Marriage and the Family

It is perhaps in this area that the two golden Queens of England differ the most from one another. Queen Elizabeth I was famous for her flirtations that continued nearly to her deathbed, as well as her reluctance to marry. Victoria on the other hand, married quickly after accessing the throne, at the young age of twenty, to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a German, in 1840. Although much could be said about Elizabeth’s upbringing, and its affect upon her relationships with men, it was also the tone of the country that led one Queen to declare herself married to England, while the other was content, and perhaps even needed politically, to be married to a mortal man.

Queen Elizabeth gained the throne in a turbulent period. Her two siblings, the Protestant Edward VI, and the Catholic Mary I had failed to produce any offspring. It was unclear as to who would be the heir apparent to the throne, should Elizabeth fail to produce children. As a result, many urged her to marry. However, Elizabeth had other plans, announcing in 1563 that "If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar woman and single, far rather than queen and married." She had not only seen the threat of death that resulted from marriage–adulterous women were not dealt kindly with in that era–but had also viewed firsthand the damage her sister’s marriage to Phillip II, king of Spain. Not only had the king essentially spurned Mary, rendering her very unhappy, but also she had forfeited her good will with the people by marrying a Spaniard. For Elizabeth, it did not make sense for her to give up her hard won authority and submit to a man, especially not with the attentions of all the handsome men of court. Indeed, she co-opted the institution of marriage for her own devices–declaring her spouse the realm of England. This certainly raised the ‘Virgin Queen’s’ popularity with the people of England, while allowing her to keep free of marriage, thought it did infuriate several political advisors.

By Victoria’s era, the attitudes towards marriage had changed greatly. There had already been two married Queens since Elizabeth upon the throne, Mary II and Anne. Moreover, socially the role of women had changed in England, as a result of the rise of the cult of Domesticity and industrialization. No longer could a woman such as Mary, Queen of Scots or Saint Catherine of Sienna, exist in the public domain and wield power without the clear aid of a male relative, albeit as a rarity. All ‘good’ women were content with their private lives and a world that started by the front gate and ended by the back door. In order for Victoria to be a proper female, she would have to adopt at least the semblance of a domestic life.

At the start of her reign the eighteen year old Victoria had little inclination to marry, telling her Prime Minster at the time, Lord Melbourne, "Why need I marry at all for 3 or 4 years…I dreaded the thought of marrying" However, it was an unhappy relationship with her mother that drove her to grasp a fully adult status in the only way possible–wedlock. Clearly, not even the ruler of the nation was exempt from consideration as a child until she had left the nursery for the church. In addition, there were ugly whispers of the Queen’s strong affection for Melbourne, a man who in many ways would be her surrogate father. The famed diarist, Charles Greville wrote that Victoria’s feelings were unconsciously sexual, and many others were not so kind. That she was an unmarried woman alone made her virtue, never in truth violated, faintly besmirched and weak spot for all disapprovers.

Soon she was married to her cousin, Albert, the second son of a German Duke. The wedding was a gala affair. For the rest of their life together, Victoria would keep little but solid political power from her beloved, and that only at the request of Parliament. It was much to her chagrin that he was never granted the title King Consort. His desk was set up next to Victoria, however, and he quickly became the very obvious power behind the throne. A mellowing influence on Victoria politically, he nevertheless pushed her to become more involved in the daily affairs of governing a nation. If beforehand Lord Melbourne had minimized bad news and painted only partial pictures for her, the future Prime Ministers, particularly the raffish Lord Palmerston, would find a Queen anxious to hear their dispatches, with ‘dear Albert’ looking over her shoulder. After his death in 1861 she remained in morning for the rest of her life, disdaining to remarry.

Their union was more than just a close political partnership, however. They had nine children, and although the Queen never completely got over her dislike of neither babies nor adolescents Albert adored each one. The Queen became very close to her daughters, in particular her eldest, the Princess Royal, after the girl had married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1859. As a result of her offspring’s’ high profile marriages, Queen Victoria has often been called the Grandmother of Europe. Indeed, her large family was very popular among her subjects.

Perhaps one of Queen Victoria’s greatest assets with her constituents was her family. Headed by a loving father (the Queen was always careful never to undermine his authority in front of the children), guided by a gentle mother, and populated with bright and cheerful children, there was little question that they were the familial ideal during her reign. Had Victoria not married, she would have been opened to slander, especially in light of her strong affections for several Prime Ministers. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was strengthened by her lack of a consort, oddly enough, finding refuge in metaphors of grandeur. This discontinuity could perhaps be attributed to the fact that during Elizabeth’s time the cultivation of woman, as a solely domestic being had not become the national myth that it became in Victoria’s era.

Endnotes

[xviii] Her father, Henry VIII, had eight wives, few of whom met a happy ending.  Elizabeth’s own mother, Anne Boylen, had been executed shortly after Elizabeth was born, and she witnessed one stepmother die in the same manner.
[xix] Hoffman, Merle.  “Marriage As Realpolitik.”  On the Issues (Spring 96).  17 April 2002.   <http://www.echonyc.com/~onissues/s96hoffman.html>
[xx] Elizabeth Longford.  Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed (Harper and Row, New York, 1964), p. 106.
[xxi] Ibid, p. 70.
[xxii] Barry St-John Nevill.  Life at the Court of Queen Victoria (Salem House, New Hampshire, 1984), p.13.