It was essential for them also that they were seen to be doing so. The royal couple set to work putting their plan for a model family into action. As the historian Miranda Carter says: “It’s as if Albert and Victoria are trying to reach out to their middle class subjects and say, ‘look, we are like you, trust us’.”īy entering your details, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and privacy policy. Albert believed that in order to survive and prosper, royalty should be presented as a respectable and close- knit, loving family.
From the moment of his marriage to Victoria in 1840 to his untimely death 21 years later, he saw his purpose as protecting and nourishing the British monarchy at a time when political turmoil threatened at home and revolution was sweeping Europe. It was Albert, the intellectual, who was responsible for shaping and modernising the royal family in the 19th century his influence would last well into the next.
Original artwork is a painting by Winterhalter in the Royal Collection. In the group are Princess Victoria the future King Edward VII (as a young prince) Prince Alfred, Princess Alice and Princess Helena. He resumed his travels in 1868, visiting Australia again Fiji Japan India and South America, returning to England nearly three years later.Queen Victoria and Prince Albert surrounded by some of their children at Windsor Castle. Although Alfred recovered quickly, he nonetheless curtailed his world trip and was sent back to England to recover. Henry James O’Farrell – an Irishman seeking vengeance after the execution of three members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood for their role in a terrorist explosion in London – shot and wounded him. At an official function in Sydney, Australia, he almost fell victim to an assassination plot. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Īlfred shared Bertie’s taste for society life: in 1867, partly to keep him out of mischief, he was sent on an extensive round-the-world voyage during which he visited several countries as the queen’s representative. The fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he was a "cheerful, industrious boy", writes Van der Kiste. Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Listen | Jane Ridley reveals some lesser-known aspects of Queen Victoria's life.Victoria never ceased to bemoan his love of society and ‘good living’, but in time she readily admitted that he was “so full of good and amiable qualities that it makes one forget and overlook much that one would wish different”. At first Victoria hysterically blamed their son for breaking his father’s heart, and relations between the pair were distant for a while. Already seriously ill at the time, Prince Albert died on 14 December 1861, probably from typhoid fever. When the relationship came to the notice of his parents, Prince Albert – whose morals were always above reproach –took the transgression very much to heart. While there he had a brief liaison with an actress, Nellie Clifden. (Photo by Otto Herschan Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Īs heir to the throne, Bertie was not allowed to pursue an active career in the army, although he was granted honorary appointments and briefly attended manoeuvres in Ireland at the age of 20. Victoria would "lament that he was her 'caricature'," says Van der Kiste. C1860: Prince Albert (later Edward VII), the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.