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Summary
Summary
In this companion biography to the acclaimed Victoria, A. N. Wilson offers a deeply textured and ambitious portrait of Prince Albert, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the royal consort's birth.
For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than twenty of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, its values, and its paradoxes, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain's transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary center of political, technological, scientific, and intellectual advancement. Far more than just the product of his age, Albert was one of its influencers and architects. A composer, engineer, soldier, politician, linguist, and bibliophile, Prince Albert, more than any other royal, was truly a "genius." It is impossible to understand nineteenth century England without knowing the story of this gifted visionary leader, Wilson contends.
Albert lived only forty-two years. Yet in that time, he fathered the royal dynasties of Germany, Russia, Spain, and Bulgaria. Through Victoria, Albert and her German advisers pioneered the idea of the modern constitutional monarchy. In this sweeping biography, Wilson demonstrates that there was hardly any aspect of British national life which Albert did not touch. When he was made Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in his late twenties, it was considered as purely an honorific role. But within months, Albert proposed an extensive reorganization of university life in Britain that would eventually be adopted, making it possible to study science, languages, and modern history at British universities--a revolution in education that has changed the world.
Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert's voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This lively, delicious portrait of Prince Albert (1819--1861) by distinguished biographer Wilson (Victoria) shows how much the United Kingdom owes to Queen Victoria's adored consort (and cousin). While it took some convincing before the teenage queen fell for her German suitor, who struggled with English, they tied the knot and welcomed their first daughter in 1840, and Victoria's feelings only grew from there. Drawing on new material released by the current monarch, the book delves liberally into private letters and diaries that reveal Victoria as a "besotted wife" with "passionate and uncontrolled" feelings that contrasted with Albert's "more dutiful" ones. Well-educated by royal standards, Albert was intent on creating a legacy and making education available to his new countrymen. He spearheaded the Great Exhibition of 1851, a world's fair that put the Industrial Revolution on display for all to enjoy; served as Chancellor of Cambridge; catalogued the works of Raphael; designed Osborne House; and fathered a brood of nine who were destined to rule Europe into the 20th century. Wilson's Albert is a man whose "upper lip was seldom stiff," who fretted about his hairline, and who was, unusually for royal fathers of the time, preoccupied with the details of his children's upbringing. Anglophiles will relish the inside story of this royal personage. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Aug.)
Kirkus Review
An excellent life of Queen Victoria's beloved husband, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861), who turned the powerless office of Prince Consort into a major force for good.Most historians have given Albert high marks. Prolific novelist and biographer Wilson (Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker, 2017, etc.) makes a convincing case that he exerted a major influence on the modernizing of Britain's society and restoring of the crown's prestige. Victoria's mother was sister to Albert's father; both were aristocrats from principalities that supplied spouses to the British royal family for more than a century, and Albert was the leader in a thin field of eligible royal males. Historians continue to express wonder at the passionate love Victoria felt after a formal visit in 1839, a love that never diminished during two decades of marriage. Although Britain's royal dynasty descended from the German, George I, who arrived in 1714, foreigners were unpopular. The press did not celebrate the marriage, and Parliament voted to reduce his annuity and opposed his ennoblement. Despite her love, Victoria was not inclined to give up her considerable, if mostly ceremonial, power. Overcoming his frustration, Albert skillfully reorganized the royal household and impressed Britain's leaders with his good sense. Helped by Victoria's preoccupation with nine pregnancies, he shared her responsibilities and increased the monarchy's influence by emphasizing its lack of partisanship (the young Victoria hated the Tories). Liberal by upper-class standards, he enthusiastically supported the technological, political, and commercial views of the rising middle class, which transformed Victorian Britain into "the most prosperous and peaceful country in modern Europearguably the richest country in history." Everyone cheered his central role in organizing the Great Exhibition of 1851, and by the time of his premature death, he was an almost universally admired figure. As usual, Wilson delineates his subject's life with aplomb.A delightfully vivid, opinionated biography that pays almost equal attention to Albert's wife and a colorful supporting cast of early Victorian notables. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
To serve as a companion volume to his well-executed Victoria: A Life (2014), popular historian Wilson presents a magnificently understanding biography of Victoria's spouse, her German-born consort, Prince Albert (also the queen's first cousin). Albert led a brief life dying at age 42 but his impact on his adopted homeland, Great Britain, especially on the functioning of the monarchy, was immense, hence the subtitle of this wise new portrait. That is the thesis Wilson develops, comfortably resting his narrative on two legs: complete thoroughness and joyful buoyancy. As consort, Albert struggled against the prejudice he encountered as a foreigner who most people thought exerted too much influence on their temperamental little queen (short in stature as she was). With his great intelligence and level-headedness (in contrast to the mercurial Victoria), Albert endured a lot of personal affront at the hands of his difficult wife; but Wilson judges the prince as a great public figure, especially as a major contributor to the evolution of the monarchy into the constitutionally based institution that remains securely in place to this day.--Brad Hooper Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Wilson's companion biography to Victoria: A Life presents a full picture of Queen Victoria's beloved "Prince Consort." Using archival sources, Wilson portrays Prince Albert (1819--61) as a bibliophile, linguist, and art connoisseur who moved the British monarchy in a modern direction in order to survive a rapidly democratizing and industrializing world. Wilson renders a sensitive and honest portrait of both Albert's relationship with his cousin-turned-wife, Victoria, with whom he had nine children, and frustrations at having no "official" political status or influence. The author also touches upon their children's efforts at ruling royal dynasties in Russia, Spain, and Germany. While general readers may find it difficult to follow the complexities of mid-19th-century European politics, they will appreciate the human depiction of this political marriage and gain a clear sense of Albert's contributions to British culture, including his efforts to create a catalog of the artworks of Raphael; his creation of Osborne House, the royal residence; and most important, his role in guiding the success of the 1851 Great London Exhibition. VERDICT Readers interested in British history and royals will appreciate this accessible, well-researched study of an admired leader.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgements | p. xi |
| Archives and Manuscripts Consulted | p. xiv |
| List of Illustrations | p. xv |
| 1 Princess Beatrice's War Work | p. 1 |
| 2 His Mother | p. 11 |
| 3 The Wettins | p. 28 |
| 4 Childhood: 'Tout rappelle l'homme à ses devoirs' | p. 38 |
| 5 'These dearest beloved Cousins': Albert's First Visit to England | p. 49 |
| 6 European Journeys | p. 58 |
| 7 A Somewhat Rough Experience | p. 76 |
| 8 Unbounded Influence | p. 92 |
| 9 Public Art, Public Life | p. 121 |
| 10 Neptune Resigning His Empire to Britannia | p. 143 |
| 11 Malthusian Calamity | p. 162 |
| 12 Cambridge | p. 170 |
| 13 The Year of Revolutions | p. 181 |
| 14 Balmoral | p. 197 |
| 15 The Great Exhibition of 1851: The Making of the Modern World | p. 218 |
| 16 The Great Exhibition: 'so vast, so glorious' | p. 252 |
| 17 Stormy Weather | p. 270 |
| 18 The Prince Consort at Last | p. 296 |
| 19 King in All But Name | p. 317 |
| 20 The Care and Work Begin | p. 339 |
| 21 She Was the Strong One | p. 360 |
| Bibliography | p. 391 |
| Notes | p. 396 |
| Index | p. 413 |
