Albert, Prince Consort

Prince Albert
Prince Consort of the United Kingdom
Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1842
Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1842
Consort 10 February 1840 – 14 December 1861
Consort to Victoria
Issue Victoria, German Empress and Queen of Prussia
Edward VII
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein
Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Arthur, Duke of Connaught
Leopold, Duke of Albany
Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
Full name Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel
German: Franz Albrecht August Karl Immanuel
Titles and styles
HRH The Prince Consort
HRH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
HSH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
HSH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield
Royal house House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Father Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Mother Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Born 26 August 1819(1819-08-26)
Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Died 14 December 1861 (aged 42)
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England
Burial 23 December 1861; 18 December 1862
St. George's Chapel, Windsor; Frogmore, Windsor

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel,[1] later HRH The Prince Consort; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

He was born in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. At the age of 20 he married his first cousin, Queen Victoria, with whom he had nine children. At first Albert felt constrained by his position as consort, which did not confer any power or duties upon him. Over time he adopted many public causes, such as the abolition of slavery and educational reform, and took on the responsibilities of running the Queen's household, estates and office. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Albert aided in the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading his wife to show less partisanship in her dealings with Parliament—although he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary.

He was the only husband of a British Queen regnant to have formally held the title of Prince Consort. He died at the early age of 42, plunging the Queen into a deep mourning which lasted for the rest of her life. Upon Queen Victoria's death in 1901, their son, Edward VII, succeeded as the first monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the ducal house to which Albert belonged.

Contents

Early life

Albert was born in Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany, and was the second son of Ernest III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Albert's future wife, Queen Victoria, was born in the same year with the assistance of the same midwife.[2] Albert was baptised into the Lutheran Evangelical Church on 19 September 1819 in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau with water taken from a local river.[3] His godparents were his paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; his maternal grandfather, Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg; Emperor Francis I of Austria; Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen; and Emanuel, Count von Mensdorff-Pouilly.[4] In 1825, Albert's great-uncle, Frederick IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, died. The death led to a re-arrangement of the Saxon duchies the following year and Albert's father became reigning duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.[5]

Albert and his elder brother, Ernest, spent their youth in a close companionship scarred by their parents' turbulent marriage and eventual separation and divorce.[6] After their mother was exiled from court, she married her lover, Alexander von Hanstein, Count of Polzig-Baiersdorf. She probably never saw her children again and died of cancer at the age of 30 in 1831.[7] The following year, their father married his own niece and their cousin, Princess Antoinette Marie of Württemberg, but the marriage was not close, and Antoinette Marie had little, if any, input into her stepchildren's lives.[8]

The brothers were educated privately at home by Christoph Florschütz and later in Brussels, where Adolphe Quetelet was one of their tutors.[9] Like many other princes, Albert studied at the University of Bonn as a young adult. Albert studied law, political economy, philosophy and art history. He played music and excelled in gymnastics, especially fencing and riding.[10] His teachers in Bonn included the philosopher Fichte and the poet Schlegel.[11]

Marriage

By 1836, the idea of marriage between Albert and his cousin, Victoria, had arisen in the mind of their ambitious uncle, Leopold, King of the Belgians since 1831. At this time, Victoria was the heir to the British throne. Her father, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III of the United Kingdom, had died when she was a baby, and her elderly uncle, William IV, was king. Her mother was Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the sister of both Albert's father, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Leopold, King of the Belgians. Leopold arranged for his sister, Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, to invite the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his two sons to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of meeting Victoria. King William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander, second son of William II of the Netherlands. Victoria was well-aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.[12] She wrote, "[Albert] 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." Alexander, on the other hand, was "very plain".[13]

Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold to thank 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."[14] Although the parties did not undertake a formal engagement, both the family and their retainers widely assumed that the match would take place.[15]

Letters written by Victoria after she came to the throne on 20 June 1837 show interest in Albert's education for the role he would have to play, although she resisted attempts to be rushed into marriage.[16] In the winter of 1838–39, the prince visited Italy, accompanied by the Coburg family's confidential adviser, Baron Stockmar.[17]

