Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death That Changed the Monarchy [Kindle Edition]

This is not a usual biography, but an examination of the death of Albert, the Prince Consort, and Queen Victoria's reaction to it. As Helen Rappaport points out, biographies often neglect to examine the death of Albert, choosing to look at Victoria's life before or after her becoming a widow. Yet, her extreme reaction to the loss of her husband changed, and undermined, the monarchy. This book seeks to understand why Victoria reacted as she did and the effect of her intense mourning on her family and the nation.

The book begins with a joyful Christmas, 1860, with the family having an almost childish delight in present giving and Christmas trees and merry making; little knowing that the following December would lead to the loss of Prince Albert. Victoria was a woman who needed love and attention - her early life dominated by her mother, she later relied on other male figures, such as the Prime Minister, before finding ecstatic love in her marriage to Albert and later leaning on her Scottish servant John Brown. Although with no official role or title for a long time, Albert was patient and, by his death, was acting as a 'dual monarch' with Victoria, who relied upon him absolutely as her surrogate father, husband, best friend, assistant and teacher.

Victoria believed that worries about their eldest son, Albert, Prince of Wales ("poor Bertie") caused Albert to become ill. However, the book discusses various causes; from overwork to isolation. The author presents a very sympathetic picture of this man, much resented and seen as formal, prudish and reserved, yet essential to the smooth running of the monarchy. His illness and death is described in detail and his death plunged the nation into mourning. He died on the 14th December and, although it was near Christmas, the country virtually closed - theatres shut, shops shuttered and all festivities cancelled - including Dickens, who had (unwillingly you sense), to cancel lucrative public readings.

The author cleverly shows how the death of Victoria's mother prefaced the terrible grief she would show on losing Albert. She plunged the court into full mourning for two years and never allowed them out of half mourning in her life time. Although those that produced mourning clothes profited, as did Whitby, where the centre of jet jewellery was based, a year of unending grief lost the Queen sympathy. Her retreat from public life is well known, but this book details public, and private, reaction to her reclusion and it is interesting to see how her never ending grief was viewed - from sympathy to irration and resentment. As the monarchy came under pressure, the author shows how they survived the crisis of one woman who, it has to be said, seemed to enjoy prolonging her grief, using it as a ploy to avoid situations she disliked having to cope with, while being unwilling to give up her throne to her son.

There is an informative appendix on possible causes for the death of Prince Albert and the book also gives an interesting portrait of the Victorian era and how mourning was a very formal event. In a time when death is hardly mentioned, it is fascinating to learn how it was dealt with in a time when people were more likely to be nursed, and die, at home and when death came often and suddenly. This is a very interesting account of Victoria's obsession with her sainted Albert and a brilliant portrait of the Queen, very human for all her shortcomings. Lastly, I read the kindle version of this book and the illustrations were included at the end.

I love Prince Albert.

For so many years portrayed and seen as a dour, miserable, straight-laced Germanic bore, it is a delight to me that over the past twenty or so years, various biographies have put the record straight. He had had an idyllic childhood in Rosenau with his brother Ernst spending their time `walking, hunting, shooting and fencing, as well as indulging their fascination with science and nature in a passion for collecting specimens'. Albert was an accomplished pianist and organist as well as a fine singer and talented composer. All this at 21 and at that age he found himself married to one of the most important monarchs on the European stage. One wonders what would have happened if this marriage, long arranged, had been an unhappy one, if Victoria had not loved him. We all we all know she adored him.

In fact she probably adored him too much. Her passion for her husband was all consuming though in the first years of her marriage this did not stop her from trying to dominate him and jealously guard her royal prerogative and status. It was a tricky time but Albert negotiated his way through the minefield that was Victoria's temperament with consummate skill, understanding and love until the stage was reached when he was her `beloved Albert' and she allowed herself to become subsumed in him, looking for his approval in everything, consulting him in all state matters and allowing him to expand her knowledge of books, music and art. She was aware that her own education was sadly lacking and was happy to bow to him in everything. By the time of his death in 1861 he was acknowledged to be King in all but name.

Helen Rappaport's splendid new book is called Magnificent Obsession and it was Victoria's obsession with Albert after his tragically early death that nearly brought about the fall of the monarchy when she shut herself up at Windsor or fled to Balmoral and was not seen by the public for many years. Though there were times when reading this book when I longed to shake Victoria and tell her to snap out of it, I could not help but be moved by the depth of the all consuming grief that overcame the Queen after Vvthe Prince Consort's demise. They had been married for 21 years, were blissfully happy (though it would appear that sometimes Albert found her excessive love and devotion exhausting) and at the age of 42, in the prime of her life, both mentally and physically, she was widowed. The man who was all in all to her and who she cared for more than her children had gone and she was left bereft.

The news of Albert's death hit the public like a thunderbolt. The bulletins issued from Windsor Castle regarding the Prince's illness were bland and optimistic. In part this was to keep the Queen from realising the seriousness of his condition as it was feared she would totally break down. In the end she had to be prepared and by then it was too late to change the tenor of the medical reports issued and the first intimation that something awful had happened was when the great bell of St Pauls, which only tolled on the death of a monarch, was rung and people rushed out into the streets on hearing its sound.

Queen Victoria went into deep mourning and seclusion and as the years passed by she came dangerously close to using up all the capital of goodwill which she and Albert had built up over the years in their stabilising of the monarchy. With her obsession with the memory of her Beloved Albert, the proliferation of statues and monuments all over the country, her unwillingness to be seen in public and to carry out any duties at all she was, to put it bluntly, pushing her luck. Albert had instilled in her the importance of one's duty and it is a paradox that despite her adoration of him and all his ideals, her wilful turning of her back on this duty was totally at odds with Albert's teachings.

And yet, she endured. Her tragic and early widowhood forced Victoria to rely on herself. She may not have wanted to but her inner strength and bloody mindedness kept her going, despite her best efforts to cling to her grief and her claims to be too fragile and weak to cope. A woman who could not cope would not have turned herself into the Grandmamma of Europe, the determined and feisty sovereign who shot off an endless stream of letters to Monarchs and dynasties all over Europe telling them what she thought, arranging marriages, forbidding others, never letting anything get past her eagle eye. To read the Queen's later letters is to discover a determined fearless woman with purpose and will and one who never doubted for one moment the love and support of her subjects. She was right about that and many other things.

This is a wonderful book about a wonderful, stubborn, irritating, selfish, self centered, brave and determined woman.

I love Queen Victoria

Being a nocturnal reader, I was consigned to the spare bedroom by my husband, as I was unable to put Magnificent Obsession down! My God was it worth it!
Helen Rappaport weaves her story and gently pulls you into history unlike many books of this genre, which at times can be dull as ditchwater and a cure for insomnia.
The book was well researched, thoughtfully written and thoroughly enjoyable. It brings Victoria to life, during a very bleak period, into focus and shows how manipulative and childlike her behaviour could be. Rappaport also gives a new and fresh slant on what could have actually caused poor,interferring and overworked Alberts demise.
She also describes vividly the family dynamics and titbits of history which I wasn't aware of, such as Britain almost being dragged into war with America, or that Victoria never really enjoyed her childrens company, preferring Albert,such was her obsessive love.
It is a book which I would whole heartedly recommend.