Queen Victoria & Prince Albert--Photos and Information

[Alixz]

And so it would seem that none of their father's or those who were in charge of their moral and educational upbringing took into account that each child is different and position in society does not make a child more amenable to a system they don't like or can't follow.

[po3a]

I find this all very interesting!  It is so true that every child is an individual with different strengths and weaknesses.  Somehow Albert's teachings seemed to work and have a lasting impact on Vicky and Alice.  Or he may have been easier on them?

[Kalafrana]

It's quite possible that Albert was easier on Victoria and Alice because they weren't expected to inherit. Albert Edward was heir apparent, so got the full rigour of Albert's teaching. Even though I'm quite intellectual by temperament, one day of Albert's teaching would have me throwing my books out of the window and disappearing into the nearest field!

Ann

[CountessKate]

Somehow Albert's teachings seemed to work and have a lasting impact on Vicky and Alice.  Or he may have been easier on them?

Hannah Pakula points out in 'An uncommon woman" that Victoria certainly didn't have an easier ride educationally, with a French tutor at eighteen months and a German tutor at three and a half.  However, she notes that "Vicky was so bright that she spoiled things for her younger siblings, none of whom ever approached her in intellect.  This was particularly painful in the case of Bertie.......[who] learned slowly and had difficulty concentrating...." I think also that Vicky as the eldest child, and Bertie as the eldest son and heir, had a particularly severe weight of expectations from their actually quite young parents, who to a certain extent relaxed their anxieties with the younger children, because of the experience gained with the older ones.  I don't think it was the educational system and moral upbringing in itself which bore down so hard on Bertie in particular as the burden of competing with a much brighter child (with whom, to his credit, he always remained on very good terms) without the same intellectual gifts, and as Kalafrana so rightly remarks, without any appreciation on Albert's part that there were better ways of teaching a slow child.  And in fairness, that advisor to royalty, Stockmar, who devised the educational plans for the children, had no alternatives to conventional methods either.  Standard Victorian education was a horror to our modern eyes, but it wasn't any different really for any members of the family, whether Albert was alive or dead.  It was just that after Bertie, the bar was lower for the younger children and the weight of expectation was less.  And I'm not fully convinced that Bertie would have grown up any more interested in books and abstract intellectual matters (he was perfectly shrewd with regard to practical politics) if Albert had been any easier on him. 

[feodorovna]

I get the impression, that for Albert, education was both hobby and obsession. I feel that by submerging himself in it as a child he trained himself not to feel the pain of having his mother wrested from  him. I find myself wondering if he managed to irradicate every difficulty he may have experienced in this way. Victoria appears to have had an innate grasp on a given situation, something, IMO, Bertie inherited from her. Albert's intellect, by contrast, disciplined and controlled as it was, probably meant he had little concept of understanding.

[CountessKate]

I get the impression, that for Albert, education was both hobby and obsession. I feel that by submerging himself in it as a child he trained himself not to feel the pain of having his mother wrested from  him. I find myself wondering if he managed to irradicate every difficulty he may have experienced in this way. Victoria appears to have had an innate grasp on a given situation, something, IMO, Bertie inherited from her. Albert's intellect, by contrast, disciplined and controlled as it was, probably meant he had little concept of understanding.

I'm not sure that Albert's intellect was quite that removed from practical sympathy.  Admittedly, he showed little intuitive understanding of Bertie, but there might have been other factors going on - such as the fact that Bertie was in a position to be relatively independent of his parents, once he achieved his majority, and if Victoria were to die, or be otherwise incapacitated (Albert was in terror of her emotional storms, which he found very difficult to deal with, and was genuinely concerned that she might have inherited the madness of her grandfather George III), Albert was not her heir - Bertie was.  I think perhaps an underlying resentment may have caused him to be harsher and less understanding than he might otherwise have been - though I certainly agree he found it very hard to understand how someone could not interest themselves in science and literature and art.

[Alixz]

But the consort - male or female - is not usually the heir, the first male child is.  Albert had to have known that and accepted it when he married Victoria.

Had Victoria become incapacitated or died while Bertie was under age, then Albert might have been regent, but never heir.

Albert was, in my opinion, just a typical Prussian father. I know that Prussia is not where he came from, but the Prussian ideals of manhood and education and precision were felt in all parts of the German states even before the actual formation of Germany with a Prussian leader after the 1848 and 1870 wars of unification.