Albert returned to England with Ernest in October 1839 to visit the Queen with the object of settling the marriage. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839.[18] Victoria's intention to marry was formally declared to the Privy Council on 23 November,[19] and the couple married on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace.[20] Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalised by Act of Parliament,[21] and granted the style of Royal Highness by an Order-in-Council.[1] At first, he was not popular with the British public. He was perceived to be from an impoverished and undistinguished minor state, barely larger than a small English county.[22] The British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, advised the Queen against granting her husband the title of "King Consort". Parliament even refused to make Albert a peer, partly because of anti-German feeling and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role.[23] Melbourne led a minority government and the opposition took advantage of the marriage to weaken his position further. They opposed the ennoblement of Albert and granted him a smaller annuity than previous consorts;[24] £30,000 instead of the usual £50,000.[25] On the subject of Parliament refusing to grant him a peerage, Albert wrote, "It would almost be step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than as a Duke of York or Kent."[26] For the next seventeen years Albert was formally titled "HRH Prince Albert" until, on 25 June 1857, Victoria formally granted him the title Prince Consort.[27]

Consort of the Queen

British Royalty
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
UK Arms 1837.svg
Descendants of Victoria & Albert
   Victoria, Princess Royal
   Edward VII
   Princess Alice
   Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha
   Princess Helena
   Princess Louise
   Arthur, Duke of Connaught
   Leopold, Duke of Albany
   Princess Beatrice

The position in which the prince was placed by his marriage, while one of distinction, also offered considerable difficulties; in Albert's own words, "I am very happy and contented; but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, not the master in the house."[28] The Queen's household was run by her former governess[29], Baroness Lehzen. Albert referred to her as the "House Dragon", and manoeuvred to dislodge the Baroness from her position.[30]

Within two months of the marriage, Victoria was pregnant. Albert started to take on public roles; he became President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery (slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire already but was still lawful in the United States and the colonies of France), and helped Victoria privately with her government paperwork.[31] In June 1840, Albert and the pregnant Victoria were shot at by Edward Oxford, who was later judged insane, while on a public carriage ride. Neither was hurt and Albert was praised in the newspapers for his courage and coolness during the attack.[32] Albert was gaining public support as well as political influence, which showed itself practically when, in August, Parliament passed the Regency Act 1840 to designate him Regent in the event of Victoria's death before their child reached the age of majority.[33] Their first child, Victoria, named after her mother, was born in November. Eight other children would follow over the next seventeen years. All nine children survived to adulthood, a rarity then even among royalty, which is credited to Albert's enlightened influence on the healthy running of the nursery.[34] In early 1841, he successfully removed the nursery from Lehzen's pervasive control, and in September 1842, Lehzen left England permanently, much to Albert's relief.[35]

Two further shootings occurred on 29 and 30 May 1842; Albert and Victoria were again unhurt. The culprit, John Francis, was detained and condemned to death, although he was later reprieved.[36] Some of their early unpopularity came about because of their stiffness and adherence to protocol in public, though in private the couple were more easy-going.[37] In early 1844, Victoria and Albert were apart for the first time since their marriage when he returned to Coburg on the death of his father.[38]

By 1844, Albert had managed to modernise the royal finances and through various economies had sufficient capital to purchase Osborne House on the Isle of Wight as a private residence for their growing family.[39] Over the next few years a house modelled in the style of an Italianate villa was built.[40] Albert designed the layout of the grounds, and improved the estate and farm.[41] Albert managed and improved the other royal estates; his model farm at Windsor was admired by his biographers,[42] and under his stewardship the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, the hereditary property of the Prince of Wales, steadily multiplied.[43] In 1847, Victoria and Albert enjoyed a wet summer holiday in the west of Scotland at Loch Laggan, but heard from their doctor, Sir James Clark, that his son had enjoyed dry, sunny days further east at Balmoral Castle. The tenant of Balmoral, Sir Robert Gordon, died suddenly in early October, and Albert began negotiations to take over the lease of the castle from the owner, Earl Fife.[44]

Reformer and innovator

In 1847, he was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, but only after a close contest with Earl Powis.[45] The following year, Powis was killed accidentally by his own son during a pheasant shoot.[46] Albert used his position as Chancellor to campaign for reformed and more modern university curricula.[47]

