a book, "A Father's Story," and donated a portion of the proceeds from his book to the victims' families. Most of the families showed support for Lionel and Shari, although three families subsequently sued Lionel: two for using their names in the book without obtaining prior consent, and a third family—that of Steven Hicks—filing a wrongful death suit against Lionel, Shari, and former wife Joyce, citing parental negligence as the cause for the claim.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Joyce Flint died of cancer on November 27, 2000. Prior to her death, she had attempted suicide on at least one occasion. Dahmer's younger brother, David, changed his surname and lives in anonymity.


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen young men between 1978 and 1991. Twelve were killed in his North 25th Street apartment. Three victims were murdered and dismembered at his grandmother's West Allis residence. His first and second victims were murdered at his parents' home in Ohio and at the Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, respectively. A total of fourteen of Dahmer's victims were from various ethnic minority backgrounds, with nine victims being black. Dahmer was adamant that the race of his victims was incidental to him and that it was the body form of a potential victim that attracted his attention. These contentions have been supported via an independent forensic specialists' study of Dahmer's victim selection, the anthropological analysis of which revealed his victims shared a "morphological similarity" and suggesting Dahmer was "psychologically attracted to a certain anthropometric body type."


title: Jeffrey Dahmer

text: Most of Dahmer's victims were killed by strangulation after being drugged with sedatives. His first victim was killed by a combination of bludgeoning and strangulation and his second victim was battered to death, with one further victim killed in 1990, Ernest Miller, dying of a combination of shock and blood loss due to his carotid artery being cut. Four of Dahmer's victims killed in 1991 had holes bored into their skulls through which Dahmer injected hydrochloric acid or, later, boiling water, into the frontal lobes in an attempt to induce a permanent, submissive, unresistant state. This proved fatal, although on each occasion this was not Dahmer's intention.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. Victoria died in 1901 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, at the age of 81. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. Until 1817, the only legitimate grandchild of George III was Edward's niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, who was the daughter of George, Prince Regent (who would become George IV). Charlotte's death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children. In 1818, the Duke of Kent married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower and later the first king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, Victoria, was born at 4:15 a.m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace. She was baptised "Alexandrina" after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and "Victoria", after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent's eldest brother, the Prince Regent.


title: Queen Victoria

text: At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent. The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children. William and Edward married on the same day in 1818, but both of William's legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. William's second daughter, Princess Elizabeth of Clarence, lived for twelve weeks from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821, and for that period Victoria was fourth in line.


title: Queen Victoria

text: The Duke of York died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; the throne passed to their next surviving brother, William, and Victoria became heir presumptive. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victoria's mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor. King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be regent, and in 1836 he declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victoria's 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy". Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchess's lover. The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them. The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King William's illegitimate children. Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash. Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin, but she spoke only English at home.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1830, the Duchess of Kent, and Conroy, took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way. Similar journeys to other parts of England and Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. To the King's annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops. William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heir presumptive. Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest. She objected on the grounds of the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy and forced Victoria to continue the tours. At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence. While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary. As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff. Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mother's household.


title: Queen Victoria

text: By 1836, Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert, the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victoria's mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert. William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange. Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful." Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain".


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser", to thank him "for the prospect of "great" happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see." However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and "alone", and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that "I" am "Queen"." Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victoria's heir presumptive until she had a child.


title: Queen Victoria

text: At the time of Victoria's accession, the government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne. He at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him for advice. Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure. Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations. She became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as being granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her father's debts.


title: Queen Victoria

text: At the start of her reign Victoria was popular, but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy. Victoria believed the rumours. She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora", because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System. At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin. Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora. When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen. At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery. The Queen commissioned a Tory, Robert Peel, to form a new ministry. At the time, it was customary for the prime minister to appoint members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies and their spouses. Many of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Though Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mother's continued reliance on Conroy. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her. When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking alternative". Victoria showed interest in Albert's education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:


title: Queen Victoria

text: Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queen's companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life. Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victoria's aunt, Princess Augusta, in 1840, Victoria's mother was given both Clarence and Frogmore Houses. Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved.


title: Queen Victoria

text: During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as he later claimed, the guns had no shot. He was tried for high treason, found not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis. Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought newborn babies were ugly. Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward (b. 1841), Alice (b. 1843), Alfred (b. 1844), Helena (b. 1846), Louise (b. 1848), Arthur (b. 1850), Leopold (b. 1853) and Beatrice (b. 1857).


title: Queen Victoria

text: The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria and had supported her against the Kensington System. Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughter's health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended.


