I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had an interest in family history and genealogy. So a couple of years ago, I started doing my personal research. So far, I’ve tracked my family’s line up to the late 1700s (in some cases, all the way back to 1640). These ancestors of mine were living, working and breathing in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were living in times of great changes in the world, and coexisted with many well-known figures that shaped the paths of History and brought us where we are today. The likelihood of any of those figures ever having heard of the mere existence of my ancestors, many of which lived in a small rural area in the North of Portugal, is practically inexistent. But my ancestors probably heard of a few of them. I doubt the name of Queen Victoria was never pronounced by any of them, especially considering the connections between Portuguese and British History.
Their lives couldn’t be more different, separated by their condition and living space. But while I can visit Queen Victoria’s ancestral households and they could most certainly not, they have an advantage: there is no time to separate them. Their family history was developing at the same time: they were getting married and having their children simultaneously. I have an ancestor born around 1803; Queen Victoria was born in 1819. When Her Majesty was born, my ancestor was already sixteen years old.
I find the overall family history of Queen Victoria an oddity in the general course of the 19th century. I’m not going to debate her married life in this piece, because that is a whole other article in itself. Her motherhood, however… there are many of her remarks circulating on-line, about how she disliked children, how difficult of a mother she was. And yet, she went on to have nine children. This goes far beyond the heir and the spare. She had five girls and four boys. Most of my family members, even back in the 19th century, did not have more than 4-5, and some died in childhood. All of Queen Victoria’s children lived to adulthood, and every single one was married. She was nearly 21 when she married, whereas my ancestors, surprisingly or not, usually married a little later, in their mid-late 20s or even 30s; the number of fertile years is slightly reduced.
Coincidentally, my ancestors, overall, also seem to birth more girls than boys. They would go on to have very similar lives to those of their parents, but Queen Victoria’s children all had their own path, however sheltered. Here are their names:
Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. She received the title of Princess Royal (attributed to the eldest child of a sovereign and currently held by HRH the Princess Anne). Born on the 21st November 1840, she died on the 5th August 1901, at the age of 60, in what is currently German territory; she married the Prussian Emperor Frederick (Friedrich) III and had 8 children (four girls, four boys).
Albert Edward. Later King Edward VII, had a relatively short reign (22nd January 1901 to 6th May 1910). He was born on the 9th November 1841, less than a year after his sister, and died on the 6th May 1910, at the age of 68; his wife was the popular Queen Alexandra, born Princess Alexandra of Denmark. They had six children (three girls and three boys).
Alice Maud Mary. Born on the 25th April 1843 (the day of a Portuguese revolution, occurred more than two-hundred years later), she died on the 14th December 1878 at the young age of 35, becoming the first of the Queen’s children to die. She married Louis (Ludwig) IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and had seven children (five girls and two boys). She died in what is currently German territory as well. The difference between Alice and Albert Edward is of little more than a year.
Alfred Ernest Albert. Born on the 6th August 1844, he died on the 30th July 1900, also in modern-day Germany, at the age of 55. He married Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (they named a biscuit after her!), and they had five children (a single son and four daughters, one of which Queen Marie of Romania, daughter-in-law to Princess Antónia of Portugal; couldn’t resist adding this detail).
Helena Augusta Victoria, born on the 25th May 1846; she died in the United Kingdom at the age of 77, on the 9th June 1923. Married to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (Frederick Christian), she had four children, two girls, two boys.
Louisa Carolina Alberta, better-known as Louise, born on the 18th March 1848; she died in the United Kingdom at the age of 91, on the 3rd December of 1939. She married John, Marquess of Lorn and heir to the Duchy of Argyll. They had no children together. I abstain from comments to Louise’s alleged pregnancy prior to her marriage, as there is nothing proven in regard to its existence or the contrary.
Arthur William Patrick Albert, born on the 1st May 1850; he died in the United Kingdom on the 16th January 1942, at the age of 91. He married the Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia, and together they had one son and two daughters.
Leopold George Duncan Albert, born on the 7th April 1853; he died on the 28th March 1884, at the age of 30 in Cannes, France; Prince Leopold was a haemophiliac. He married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont and had two children, a girl and a boy. The boy was born postumously.
Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore, the youngest of all children, born on 14th April 1857; she died in the United Kingdom on the 26th October 1944, at the age of 87. She married prince Henry of Battenberg and had four children, three sons and a daughter; her daughter, Victoria Eugenie, would go on to become Queen of Spain, and the current Royal Family descends from her.
So in terms of birthdates we have:
1840 – 1901 (Vicky, fourth to die, at 60)
1841 – 1910 (Bertie, as he was known in the family, fifth to die, at 68)
1843 – 1878 (Alice, first to die, at 35)
1844 – 1900 (Alfred, third to die, at 55)
1846 – 1923 (Helena, sixth to die, at 77)
1848 – 1939 (Louise, seventh to die, at 91)
1850 – 1942 (Arthur, eighth to die, at 91)
1853 – 1884 (Leopold, second to die, at 30)
1857 – 1944 (Beatrice, last to die, at 87)
Queen Victoria died on the 22nd January 1901, at the age of 81. Hence, three of her children died before she did (Alice, Leopold and Alfred), and one right afterwards (Vicky). It seems that most of her children who went on to have descendants had more girls than boys, with the particular exception of Princess Beatrice; it also seems that the group of the five younger children, with the exception of Leopold, who had haemophilia, lived to older ages than their four oldest siblings.
Another interesting point is that the Princess Royal was already sixteen-going-on-seventeen (ha) when her last sibling was born; Vicky was married on the 25th January 1858, so Beatrice was not even one year old when her sister left for Prussia. Their relationship must have been very different from that of the group born between 1840 and 1844. Beatrice would grow up aware of the existence of a sister nearly seventeen years her senior, who lived in a country far away. She was closer in age to Vicky’s children than to her own brothers and sisters: Wilhelm II (Kaiser Wilhelm) was born on the 27th January 1859, Charlotte on the 24th July 1860.
A stark contrast to my own family’s reality, with a smaller number of children, although also distanced in years; and whereas many of Queen Victoria’s children ended up spending part of their lives abroad, my own relatives did not usually dislocate themselves (note, usually) more than a few quilometres. A twist of History, a little turn on the right or the left, a little accident of fate and who knows? They may have been practically side-by-side, without ever even knowing.
The Historian Chronicles 