Revolutions spread throughout Europe in 1848 as the result of a widespread economic crisis. Throughout the year, Victoria and Albert complained about Foreign Secretary Palmerston's independent foreign policy, which they believed destabilised foreign European powers further.[48] Albert was concerned for many of his royal relatives, a number of whom were deposed. He and Victoria, who gave birth to their daughter Louise during the year, spent some time away from London in the relative safety of Osborne. Though there were sporadic demonstrations in England, no effective revolutionary action took place, and Albert even gained public acclaim when he expressed paternalistic, yet well-meaning and philanthropic, views.[49] In a speech to the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Labouring Classes, of which he was President, he expressed his "sympathy and interest for that class of our community who have most of the toil and fewest of the enjoyments of this world". It was the "duty of those who, under the blessings of Divine Providence, enjoy station, wealth, and education" to assist those less fortunate than themselves.[50] In May, Albert purchased the lease for Balmoral, having never visited it, and in September he, his wife and the older children went there for the first time.[51] They came to relish the privacy it afforded.[52]

A man of progressive and relatively liberal ideas, Albert not only led reforms in university education, welfare, the royal finances and slavery—he had a special interest in applying science and art to manufacturing industry. The Great Exhibition of 1851 arose from the annual exhibitions of the Society of Arts, of which Albert was President from 1843, and owed the greater part of its success to his efforts to promote it. Albert served as president of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and had to fight for every stage of the project. In the House of Lords, Lord Brougham fulminated against the proposal to hold the exhibition in Hyde Park. Opponents of the exhibition prophesied that foreign rogues and revolutionists would overrun England, subvert the morals of the people, and destroy their faith.[53] Albert thought such talk absurd and quietly persevered, trusting always that British manufacturing would benefit from exposure to the best products of foreign countries.[43]

The Queen opened the exhibition on 1 May 1851, and it proved a colossal success. A surplus of £180,000 was raised, which went to purchase land in South Kensington and establish educational and cultural institutions there, including what would later be named the Victoria and Albert Museum.[54] The area was referred to as "Albertopolis" by sceptics.[55]

Family and public life (1852–1859)

Portrait based on a photograph taken by John Jabez Edwin Mayall in May, 1860

In 1852, Albert obtained the freehold of Balmoral, and as usual embarked on an extensive program of improvements.[56] The same year, he was appointed to several of the offices left vacant by the death of the Duke of Wellington, including the mastership of Trinity House and the colonelcy of the Grenadier Guards.[57] With Wellington out of the way, Albert was able to propose and campaign for modernisation of the army, which was long overdue.[58] Calculating that the military was unready for war, and that Christian rule was preferable to Islamic rule, Albert counselled a diplomatic solution to conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires. Palmerston was more bellicose, and favoured a policy which would prevent further Russian expansion. Palmerston was manoeuvred out of the cabinet in December 1853, but at about the same time a Russian fleet attacked the Ottoman fleet at anchor at Sinop. The London press depicted the attack as a criminal massacre, and Palmerston's popularity surged as Albert's fell.[59] Within two weeks, Palmerston was re-appointed as a minister. Absurd rumours circulated that Albert had been arrested for treason as public outrage at the Russian action continued.[60] By March 1854, Britain and Russia were embroiled in the Crimean War. Early British optimism soon faded as the press reported that British troops were ill-equipped and mismanaged by aged generals using out-of-date tactics and strategy. The conflict dragged on as the Russians were as poorly prepared as their opponents. The Prime Minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, resigned and Palmerston succeeded him.[61] A negotiated settlement eventually put an end to the war with the Treaty of Paris (1856). During the war, Albert arranged to marry his fourteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, though Albert delayed the marriage until Victoria was seventeen. Albert hoped that his daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state.[62]

A commission was set up to investigate the failings of the British military during the war. As Lord Hardinge was delivering the report of the commission to Victoria and Albert, Hardinge collapsed with a stroke. Albert helped him to a sofa, where despite being paralysed on one side, he continued to deliver his report, apologizing for the interruption. Hardinge died a few months later.[63]

