Albert, Prince Consort

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Prince Albert
Prince Consort of the United Kingdom; Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Consort 10 February 184014 December 1861
Consort to Victoria
Issue
Victoria, German Empress and Queen of Prussia
Edward VII
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein
Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Arthur, Duke of Connaught
Leopold, Duke of Albany
Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
Full name
Francis Augustus Charles Albert Emanuel
German: Franz August Karl Albrecht Immanuel
Titles and styles
HRH The Prince Consort
HRH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
HDSH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
HDSH Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield
Royal house House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Father Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Mother Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Born 26 August 1819(1819-08-26)
Rosenau Castle, Coburg, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Died 14 December 1861 (aged 42)
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England
Burial Frogmore, Windsor

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Francis Augustus Charles Albert Emanuel,[1] later HRH The Prince Consort; 26 August 181914 December 1861) was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was the only husband of a British Queen to have formally held the title of Prince Consort. Upon Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the territory of the branch of the Saxon ducal family to which Albert belonged, succeeded the House of Hanover on the British throne.[2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Albert was born in Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany, as the second son of Ernest III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Albert's aunt, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, had married Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III of the United Kingdom. She was the mother of the future Queen Victoria. Thus Albert and his future wife were first cousins. They were also born in the same year with the assistance of the same midwife.[3]

Albert was baptised into the Lutheran Evangelical Church on 19 September 1819 in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau with water taken from a local river.[4] His godparents were Emperor Franz I of Austria; his maternal grandfather, Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg; Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen; Emanuel, Count von Mensdorff-Pouilly; and his paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who was away in Prague and represented by a proxy.

Albert and his elder brother, Ernest, spent their youth in a close companionship scarred by their parents' turbulent marriage and eventual separation and divorce. Their mother was exiled from court and married, as her second husband, her lover, Alexander von Hanstein, Count of Polzig-Baiersdorf. She probably never saw her children again and died of cancer at the age of 30 in 1831.[5] The following year, their father married his own niece and their cousin, Princess Mary of Württemberg, but the marriage was not close, and Mary had little, if any, input into her stepchildren's lives.[6]

The brothers were educated at first by private tutors and later at the University of Bonn, like many other princes. There Albert studied law, political economy, philosophy, and art history, played music and excelled in gymnastics, especially fencing and riding.[7] His teachers included Fichte and Schlegel.[8]

[edit] Marriage

Victoria and Albert in a photo taken in 1854
Victoria and Albert in a photo taken in 1854

By 1836, the idea of marriage between Albert and the heir to the British throne, his cousin Princess Victoria of Kent (as she was then titled), had arisen in the mind of their ambitious uncle, Leopold, created King of the Belgians in 1831. Leopold arranged for his sister, Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, 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. The visit did not by any means suit Victoria's uncle, William IV, who disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and favoured Prince Alexander, second son of William II of the Netherlands. Victoria was well-aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.[9] She wrote of Albert, "[He] 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, was "very plain".[10]

Victoria, writing to her uncle Leopold, thanked 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."[11] The parties undertook no formal engagement, but the family and their retainers widely assumed that the match would take place.[12]

After Victoria came to the throne on 20 June 1837, her letters show her interest in Albert's education for the part he would have to play though she resisted attempts to rush her into marriage.[13] In the winter of 1838–1839 the prince travelled in Italy, accompanied by the Coburg family's confidential adviser, Baron Stockmar.[14]

In October 1839, he and Ernest went again to England to visit the Queen, with the object of finally settling the marriage. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839.[15] Her intention to marry was declared formally to the Privy Council on 23 November.[16] The couple married on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace. Four days before the wedding, his future wife granted Prince Albert the style of Royal Highness by an Order-in-Council[17] and made him a member of the Privy Council. However the British Prime Minister at the time, Lord Melbourne, advised the Queen against granting her husband the title of "King Consort". Parliament even refused to countenance making Albert a peer (unlike Prince George of Denmark, the husband of the future Queen Anne, who had been made Duke of Cumberland by King William III in April 1689) partly because of anti-German feeling and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role.[18] Melbourne led a minority government and the opposition took advantage of the marriage to weaken his position further. They opposed the ennoblement of Albert and granted him a smaller allowance than previous consorts.[19] On the issue of Parliament refusing to grant him a peerage, Albert wrote, "It would almost be step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than as a Duke of York or Kent."[20] Although he was formally titled "HRH Prince Albert", he was popularly known as "HRH the Prince Consort" for the next seventeen years. On 29 June 1857, Queen Victoria formally granted him the title Prince Consort by an Order-in-Council.[21]

The position in which the prince was placed by his marriage, while one of distinguished honour, also offered considerable difficulties; and during his lifetime the tactful way in which he filled it was inadequately appreciated. The public life of the Prince Consort cannot be separated from that of the Queen, so most of what he accomplished was tied to her accomplishments.

