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xxstefaniereadsxx's review
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born in 1819 in Germany. He married his first cousin, Victoria. Victoria became Queen of Ireland and Great Britain in 1837. Together, they had nine children. He struggled with the role of consort, because he did not have political power or run his household. He got involved in a lot of public things. He was President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery. He managed to modernize the finances of the royal family, designed their home and landscaping, and had a great deal to do with their children. He also supported raising the working age to end child labor. Despite his lack of political power, he had a lot of influence with Queen Victoria. She valued his opinions and absolutely adored him. He had been complaining of stomach pain for at least two years before his death. It is very likely that he had some manner of cancer, Crohn's Disease, or something similar, though he was diagnosed as having typhoid fever and dying from that.
Queen Victoria never got over his death. She blamed it on her son, who Albert had last went to see to tell him to cut the shenanagins and stop having illicit romances, as though she had never noticed he was ill before then. She wore black mourning clothes for the rest of her life. She kept his rooms exactly as he left them. She insisted that his sheets were changed, hot water and fresh towels were brought in daily, and his clothes were sorted. She absolutely adored Albert, and her personality changed so much once he died. She withdrew from public life and began comfort eating, gaining quite a lot of weight. Because she stopped doing public appearances unless absolutely vital, public opinion of the royal family started to decrease.
Both Albert and Victoria had really interesting wives, and their children certainly did as well. I think everyone can see how much she adored him and how disturbed she was by his death. This book paints a detailed picture of their marriage and her feelings about his death. I never really thought about how his death impacted public opinion or her actions and policies for the remainder of her reign. Helen Rappaport is a great historian of the Victorian Era, and I also really enjoy her work about the Russian monarchy. Pick this book up, it is worth the read.
Queen Victoria never got over his death. She blamed it on her son, who Albert had last went to see to tell him to cut the shenanagins and stop having illicit romances, as though she had never noticed he was ill before then. She wore black mourning clothes for the rest of her life. She kept his rooms exactly as he left them. She insisted that his sheets were changed, hot water and fresh towels were brought in daily, and his clothes were sorted. She absolutely adored Albert, and her personality changed so much once he died. She withdrew from public life and began comfort eating, gaining quite a lot of weight. Because she stopped doing public appearances unless absolutely vital, public opinion of the royal family started to decrease.
Both Albert and Victoria had really interesting wives, and their children certainly did as well. I think everyone can see how much she adored him and how disturbed she was by his death. This book paints a detailed picture of their marriage and her feelings about his death. I never really thought about how his death impacted public opinion or her actions and policies for the remainder of her reign. Helen Rappaport is a great historian of the Victorian Era, and I also really enjoy her work about the Russian monarchy. Pick this book up, it is worth the read.
humbug87's review
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Mental illness
bookwormmichelle's review
4.0
Hmm. This was really pretty well done, hard to classify. Perhaps a "biography of a marriage/widowhood." Interesting observations, especially for British history buffs, lots of details on Albert, Victoria, WHY it seemed everyone took Albert's illness lightly at first, and chronicling the self-absorption of Victoria before, during, and after Albert's death and how that impacted the monarchy--which came close at one time to really losing popular support when Victoria withdrew from public life. I had no idea just how self-involved Victoria was. Interesting to compare it to the very well done Victoria's Daughters which I read a few years ago. And an entertaining "What did Albert really die of?" exploration in an appendix at the end.
librarianonparade's review
4.0
The archetypal image of Queen Victoria has always been of a short dumpy woman clad in black widows' weeds, sober and disapproving and endlessly mourning her beloved husband Prince Albert. This book charts the evolution of that image, exploring Victoria's devoted love for her husband and her obsessive mourning of him for forty years after his death in 1861.
Death was an obsessive with Victoria, an obsession that began with the death of her mother several years before Alfred. Victoria wallowed in her grief, indulged in it, almost enjoyed it, and Alfred took her to task for this. She was incredibly dependent on him in both her domestic capacity as wife and as her Consort. Alfred was the power behind the throne, and it is likely that had he lived Victoria would have retreated ever-further into her position as his 'little wife'.
When Alfred died Victoria resorted to this hysterical grief, and this time there was no-one to snap her out of it. Her grief was incredibly selfish and self-indulgent, and before her long her children, her ministers and the British public all tired of it. Republicanism began to gain ground, and there was real fear amongst the establishment that the monarchy could topple, with Victoria's adamant refusal to emerge from mourning, to take up her position as monarch, to appear in any kind of public setting. Rappaport argues very strongly that, consciously or not, Victoria used her grief to avoid siutations she didn't wish to deal with.
I found this an interesting read, a very deft puncturing of the national myths of Victoria's as the squat dumpy middle-class monarch and Alfred as some kind of chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. Victoria herself had a great hand in establishing this image, of Alfred in particular, as part of her memorialisation of his memory. That it has lasted so long attests to her skill and devotion to immortalising her 'beloved Alfred'.
Death was an obsessive with Victoria, an obsession that began with the death of her mother several years before Alfred. Victoria wallowed in her grief, indulged in it, almost enjoyed it, and Alfred took her to task for this. She was incredibly dependent on him in both her domestic capacity as wife and as her Consort. Alfred was the power behind the throne, and it is likely that had he lived Victoria would have retreated ever-further into her position as his 'little wife'.
When Alfred died Victoria resorted to this hysterical grief, and this time there was no-one to snap her out of it. Her grief was incredibly selfish and self-indulgent, and before her long her children, her ministers and the British public all tired of it. Republicanism began to gain ground, and there was real fear amongst the establishment that the monarchy could topple, with Victoria's adamant refusal to emerge from mourning, to take up her position as monarch, to appear in any kind of public setting. Rappaport argues very strongly that, consciously or not, Victoria used her grief to avoid siutations she didn't wish to deal with.
I found this an interesting read, a very deft puncturing of the national myths of Victoria's as the squat dumpy middle-class monarch and Alfred as some kind of chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. Victoria herself had a great hand in establishing this image, of Alfred in particular, as part of her memorialisation of his memory. That it has lasted so long attests to her skill and devotion to immortalising her 'beloved Alfred'.
stephend81d5's review
4.0
interesting book which looks at the events which lead up to prince Albert's death and victoria reaction afterwards and also the author examines what actually killed albert, written in some detail and how in the end the monarchy was saved in the age of radical politics of europe and rising republicism
lieslindi's review
It is likely that I don't wish to read another book about grief. But Cindi would've loved it.
Afterward: An accurate title and more detail than I wanted: not its fault.
Afterward: An accurate title and more detail than I wanted: not its fault.
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