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her, but the gun did not fire. The assailant escaped; the following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to bait Francis into taking a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Bean also tried to fire a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco and had too little charge. Edward Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail. In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at Victoria's carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London. In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Melbourne's support in the House of Commons weakened through the early years of Victoria's reign, and in the 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, and the ladies of the bedchamber most associated with the Whigs were replaced.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight. In the next four years, over a million Irish people died and another million emigrated in what became known as the Great Famine. In Ireland, Victoria was labelled "The Famine Queen". In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent to between £178,000 and £6.5 million in 2016) to the British Relief Association, more than any other individual famine relief donor, and supported the Maynooth Grant to a Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland, despite Protestant opposition. The story that she donated only £5 in aid to the Irish, and on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the end of the 19th century.


title: Queen Victoria

text: By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Peel, some Tories (the free-trade oriented liberal conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain. She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the House of Orleans, who were related by marriage through the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I at Château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the first British or English monarch to visit a French monarch since the meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first French king to visit a British sovereign. Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile in England. At the height of a revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left London for the greater safety of Osborne House, a private estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped. Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances. Victoria's first visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but it had no lasting impact or effect on the growth of Irish nationalism.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen. She found particularly offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen. Victoria complained to Russell that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and continued to act on his own initiative, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the British government's approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister. The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, by which time Russell's administration had been replaced by a short-lived minority government led by Lord Derby.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was so impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and final child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, and members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous. Victoria may have had postnatal depression after many of her pregnancies. Letters from Albert to Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of self-control. For example, about a month after Leopold's birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle".


title: Queen Victoria

text: In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston as prime minister.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Napoleon III, Britain's closest ally as a result of the Crimean War, visited London in April 1855, and from 17 to 28 August the same year Victoria and Albert returned the visit. Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne and accompanied them to Paris. They visited the Exposition Universelle (a successor to Albert's 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honour at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace of Versailles. This marked the first time that a reigning British monarch had been to Paris in over 400 years.


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 14 January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England. The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister. Victoria and Albert attended the opening of a new basin at the French military port of Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military preparations were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor state of the Royal Navy in comparison to the French Navy. Derby's ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Eleven days after Orsini's assassination attempt in France, Victoria's eldest daughter married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in London. They had been betrothed since September 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 years old; the marriage was delayed by the Queen and her husband Albert until the bride was 17. The Queen and Albert hoped that their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state. The Queen felt "sick at heart" to see her daughter leave England for Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in one of her frequent letters, "when I look round to all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too – one by one." Almost exactly a year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queen's first grandchild, Wilhelm, who would become the last German Emperor.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply; she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother. To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief, Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble. In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and spent a few days holidaying in Killarney. In November, Albert was made aware of gossip that his son had slept with an actress in Ireland. Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him. By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell. He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated. She blamed her husband's death on worry over the Prince of Wales's philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said. She entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the nickname "widow of Windsor". Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement. She did undertake her official government duties, yet chose to remain secluded in her royal residences—Windsor Castle, Osborne House, and the private estate in Scotland that she and Albert had acquired in 1847, Balmoral Castle. In March 1864 a protester stuck a notice on the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant's declining business". Her uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her to appear in public. She agreed to visit the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive through London in an open carriage.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown. Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, and some referred to the Queen as "Mrs. Brown". The story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 movie "Mrs. Brown". A painting by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer depicting the Queen with Brown was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and Victoria published a book, "Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands", which featured Brown prominently and in which the Queen praised him highly.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry led by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, Victoria attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since Albert's death. The following year she supported the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which doubled the electorate by extending the franchise to many urban working men, though she was not in favour of votes for women. Derby resigned in 1868, to be replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. "Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." With the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", he complimented her. Disraeli's ministry only lasted a matter of months, and at the end of the year his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour far less appealing; he spoke to her, she is thought to have complained, as though she were "a public meeting rather than a woman".


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the Third French Republic. A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victoria's removal, and Radical MPs spoke against her. In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an abscess in her arm, which Joseph Lister successfully lanced and treated with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray. In late November 1871, at the height of the republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die. As the tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, her son's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued. To general rejoicing, he recovered. Mother and son attended a public parade through London and a grand service of thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided.


title: Queen Victoria

text: On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, a great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus O'Connor, waved an unloaded pistol at Victoria's open carriage just after she had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was later sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, and a birching. As a result of the incident, Victoria's popularity recovered further.


title: Queen Victoria

text: After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent were formally incorporated into the British Empire. The Queen had a relatively balanced view of the conflict, and condemned atrocities on both sides. She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret at the result of this bloody civil war", and insisted, urged on by Albert, that an official proclamation announcing the transfer of power from the company to the state "should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence and religious toleration". At her behest, a reference threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned to power. He passed the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, which removed Catholic rituals from the Anglican liturgy and which Victoria strongly supported. She preferred short, simple services, and personally considered herself more aligned with the presbyterian Church of Scotland than the episcopal Church of England. Disraeli also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876. The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 14 December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis of Hesse, died of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria noted the coincidence of the dates as "almost incredible and most mysterious". In May 1879, she became a great-grandmother (on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) and passed her "poor old 60th birthday". She felt "aged" by "the loss of my beloved child".