British Royalty
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Descendants of Victoria & Albert
   Victoria, Princess Royal
   Edward VII
   Princess Alice
   Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha
   Princess Helena
   Princess Louise
   Arthur, Duke of Connaught
   Leopold, Duke of Albany
   Princess Beatrice

Nonetheless, he was thought to have undue influence in politics, and the prejudice against him never fully dissipated until after his death.

[edit] Family and public life

Within two months of the marriage, Victoria was pregnant. Albert started to take on public roles, for example becoming President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery (slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire already but was still lawful in the United States and the colonies of France), and help Victoria privately with her government paperwork.[22] In June 1840, Albert and the pregnant Victoria were shot at by Edward Oxford, who was later judged insane, while on a public carriage ride. Neither was hurt and Albert was praised in the newspapers for his courage and coolness during the attack.[23] Albert was gaining public support as well as political influence, which showed itself practically when, in August, Parliament passed the Regency Act 1840, which designated him Regent in the event of Victoria's death before their child reached the age of majority.[24] Their first child, Victoria, named after her mother, was born in November. Eight other children would follow over the next seventeen years. All nine of their children survived to adulthood, a rarity among families in that time, even among royalty.

Two further shootings occurred on 29 May and 30 May 1842; Albert and Victoria were again unhurt. The culprit, John Francis, was detained and condemned to death, though later reprieved.[25] Some of their early unpopularity came about because of their stiffness and adherence to protocol in public, though in private the couple were more easy-going.[26] In early 1844, Victoria and Albert were apart for the first time since their marriage when he returned to Coburg on the death of his father.[27]

By 1844, Albert had managed the modernization of the royal finances and through various economies had sufficient capital to purchase Osborne House on the Isle of Wight as a private residence for their growing family.[28] Over the next few years a house modelled in the style of an Italianate villa was built.[29]

As the prince became better known, public distrust began to give way. In 1847, but only after a significantly keen contest with Earl Powis, he was elected chancellor of the University of Cambridge.[30] The following year, Powis was killed accidentally by his own son during a pheasant shoot.[31] Albert used his position to campaign for reformed and more modern university curricula.[32]

Victoria and Albert enjoyed a wet summer holiday in the west of Scotland at Loch Laggan in 1847, but heard from their doctor, Sir James Clark, that his son had enjoyed dry, sunny days further east at Balmoral Castle. The tenant of Balmoral, Sir Robert Gordon, died suddenly in early October, and Albert began negotiations to take over the lease of the castle from the owner, Earl Fife.[33]

Revolutions spread throughout Europe in 1848 as the result of a widespread economic crisis. Throughout the year, Victoria and Albert complained about Foreign Secretary Palmerston's independent foreign policy, which they believed destabilized foreign European powers further.[34] Albert was concerned for many of his royal relatives, a number of whom were deposed, and he and Victoria, who gave birth to their daughter Louise during the year, spent some time in the relative safety of Osborne, away from London. Though there were sporadic demonstrations in England, no effective revolutionary action took place, and Albert even gained public acclaim for a speech in which he expressed paternalistic, yet well-meaning and philanthropic, views. "Wealth is an accident of society", he said, those that enjoyed its benefits had a duty to those who were, through accident, deprived of it.[35] In May, Albert purchased the lease for Balmoral, having never visited it, and in September he, his wife and the older children went there for the first time.[36] They came to relish the privacy it afforded.

[edit] Great Exhibition of 1851

Prince Albert
Prince Albert

A man of relatively cultured and liberal ideas, Albert not only led reforms in university education, welfare, the royal finances and slavery—he had a special interest in applying science and art to the manufacturing industry. The Great Exhibition of 1851 arose from the annual exhibitions of the Society of Arts, of which Albert was President, and owed the greater part of its success to his intelligent and unwearied efforts to promote it. He had to fight for every stage of the project. In the House of Lords, Lord Brougham denied the right of the crown to hold the exhibition in Hyde Park; in the House of Commons, members prophesied that foreign rogues and revolutionists would overrun England, subvert the morals of the people, filch their trade secrets from them, and destroy their faith and loyalty towards their religion and their sovereign.

Prince Albert served as president of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and every post brought him abusive letters, accusing him, as a foreigner, of being intent upon the corruption of England. He was not the man to be baulked by talk of this kind and quietly persevered, trusting always that bringing the best manufactured products of foreign countries under the eyes of the mechanics and artisans would improve British manufacturing.