And it is true that Stockmar was the inventor of the educational system that influenced Albert both as a student and as a father.  It has been said that Stockmar invented Albert.

[po3a]

I get the impression, that for Albert, education was both hobby and obsession. I feel that by submerging himself in it as a child he trained himself not to feel the pain of having his mother wrested from  him. I find myself wondering if he managed to irradicate every difficulty he may have experienced in this way. Victoria appears to have had an innate grasp on a given situation, something, IMO, Bertie inherited from her. Albert's intellect, by contrast, disciplined and controlled as it was, probably meant he had little concept of understanding.

I'm not sure that Albert's intellect was quite that removed from practical sympathy.  Admittedly, he showed little intuitive understanding of Bertie, but there might have been other factors going on - such as the fact that Bertie was in a position to be relatively independent of his parents, once he achieved his majority, and if Victoria were to die, or be otherwise incapacitated (Albert was in terror of her emotional storms, which he found very difficult to deal with, and was genuinely concerned that she might have inherited the madness of her grandfather George III), Albert was not her heir - Bertie was.  I think perhaps an underlying resentment may have caused him to be harsher and less understanding than he might otherwise have been - though I certainly agree he found it very hard to understand how someone could not interest themselves in science and literature and art.

I wonder about the underlying resentment that Albert may have had?  At a time when women had few rights, Victoria was one of the most powerful people on the planet!  She asked him for his hand in marriage---she told him what he could and could not do.  How did Abert deal with being powerless to his wife?

[historyfan]

I get the impression, that for Albert, education was both hobby and obsession. I feel that by submerging himself in it as a child he trained himself not to feel the pain of having his mother wrested from  him. I find myself wondering if he managed to irradicate every difficulty he may have experienced in this way. Victoria appears to have had an innate grasp on a given situation, something, IMO, Bertie inherited from her. Albert's intellect, by contrast, disciplined and controlled as it was, probably meant he had little concept of understanding.

I'm not sure that Albert's intellect was quite that removed from practical sympathy.  Admittedly, he showed little intuitive understanding of Bertie, but there might have been other factors going on - such as the fact that Bertie was in a position to be relatively independent of his parents, once he achieved his majority, and if Victoria were to die, or be otherwise incapacitated (Albert was in terror of her emotional storms, which he found very difficult to deal with, and was genuinely concerned that she might have inherited the madness of her grandfather George III), Albert was not her heir - Bertie was.  I think perhaps an underlying resentment may have caused him to be harsher and less understanding than he might otherwise have been - though I certainly agree he found it very hard to understand how someone could not interest themselves in science and literature and art.

I wonder about the underlying resentment that Albert may have had?  At a time when women had few rights, Victoria was one of the most powerful people on the planet!  She asked him for his hand in marriage---she told him what he could and could not do.  How did Abert deal with being powerless to his wife?

He may have been powerless about state matters - although that changed gradually, and thoroughly - but he never was powerless in their own home. She deferred to him in matters regarding the childrens' education (being discussed), and their marriage matches, among other things.

[Kalafrana]

I will need to look up the Regency Act of the day to see who would have been regent in the event of Victoria dying before her son's majority. Under the current Regency Act it is the first adult in the line of succession. So, if the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all to die in rapid succession, leaving an infant offspring of Prince William as monarch, Prince Harry would be regent.

Gut feeling in the case of Victoria would have been Ernest of Hanover, who was her heir until she had children.

Ann

[CountessKate]

He may have been powerless about state matters - although that changed gradually, and thoroughly - but he never was powerless in their own home. She deferred to him in matters regarding the childrens' education (being discussed), and their marriage matches, among other things.

