We're too nice to Albert – he was no perfect prince, claims historian
He is seen by many historians as the figure behind some of the greatest national projects of his time, and a loving husband who supported Queen Victoria throughout her reign. But Prince Albert gets too much positive press, historian Lucy Worsley has said.
Worsley told a packed audience of 1,700 people at Hay festival that Albert lacked emotional intelligence and manipulated Victoria for his own ends – namely becoming “king in all but name”.
Worsley, chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, said his ambition was also part of the reason Queen Victoria gave birth to so many children.
Victoria had nine children in quick succession and often suffered symptoms that would today be diagnosed as postnatal depression. They included crying, feeling low and visual disturbances, such as seeing people’s faces turn in to worms.
By baby number seven, Victoria realised that she had had enough children. “But Albert kept those babies coming,” said Worsley. “And that’s because he could see that while she was busy with that, he could get on with making himself
king in all but name – taking over some of her duties, taking over some of her power.
“I sense that some of you are thinking, ‘No, I just don’t believe this. Albert is a great man. He’s brilliant, he’s a polymath, he organised the Great Exhibition, he supported science and art and industry.’ Well that is true. But I don’t think he should necessarily have been doing those things.
“I think he should have been fulfilling the more traditional role of a Queen or a princess in this relationship, which was single-mindedly to support his spouse, which he didn’t do.”
To be fair, Worsley added, this was the 19th century when a man was expected to be the boss. “I think Albert gets a good press from historians most of the time. Partly because he had a lot of the personal qualities that historians themselves admire.
“He was really interested in filing systems. He was a thinker, not a feeler. He definitely had a massive IQ. But today, in our leaders, I think we value something a bit different to that, we value emotional intelligence. That, I think Victoria had, and he didn’t.
This quality made her a better, more instinctive politician, said Worsley. For example, Albert’s response to the Crimean war was to produce 50 volumes of written advice to the government telling them how they could do it better. The government ignored him.
Victoria’s response was to write simple letters to the troops thanking them for their sacrifice. Some were published. It was PR gold and did wonders for the monarchy “in a Diana Princess of Wales type of way,” said Worsley.
When the couple argued Albert would go to a different room and write a letter telling Victoria why she was wrong. One particularly harsh note from 1853 said talking to her “was the dreadful waste of a most precious time and of energies which ought to be turned to the use of others”.
This year is the 200th anniversary of both Victoria’s and Albert’s birth and there is a blizzard of exhibitions, series and publications, including Worsley’s latest book, Queen Victoria, on the way.
But one mystery remains about Victoria – what sort of relationship she had with her Scottish, kilt-wearing servant John Brown? Worsley said the salacious stories about Victoria and Brown came from a 19th-century belief that widowed menopausal women “would become sex maniacs … I don’t believe they were ever swinging from the chandeliers.”