The Queen opened the exhibition on 1 May 1851, and it proved a colossal success. The surplus of 186,000 pounds sterling it raised went to purchase land in South Kensington and establish a number of educational and cultural institutions, including what would later be named the Victoria and Albert Museum. This area of London was referred to as "Albertopolis" by sceptics.[37]

[edit] Other public activities

In 1852, Albert purchased Balmoral, and was appointed to several of the offices left vacant by the death of the Duke of Wellington, which included the mastership of Trinity House and the colonelcy of the Grenadier Guards.[38] With Wellington out of the way, Albert was able to propose and campaign for modernisation of the army, which was long overdue.[39] Thinking that the military was unready for war, and that Christian rule was preferable to Islamic rule, Albert counselled a diplomatic solution to conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires. Palmerston was more bellicose, favouring a policy which would prevent further Russian expansion. Palmerston was manoeuvred out of the cabinet in December 1853, but at about the same time a Russian fleet attacked the Ottoman fleet at anchor at Sinop. The London press depicted the attack as a criminal massacre, and Palmerston's popularity surged as Albert's fell.[40] Within two weeks, Palmerston was re-appointed as a minister. Absurd rumours circulated that Albert had been arrested for treason as public outrage at the Russian action continued.[41] By March 1854, Britain and Russia were embroiled in the Crimean War. Early British optimism soon faded as the press reported that British troops were ill-equipped and mismanaged by aged generals using out-of-date tactics and strategy. The conflict dragged on as the Russians were as poorly prepared as their opposers. The Prime Minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, resigned and Palmerston succeeded him.[42] A negotiated settlement eventually put an end to the war with the Treaty of Paris (1856). During the war, Albert arranged to marry his fourteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, though Albert delayed the marriage until Victoria was seventeen. Albert hoped that his daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state.[43]

A commission was set up to investigate the failings of the British military during the war. As Lord Hardinge was delivering the report of the commission to Victoria and Albert, Hardinge collapsed with a stroke. Albert helped him to a sofa, where despite being paralysed on one side, he continued to deliver his report, apologising for the interruption. Hardinge died a few months later.[44]

Prince Albert involved himself in promoting many public, educational institutions. Chiefly at meetings in connection with these he found occasion to make the speeches collected and published in 1857. One of his memorable speeches was the address he delivered as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science when it met at Aberdeen in 1859. His espousal of science spawned opposition from the Church. His proposal of a knighthood for Charles Darwin, after the publication of On the Origin of Species, was rejected.[45]

The education of his family and the management of his domestic affairs furnished the prince with another very important sphere of action, in which he employed himself with conscientious devotion. He felt keenly the departure of his eldest daughter for Prussia when she married her fiancé at the beginning of 1858,[46] but thought that his intensive educational programme was largely lost on his eldest son, the Prince of Wales.[47]

The estates of the Duchy of Cornwall, the hereditary property of the Prince of Wales, improved so greatly under Albert's stewardship that the rent receipts rose from £11,000 to £50,000 per year. Albert, indeed, had a peculiar talent for the management of landed estates. His model farm at Windsor was in every way worthy of the name; and he designed the layout of the grounds at Balmoral and Osborne House.

During a trip to Coburg in the autumn of 1860, Albert was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses, which suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a stationary wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises. He told his brother and eldest daughter that he sensed his time had come.[48]

In 1861, Victoria's mother and Albert's aunt, the Duchess of Kent, died and Victoria was grief-stricken; Albert took on most of the Queen's duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble.[49] In August, Victoria and Albert visited the Curragh Camp, Ireland, where the Prince of Wales was doing army service. It was there that the Prince of Wales was introduced, by his fellow officers, to Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress.[50]

[edit] Death

Styles of
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Reference style His Royal Highness
Spoken style Your Royal Highness
Alternative style Sir

By November, Victoria and Albert had returned to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales had returned to Cambridge, where he was a student. Two of Albert's cousins, King Pedro V of Portugal and Prince Frederick of Portugal both died of typhoid fever.[51] On top of this sad news, Albert was informed of gossip in the London gentlemen's clubs and the foreign press of the Prince of Wales' continued involvement with Nellie Clifden. Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son's indiscretion, and fearful of blackmail or scandal or, worse, pregnancy.[52] Albert was at a low ebb, and almost constantly ill, but during the autumn of 1861 he stayed as busy as ever with the arrangements for the projected international exhibition, and when the Trent Affair, the forcible removal of Confederate envoys from a British ship by Union forces, threatened war between the United States and Britain, Albert intervened quietly to soften the British diplomatic response.[53] On 9 December, one of Albert's doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed typhoid fever, and, congestion of the lungs supervening, he died on 14 December 1861 at Windsor Castle.[54]

