There had been no sense in 1837 of such an outcome. There was curiosity about what an 18 year old queen was and would be like, but uncertainly about what, if anything, she could achieve. As it was, she was sensitively guided politically and socially by the aged whig prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Vicount Melbourne, before on february 10, 1840, she married her first cousin Albert, prince of Saxe – Cobuurg- Gotha. Albert had been given more guidance by his tutors;not all of it sound, about the role he should play as her husband, than she had been given before she came to the throne. She had been dependent most on her German governess, Baroness Lehen, who was the first to tell her (at the age of 11) that she was heiress presumptive to the throne. Her father Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, youngest brother of William1V, had died in 1820, when Victoria was still an infant, and her German mother Victoria Mary Louisa had proved an ill- informed and difficult parent. Later in life, Victoria was to repeat many times that she was never happy until she was 18.
“Beloved Albert” brought her exceptional happiness until his early death on December 14,1861. The marriage, while an affair of state, was a love match, and the royal couple were seldom apart. They offered an example of family life that contrasted sharply with the earlier royal images of George1V and his brothers.Victoria and Albert had nine children; the forst of them, Victoria, future German Empress, born on November 21, 1840, the second, the future EdwardVII, born November 9, 1841. They had limitations as parents, but their intentions were beyond reproach and they enjoyed their private lives, particularly at Osborne house on the Isle of Wight, purchased in 18443, and Balmoral castle in Scotland, acquíred in 1852 and rebuilt on the basis of Albert’s designs. “God Knows”, the queen had written as early as 1844, “how willingly I would always live with my beloved Albert and our children in the quiet retirement of private life, and not be the constant subject of observation”. An aristocratic German visitor to Balmoral 11 years later, Helmuth Karl von Molke, told his wife, “It is hard to believe that the most powerful monarch in the world can leave all court life so much behind. It is just plain family life here”
Victoria was desperately lonely after Albert’s death in 1861 and retreated into a gloomy widowhood, undergoing a nervous breakdown and shrinking from the public. The results was a barrage of criticism as sharp as Albert had had to face the worst moments of his lifetime. On the third anniversary of his death, The Times declared that “ the living have their claims as well as the dead; and what claims can be more important than those of a great nation, and the society of the first European capitals?” in these circumstances, it was the queen’s strong sense of duty and the much- vaunted power of her will that kept the monarch alive. By the end of the reign, with an experience that reach deep into the past, she had endowed it with a new magic.
The second if the two great jubilees which suggested to the world just how strong the British monarch was. That of 1887, the golden jubliee, once more displayed the queen to the public. She herself helped to organize it, and at the thanksgiving service in west minister abbey there were representatives from all parts of the empire. There was an even stronger imperial dimension to the diamond jubliee ten years later, when, as in 1887, thanksgiving services were held in every church, chapel, and synagogue throughout Britain, and in many other parts of the world. At a private family thanksgiving in St George’s chapel, Windsor, a different note was struck. A Te Deum with the music written by Prince Albert was fervently sung.
Between 1897 and 1901 there was one more special occasion – a visit to Ireland in 1900, which she had last visited 39 years before. It was a part of the empire that had been at the centre of the British politics in the Gladstone years, and was to remain so throughout much of the new century which she herself did not celebrate. “I’m bored with the future”, she is said to have remarked in her old age, “and I don’t want to hear any more about it”. The present itself was scarely consoling. The South African wars in South Africa, which began on October12, 1899, brought with it a chain of unexpected military reverses and burst of European opposition. As in the past, the queen staunchly supported her troops, and she drove in triumph through London after the siege of Ladysmith was broken on February 28, 1900. She saw through that year, which she called horrible-not because of the war or politics but because of the weather- and after a Short but wearing illness died at Osborne. One of her last visitors was her grandson the German Emperor, William II “The Kaiser”, who was to lead Germany against Britain during world war I. He supported her on her pillow in her last two and a half hours. He was one the main figures at her impressive funeral, which was military in flavour, characterized by lavish pomp and ceremony. For most of her subjects, however, an age seemed to have come to an end, and for all the sorrowful tributes there were many people who looked forward not only to a new reign but a new future.
In the foreign policy, the queen influenced during her reign peace and reconciliation. in 1864, Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the Prussia- Austria- Denmark war, and her letter to the German Emperor.But before Albert died, Victoria and Albert presided had, in the midst of the potato famine of 1845, continued to permit the export of grain and cattle from Ireland to england while over a million Irish peasants starved to death
Princess Victoria Adelaide married Prince Friedrich Prince Albert Edward. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Princess Alice she married Prince Ludwig. Prince Alfred, married Grand Duchess Marie. Princess Helena, married Prince Christian of schleswig- Holstein. Princess Louise married John Campell. Prince Arthur married Princess Luise of Prussia. . Prince Leopold married Princess Helena of waldeck. Prince Beatrice married Prince Henry of Batten berg.