title: Queen Victoria

text: Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to abdicate while pressuring Disraeli to act against Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, but her threats had no impact on the events or their conclusion with the Congress of Berlin. Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. "If "we" are to "maintain" our position as a "first-rate" Power", she wrote, "we must ... be "Prepared" for "attacks" and "wars", "somewhere" or "other", CONTINUALLY." Victoria saw the expansion of the British Empire as civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from more aggressive powers or cruel rulers: "It is not in our custom to annexe countries", she said, "unless we are obliged & forced to do so." To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister. When Disraeli died the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears", and erected a memorial tablet "placed by his grateful Sovereign and Friend, Victoria R.I."


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria's refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Gordon Chesney Wilson and another schoolboy from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas, until he was hustled away by a policeman. Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was so pleased by the many expressions of loyalty after the attack that she said it was "worth being shot at—to see how much one is loved".


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 17 March 1883, Victoria fell down some stairs at Windsor, which left her lame until July; she never fully recovered and was plagued with rheumatism thereafter. John Brown died 10 days after her accident, and to the consternation of her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, Victoria began work on a eulogistic biography of Brown. Ponsonby and Randall Davidson, Dean of Windsor, who had both seen early drafts, advised Victoria against publication, on the grounds that it would stoke the rumours of a love affair. The manuscript was destroyed. In early 1884, Victoria did publish "More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands", a sequel to her earlier book, which she dedicated to her "devoted personal attendant and faithful friend John Brown". On the day after the first anniversary of Brown's death, Victoria was informed by telegram that her youngest son, Leopold, had died in Cannes. He was "the dearest of my dear sons", she lamented. The following month, Victoria's youngest child, Beatrice, met and fell in love with Prince Henry of Battenberg at the wedding of Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine to Henry's brother Prince Louis of Battenberg. Beatrice and Henry planned to marry, but Victoria opposed the match at first, wishing to keep Beatrice at home to act as her companion. After a year, she was won around to the marriage by their promise to remain living with and attending her.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria was pleased when Gladstone resigned in 1885 after his budget was defeated. She thought his government was "the worst I have ever had", and blamed him for the death of General Gordon at Khartoum. Gladstone was replaced by Lord Salisbury. Salisbury's government only lasted a few months, however, and Victoria was forced to recall Gladstone, whom she referred to as a "half crazy & really in many ways ridiculous old man". Gladstone attempted to pass a bill granting Ireland home rule, but to Victoria's glee it was defeated. In the ensuing election, Gladstone's party lost to Salisbury's and the government switched hands again.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1887, the British Empire celebrated Victoria's Golden Jubilee. She marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on 20 June with a banquet to which 50 kings and princes were invited. The following day, she participated in a procession and attended a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey. By this time, Victoria was once again extremely popular. Two days later on 23 June, she engaged two Indian Muslims as waiters, one of whom was Abdul Karim. He was soon promoted to "Munshi": teaching her Urdu and acting as a clerk. Her family and retainers were appalled, and accused Abdul Karim of spying for the Muslim Patriotic League, and biasing the Queen against the Hindus. Equerry Frederick Ponsonby (the son of Sir Henry) discovered that the Munshi had lied about his parentage, and reported to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India, "the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do." Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice. Abdul Karim remained in her service until he returned to India with a pension, on her death.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria's eldest daughter became empress consort of Germany in 1888, but she was widowed a little over three months later, and Victoria's eldest grandchild became German Emperor as Wilhelm II. Victoria and Albert's hopes of a liberal Germany would go unfulfilled, as Wilhelm was a firm believer in autocracy. Victoria thought he had "little heart or "Zartgefühl" [tact] – and ... his conscience & intelligence have been completely wharped ".


title: Queen Victoria

text: Gladstone returned to power after the 1892 general election; he was 82 years old. Victoria objected when Gladstone proposed appointing the Radical MP Henry Labouchère to the Cabinet, so Gladstone agreed not to appoint him. In 1894, Gladstone retired and, without consulting the outgoing prime minister, Victoria appointed Lord Rosebery as prime minister. His government was weak, and the following year Lord Salisbury replaced him. Salisbury remained prime minister for the remainder of Victoria's reign.


