Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria and consort of the British monarch from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861. Victoria granted him the title Prince Consort in 1857.
Albert was born in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. At the age of 20, he married Victoria, his first cousin, with whom he had nine children. Initially, he felt constrained by his role as consort, which did not afford him power or responsibilities. He gradually developed a reputation for supporting public causes, such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery worldwide, and was entrusted with running the Queen's household, office and estates. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was a resounding success.
Victoria came to depend more and more on Albert's support and guidance. He aided the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading his wife to be less partisan in her dealings with the British parliament, but he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary. Albert died in 1861 at the age of 42, devastating Victoria so much that she entered into a deep state of mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. On the day of her death in 1901, their eldest son succeeded as Edward VII, the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the ducal house to which Albert belonged.
Albert was born on 26 August 1819 at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany, the second son of Ernest III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. His first cousin and future wife, Victoria, had been born earlier in the same year with the assistance of the same midwife, Charlotte von Siebold. He was baptised into the Lutheran Evangelical Church on 19 September in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau, with water taken from the local river, the Itz. His godparents were his paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; his maternal grandfather, the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg; the Emperor of Austria; the Duke of Teschen; and Emanuel, Count of Mensdorff-Pouilly. In 1825, Albert's great-uncle, Frederick IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, died, which led to a realignment of the Saxon duchies the following year; and Albert's father became the first reigning duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Albert and his elder brother, Ernest, spent their youth in close companionship, which was marred by their parents' turbulent marriage and eventual separation and divorce. After their mother was exiled from court in 1824, she married her lover, Alexander von Hanstein, Count of Pölzig and Beiersdorf. She presumably never saw her children again, and died of cancer at the age of 30 in 1831. The following year, their father married his niece, Princess Marie of Württemberg; their marriage was not close, however, and Marie had little – if any – impact on her stepsons' lives.
The brothers were educated privately at home by Christoph Florschütz and later studied in Brussels, where Adolphe Quetelet was one of their tutors. Like many other German princes, Albert attended the University of Bonn, where he studied law, political economy, philosophy and the history of art. He played music and he excelled at sport, especially fencing and riding. His tutors at Bonn included the philosopher Fichte and the poet Schlegel.
The idea of marriage between Albert and his first cousin Victoria was first documented in an 1821 letter from his paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who said that he was "the pendant to the pretty cousin". By 1836, this idea had also arisen in the mind of their ambitious uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831. At this time, Victoria was the heir presumptive to the British throne. Her father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III, had died when she was an infant, and her elderly uncle, King William IV, had no surviving legitimate children. Her mother, the Duchess of Kent, was the sister of both Albert's father – the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha – and King Leopold. Leopold arranged for his sister, Victoria's mother, to invite the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his two sons to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of meeting Victoria. William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander, second son of the Prince of Orange. Victoria was well aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. She wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful." Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain".
Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy." Although the parties did not undertake a formal engagement, both the family and their retainers widely assumed that the match would take place.
Victoria came to the throne on 20 June 1837, aged 18. Her letters of the time show interest in Albert's education for the role he would have to play, although she resisted attempts to rush her into marriage. In the winter of 1838–1839, the prince visited Italy, accompanied by the Coburg family's confidential adviser, Baron Stockmar.
Albert returned to the United Kingdom with Ernest in October 1839 to visit Victoria, with the objective of settling the marriage. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839. Victoria's intention to marry was declared formally to the Privy Council on 23 November, and the couple married on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace. Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalised by an Act of Parliament, and granted the style of Royal Highness by an Order in Council.
Initially Albert was not popular with the British public; he was perceived to be from an impoverished and undistinguished minor state, barely larger than a small English county. The British prime minister, Lord Melbourne, advised the Queen against granting her husband the title of "King Consort"; Parliament also objected to Albert being created a peer—partly because of anti-German sentiment and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role. Albert's religious views provided a small amount of controversy when the marriage was debated in Parliament: although as a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Church Albert was a Protestant, the non-Episcopal nature of his church was considered worrisome. Of greater concern, however, was that some of Albert's family were Roman Catholic. Melbourne led a minority government and the opposition took advantage of the marriage to weaken his position further. They opposed a British peerage for Albert and granted him a smaller annuity than previous consorts, £30,000 instead of the usual £50,000. Albert claimed that he had no need of a British peerage, writing: "It would almost be a step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than a Duke of York or Kent." For the next seventeen years, Albert was formally titled "HRH Prince Albert" until, on 25 June 1857, Victoria formally granted him the title Prince Consort. Victoria explained, in a letter to Lord Palmerston on 15 March 1857, that she was: "... inclined ... to content herself by simply giving her husband by Letters Patent the title of 'Prince Consort' which can injure no one while it will give him an English title consistent with his position, & avoid his being treated by Foreign Courts as a junior Member of the house of Saxe-Coburg".