Victoria And Prince Albert: Partners, Rivals

At first glance, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s reign in Britain seems stereotypical of the era. Social standards had predetermined their wedding, the couple stimulated a strong sense of nationalism, and they abundantly supplied Europe with royal offspring. However, as Gillian Gill highlights in her book, “We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals” in reality this relationship was far from orthodox. In a world where misogyny, debt, and lewd behavior were common among rulers, their partnership broke many modern-day standards and created a new set of values. Though many of these values emerged in struggle for power, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert managed to stay together, and ultimately, redefined European politics, economics, and society in the 1800s.
By the time of their first encounter, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were very different people. While both hailed from the Coburg family line and grew up in single parent households, dissimilar childhood personalities and circumstances shaped two divergent characters, and had an immense impact on their future decisions.
As a child, Victoria found herself in an especially unique position. Before her father’s last breath, he managed to scrawl a signature onto his will,
from Cambridge University. Gill has taught classes and led seminars at Harvard, Yale, and Northwestern, focusing on mainly British History and women’s rights. She has written four thorough biographies, with a centralized around British women including Florence Nightingale and Agatha Christy. In We Two, she breaks from this sole focus on women and describes a relationship between a powerful woman and man instead. Despite this change, she utilized extensive resources (evident in the bibliography), including primary source documentation and first-hand visits to some of Victoria’s private estates, to conduct research for the