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Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, King Leopold I of the Belgians, Lord Melbourne, Louise of Saxe-Gotha--Altenburg, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
From the Emperor’s Desk: On the anniversary of the death of the Prince Consort I will be focusing on his marriage to Queen Victoria.
Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; August 26, 1819 – December 14, 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861.
Prince Albert was born on August 26, 1819, at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Albert was born with the original territorial designation as a Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
Prince Albert’s first cousin and future wife, Victoria of Kent, was born earlier in the same year with the assistance of the same accoucheuse, Charlotte von Siebold. He was baptised into the Lutheran Evangelical Church on September 19, 1819 in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau, with water taken from the local river, the Itz.
In 1825, Friedrich IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, who was the uncle of Ernst’s first wife Louise, died without an heir. This resulted in a rearrangement of the Ernestine duchies. It was only as a member of the Ernestine dynasty (and not as Louise’s husband) that Ernst had a claim on the late duke’s estates.
However, he was at that time in the process of divorcing Louise, and the other branches used this as a leverage to drive a better bargain for themselves by insisting that he should not inherit Gotha. They reached a compromise on November 12, 1826: Ernst received Gotha, but had to cede Saalfeld to Saxe-Meiningen. He subsequently became “Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha”. Prince Albert’s territorial designation also changed and he became a Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The idea of marriage between Albert and his cousin, Victoria, was first documented in an 1821 letter from his paternal grandmother, Countess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who said that he was “the pendant to the pretty cousin”.
By 1836, this idea had also arisen in the mind of their ambitious uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831. At this time, Victoria was the heir presumptive to the British throne. Her father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III, had died when she was an infant, and her elderly uncle, King William IV, had no surviving legitimate children.
Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, was the sister of both Albert’s father—Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha—and King Leopold. Leopold arranged for his sister, Victoria’s mother, to invite the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his two sons to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of meeting Victoria.
William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander, second son of the Prince of Orange. Victoria was well aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. She wrote, “[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful.” Alexander, on the other hand, she described as “very plain”.
Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold to thank him “for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert … He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy.” Although the parties did not undertake a formal engagement, both the family and their retainers widely assumed that the match would take place.
Victoria came to the throne aged eighteen on June 20, 1837. Her letters of the time show interest in Albert’s education for the role he would have to play, although she resisted attempts to rush her into marriage. In the winter of 1838–39, the prince visited Italy, accompanied by the Coburg family’s confidential adviser, Baron Stockmar.
Albert returned to the United Kingdom with his brother Ernst in October 1839 to visit the Queen, with the objective of settling the marriage. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on October 15, 1839. Victoria’s intention to marry was declared formally to the Privy Council on November 23 and the couple married on February 10, 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace.
Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalised by an Act of Parliament.
In the United Kingdom, and Germany, Albert was styled “His Serene Highness Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” in the months before his marriage. He was granted the style of Royal Highness on February 6, 1840.
Initially Albert was not popular with the British public; he was perceived to be from an impoverished and undistinguished minor state, barely larger than a small English county.
The British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, advised the Queen against granting her husband the title of “King Consort”; Parliament also objected to Albert being created a peer—partly because of anti-German sentiment and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role.
Albert’s religious views provided a small amount of controversy when the marriage was debated in Parliament: although as a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Church Albert was a Protestant, the non-Episcopal nature of his church was considered worrisome. Of greater concern, however, was that some of Albert’s family were Roman Catholic.
Melbourne led a minority government and the opposition took advantage of the marriage to weaken his position further. They opposed a British peerage for Albert and granted him a smaller annuity than previous consorts, £30,000 instead of the usual £50,000.
Albert claimed that he had no need of a British peerage, writing: “It would almost be a step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than a Duke of York or Kent.”
For the next seventeen years, Albert was formally titled “HRH Prince Albert” until, on June 25, 1857, Victoria formally granted him the title Prince Consort. Victoria explained, in a letter to Lord Palmerston on March 15, 1857, that she was: “… inclined … to content herself by simply giving her husband by Letters Patent the title of ‘Prince Consort’ which can injure no one while it will give him an English title consistent with his position, & avoid his being treated by Foreign Courts as a junior Member of the house of Saxe-Coburg”.