Lord Melbourne William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, was Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister whe she aceeded to the throne. He was to play a very important part in her life and reign. Melbourne taught the Queen her duties as a constitutional monarch and she followed blindly his advices. The Prime Minister provided the Queen with self confidence and enthusiasm for her duties. Victoria trusted him as a father but probably he was her first great love altough he was 58 years old when he became her Prime Minister and she only 18. Lord Melbourne was the head of the Whig Government which was quite weak. He inculcated Victoria his political ideas so she became an enraged Whig with little understanding of Liberalism and with a close mind to any Conservative or Tory ideas. Queen Victoria was infuriated and heartbroken when, in 1839, the Whig party lost the elections and Sir Robert Peel, a Tory, became her Prime Minister. The new Prime Minister asked the Queen to replace the Whig ladies of her bedchamber for Tory ladies as it was the costume. The Queen refused abd Peel resigned. To the Queen's joy, Melbourne returned to office. |
||||||||||||||
William Lamb, Lord Merlbourne | ||||||||||||||
Lady Flora Hastings Ladyt Flora Hastings was a lady in waiting to the Duchess of Kent, who had always supported Conroy and who Victoria desliked too much. At the beginning of 1839, Lady Flora shared a carriage with Conroy on a journey returnig from her home. Some days later,the Queen and her governess, Baronness Lehzen, noticed that a protuberance began to grow on Lady Flora's stomach; they suspected she was pregnant as a result of her intimous relations with Conroy. Victoria scandalized and recriminated Lady Flora, who denied everything and claimed to be a virgin. The Queen insisted that she must be examine by a doctor, who declared Lady Flora was indeed a virgin and that the protuberance on her stomach was because of a cancerous tumor. The scandal was spread by the newspapers and on June 5, 1839, Lady Flora died and Victoria became very unpopular within the public. Prince Albert Since Victoria was a child, her uncles, King Leopold of Belgium and Duke Ernest of Saxe Coburg, as well as her maternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe Coburg, had planned that she sould marry her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha. Prince Albert was born on August 26, 1819, three months after Victoria, at Scloss, Roseanu, near Coburg. He was the second son of Duke Ernest of Saxe Coburg (the Duchess of kent's eldest brother) and of Princess Louise, heiress of the Saxe Gotha states. His elder brother was named Ernest after his father. Albert's mother, Princess Louise, had married the 32 year old Duke Ernest when she was only 16 years old. Duke Ernest had been always a dissolute man and he continue with his debaucheries, shamefully neglecting his wife. After Albert's birth, Princess Louise consoled herself with other man. Duke Ernest divorced her in 1826 and she was never to talk or have any contact with her sons again. She sometimes used to watch them from afar on a Coburg market square. Louise married again but she died of uterine cancer on 1831. Duke Ernest also remarried, this time with his niece Marie of Wurtemberg (daughter of his sirter Antoinnette), but his new marriage was childless. Altough the lack of his mother, Prince Albert's childhood was free and happy. He was very attached to his brother Ernest. As he grew up, he became a very studious and intelligent man; he was a devoted Lutheran, loved music and, on the contrary to his father and brother, was very rigid in moral questions. He and his brother visited England for the first time in 1836 when Victoria was not yet queen. It seems that this time he didn't caused a great impression on his royal cousin. The brothers visited England again on October, 1839. Victoria was now queen, and when she saw her cousin Albert, she knew she was in love. She wrote on her dairy: "It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert who is beautiful...such beautiful blue eyes, an exquisite nose and such a pretty mouth with delicate moustacchios and slight, but very slight whiskers; a beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and fine waist". Victoria and Albert got married on February 10, 1840. Life was difficult for Albert in England; he acted as his wife's personal secretary, but because of his German background he was quite unpopular and he was put aside from political matters, which made him felt very bad since he had great interest in politics. Besides, his wife's precedence over him was not easy to assimilate and some difficulties began to arose between the couple; the Queen indeed expressed: "Albert is in my house and not I in his". Nevertheless, Victoria loved him very much and soon he began to substitute Lord Melbourne in the Queen's life. Victoria and Albert had nine children during their marriage: Victoria (Vicky), Albert Edward (Bertie), Alice, Alfred (Affie), Helena (Lenchen), Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice. Vicky was Albert's favourite and Arthur was Victoria's. Bertie, the Prince of Wales was contsantly put aside from his parents love, because of his rebel character and his laziness. The family used to spent several time in their country houses, Balmoral in Scotland and Osborne, in the Isle of Wigh, which Albert designed himself. In 1841, Lord Melbourne lost again the elections and Sir Robert Peel was again Prime Minister; Victoria was desolated because she didn't like Sir Robert at all. A year after loosing his charge, Lord Melbourne suffered a paralisis attack; he was still having correspondence with the Queen but now he was a lonely and melancholic old man. He died in 1848. With the accesion of Sir Robert Peel as Prime Minister, Prince Albert began to participate actively in state affairs. He was similar to Peel in many aspects; they both were intelligent, had a similar way of thinking and a strictly moral. Peel invited Albert to preside the Royal Comission to promote Arts; the Prince also organized and reformed the Queen's Royal House. Victoria's attitude towards Peel change since she noticed the estimation her Prime Minister felt for Prince Albert. Gradually the Prince became the axis of Peel's government. By the end of Peel's period, Albert was practically who ruled England. Prince Albert's great ideal came true in May, 1851 with the inauguration of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park It exhibited samples of each country's apportation in machinery, technology, mechanical inventions, production, and applied and plastic arts. Prince Albert had devoted his time to plan and prepare th Exhibition; for the building that would lodge it, Albert chose the design made by Joseph Paxton, the Crystal Palace, a huge crystal and iron structure. After months of preparations, Queen Victoria inaugurated the Great Exhibition on May 1 1851. It was a great succesful for Prince Albert. The benefits were great and the incomes were destinated to the building of the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal College of Music, the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the museums in South Kensington. |
||||||||||||||
Next Page | ||||||||||||||
Previous Page | ||||||||||||||