![]() ![]() ![]() So when they met again in 1839 as queen and presumed prince-consort-to-be, neither had particularly high hopes. At seventeen, charming rather than beautiful, Victoria already "showed signs of wanting her own way." Albert, the boy who had been groomed for her since birth, was chubby, self-absorbed, and showed no interest in girls, let alone this princess. The cousins first met as teenagers for a few brief, awkward, chaperoned weeks in 1836. The love affair that emerges is far more captivating, complex, and relevant than that depicted in any previous account. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity, qualities neither had seen much of as children. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naive teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. ![]() It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth century-and one of history's most enduring love stories. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |