A true love story that endured the test of time and became one of the most famous tales of bittersweet love, bliss and separation.
We all have grown reading love stories of kings and queens. So our fascination towards the royal love stories makes us dreamy and weak in the knees. The story of the Queen Victoria of England and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha is one such legendary saga which is popular even after a century of their deaths.
Born as Alexandrina Victoria on May 24 1819, the young princess became the heiress presumptive of the throne of England after the subsequent deaths of her grandfather, father and uncles. Influential people in the royal court arranged prospective suitors for her. When her uncle King William IV died, Victoria was a month shy of her 18th birthday and already the Queen Regent of England. Custom dictated her to get married, but she was reluctant to tie the knot. However, out of many young princes presented to her as prospective grooms, she was attracted towards her first cousin Prince Albert, the son of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Ernest, I was the brother of Victoria's mother Princess Victoria of Kent and Strathearn. She fell in love, proposed and married Albert on Feb 10, 1840, at the Chapel Royal of St James' Palace in London.
Albert belonged to a relatively small principality with a little income, but he attended the University of Bonn and studied Law, History, Philosophy, Politics, Arts and Economics. As a result, he was well-read man and a deep thinker.
Despite being denied a seat in the House of Lords and given lesser allowance, Albert was the most trusted advisor, mentor and a loyal supporter of his wife. Being a family man, he took the responsibility of bringing up his children in the best possible manner in the absence of his wife, who had state duties to perform.
It was the couple's elder son Bertie, later King Edward VII, who in a fit of rebellion devoted himself to the life of pleasures. Albert, to counsel his son, travelled to meet him, came back, fell ill and died at the age of 42. Victoria could never recover and mourned the death of her beloved husband till the end for the next forty years.
She became a widow in perpetual mourning and wore black throughout her life grieving the love of her life, Albert.