title: Queen Victoria

text: On 23 September 1896, Victoria surpassed her grandfather George III as the longest-reigning monarch in British history. The Queen requested that any special celebrations be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee, which was made a festival of the British Empire at the suggestion of the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. The prime ministers of all the self-governing Dominions were invited to London for the festivities. One reason for including the prime ministers of the Dominions and excluding foreign heads of state was to avoid having to invite Victoria's grandson Wilhelm II of Germany, who, it was feared, might cause trouble at the event.


title: Queen Victoria

text: The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession on 22 June 1897 followed a route six miles long through London and included troops from all over the empire. The procession paused for an open-air service of thanksgiving held outside St Paul's Cathedral, throughout which Victoria sat in her open carriage, to avoid her having to climb the steps to enter the building. The celebration was marked by vast crowds of spectators and great outpourings of affection for the 78-year-old Queen.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria visited mainland Europe regularly for holidays. In 1889, during a stay in Biarritz, she became the first reigning monarch from Britain to set foot in Spain when she crossed the border for a brief visit. By April 1900, the Boer War was so unpopular in mainland Europe that her annual trip to France seemed inadvisable. Instead, the Queen went to Ireland for the first time since 1861, in part to acknowledge the contribution of Irish regiments to the South African war.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In July 1900, Victoria's second son, Alfred ("Affie"), died. "Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too", she wrote in her journal. "It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another."


title: Queen Victoria

text: Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her disabled, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt "weak and unwell", and by mid-January she was "drowsy ... dazed, [and] confused". She died on 22 January 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her eldest son, Albert Edward, succeeded her as Edward VII. Edward and his nephew Wilhelm II were at Victoria's deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request.


title: Queen Victoria

text: In 1897, Victoria had written instructions for her funeral, which was to be military as befitting a soldier's daughter and the head of the army, and white instead of black. On 25 January, her sons Edward and Arthur and her grandson Wilhelm helped lift her body into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request, by her doctor and dressers. One of Albert's dressing gowns was placed by her side, with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of John Brown's hair, along with a picture of him, was placed in her left hand concealed from the view of the family by a carefully positioned bunch of flowers. Items of jewellery placed on Victoria included the wedding ring of John Brown's mother, given to her by Brown in 1883. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, at Windsor Great Park.


title: Queen Victoria

text: With a reign of 63 years, seven months, and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history, until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on 9 September 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover; her son Edward VII belonged to her husband's House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.


title: Queen Victoria

text: According to one of her biographers, Giles St Aubyn, Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, and burned the originals in the process. Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist. In addition to Beatrice's edited copy, Lord Esher transcribed the volumes from 1832 to 1861 before Beatrice destroyed them. Part of Victoria's extensive correspondence has been published in volumes edited by A. C. Benson, Hector Bolitho, George Earle Buckle, Lord Esher, Roger Fulford, and Richard Hough among others.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria was physically unprepossessing—she was stout, dowdy and only about tall—but she succeeded in projecting a grand image. She experienced unpopularity during the first years of her widowhood, but was well liked during the 1880s and 1890s, when she embodied the empire as a benevolent matriarchal figure. Only after the release of her diary and letters did the extent of her political influence become known to the wider public. Biographies of Victoria written before much of the primary material became available, such as Lytton Strachey's "Queen Victoria" of 1921, are now considered out of date. The biographies written by Elizabeth Longford and Cecil Woodham-Smith, in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired. They, and others, conclude that as a person Victoria was emotional, obstinate, honest, and straight-talking.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Through Victoria's reign, the gradual establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy in Britain continued. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the House of Commons at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarch. In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch only retained "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn". As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. The concept of the "family monarchy", with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify, was solidified.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria's links with Europe's royal families earned her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". Of the 42 grandchildren of Victoria and Albert, 34 survived to adulthood. Their living descendants include Charles III of the United Kingdom; Harald V of Norway; Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden; Margrethe II of Denmark; and Felipe VI of Spain.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, was affected by the blood-clotting disease haemophilia B and at least two of her five daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Royal haemophiliacs descended from Victoria included her great-grandsons, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; Alfonso, Prince of Asturias; and Infante Gonzalo of Spain. The presence of the disease in Victoria's descendants, but not in her ancestors, led to modern speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent, but a haemophiliac. There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac in connection with Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always had the disease, even if such a man had existed he would have been seriously ill. It is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was over 50 at the time of her conception and haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers. Spontaneous mutations account for about a third of cases.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Around the world, places and memorials are dedicated to her, especially in the Commonwealth nations. Places named after her include Africa's largest lake, Victoria Falls, the capitals of British Columbia (Victoria) and Saskatchewan (Regina), two Australian states (Victoria and Queensland), and the capital of the island nation of Seychelles.


title: Queen Victoria

text: The Victoria Cross was introduced in 1856 to reward acts of valour during the Crimean War, and it remains the highest British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand award for bravery. Victoria Day is a Canadian statutory holiday and a local public holiday in parts of Scotland celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May (Queen Victoria's birthday).