Prince Albert involved himself in promoting many public, educational institutions. Chiefly at meetings in connection with these he found occasion to make the speeches collected and published in 1857. One of his memorable speeches was the address he delivered as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science when it met at Aberdeen in 1859.[64] His espousal of science spawned opposition from the Church. His proposal of a knighthood for Charles Darwin, after the publication of On the Origin of Species, was rejected.[65]

Albert continued to devote himself to the education of his family and the management of his domestic affairs. His children's governess, Lady Lyttelton, thought him unusually kind and patient, and described him joining in family games with enthusiasm.[66] He felt keenly the departure of his eldest daughter for Prussia when she married her fiancé at the beginning of 1858,[67] but thought that his intensive educational program was largely lost on his eldest son, the Prince of Wales.[68]

Final year

Prince Albert in later life

During a trip to Coburg in the autumn of 1860, Albert was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses, which suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a stationary wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises. He told his brother and eldest daughter that he sensed his time had come.[69]

In 1861, Victoria's mother and Albert's aunt, the Duchess of Kent, died and Victoria was grief-stricken; Albert took on most of the Queen's duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble.[70] In August, Victoria and Albert visited the Curragh Camp, Ireland, where the Prince of Wales was doing army service. It was there that the Prince of Wales was introduced, by his fellow officers, to Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress.[71]

By November, Victoria and Albert had returned to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales had returned to Cambridge, where he was a student. Two of Albert's cousins, King Pedro V of Portugal and Prince Frederick of Portugal both died of typhoid fever.[72] On top of this sad news, Albert was informed that gossip was spreading in gentlemen's clubs and the foreign press that the Prince of Wales was still involved with Nellie Clifden. Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son's indiscretion, and feared blackmail or scandal or, worse, pregnancy.[73] Albert was at a low ebb, and almost constantly ill. Nevertheless, during the autumn of 1861 he stayed as busy as ever with the arrangements for the projected international exhibition of 1862. When the Trent Affair, the forcible removal of Confederate envoys from a British ship by Union forces, threatened war between the United States and Britain, Albert was gravely ill but intervened quietly to soften the British diplomatic response.[74] On 9 December, one of Albert's doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed typhoid fever. Congestion of the lungs supervened, and he died at 10.50 p.m. on 14 December 1861 in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle in the presence of the Queen and five of their nine children.[75][76]

Legacy

Royal Albert Hall, London
Albert Memorial, London

The Queen's grief was overwhelming, and the tepid feelings the public had previously felt for Albert were replaced by sympathy.[77] Victoria wore black in mourning for the rest of her long life, and his rooms in all his houses were kept as they had been, even with hot water brought in the morning, and linen and towels changed daily.[78] Such practices were not uncommon in the houses of the very rich.[79] Victoria withdrew from public life and her seclusion eroded some of Albert's work in attempting to re-model the monarchy as a national institution setting a moral, if not political, example.[80] Albert is credited with introducing the principle that the British Royal Family should remain above politics.[81] Before his marriage to Victoria, she supported the Whigs; for example, early in her reign Victoria managed to thwart the formation of a Tory government by Sir Robert Peel by refusing to accept substitutions which Peel wanted to make among her ladies-in-waiting.[82]

Albert's body was temporarily entombed in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.[83] The magnificent mausoleum at Frogmore, in which his remains were deposited a year after his death, was not fully completed until 1871.[84] The sarcophagus, in which both he and the Queen were eventually laid, was carved from the largest block of granite that had ever been quarried in Britain.[85] Despite Albert's request that no effigies of him should be raised, many public monuments were erected all over the country, and across the British Empire.[86] The most notable are the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial in London. The plethora of memorials erected to Albert became so great that Charles Dickens told a friend that he sought an "inaccessible cave" to escape from them.[87]

All manner of objects are named after Prince Albert from Lake Albert in Africa to the city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, to the Albert Medal presented by the Royal Society of Arts. Four regiments of the British Army were named after him: 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars, Prince Albert's Light Infantry, Prince Albert's Own Leicestershire Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry and The Prince Consort's Own Rifle Brigade. He and Queen Victoria showed a keen interest in the establishment and development of Aldershot in Hampshire as a garrison town in the 1850s. They had a wooden Royal Pavilion built there that they would often stay in when attending reviews of the army.[88] Albert established and endowed The Prince Consort's Library at Aldershot, which still exists today.[89]

