The wariness of the royal household towards the media was far from unwarranted. Royal reportage was attacked for its intrusive practices and purple prose. Journalists veered between intrusion and idolatry. Satirical journals such as Punch frequently attacked the sycophantic coverage of Victoria. The deferential language of royal reporting was claimed to falsify the gloss of the monarchy in the same way that its true nature had formerly been hidden by the ceremonial court splendour. In 1846, Punch published a mock proclamation from Victoria to the press, demanding that “all Vain, Silly, and Sycophantic verbiage shall cease, and good, Straightforward, Simple English be used in all descriptions of all Progresses made by Ourself, Our Royal Consort and Our Dearly Beloved Children”.

The court newsman was one means by which the monarchy pro-actively influenced its press coverage. Photographs of the royal family were subject to an even more subtle form of manipulation. The release of the first public royal photographs, in August 1860, was a huge success. The intimacy and realism of the camera emphasized Victoria’s ordinariness. Indeed, Victoria’s initial photographs were renowned for being less than flattering, while engagement pictures of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra in 1862 were criticized for being too intimate. After the 1880s, though, many royal photographs were retouched in the same way that celebrity photographs are now digitally airbrushed. Blemishes and wrinkles were removed, waistlines narrowed and dark shadows lightened. Retouching was common, undertaken partly due to sitter’s vanity and partly to technical imperfections in the negative.

A photograph taken by the Bassano Studio in 1882 demonstrates the extent to which Victoria’s photographs were altered. In the picture, her cheeks and jowls have received attention from the retoucher. The removal of flesh from under her chin is evident in that the area there has a lighter tone. The tiny queen has also been placed on a platform to accentuate her height. Reviews of Victoria’s later photographs complained that her subjects were unable to get a truthful portrait. In August 1887, Photographic News disparagingly noted that a new set of pictures, were, like all published portraits of the Queen, fabricated. It complained that the public had to be content with a “mixture of photography and monochrome intricacy”. Significantly, the Photographic News presumed that, because the photographs had been made available, they had inevitably been manipulated. The Crown might never die but Victoria’s photographs were concerned with showing a monarch whom age did not touch. It was not simply that Victoria seemed an unchanging figure in a disorienting world: judging by her photographs she was unchanging.

The media attention received by the royal family during the 19th century culminated in the death and funeral of Queen Victoria in January 1901. As the Queen lay dying at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, hundreds of British and foreign journalists gathered at the gates to receive the latest bulletins on her condition. Crowds waited at telegraph stations all over the British Empire for news of the Great White Empress. The telegraph network helped to bring together nation and empire in one global community. There were nevertheless numerous incidents of disreputable journalistic behaviour during Victoria’s final illness. The episode that caused the most public outrage took place after the Queen’s death was announced to the press pack waiting at the Osborne gates. Immediately, they rushed to East Cowes telegraph office to relay the news to the waiting world, some running, some on bikes, and some on horseback. Many shouted “The Queen is Dead!” in their headlong charge. Such disrespect was widely condemned.