The relationship between European monarchies and the concept of mercy is centuries old. The ancient idea of monarchy gave power to the sovereign, designing him as the keeper of the peace and the bearer of justice. Peace and justice referred to the most important modes of monarchical legitimation. In The Royal Throne of Mercy and British Culture in the Victorian Age, James Gregory traces the ubiquitous notion of mercy for the long reign of Queen Victoria to the beginning of the twentieth century. While Gregory could have dealt with a wide range of possible motifs of discourse, he narrows it down to the connection between the notion of mercy and the justice system, hereby linking this work to the classic books by Douglas Hay and others who have shown the merciless world of the bloody code of eighteenth-century capital punishment in England. In comparison with many other European countries, the English put to death not only murderers and traitors but also petty thieves, burglars, and impostors. Although using wide discretionary powers, the English had one of the highest death penalty rates in the world. In general, English elites made extensive use of the criminal law, trying to shield private property even more than the human body.

Gregory is mainly concerned with the history of the royal pardon as an ancient tradition that underwent change in the nineteenth century. William IV was the last monarch to exert personal influence in this matter, and it does not seem to be a coincidence that the 1830s also saw the secular transition to parliamentary government. Queen Victoria fulfilled the new role of a constitutional monarch, no longer able to install a prime minister without the backing of a parliamentary majority. This major shift in the history of British government, which ultimately gave the power of the royal pardon to the Home Office, begs further investigation of the continuing role of the monarch in this field of action.

Gregory articulates the concept of a Victoria-style constitutional monarchy, in which the justice system became intimately linked with the femininity of the monarch. In the end, the power of the government was furthered by the gendered figure of the monarch. As a woman, Victoria was undoubtedly defined by female stereotypes in an increasingly bourgeois world. During the 1840s and 1850s, the British public came to know the queen not as a distant ruler with ascribed ancient virtues, but as a family woman—a wife and a mother. Within this set of middle-class ideals, the assumed delicacy of the female mind prompted a ban on the personal reception of criminal records. The restriction of the pardoning right to the government eventually followed. The assumed weakness of the female monarchical body led to a weakening of royal power.

But while this shift was well under way, the characterization and concept of a merciful queen paved the way for a typical nineteenth-century reform, which abolished many grounds for capital punishment. The social movements promoting reform made good use of a queen who was shown as constantly busy with commuting death sentences. The popular image of Victoria acknowledged a merciful reign and ideal womanly behavior. The campaign for the abolition of capital punishment, the antislavery and temperance movements, and even some feminists campaigning for the female vote, all tried to further their arguments by calling on a female monarch. One of the most persuasive motifs consisted of a natural connection between the compassion of a female monarch and female offenders, for example, in infanticide cases.

By analyzing the private journals of the queen, Gregory shows how Victoria developed her own position on issues of capital crime and punishment. The queen indeed preferred mercy for murder by a child or other juvenile offenses and was always prepared to find motives of despair and human tragedies at the bottom of crimes. However, it seems she could not find milder feelings in cases of uxoricide. Indeed, she showed a remarkably early awareness about femicide. But on the other hand, the queen was far away from siding with abolitionists. Capital punishment did not find a fierce adversary in her personal views.

While the queen personally opted for mercy, even in cases of political crimes such as rebellion and attempted assassination (of the queen herself), the government made strategic use of the image of a merciful queen, fearing a public with more intense abolitionist attitudes. In the case of the Indian rebellion in 1857, royal pardons seemed to work well against the impression of brutal counteraction. The British public asked for royal pardons, and although they were granted by the government, they were often ascribed to the queen.

Gregory argues that the British discourse—of which Victoria herself was essentially a passive part—on the virtue of mercy during the nineteenth century showed permanent negotiation in the modernization of an ancient royal practice. The queen held her own ideas, more or less dealing with every case individually. The government, as the new source of royal pardons, tried to use the person of the queen strategically, thereby promoting the idea of royal mercy in the public's mind. The progressive part of the public, however, most often drew links between the queen, mercy, and femininity while promoting social causes or campaigning for political reform. Gregory shows with great vividness how the notion of royal mercy was shaped by polarized gender stereotypes. These shaped the discourse on the role of the monarchy in the nineteenth century in general. While being more or less powerless in the political procedure of royal pardons, the monarchy as an institution was still perceived as the main source of judicial power. The queen was seen as an influential figure to act in favor of the proposed reforms of the justice system. This seems to fit well with the image of a parliamentary monarchy, which by definition builds upon a sovereign relying on monarchical soft power.