The biographies published after his death were typically heavy on eulogy. Theodore Martin's magnum opus five-volume series was authorised and supervised by Queen Victoria, and her influence shows in its pages. Nevertheless, it is an accurate and exhaustive account.[90] Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria (1921) was discredited by his repetition of gossip that Albert was illegitimate, and that he did not love the Queen but married her in pursuit of power. Such calumnies were soundly dismissed by mid-twentieth century biographers such as Hector Bolitho and Roger Fulford, who (unlike Strachey) had access to Victoria's journal and letters.[91] Other myths about Prince Albert, such as the claim that he introduced the modern idea of Christmas to Britain or wore piercings, are dismissed by scholars as inventions.[92][93] More recent biographers, such as Stanley Weintraub, portray Albert as a figure in a tragic romance, who died too soon and was mourned by his lover for a lifetime.[43]

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Styles of
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Reference style His Royal Highness
Spoken style Your Royal Highness
Alternative style Sir

Titles and styles

Honours

British Empire

Foreign

Arms

Prince Albert was granted the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom, with a three point label bearing a red cross in the centre, quartered with the Arms of Saxony.[1][96]

Children

Name Birth Death Notes[97]
The Princess Victoria, Princess Royal 21 November 1840 5 August 1901 married 1858, Frederick III, German Emperor; had issue
Edward VII 9 November 1841 6 May 1910 married 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark; had issue
The Princess Alice 25 April 1843 14 December 1878 married 1862, Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue
The Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh 6 August 1844 30 July 1900 married 1874, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia; had issue
The Princess Helena 23 or 25 May 1846 9 June 1923 married 1866, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg; had issue
The Princess Louise 18 March 1848 3 December 1939 married 1871, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll; no issue
The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn 1 May 1850 16 January 1942 married 1879, Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia; had issue
The Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany 7 April 1853 28 March 1884 married 1882, Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont; had issue
The Princess Beatrice 14 April 1857 26 October 1944 married 1885, Prince Henry of Battenberg; had issue

Prince Albert's 40 grandchildren included four reigning monarchs: King George V of the United Kingdom, Kaiser William II of Germany, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Albert's many descendants include royalty and nobility throughout Europe.

