Writing in her diary after their first meeting, Victoria noted some of their physical similarities and was clear about her attraction to him.
"He 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."
Victoria later wrote to her uncle Leopold, who arranged the match, thanking 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."
My dearest dearest dear Albert… and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness, I never could have hoped to have felt before”, wrote Queen Victoria of her wedding night. “His beauty, his sweetness and gentleness… Oh! This was the happiest day of my life”, she continued ecstatically. Coming from a woman who, from the moment she had ascended the throne in 1837, had resisted all attempts to force her into wedlock – despite some of Europe’s most eligible bachelors being paraded before her – it was clear that marriage to Prince Albert was borne out of love rather than duty.
Albert was Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in the present-day states of Bavaria and Thuringia in Germany. He was also Victoria’s first cousin, son of her mother’s brother, Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Despite being delivered by the same midwife within three months of each other, the pair had had little contact as children, yet each knew of their family’s desire to see them married one day.
A brief encounter at celebrations for Victoria’s 17th birthday in 1836 had planted the seeds of an attraction between the pair. She writes passionately in her diary of Albert’s “beautiful nose and… sweet mouth with fine teeth” as well as the “charm of his countenance”, which she describes as being “full of goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent”. But Albert, unused to the late nights and whirl of fashionable gaieties of the English court was forced to leave several balls early, feeling sleepy and faint, leaving his lively young cousin to dance on into the night.
Albert was one of several suitors introduced to Victoria in the months before she turned 18 and inherited the throne from her uncle William IV, bringing to an end more than 120 years of male Hanoverian rule. Another first cousin, Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg, made a favourable impression on the young princess, more so than Princes William and Alexander of Orange whom Victoria described as being “very plain”.
Victoria and Albert’s relationship: a timeline
10 October 1839: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg- Gotha, aged 20, arrives at Windsor on a visit to Queen Victoria, his first cousin, three months older than him.
15 October 1839: Victoria, who considers that Albert “is beautiful” and declares that “My heart is quite going”, proposes to Albert. She tells no one beforehand, except the prime minister, Lord Melbourne.
10 February 1840: Victoria and Albert are married at the Chapel Royal, St James’s.
21 November 1840: Vicky, Victoria’s first child, is born. Around this time, Victoria gives Albert the keys to the cabinet boxes.
9 November 1841: Birth of Albert Edward (Bertie), Prince of Wales. This is followed by the birth of Alice, 25 April 1843; Alfred, 6 August 1844; Helena, 25 May 1846; Louise, 18 March 1848; and Arthur, 1 May 1850. In total, that’s seven children in 10 years.
1842: Baroness Lehzen, Victoria’s former governess, who has been charged with the running of the court, is dismissed. Albert takes over and introduces important reforms, making the court more efficient and cutting waste.
1842: Albert starts to attend the queen’s meetings with ministers, and writes notes of the meetings. Victoria now talks of “We”, not “I”.
1845–51: Osborne on the Isle of Wight is built under Albert’s supervision as a holiday retreat for the royal family.
7 April 1853: Leopold is born. Beatrice follows on 14 April 1857, completing the family.
1853–56: Balmoral Castle is built, once more under Albert’s supervision. Here the family enjoy a romantic mountain life which reminds Albert of his native Germany.
1857: Victoria makes Albert Prince Consort. This gives him precedence over everyone, including his son the Prince of Wales, second only to the queen.
14 December 1861: Albert dies at Windsor, aged 42. The cause of death was allegedly typhoid fever, but modern historians speculate that he suffered from an underlying illness such as stomach cancer or Crohn’s disease.
Cupid’s arrow strikes
By 1839, Victoria was relishing the relative freedom of being an unmarried young queen and once again declared herself reluctant to marry. But in October 1839, Albert visited England again. This time, Victoria was smitten.
“It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert – who is beautiful”, she scribbled in her diary that night. Just five days later, on 15 October, in accordance with royal protocol, Victoria proposed, exclaiming: “Oh! to feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert, was too great delight to describe! he is perfection; perfection in every way”.
The marriage ceremony, which took place on 10 February 1840 in the Chapel Royal at St James’s, was everything a royal wedding should be. Dressed in a white satin gown with lace veil, a wreath of orange blossom, and attended by 12 bridesmaids, Victoria married her Albert.
Victoria fell pregnant almost immediately, giving birth to their first child, Princess Victoria, nine months after the wedding. The future Edward VII (Bertie) was born the following year. The physical attraction between the pair never faded and, between 1840 and 1857, Victoria gave birth to nine children.
Unhappy childhoods
However, Victoria was not a natural mother. Princess Victoria’s childhoodhad been an unhappy one, kept in seclusion at Kensington Palace by her own domineering mother with little in the way of companionship or affection. The death of Victoria’s father when she was just eight months old had a profound impact and the only male influence she had had as a child was that of her mother’s despised advisor Sir John Conroy. “I had led a very unhappy life as a child – had no scope for my very violent feelings of affection… and did not know what a happy domestic life was,” admitted Victoria in later life
Albert, too, had suffered an unhappy childhood. His father had been a serial philanderer who paid little attention to either of his sons. Albert’s mother, Princess Louise, had been forced into exile following an affair and the breakdown of her marriage, and Albert had grown up determined to be the type of father he had never had.
Victoria and Albert were united in their desire to create a model, loving family that would set an example to the world. But neither were quite sure how to do it. Victoria hated being pregnant and found babies equally repugnant. “An ugly baby is a very nasty object; the prettiest are frightful when undressed… as long as they have their big body and little limbs and that terrible froglike action”. Breastfeeding, too, was deemed a repulsive act and a wet nurse was employed for all of her nine children, allowing Victoria more time to devote herself to matters of state, and to her beloved Albert.
Their children were spoilt and lavished with every describable luxury from birth, yet expected to adhere to their parents’ ideals of a model family. Countless works of art depicting royal domestic bliss are testament to the public relations campaign Albert sold to the world.
Behind closed doors, however, royal relationships were often strained – none more so than that of Victoria and Albert.
In a letter written shortly after their engagement, when Albert had returned to Germany briefly, he wrote: “I need not tell you that since we left, all my thoughts have been with you at Windsor, and that your image fills my whole soul. Even in my dreams I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth.”
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
But despite it being a love match, like most couples, Victoria and Albert had their arguments. Victoria was prone to temper tantrums. Her mood swings were such that some historians claim she may have inherited the ‘madness’ of her grandfather, George III.
Nevertheless, despite the arguments, Albert always managed to get back into Victoria’s good books. She called him her ‘angel’ and wrote of her pride in his achievements, particularly the Great Exhibition of 1851.
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