Prince Charming He Wasn't

At the end of her introduction to We Two, Gillian Gill writes,

At a distance, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert can look like charming tapestry figures, unicorns among flowering meadows, irrelevant to our modern world. But if we listen to their voices up close, we find to our surprise a forerunner of today's power couple--a husband and wife, each with a different personal agenda, but lovers as well as partners in a great enterprise, both leading meticulously scheduled, constantly monitored, minutely recorded, and carefully screened lives. How very twenty-first century!

It is always dangerous to look at history through the filters of our own time, and yet, that is the only way we can. But even with our own filters, we sometimes see through the filters of earlier historians, especially with access to original documents.

The familiar story of Victoria and Albert's marriage is the great romantic story of the 19th Century. The truth was far more complicated and a great deal less pretty. While reading Gill's book, the words from "Cocktail Counterpoint" from La Cage aux Folles kept coming to mind:

It's appalling to confess:
Our new in-laws are a mess.
She's a prude, he's a prig,
She's a pill, he's a pig,
So zis zis zis for you, Papa.

In ways, they were a well matched couple. Victoria was unable to cope with their children until they reached adulthood. Albert was intimately involved in their children's lives and did his best to be a good parent. Both knew how to maneuver through the subtleties of European politics, even if they weren't always successful. And while they came to define "prude" and "uptight," they decorated their private home with male and female nudes.

This fresco, "Neptune Resigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea," hangs over the main staircase of Osborne House.

In other ways, they were not. Albert was the younger son of a minor German royal family, and he was very touchy about his position. The Prince Consort had no idea how to deal with the "common people." Victoria, on the other hand, enjoyed being among "the people" and never forgot how important their good opinion was to the monarchy.

In spite of this new look at Victoria and Albert, and others to come, it is unlikely that they will be dislodged from their place in history.

Peace,
Jeff