[edit] Legacy

The Queen's grief was overwhelming, and the sympathy of the whole nation erased the tepid feelings the public had for him during his lifetime. Queen Victoria wore black, mourning for him for the rest of her long life, and his rooms in all his houses were kept as they had been, even with hot water brought in the morning, and linen and towels changed daily.[55] Such practices were not uncommon in the houses of the very rich.[56] Victoria withdrew from public life and her seclusion eroded some of Albert's work in attempting to re-model the monarchy as a national institution setting a moral, if not political, example.[57]

The magnificent mausoleum at Frogmore, in which his remains were finally deposited, was paid for by the queen and other royal relations. Many public monuments were erected all over the country, the most notable being the Royal Albert Hall (1867) and the Albert Memorial (1876) in London. His name also lives on in the Queen's institution of the Albert Medal (1866), in reward for gallantry in saving life, and in the Order of Victoria and Albert (1862). Another award struck in his honour is the Albert Medal presented by the RSA. Numerous landmarks are named after Prince Albert from Lake Albert in Africa to the Royal Albert Bridge built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel over the river Tamar.

Many credit Prince Albert with introducing the principle that the British Royal Family should remain above politics. Before his marriage to Victoria the Royal Family supported the Whigs; early in her reign Victoria managed to thwart the formation of a Tory government by Sir Robert Peel by refusing to accept substitutions which Peel wanted to make among her ladies-in-waiting.

Prince Albert is also rightfully credited with advancing the fortunes of his family, the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. Through his marriage with his first cousin Victoria, Albert fathered nine children. He had 40 grandchildren, only two of whom were born during his lifetime. Amongst his grandchildren were four reigning monarchs: King George V of the United Kingdom, Kaiser William II of Germany, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha itself; as well as Alexandra (ill-fated wife of the last Tsar of Russia). Amongst his great-grandchildren were King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King Olav V of Norway, King Carol II of Romania, three kings of Greece (George II, Alexander I, and King Paul), and Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich, claimant to the throne of Russia. Great-great grandchildren include Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, King Peter II of Yugoslavia, and King Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Statues of Albert, often with those of Queen Victoria graced public spaces across the British Empire, such as at Statue Square in Hong Kong (though his statue was lost during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in World War II), and Queen's Square in Sydney.

The city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan was named after him.

[edit] Military

Four regiments of the British Army were named after Albert; the first, the 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars, in March 1840, shortly before he became its colonel. The 13th Foot – later the Somerset Light Infantry – took the honorific of Prince Albert's Light Infantry in 1842, and Prince Albert's Own Leicestershire Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry was renamed in 1844. The Prince Consort's Own Rifle Brigade, of which he had been Colonel-in-Chief, was renamed in memory of him in 1862, shortly after his death.

He and Queen Victoria showed a keen interest in the establishment and development of Aldershot in Hampshire as a garrison town in the 1850s, having a wooden Royal Pavilion built there which they would often stay in when attending reviews of the army. Albert established and endowed The Prince Consort's Library there, which still exists today.


[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms

[edit] Titles and styles

[edit] Children

Name Birth Death Notes
The Princess Victoria, Princess Royal 21 November 1840 5 August 1901 married 1858, Frederick III, German Emperor and King of Prussia; had issue
Edward VII 9 November 1841 6 May 1910 married 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark; had issue
The Princess Alice 25 April 1843 14 December 1878 married 1862, Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue
The Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Edinburgh 6 August 1844 31 July 1900 married 1874, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia; had issue
The Princess Helena 25 May 1846 9 June 1923 married 1866, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg; had issue
The Princess Louise 18 March 1848 3 December 1939 married 1871, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll; no issue
The Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught 1 May 1850 16 January 1942 married 1879, Princess Louise Margarete of Prussia; had issue
The Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany 7 April 1853 28 March 1884 married 1882, Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont; had issue
The Princess Beatrice 14 April 1857 26 October 1944 married 1885, Prince Henry of Battenberg; had issue