title: Queen Victoria

text: At the end of her reign, the Queen's full style was: "Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India".


title: Queen Victoria

text: As Sovereign, Victoria used the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. Before her accession, she received no grant of arms. As she could not succeed to the throne of Hanover, her arms did not carry the Hanoverian symbols that were used by her immediate predecessors. Her arms have been borne by all of her successors on the throne.


title: Queen Victoria

text: Outside Scotland, the blazon for the shield—also used on the Royal Standard—is: Quarterly: I and IV, Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II, Or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III, Azure, a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland). In Scotland, the first and fourth quarters are occupied by the Scottish lion, and the second by the English lions. The crests, mottoes, and supporters also differ in and outside Scotland.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Better Call Saul is an American crime and legal drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. Part of the "Breaking Bad" franchise, it is a spin-off of Gilligan's previous series, "Breaking Bad", and serves as a prequel and sequel to its predecessor. Set primarily in the early-mid 2000s in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series examines the transformation of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), an earnest lawyer and former con artist, into an egocentric criminal defense attorney known as Saul Goodman. The show also examines the moral decline of former police officer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), who becomes a violent fixer for drug traffickers to support his granddaughter and widowed daughter-in-law. The show premiered on AMC on February 8, 2015, and concluded on August 15, 2022, after six seasons consisting of 63 episodes.


title: Better Call Saul

text: At the start of the series, Jimmy struggles financially while working on court-appointed cases as a public defender. His romantic interest and former colleague, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), is an attorney at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill (HHM), a law firm co-owned by Jimmy's brilliant but unwell brother, Chuck McGill (Michael McKean) and Chuck's law partner, Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian). After hiring Jimmy as legal representation, Mike provides advice and security for Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), an intelligent drug dealer who later becomes a mole for Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), a drug lord who also operates a legitimate business, the Los Pollos Hermanos fast food establishment. Their operations are disrupted by members of the murderous Salamanca family, including Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton). Odenkirk, Banks, and Esposito reprise their roles from "Breaking Bad", as do many others who make guest appearances.


title: Better Call Saul

text: "Better Call Saul" received unanimous critical acclaim, with particular praise for its acting, characters, writing, direction and cinematography; many reviewers not only considered it a worthy successor to "Breaking Bad", but also one of the greatest television series of all time, with some deeming it superior to its predecessor. It has garnered many nominations, including a Peabody Award, 46 Primetime Emmy Awards, 15 Writers Guild of America Awards, 14 Critics' Choice Television Awards, six Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. At the time of its airing, the series premiere held the record for the highest-rated scripted series premiere in basic cable history.


title: Better Call Saul

text: "Better Call Saul" follows the transformation of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), a former con artist who is trying to become a respectable lawyer, into the personality of the flamboyant criminal lawyer Saul Goodman (a play on the phrase "[it]'s all good, man!"), over the six-year period prior to the events of "Breaking Bad", spanning from approximately 2002 to 2008.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Jimmy is inspired by his older brother Chuck to leave his Chicago-area conman past, when he was known as "Slippin' Jimmy". He initially works in the mailroom at his brother's Albuquerque law firm, Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill (HHM), where managing partner Howard Hamlin becomes his nemesis. While at HHM Jimmy befriends Kim Wexler, a fellow mailroom employee who completes law school and becomes one of the firm's associates, and their friendship later turns romantic. Jimmy is motivated by Chuck's success to finish college and complete a Juris Doctor degree through a correspondence law school, the fictitious University of American Samoa.


title: Better Call Saul

text: After attaining admission to the bar but being denied employment at HHM, Jimmy's pursuits focus on low paying clients including working as a public defender. He later begins to build a practice in elder law, which leads to a prolonged lawsuit against a nursing home chain he discovers is defrauding its clients. He and Chuck begin working together on a class-action suit, which Chuck quickly punts to HHM, squeezing Jimmy out. Jimmy begins to unravel due to Chuck's constant belittling, sabotage, and vindictive behavior towards him. Jimmy's life and career begin to intersect with the illegal narcotics trade and feature characters and story arcs that continue into "Breaking Bad".


title: Better Call Saul

text: Among these arcs is the uneasy truce between the Salamanca family that serves the Juárez Cartel drug interest, led first by Hector Salamanca and later by his nephews Tuco (Raymond Cruz) and Lalo, and Gus Fring, a fried chicken entrepreneur whose restaurant chain is a front for the drug trade. Those caught up in the ensuing turmoil include Ignacio "Nacho" Varga, a Salamanca associate who wants to protect his father from harm, and Mike Ehrmantraut, a former Philadelphia police officer who becomes a fixer for Gus. As his interactions with criminals continue, Jimmy takes on the persona of the flamboyant, colorful Saul Goodman, and he starts to draw on his conman past while his work as an attorney goes from questionable to unethical to illegal.