In fact, Albert felt far from deferred to in the home, at the beginning.  One of his greatest fights was to get rid of Baroness Louise Lehzen, Victoria's former governess who had supported her through the pressures bought to bear on her before she ascended the throne by her mother and Sir John Conroy.  Lehzen gave Victoria unofficial secretarial help, which Albert considered his province, and had extensive responsibilities for the royal household, which included quite significant powers such as signing off on tradesmens' bills; and Victoria entrusted her with the appointment of her childrens' nursery attendants.  She also accepted political advice from Lehzen, although this was given very discreetly.  Albert was bitterly resentful of Lehzen, who in her turn disliked him and obstructed him in various reforms he wished carried out in the royal household, and in many ways appeared to have a role with regard to the Queen that he saw as more rightfully his; he seized the opportunity presented by a severe illness of the little Princess Victoria in 1842 to accuse Lehzen of incompetence (in her staff appointments) and although Victoria initially supported Lehzen, she finally agreed to Lehzen's taking a six-month leave of absence, for health reasons, which Albert took good care should be permanent.  With Lehzen gone, Albert stepped into the vacancy which was both domestic and political, and Victoria's repeated pregnancies meant she was not up to the task of fending off his political ambitions which she initially had jealously guarded for herself.  Quite naturally Victoria started to appreciate her husband's genuine administrative and political capabilities, to the point where he essentially was the leading partner in the marriage both domestically and politically.  But it was a fight in the beginning, and I can't but feel this may have given him a certain concern - even if an unconscious one - that it might all be taken away from him again.  In the film about the young Queen Victoria, the fight was portrayed between Albert and Lord Melbourne, but this is quite untrue; Albert's real fight was with Lehzen, much more deeply embedded in the royal household and in fact the mother figure at that time, for Victoria.  This of course was not sensational enough for Julian Fellowes.

[CountessKate]

I will need to look up the Regency Act of the day to see who would have been regent in the event of Victoria dying before her son's majority. Under the current Regency Act it is the first adult in the line of succession. So, if the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William were all to die in rapid succession, leaving an infant offspring of Prince William as monarch, Prince Harry would be regent.

Gut feeling in the case of Victoria would have been Ernest of Hanover, who was her heir until she had children.

Ann

Given that Ernest was King of a foreign country, would not that have excluded him

[CountessKate]

Sorry, pressed the 'post' button too soon - in fact, I understand that the Regency Bill of 1840 (at the time of the Queen's marriage), provided for Prince Albert to be Regent for their child who succeeded her in the event of her death before her heir or heiress reached the age of 18.  This follows the Regency Bill of 1830 which provided for the Duchess of Kent to be Regent for Victoria should she succeed before her majority, despite the Duchess of Kent not being universally popular and a foreigner to boot, rather like Prince Albert.  However, a sense of natural justice for parents seemed to prevail amongst the politicians in both cases.  But of course, it was a time-limited position.

[historyfan]

He may have been powerless about state matters - although that changed gradually, and thoroughly - but he never was powerless in their own home. She deferred to him in matters regarding the childrens' education (being discussed), and their marriage matches, among other things.

In fact, Albert felt far from deferred to in the home, at the beginning.  One of his greatest fights was to get rid of Baroness Louise Lehzen, Victoria's former governess who had supported her through the pressures bought to bear on her before she ascended the throne by her mother and Sir John Conroy.  Lehzen gave Victoria unofficial secretarial help, which Albert considered his province, and had extensive responsibilities for the royal household, which included quite significant powers such as signing off on tradesmens' bills; and Victoria entrusted her with the appointment of her childrens' nursery attendants.  She also accepted political advice from Lehzen, although this was given very discreetly.  Albert was bitterly resentful of Lehzen, who in her turn disliked him and obstructed him in various reforms he wished carried out in the royal household, and in many ways appeared to have a role with regard to the Queen that he saw as more rightfully his; he seized the opportunity presented by a severe illness of the little Princess Victoria in 1842 to accuse Lehzen of incompetence (in her staff appointments) and although Victoria initially supported Lehzen, she finally agreed to Lehzen's taking a six-month leave of absence, for health reasons, which Albert took good care should be permanent.  With Lehzen gone, Albert stepped into the vacancy which was both domestic and political, and Victoria's repeated pregnancies meant she was not up to the task of fending off his political ambitions which she initially had jealously guarded for herself.  Quite naturally Victoria started to appreciate her husband's genuine administrative and political capabilities, to the point where he essentially was the leading partner in the marriage both domestically and politically.  But it was a fight in the beginning, and I can't but feel this may have given him a certain concern - even if an unconscious one - that it might all be taken away from him again.  In the film about the young Queen Victoria, the fight was portrayed between Albert and Lord Melbourne, but this is quite untrue; Albert's real fight was with Lehzen, much more deeply embedded in the royal household and in fact the mother figure at that time, for Victoria.  This of course was not sensational enough for Julian Fellowes.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Lehzen! : P You're right on that score. I was thinking mainly of the family.

[po3a]

I am learning so much here!  Today I purchased Albert: A life----anyone read it?