Ancestry

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 London Gazette: no. 19821, page 241, 7 February 1840. Retrieved on 26 November 2008.
  2. ↑ Weintraub, p.20
  3. ↑ Weintraub, p.21
  4. ↑ Ames, p.1 and Hobhouse, p.2
  5. ↑ e.g. Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh (ed.) (1977) Burke's Royal Families of the World1st edition. London: Burke’s Peerage, London.
  6. ↑ Weintraub, pp.25–28
  7. ↑ Hobhouse, p.4 and Weintraub, pp.25–28
  8. ↑ Weintraub, pp.40–41
  9. ↑ Hobhouse, p.16
  10. ↑ Weintraub, pp.60–62
  11. ↑ Ames, p.15 and Weintraub, pp.56–60
  12. ↑ Weintraub, pp.43–49
  13. ↑ Victoria quoted in Weintraub, p.49
  14. ↑ Weintraub, p.51
  15. ↑ Weintraub, pp.53, 58, 64, and 65
  16. ↑ Weintraub, p.62
  17. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.17–18 and Weintraub, p.67
  18. ↑ Fulford, pp.42–43; Hobhouse, p. 20 and Weintraub, pp.77–81
  19. ↑ Fulford, p.45; Hobhouse, p. 21 and Weintraub, p.86
  20. ↑ Fulford, p.52 and Hobhouse, p.24
  21. ↑ London Gazette: no. 19826, page 302, 14 February 1840. Retrieved on 11 November 2008.
  22. ↑ Fulford, p.45
  23. ↑ Weintraub, p.88
  24. ↑ Weintraub, pp.8–9 and 89
  25. ↑ Fulford, p.47 and Hobhouse, pp.23–24
  26. ↑ Quoted in Jagow, Kurt (ed.) The Letters of the Prince Consort, 1831–61 (London, 1938).
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 London Gazette: no. 22015, page 2195, 26 June 1857. Retrieved on 26 November 2008.
  28. ↑ Albert to William von Lowenstein, May 1840, quoted in Hobhouse, p.26
  29. ↑ Or more properly "Lady Attendant"
  30. ↑ Fulford, pp.59–74
  31. ↑ Weintraub, pp.102–105
  32. ↑ Weintraub, pp.106–107
  33. ↑ Weintraub, p.107
  34. ↑ Hobhouse, p.28
  35. ↑ Fulford, pp.73–74
  36. ↑ Weintraub, pp.134–135
  37. ↑ Ames, p.172; Fulford, pp.95–104 and Weintraub, p.141
  38. ↑ Ames, p.60 and Weintraub, p.154
  39. ↑ Fulford, p.79; Hobhouse, p.131 and Weintraub, p.158
  40. ↑ Weintraub, p.181
  41. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.127, 131
  42. ↑ Fulford, pp.88–89 and Hobhouse, pp.121–127
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 43.2 Weintraub, Stanley (September 2004; online edition January 2008). "Albert (Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) (1819–1861)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Accessed 7 October 2008 (Subscription required)
  44. ↑ Weintraub, pp.189–191
  45. ↑ Fulford, pp.195–196; Hobhouse, p.65 and Weintraub, pp.182–184
  46. ↑ Weintraub, p.186
  47. ↑ Fulford, pp.198–199; Hobhouse, p.65 and Weintraub, pp.187 and 207
  48. ↑ Fulford, pp.119–128 and Weintraub, pp.193, 212, 214 and 264–265
  49. ↑ Weintraub, pp.192–201
  50. ↑ The text of the speech was widely reproduced, e.g. "The Condition of the Labouring Classes". The Times, 19 May 1848; p.6
  51. ↑ Weintraub, pp.203 and 206
  52. ↑ Extracts from the Queen's journal of the holidays were published in 1868 as Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
  53. ↑ Fulford, pp.217–222
  54. ↑ Hobhouse, p.110
  55. ↑ Ames, p.120; Hobhouse, p.x and Weintraub, p.263
  56. ↑ Hobhouse, p.145
  57. ↑ Weintraub, pp.270–274 and 281–282
  58. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.42–43, 47–50 and Weintraub, pp.274–276
  59. ↑ Weintraub, pp.288–293
  60. ↑ Fulford, pp.156–157 and Weintraub, pp.294–302
  61. ↑ Weintraub, pp.303–322, 328
  62. ↑ Weintraub, pp.326 and 330
  63. ↑ Weintraub, p.334
  64. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.84; Hobhouse, pp.61–62 and Weintraub, p.232
  65. ↑ Weintraub, p.232
  66. ↑ Lady Lyttelton's journal quoted in Fulford, p.95
  67. ↑ Fulford, p.252 and Weintraub, p.355
  68. ↑ Fulford, pp.253–257 and Weintraub, p.367
  69. ↑ Weintraub, pp.392–393
  70. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.150–151 and Weintraub, p.401
  71. ↑ Weintraub, p.404
  72. ↑ Weintraub, p.405
  73. ↑ Weintraub, p.406
  74. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.154–155; Martin, vol. V, pp. 418–426 and Weintraub, pp.408–424
  75. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.3; Hobhouse, p.156 and Weintraub, pp.425–431
  76. ↑ Though the contemporary diagnosis was typhoid fever, modern writers have pointed out that Albert was ill for at least two years before his death, which may indicate that a chronic disease, such as renal failure or cancer, was the cause of death (see for example, Hobhouse, pp.150–151).
  77. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.1; Hobhouse, p.158 and Weintraub, p.436
  78. ↑ Darby and Smith, pp.1–4 and Weintraub, p.436
  79. ↑ Weintraub, p.438
  80. ↑ Weintraub, pp.441–443
  81. ↑ Fulford, pp.57–58, 276 and Hobhouse, pp.viii, 39
  82. ↑ Fulford, p.67 and Hobhouse, p.34
  83. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.21 and Hobhouse, p.158
  84. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.28 and Hobhouse, p.162
  85. ↑ Darby and Smith, p.25
  86. ↑ Darby and Smith, pp.2, 6, 58–84
  87. ↑ Charles Dickens to John Leech, quoted in Darby and Smith, p.102 and Hobhouse, p.169
  88. ↑ Hobhouse, pp.48–49
  89. ↑ Hobhouse, p.53
  90. ↑ Fulford, pp.ix–x
  91. ↑ e.g. Fulford, pp.22–23, 44, 104, 167, 209, 240
  92. ↑ Armstrong, Neil (2008) "England and German Christmas Festlichkeit, c.1800–1914. German History 26 (4): 486–503
  93. ↑ Ferguson, Henry (1999). "Body piercing". British Medical Journal 319: 1627–1629
  94. ↑ Weir, p.305
  95. ↑ 95.0 95.1 95.2 95.3 95.4 Burke's Peerage, 1921, p.39
  96. ↑ Maclagan, Michael; Louda, Jiří (1999) [1981]. Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-85605-469-1. pp.30, 32
  97. ↑ Weir, pp.306–321