title: Better Call Saul

text: In addition to selected scenes that take place within the "Breaking Bad" timeline, the show includes flashforwards, shown in black and white, to events following "Breaking Bad". These scenes, taking place in 2010, show Jimmy living as a fugitive under the identity Gene Takavic, the manager of a Cinnabon store in Omaha, Nebraska.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould began considering a television spinoff of "Breaking Bad" as early as 2009. While filming the "Breaking Bad" episode "Full Measure", Gilligan asked Bob Odenkirk his thoughts on a Saul Goodman spinoff. In July 2012, Gilligan publicly hinted at a Goodman spinoff, stating that he liked "the idea of a lawyer show in which the main lawyer will do anything it takes to stay out of court", including settling on the courthouse steps. During his appearance on "Talking Bad," Odenkirk noted that Saul was one of the most popular characters on the show, speculating that the audience likes the character because he is "the program's least hypocritical figure", and "is good at his job".


title: Better Call Saul

text: Gilligan noted that over the course of "Breaking Bad", there were a lot of "what ifs” their team considered, such as if the show won a Primetime Emmy Award, or if people would buy "Los Pollos Hermanos" T-shirts. The staff did not expect these events to come to fruition, but after they did, they started considering a spin-off featuring Saul as a thought experiment. Furthermore, Saul's character on "Breaking Bad" became much more developed than the staff had planned, as he was originally slated to appear in only three episodes. With the growth of Saul's character, Gilligan saw ways to explore the character further.


title: Better Call Saul

text: In April 2013, "Better Call Saul" was confirmed to be in development by Gilligan and Gould; the latter wrote the "Breaking Bad" episode that introduced the character. In July 2013, before the second half of "Breaking Bad"s final season aired, Gilligan said he and Gould were still working out ideas for the spin-off, but a deal had not yet been made. Netflix was one of many interested distributors, but ultimately a deal was made between AMC and the "Breaking Bad" production company Sony Pictures Television. Gilligan and Gould began as co-showrunners, and Gilligan directed the pilot. Former "Breaking Bad" writers Thomas Schnauz and Gennifer Hutchison joined the writing staff, with Schnauz serving as co-executive producer and Hutchison as supervising producer. Also joining the initial writing staff were Bradley Paul and former "Breaking Bad" writer's assistant Gordon Smith.


title: Better Call Saul

text: As Sony and AMC began to commit to a spinoff, Gilligan and Gould worked on what it would be about. They initially considered making it a half-hour show where Saul would see various clients – celebrities in guest roles – in his strip mall office, a format similar to "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", but they had no idea how to write for this type of format, and fell back to planning for hour-long episodes. Since they had used this format with "Breaking Bad", which Gilligan said was "25-percent humor, 75-percent drama", the two considered reversing that for "Better Call Saul". While the intent was to add more humor, the show remained heavy with dramatic elements, with Odenkirk calling the first season "85 percent drama, 15 percent comedy."


title: Better Call Saul

text: While several of the characters are lawyers in the show, Gilligan and Gould did not want to write a legal show, but instead a crime show, but one that would necessitate some legal elements. To help in these areas, the writers spoke to real lawyers and spent time observing cases at Los Angeles Superior Court, observing that the bulk of the activity in these cases was downtime while waiting for others to complete actions.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Gilligan and Gould found that the character of Saul Goodman was insufficient to carry the show by himself, with Gilligan calling the character of Saul "great flavoring" for a show but not the substance. They came to realize that Saul, in the "Breaking Bad" timeframe, was a man that had come to accept himself, and recognized the potential of telling the story of how Saul got to be that person. Gilligan and Gould had already committed to the "Better Call Saul" title, so that in following this route, they believed they had to quickly get from Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman, or they would otherwise disappoint their audience. However, as they wrote the show, they realized "we don't want to get to Saul Goodman … and that's the tragedy".


title: Better Call Saul

text: Gilligan and Gould had learned several lessons related to foreshadowing without writing the foresight for it from "Breaking Bad", and so with "Better Call Saul", gave themselves more flexibility in how the show's plot would develop over its run, and had no firm idea where it will end up outside the connection to "Breaking Bad". For example, Rhea Seehorn's performance as Kim Wexler during the first season significantly altered how the writers used her character in later seasons as well as slowing down the pacing of the transition of Jimmy into Saul, as they gave more focus to the Jimmy–Kim relationship. Gilligan compared this to the impact Aaron Paul's acting had on "Breaking Bad"s ultimate pacing.


