History tells us that the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was one for the ages, from love at almost first sight to its shattering, tragic end. Their story has endured as long as the image of the mourning queen swathed in blade, her face set into a granite frown. In fact, their marriage was anything but a fairy story, but the couple held together through thick and thin.
Victoria and Albert are one of the most famous ruling couples that the United Kingdom has ever known, but the path to the royal altar is rarely the smoothest nor the most romantic. As a young woman and the heiress to the throne that was currently occupied by her aged uncle, King William IV, Princess Victoria was eminently eligible. Across Europe, would-be husbands of the future queen were being assembled to make their claim for her hand and the throne beside her. One man who was determined to play a part in the courtship was Victoria's maternal uncle, Leopold I, King of the Belgians, who was the brother of the young princess' domineering mother.
Leopold had long been close to his niece and had served as both a friend and guide throughout her life, recognising that the death of Victoria's father during her infancy had robbed her of a male role model. Leopold was keen to engineer a meeting between his niece and her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, but William IV thought him a poor candidate. Prince Albert's ancestral lands were inconsequential and impoverished and the old king believed that the heir to the British throne should marry into wealth and power. He favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, with all the wealth and
