Queen Victoria's accession

Queen Victoria's accession is used as a measure of the remote past in the account of Old Deuteronomy, placing the cat's legendary longevity well before a recognizable historical milestone. The reference helps give his many lives and long history a deliberately extravagant scale.

Chronological Reference

The poem says Old Deuteronomy was famous in proverb and rhyme long before Queen Victoria's accession. It does not specify an interval or give a calendar date for the cat's fame; the accession functions instead as a familiar point against which his antiquity can be imagined.

Place in Old Deuteronomy's Legend

The reference appears beside claims that Old Deuteronomy has lived many lives in succession and has buried nine wives, with the speaker playfully tempted to raise that number to ninety-nine. Set against those accumulating feats, Queen Victoria's accession is not a precise biographical marker but a measure of how far back the cat's legend reaches. The contrast between a historical milestone and the poem's knowingly extravagant claims sustains the comic impression that Old Deuteronomy exceeds ordinary measures of age and experience.