title: Better Call Saul

text: In writing for "Better Call Saul", Gilligan and Gould recognized they were including overlaps with "Breaking Bad", and had ideas of characters they would include, such as Gus Fring, though on no set timetable within the show's development. Gilligan described the writing approach as if developing two separate shows, one that centers on Jimmy/Saul, Kim, Chuck, and Howard, and a second on the more familiar "Breaking Bad" characters like Mike and Gus with some overlap, as if they were giving the audience two shows for one. Where possible, they had written in minor "Breaking Bad" characters in smaller parts or as Easter eggs to fans, but Gilligan preferred only to include such major "Breaking Bad" characters as Walter or Jesse if this seemed unconstrained and satisfactory to both the production team and the audiences.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Because of the closeness to the "Breaking Bad" storyline, one of the writers was tasked at the start of each season to rewatch all 62 episodes of the show and verify that the scripts for the "Better Call Saul" season introduced no conflicts. As the show continued, the show's "brain trust" consisting of script coordinators Ariel Levine and Kathleen Williams-Foshee reviewed each script to help maintain the continuity with "Breaking Bad", including tracking minor character traits and assuring small details from the previous show were kept correct if brought up again.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Gilligan left the "Better Call Saul" writing staff early in the third season to focus on other projects, resulting in Gould becoming sole showrunner. This transition had been planned since the show's debut, but Gilligan hoped to return to the writers room during the show's final season. He remained involved in the fourth and fifth seasons, but said he had very little to do with developing the show's contents during this period. Instead, Gilligan reduced his role to being a "director for hire" for the episodes "Wiedersehen" and "Bagman", and stated these were the only scripts he read when he was not on the writing staff. He went on to credit Gould for maintaining the series' high quality. Gould would bring Gilligan back to the writers room for the sixth and final season, calling it "wonderful to have him there, so we can finish this show that we started together."


title: Better Call Saul

text: Bob Odenkirk confirmed he would reprise Saul Goodman in the starring role when the series was first announced, but his character would be introduced as lawyer Jimmy McGill. In January 2014, it was announced that Jonathan Banks would reprise his "Breaking Bad" role as Mike Ehrmantraut and be a series regular.


title: Better Call Saul

text: New cast members included Michael McKean as McGill's elder brother Chuck. McKean previously guest-starred in an episode of Odenkirk's "Mr. Show" and Gilligan's "X-Files" episode "Dreamland". Rhea Seehorn auditioned and got the role of Kimberly "Kim" Wexler in April 2014, her character being described as "prestigious attorney ... whose hard life is complicated by her romantic entanglements with somebody else at the firm". In May 2014, Patrick Fabian was cast on the show as Howard Hamlin, a "Kennedy-esque lawyer who's winning at life". After impressing Gilligan and Gould with his audition tape and screen test, Michael Mando was cast as the "smart and calculating criminal" Ignacio "Nacho" Varga. Mando's character had been previously mentioned but not seen in the "Breaking Bad" episode "Better Call Saul".


title: Better Call Saul

text: Going into the third season, Giancarlo Esposito was added to the main cast as Gus Fring, a drug kingpin who previously served as one of "Breaking Bad"s main antagonists. Esposito was previously a starring cast member in "Breaking Bad" for the same role. McKean would leave the series at season's end due to his character being written out, but would make appearances in the next season and the series finale. Tony Dalton made his first appearance as Lalo Salamanca in the fourth season, and would be promoted to the main cast for the fifth. Similar to Nacho, Lalo had been a character mentioned only by name in the same "Breaking Bad" episode "Better Call Saul".