Sources

External links

Albert, Prince Consort
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Cadet branch of the House of Wettin
Born: August 26 1819 Died: December 14 1861
British royalty
Preceded by
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
as Queen-consort		 Prince-consort of the United Kingdom
(officially HRH The Prince Consort from 1857)
1840–1861		 Succeeded by
Alexandra of Denmark
as Queen-consort
German royalty
Preceded by
Hereditary Prince Ernest		 Heir to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
as heir presumptive
29 January 1844 – 14 December 1861		 Succeeded by
Prince Alfred
Court offices
Preceded by
The Marquess of Hertford		 Lord Warden of the Stannaries
1842–1861		 Succeeded by
The Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne
Academic offices
Preceded by
The Duke of Northumberland		 Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
1847–1861		 Succeeded by
The Duke of Devonshire
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Prince Augustus Frederick,
Duke of Sussex		 Great Master of the Order of the Bath
1843–1861		 Vacant
Title next held by
Edward, Prince of Wales
later became King Edward VII
British Royal Consorts
HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1936–1952) · Mary of Teck (1910–1936) · Alexandra of Denmark (1901–1910) · Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1840–1861) · Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (1830–1837) · Caroline of Brunswick (1820–1821) · Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1761–1818) · Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1727–1737) · George of Denmark-Norway (1707–1708)
British princes
1st Generation
2nd Generation

Frederick, Prince of Wales · Prince George William · William, Duke of Cumberland
3rd Generation

George III · Edward, Duke of York · William, Duke of Gloucester · Henry, Duke of Cumberland · Prince Frederick
4th Generation

George IV · Frederick, Duke of York · William IV · Edward, Duke of Kent · Ernest Augustus I of Hanover · Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex · Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge · The Prince Octavius · The Prince Alfred · William, Duke of Gloucester
5th Generation

Albert, Prince Consort* · George V of Hanover · George, Duke of Cambridge
6th Generation

Edward VII · Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Arthur, Duke of Connaught · Leopold, Duke of Albany · Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover
7th Generation

Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence · George V · John of Wales · Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · George William of Hanover · Arthur of Connaught · Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Christian of Hanover · Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick
8th Generation

Edward VIII · George VI · Henry, Duke of Gloucester · George, Duke of Kent · The Prince John · John Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Hubertus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha · Ernest Augustus IV, Prince of Hanover · Alastair, Duke of Connaught · George of Hanover
9th Generation

Philip, Duke of Edinburgh* · William of Gloucester · Richard, Duke of Gloucester · Edward, Duke of Kent · Michael of Kent
10th Generation
11th Generation

William of Wales · Henry of Wales · James, Viscount Severn
*not a British prince by birth, but a royal prince consort
Persondata
NAME Prince Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel
SHORT DESCRIPTION Prince Consort of the United Kingdom
DATE OF BIRTH 26 August 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Rosenau Castle, Coburg
DATE OF DEATH 14 December 1861
PLACE OF DEATH Windsor Castle, Berkshire