Tensions
Victoria's love for Albert was not shared by her people. As an unpopular German prince arriving in Britain at a time when the overall opinion of the monarchy was poor anyway, he was compelled to keep a low public profile. In a reversal of the situation that had applied when William and Mary had taken the throne in 1689, it was Victoria who was the sovereign; as a foreigner, and from a small principality at that, Albert could not be seen to be usurping her role in any way.
Public appearances
This led to the first tensions in their relationship. Albert, despite his great interest in politics and the affairs of state, was in effect reduced to acting as Victoria's secretary. 'Albert is in my house and not I in his,' Victoria wrote, acknowledging what was, for the time, a problematic reversal of the usual gender roles.
But while public appearances had to be maintained, Albert from an early stage was deeply involved in the business of the monarchy. Indeed, his influence was recognised as crucial by some of the leading figures around Victoria – including both Tory and Whig statesmen – in curbing what were seen as the youthful errors and excesses of the queen's authority.
'Mrs Melbourne'
As an inexperienced young woman, barely turned 18 when she acceded to the throne on 20 June 1837, Victoria fell under the spell of the Whig prime minister of the day, Lord Melbourne. Such was the closeness of her relationship with the man who acted as her political mentor during the first two years of her reign that she was referred to as 'Mrs Melbourne'.
Having been brought up as a Whig, Victoria shared Melbourne's political outlook, and she made little secret of her political partisanship. When Melbourne resigned as prime minister in 1839 over problems in the colonies, she provoked a constitutional crisis by refusing to allow the Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel, to replace Whig ladies of the queen's bedchamber with Tories, as was customary. Although the issue that brought the 'Bedchamber Crisis' to a head seems petty by modern standards, Peel declared that he could not form a government because of the queen's open partiality, and Melbourne returned.
Defeat in the 1841 election finally ended Melbourne's time in high office and Peel became prime minister. It fell to Albert, who unlike his wife both admired and got on well with Peel, to negotiate a less partisan approach to the role of the sovereign.
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 Franz Xavier Winterhalter's 1859 portrait of Prince Albert
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