title: Better Call Saul

text: Before the second season, Gilligan confirmed that more of the prominent characters from "Breaking Bad" would be making guest appearances on the spin-off, but remained vague on which characters were likely to be seen. By the next season, Gilligan said that the show had been on long enough that any reuse of "Breaking Bad" characters would require more than "just a cameo or an Alfred Hitchcock walkthrough", and that their appearances would need to be essential to the story.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Throughout the series run, both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul regularly said that if asked, they would be open to reappearing on the show as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, respectively. Both believed that Gilligan would have to find a sufficiently good reason to bring them on the show. Paul previously mentioned the possibility of a cameo during the first season but this fell through. The two would eventually appear together in the sixth-season episode "Breaking Bad", which was named after the original series. Paul made a separate cameo in the next episode; Cranston appeared again in the series finale.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Dean Norris, another one of "Breaking Bad"s cast members, stated he could not be part of the earlier seasons, partly due to his involvement in the CBS series "Under the Dome", but was announced as a guest star reprising his role as Hank Schrader by the fifth season, where he appeared in the episodes "The Guy for This" and "Namaste". Plans were initially made to have Betsy Brandt reprise her role as Marie Schrader, Hank's wife, for a cameo appearance in the second-season finale "Klick". However, the writer's room objected, considering the idea to be distracting for audiences. She would eventually appear in the series finale.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Other "Breaking Bad" actors spoke of the potential of being on "Better Call Saul". Before the series began, Anna Gunn mentioned a "talk" with Gilligan over possible guest appearances as Skyler White. Bill Burr was set to return as Patrick Kuby in the fifth-season episode "Dedicado a Max", but scheduling fell through due to him needing to attend to a personal matter. After the series ended, Gould mentioned his desire to bring back Gunn, Norris, Esposito and RJ Mitte for the finale, but he and the writing staff could not find a proper way to have them fit into the story.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Principal photography for "Better Call Saul"s six seasons took place from June 2, 2014, to February 9, 2022. Like its predecessor, "Better Call Saul" is set in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, with filming primarily taking place at Albuquerque Studios. Notable exterior locations include the Twisters restaurant used previously in "Breaking Bad" for Gus's Los Pollos Hermanos, a parking lot kiosk at the Albuquerque Convention Center for where Mike worked in the first few seasons, the Old Bernalillo County Courthouse as the local courthouse, and two nearby office buildings in the North Valley, including Northrop Grumman's, that collectively are used for the HHM office spaces.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Jimmy's back office is located in an actual nail salon, which the producers accommodated by working with the owners. The Salamanca's restaurant is a real business in the South Valley that production modified a bit for the show, but which otherwise remained open. The scenes set in Omaha are filmed at Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque; production worked with Cinnabon to bring in the period-specific equipment and service items for the segments, and the extras in the store during these scenes are Cinnabon employees. The New Mexico Film Office reported that the first four seasons of "Better Call Saul" brought over into the state, and they have hired 1,600 crew for each season and a total of 11,300 extras.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Additional filming was done in March 2022, after principal photography for the series ended, for the opening teaser of the season six episode "Point and Shoot". With several crew members but no cast members on hand, the scene was filmed in Leo Carrillo State Beach, California. This was the only time the series was filmed outside of New Mexico.


title: Better Call Saul

text: "Better Call Saul" employs "Breaking Bad"s signature time jumps. Notably, most seasons' opening episode has started with a black and white flash-forward to a period in the years after the finale of "Breaking Bad" where Saul has been relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, as "Gene", a manager of a Cinnabon store, remaining paranoid about anyone discovering his past identity. This was foreshadowed in the penultimate episode of "Breaking Bad", "Granite State", in which Saul tells Walter: "If I'm lucky, a month from now, best-case scenario, I'm managing a Cinnabon in Omaha."


title: Better Call Saul

text: The show's director of photography was Arthur Albert for the first two seasons, and Marshall Adams starting with season 3. Additionally, Paul Donachie served as a cinematographer on episodes "Namaste" (2020), "Carrot and Stick" (2022) and "Hit and Run" (2022). Seasons 1 and 2 was filmed mainly on RED Dragon cameras. Starting with season 3, Panasonic VariCam Pure were incorporated due to their extra low-light sensitivity. This allowed the crew to shoot extra wide exterior shots at night as well as during the day, and to shoot on sets in near total darkness, such as nighttime in Chuck's unelectrified house. For scenes requiring to film from cramped spaces, Panasonic Lumix GH4 point-and-shoot camera was used. In season 4, three RED and two VariCam Pure cameras were used. For seasons 5 and 6, mostly Arri ALEXA LF was used.


title: Better Call Saul

text: Each episode's title sequence features a different low-quality image that recalls Saul Goodman's days on "Breaking Bad". This includes the inflatable Statue of Liberty balloon that sat atop Saul's office, a drawer of burner phones kept in his desk, and a bus stop bench that advertised his business. Gould and Gilligan were inspired by the poor quality of early VHS tapes and the notoriously low production values of 1980s public-access television, and from the fact that Saul Goodman's ads on "Breaking Bad" were done in a similar style. They intended for the title sequences to appear "purposefully shitty" in order to stand out from those of its contemporaries, which generally had increased visual quality and production standards. Some of the title sequences were put together from unused footage from "Breaking Bad", but others were filmed specifically to create new ones. The title sequences were put together by assistant editor Curtis Thurber, and scored by Little Barrie guitarist Barrie Cadogan. When Cadogan was putting the music together, he was told the producers wanted a piece of music that would be cut abruptly at 15 seconds.


title: Better Call Saul

text: As every season except for the last has ten episodes each, the title credits for every season's corresponding episode number would reuse the same image. However, beginning with the second season, each of the episode's title sequences would continue to decline in picture quality by intermittently flashing black and white, and continue to lose color with each passing season. This caused many to theorize that this symbolized Jimmy McGill's storyline gradually transitioning to that of his post-"Breaking Bad" alter-ego Gene Takavic, whose scenes were entirely in black and white.