Julia Baird - Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

PRINCE EDWARD, later DUKE OF KENT (17671820). The fourth son of George III, and father of Queen Victoria. He was strong and upright, a harsh disciplinarian as a military officer but a tender husband and father. After a controversial career as governor of Gibraltar and field marshal of the forces, Edward applied himself to producing an heir to the succession. He died, of pneumonia, only six days before his father, George III, and less than a year after the birth of a daughter, of whom he was enormously proud.

MARIE LOUISE VICTOIRE, DUCHESS OF KENT (17861861). The mother of Queen Victoria and of Feodora, princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The Duke of Kent persuaded the widowed Victoire to marry him and move from Germany to England. The relationship of mother and daughter was tempestuous and septic; the estrangement that began in Victorias teenage years was drawn into public view when she became queen. But they eventually reconciled, and when her mother died in 1861 Victoria was inconsolable.

GEORGE III (17381820). King of Great Britain (and then the United Kingdom) from 1760 to 1820, and grandfather of Victoria. Although he is the third-longest-serving monarch (behind Elizabeth II and Victoria) and led an upright, spartan life, George III is best known for his erratic, uncontrollable bouts of madness and for the loss of the colonies in the American Revolution. The specter of his insanityand the possibility of its inheritancewould haunt Victoria (and arm her critics) for decades.

GEORGE IV (17621830). After serving as Prince Regent during George IIIs illness, Prince George Augustus Frederick became king on January 29, 1820. An extravagant, big-bellied man, George IV despised and persecuted his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, and lived instead with his mistress. His only child, Princess Charlotte, died giving birth. His relationship with his niece Victoria was at times strained, but he pleased her by giving her a donkey and staging Punch and Judy shows for her in his garden.

PRINCESS CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA OF WALES (17961817). The only child of George IV. She was much-loved and it was expected that she would be a great queen, but she died after a torturous labor, setting off a competition among her portly, middle-aged uncles to produce a legitimate heir to the throne. She also left behind a devastated widower, Victorias dashing, ambitious, and kindly uncle Leopold.

WILLIAM IV (17651837). The third son of George III, and successor to his brother, George IV. He retired from the navy at age twenty-four and became king forty years later. By then, he had had ten illegitimate children with his mistress. He went on to marry the well-regarded Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, but none of her babies survived infancy, which meant that when he died the crown passed directly to his niece Victoria.

ERNEST AUGUSTUS (17711851). The fifth son of George III became king of Hanover after Salic law barred his niece Victoria from succeeding to the Hanoverian crown. An extreme Tory, Ernestalso known as the Duke of Cumberlandwas the subject of great fear and gossip due to his scarred face and reams of unproven rumors that he had bedded his sister, sexually harassed nuns, and murdered a valet.

PRINCE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, later DUKE OF SUSSEX (17731843). The sixth son of George III. He disqualified himself from the succession by twice marrying women his father did not approve of, thereby contravening the Royal Marriages Act.

PRINCE ADOLPHUS, later DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE (17741850). The seventh son of King George III. He was also the grandfather of Mary of Teck (the wife and Queen Consort of George V) and the great-great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.

ALBERT OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA (18191861). Prince Consort to Queen Victoria. Born three months after Victoria at Castle Rosenau, near Coburg, Alberts childhood was marred by his parents rather brutal marital breakdown. A polymathic, disciplined man, Albert aspired to greatness as well as moral goodness, and Victoria adored him. While clearly talented, he was a divisive figure: some called him Albert the Good, but others dismissed him as Albert der Kinga foreign interloper. He was universally feted for his brilliant staging of the Great Exhibition of 1851. His relentless hard work and poor health led to his early death in December 1861, at the age of forty-two.

PRINCESS VICTORIA ADELAIDE MARY LOUISE (18411901). The first child of Victoria and Albert. While she was a precociously clever child, once her brothers were born she would never be able to inherit the throne. At seventeen, she married the future emperor Frederick of Prussia. Her marriage was happy but her life in Germany was miserable; she felt alienated, misunderstood, and alone. Two of her sons died in childhood, and her eldest, Wilhelm, was deliberately cruel. Vicky and her mother confided in each other in vast reams of intimate letters for decades, and they died six months apart.