Dickens had some major issues with women, especially educated women, and even more especially, educated women in positions of power; so, yeah, he had some problems with the Queen. His relationship with her was, “sarcastic, competitive, condescending, and dutiful” (Houston, p. 88). This could have been based out of the insecurity that his proffession, as well as his actual writings, were feminine.

She wanted to meet with Dickens several times, in order to congratulate him personally on his works, but he just couldn’t because, according to Gail Turley Houston in Royalties, it would have shown his failures as a man (p. 90). The fact that a woman, specifically an educated, well-liked woman was in such a high position over his home country irked Dickens to the point that he refuses to meet with her time after time.

In fact, the only way that Dickens could cope with Queen Victoria in her early years was to sexualize the Queen as well as her relationship with Prince Albert. In a satirical essay he wrote, Dickens describes what it would be like to make Prince Albert jealous because the Queen is actually in love with him. He also constantly comments on himself and his line of work as being equally, if not more, important and tiring than that of the Queen and Prince’s. When he writes about the position of being an author, he always capitalizes the word, as if, once again, he is comparing himself to the Queen. He even writes the character Mr. Dick in David Copperfield as a persona of the emasculated Prince Albert. Mr. Dick is dependent on Ms. Betsy, just as the Prince is “dependent”, or at least overshadowed by Queen Victoria.

Basically, he has some issues with women. In his novels, we see the repression of gender and desires, as well as several issues with the upper class, women who don’t stay in their place, and emasculated men.