The tragic, early death of Prince Albert

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-61) came from a small German state whose ruling family married into many European royals; in 1840 he mar­ried Vict­or­ia, his first cousin. The Queen came to rely heavily on his advice, and their marriage seemed happy. With his wife con­stant­ly preg­nant (9 babies in 17 years), Albert performed the fun­ctions of king, driving himself on through his offic­ial dut­ies. He’d been an unof­ficial govern­ment min­ister to Victoria, and she always def­erred to his ad­vice. Especially since the couple mostly spoke German with each other.

How much real influence did Prince Albert have on British culture?
History Extra

Victorian Britain had been a land of nasty capit­al­ism, where government regulation was minimal and welfare was left to the Church. With little tax burden and low labour costs, indust­rial­­­­­­is­ation helped Britain’s middle class thrive while the working class suffered. And the state helped safe­guard trade through tough foreign pol­icies. But Albert was a royal consort with a high le­v­­el of learning in architecture & design. He ended the dissol­ute Han­overian reputation and he “gov­erned England for 21 years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings has ever shown" (Disraeli) .

The Royal Family in 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

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When Albert died from ?typhoid in Dec 1861 at Wind­sor, London’s lord mayor was told to toll St Paul’s Cathedral bells. As any widow would und­er­stand, his death left the Queen grief-stricken and she with­drew from public life. How could a vig­orous 42 year old have died without warn­ing? How would Victoria cope with all her onerous duties alone?

Albert’s death dealt the royal fam­ily a blow from which it almost didn’t recov­er. But why was Albert's death regarded as a national cal­amity? His death had come at a time of polit­ical crisis, with the Brit­ish gov­ern­ment entangled in a tense diplom­atic standoff with the North­ern states in the American Civil War. This had prompted Albert’s final act of pub­lic busin­ess in Dec 1861. He’d amended an aggressive despatch from Lord Palmerston after the Nor­th’s seizure of two Confederate ag­ents from a British West Indies mail packet. Albert had warned that forc­ing the issue with­out finding a dip­l­omatic path would mean war, soon af­ter U.K had recov­ered from the dis­as­trous Crimean War (1853-6). His med­iation helped defuse a tense political situation, prompt­ing P.M Henry Temple to stress the Prince’s value to the government.

Britain had lost Victoria's "king". The immediate public response show­ed the national outpouring of grief. The middle classes put themselves and their children in black: shops closed, blinds dropped, flags at half mast, theatre performances and concerts cancelled. Even the poor­est rur­al workers put on black armbands. That 1861 Christmas was very sad.

During their 21 years of marriage Victoria and Al­bert had rescued the ailing monarchy and reinvigorated it for a democ­ratic new age. The royal family became ac­c­ess­ible to ordinary people as an ex­ample of the simple domestic virtues of monogamy, bourgeois decen­cy and family life. It was an image that Al­bert had actively pro­moted. And he actively promoted his diverse cultural legacy. 

It was only after Albert died that the nation acknowledged its debt and stopped calling him a bloody foreigner. Tragic obituaries fill­ed the Brit­ish press, many tinged with a profound sense of guilt that Al­bert had never been suffic­iently valued in his lifetime – for his notable contrib­u­tions to British culture, a patron of the arts and science.

Queen Victoria in black mourning clothes

It was clear that Victoria’s retreat from her public and her in­t­ense sorrow would not end with the normal two years of formal mourn­ing. Bertie had caused anxiety via indiscreet affairs, and in her fury, Vict­oria she blamed her son and heir for Albert’s death. And with 9 child­ren to parent alone, she retreated into paroxysms of despair, and imposed the same rigid ob­serv­ance of mourning on her family and staff!

Victoria focused exclus­ively on memorialising her husband. She turned her griev­ing into a formality, initiating a variety of artistic and cultural monuments commemorating Albert. 

But by the mid-1860s her ministers and her own family were becoming fr­antic at her ongoing retreat from public view and her refusal to part­icipate in any form of cerem­onies. Anti-monarchical feeling was growing, with regular complaints that Victoria did nothing to justify her Civil List income. By the late 1860s discontent spiralled into blatant repub­lican chall­en­ges and calls for Victoria’s abdication.

The first state ceremonial since Al­bert died was for Bertie Prince of Wales, a thanks­giving service at St Paul’s Cath­edral in 1872. A poor assass­ination att­empt against Victoria only rallied public symp­athy FOR the Queen.

Life improved for Victoria, thanks to the support of her trusted High­land servant John Brown and, in 1874, the return of her adored Disraeli as prime minister. It was by now clear that the queen would retain her black coverage for 40 years, but as she was coaxed back into public view, she did so as a respected figure of grandmotherly dignity.

Two last questions. We know the extent of Victoria’s dependency on her late husband, both emotionally and in dealing with all the official business. But had Albert insisted on their relat­ionship being this way and Vic­toria merely acceded, or had she never wanted to make all decisions? And when was Albert forgiven for being foreign?

Read: Helen Rappaport, Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monar­chy, Hutchinson, 2011.