[edit] Ancestry

[edit] See also

Prince Albert
Prince Albert

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Official Almanach De Saxe Gotha 2008 - The Official Almanach de Gotha
  2. ^ Queen Victoria was a member of the House of Hanover, as, in general, royal houses are determined patronymically rather than by matrimony.
  3. ^ Weintraub, p.20
  4. ^ Weintraub, p.21
  5. ^ Weintraub, pp.25–28
  6. ^ Weintraub, pp.40–41
  7. ^ Weintraub, pp.60–62
  8. ^ Weintraub, pp.56–60
  9. ^ Weintraub, pp.43–49
  10. ^ Victoria quoted in Weintraub, p.49
  11. ^ Weintraub, p.51
  12. ^ Weintraub, pp.53, 58, 64, and 65
  13. ^ Weintraub, p.62
  14. ^ Weintraub, p.67
  15. ^ Weintraub, pp.77–81
  16. ^ Weintraub, p.86
  17. ^ a b Royal Styles and Titles – 1840 Order-in-Council
  18. ^ Weintraub, p.88
  19. ^ Weintraub, pp.8–9 and 89
  20. ^ Quoted in Jagow, Kurt (ed.) The Letters of the Prince Consort, 1831–61 (London, 1938).
  21. ^ a b Royal Styles and Titles – 1857 Order-in-Council
  22. ^ Weintraub, pp.102–105
  23. ^ Weintraub, pp.106–107
  24. ^ Weintraub, p.107
  25. ^ Weintraub, pp.134–135
  26. ^ Weintraub, p.141
  27. ^ Weintraub, p.154
  28. ^ Weintraub, p.158
  29. ^ Weintraub, p.181
  30. ^ Weintraub, pp.182–184
  31. ^ Weintraub, p.186
  32. ^ Weintraub, pp.187 and 207
  33. ^ Weintraub, pp.189–191
  34. ^ Weintraub, pp.193, 212, 214 and 264–265
  35. ^ Weintraub, pp.192–201
  36. ^ Weintraub, pp.203 and 206
  37. ^ Weintraub, p.263
  38. ^ Weintraub, pp.270–274 and 281–282
  39. ^ Weintraub, pp.274–276
  40. ^ Weintraub, pp.288–293
  41. ^ Weintraub, pp.294–302
  42. ^ Weintraub, pp.303–322, 328
  43. ^ Weintraub, pp.326 and 330
  44. ^ Weintraub, p.334
  45. ^ Weintraub, p.232
  46. ^ Weintraub, p.355
  47. ^ Weintraub, p.367
  48. ^ Weintraub, pp.392–393
  49. ^ Weintraub, p.401
  50. ^ Weintraub, p.404
  51. ^ Weintraub, p.405
  52. ^ Weintraub, p.406
  53. ^ Martin, vol. V, pp. 418–426 and Weintraub, pp.408–424
  54. ^ Weintraub, pp.425–431
  55. ^ Weintraub, p.436
  56. ^ Weintraub, p.438
  57. ^ Weintraub, p.441–443

[edit] Sources

  • Darby, Elizabeth; Smith, Nicola (1983). The Cult of the Prince Consort Yale. ISBN 0-300-03015-0
  • Jagow, Kurt (ed.) (1938). The Letters of the Prince Consort, 1831–61 London.
  • Martin, Theodore (1874–80). The Life of H. R. H. the Prince Consort 5 volumes, authorized by Queen Victoria
  • Weintraub, Stanley (1997). Albert: Uncrowned King London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-5756 9

[edit] External links

Albert, Prince Consort
Born: August 26 1819 Died: December 14 1861
British royalty
Preceded by
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
as Queen-consort
Prince-consort of the United Kingdom
(officially HRH The Prince Consort since 1857)

1840 – 1861
Succeeded by
Alexandra of Denmark
as Queen-consort
German royalty
Preceded by
Hereditary Prince Ernst
Heir to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
as heir presumptive

29 January 1844 – 14 December 1861
Succeeded by
Prince Alfred
Court offices
Preceded by
Herbert Taylor
Private Secretary to the Sovereign
(unofficial)

1840 – 1861
Succeeded by
Sir Charles Grey
Preceded by
The Marquess of Hertford
Lord Warden of the Stannaries
1842 – 1861
Succeeded by
The Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne
Academic offices
Preceded by
The Duke of Northumberland
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
1847 – 1861
Succeeded by
The Duke of Devonshire
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Prince Augustus Frederick,
Duke of Sussex
Great Master of the Order of the Bath
1843 – 1861
Vacant
Title next held by
Edward, Prince of Wales
later became King Edward VII
Persondata
NAME Prince Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emanuel, Francis Augustus Charles Albert Emanuel
SHORT DESCRIPTION Prince Consort of the United Kingdom
DATE OF BIRTH 26 August 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Rosenau Castle, Coburg
DATE OF DEATH 14 December 1861
PLACE OF DEATH Windsor Castle, Berkshire
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