121 of 132 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing, January 7, 2010
This review is from: We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals (Paperback)
I had high hopes for this book, based on the description and other customer reviews--my local library had it so I checked it out. I'm so disappointed--there are several inaccuracies in the book (the photographs and also Gill's statement that the painting Omphale and Hercules was a wedding present to Albert from Victoria--in fact Albert purchased it himself in 1844 several years after their marriage). The book does not contain much meat, Gill seems to rely a great deal on secondary sources and accounts about Albert and Victoria by their contemporaries more than their own actual letters and journal writings, she cherry-picks quotations and facts to support her feminist revisionist thesis about their relationship and it is really disappointing scholarship. In addition, she has a catty, smug writing style more appropriate to a gossip column than a serious biographical work, and indulges in a great deal of speculation about the couple's sex life, etc. that really has nothing to do with any historical record and is quite dull and far-fetched.
Her treatment of Albert I found bizarre, on the one hand she seems to hold him in contempt as a "prig" for his lack of interest in philandering both before and after his marriage, and calls him a "misogynist", yet I find it hard to reconcile these judgements with his actions, eg. breaking with social convention to be with Victoria during childbirth, and his letters to his brother pleading with him not to endanger any woman he might marry by infecting her and their children with venereal disease. Was Albert sexist by late 20th century standards? Absolutely, as was virtually every other European male of his time. But from that to label him a "hater of women" I think is completely without foundation. I think from his conduct it is possible to argue that he actually had more respect for women than the average man of his time and social class, especially compared to his father and brother.
Her portrayal of Victoria is equally unkind, I felt a great deal of compassion for V.R., it cannot have been easy to function and not be a hysterical mess when dealing with the constant rush of hormones from her many pregnancies, coupled with the extreme social restrictions that society placed on pregnant women of her time. Had she lived in an age with more freedom for pregnant women and had better obstetrical care and contraception, I think she would have been a very different person as she aged. Her position as Queen made it very hard for her to find disinterested support from anyone other than Albert, and such a situation would strain any marriage. Gill's statements that V.R. "disliked children" I also find do not jibe with her many loving journal entries (which may be found in other bios) describing the children's activities and the many sketches she made of them--while Victoria may not have fit the cultural "angel of the hearth" ideal of motherhood of her era, (and what model for mothering did she have in her own miserable childhood?) and was very ambivalent about many aspects of mothering (as many women then and now are), it is evident from her own writings that she loved her children deeply and was much more interested and involved in their lives than was usual for royal and noble mothers of her time.
I found that Gill's thesis of a power struggle between V&A started to really wear on the nerves by the end of the book, with every action of either partner being interpreted by Gill as a move in a struggle for dominance. Sometimes life, marriage and raising a family is just difficult, in and of itself. Even with the heavy public responsibilities V&A bore, I think that most of their struggles were issues that any couple with children would deal with over the years, and not necessarily some great political battle for dominance, as Gill would have the reader believe.
I found Gill's book very offensive--other biographers manage to paint a very intimate and insightful portrait of both Albert and Victoria as individuals, and their relationship, without being demeaning to them. For those interested in more than a "People Magazine" portrait of V&A's relationship, I highly recommend Stanley Weintraub's biographies, Victoria and Uncrowned King, and the Duchess of York's book Victoria and Albert: Life at Osborne House. I'm glad I didn't buy this book, it definitely isn't worth the price.
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82 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dissection of a relationship, June 17, 2009
I freely admit to enjoying reading about the Victorian period of history, that time between 1840 or so to the turn of the twentieth century. Caught as it were, between the start of the Industrial Revolution and the First World War, we look back at it with nostalgia as a time of strong family values, where men and women knew their roles in society, and if in this hothouse atmosphere, there was just a trifle bit of decadence, we assume the more innocent aspects. And what about the woman that the time is named for -- Queen Victoria of Great Britain? Most will dismiss her as a short, dumpy, very round old woman in her widow's weeds, glowering down at the masses with the words The Queen is Not Amused.
That's the popular iconography that has persevered over the decades. But who was she really, and what of her marriage to the handsomest prince in Europe? It was his death, after all, that plunged her into nearly forty years of mourning. Now historian Gillian Gill gives the mythology of the devoted prince and his queen a fresh dusting off, and reveals that there was a great deal more going on than meets the eye.
Divided into three sections of narrative, We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals takes a very unusual turn at the story. Instead of just looking at their lives in the usual chronological way, cataloging their experiences and their numerous children and then letting Victoria recede into her perpetual widowhood, Gill takes the story on a psychological journey to see just what made these two tick. And she tells the story with quite a bit of daring and insight with a strong splash of humour as well.
The first part of the book, Years Apart, looks at the years of Victoria and Albert's childhoods, and their family backgrounds. Victoria, despite being the only child of her father, the Duke of Kent, wasn't automatically in line to be Queen of England someday. Her father was George III's fourth son, and there were three brothers ahead of him before he could become king. But despite the fifteen children that George III had, there was only one grandchild who had the legitimacy to become the future ruler of Great Britain. And sadly, in 1817, Princess Charlotte of Wales died in childbirth, leaving a kingdom in mass hysteria over her death, and a husband who was determined to be an influence in England's political future. That was Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a younger son from one of the many tiny realms that made up nineteenth century Germany. If they didn't have much money, these little principalities with long names had been supplying a steady stream of Protestant princes and princesses to northern European kingdoms and empires. And if Leopold saw the possibility of being a king consort in England slip away, then he would settle for being a power behind the throne. He quickly helped arrange his widowed sister Victoire to marry the Duke of Kent, and not long after there was a daughter, Victoria.
Unluckily for the new Duchess of Kent, her husband died suddenly when her daughter was eight months old, and not long after she fell under the influence of John Conroy, a man of little scruples and great charm. He quickly persuaded the Duchess that Victoria's notorious uncles would corrupt her child into their scandalous lives of gambling, overspending, unsuitable life partners and making a spectacle of themselves. So born was the 'Kensington System,' where the Duchess and Conroy would keep complete control of Victoria and who she met, what she thought, and how she thought. It was, to be frank, a systemic design of mental and emotional abuse. But Victoria was made of much sterner stuff, and once she became queen at the age of eighteen years and two months, she proceeded to show her mother and her companion the door.
Albert's childhood was nearly as wretched. His father was a philandering, rather wastrel sort, and while Albert did have an elder brother, Ernst, that he grew up with, he grew up very lonely. The boys' mother had been divorced and banished, and surrounded by male tutors, and with Uncle Leopold arranging for his education, Albert grew up not quite certain about women. He was, to put it mildly, a stuck-up little prig, full of bookish knowledge, but little social skills. Worse still, he had the idea that moral purity equaled sexual purity, and while he was able to have close friendships with men, he never did let that slip over to sexual contact. Needless to say, when he met Victoria when they were both seventeen, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. Indeed, Victoria took almost no notice of him at all. Uncle Leopold very quickly arranged for Albert to have a bit more polish applied, and soon Albert was the handsomest young prince that Victoria had ever seen, and quite ready to become stud to the young Queen of England.
When they met again three years after that disastrous first meeting, Victoria decided quite nearly on the spot that Albert was for her, and asked him to marry her. (She being a queen, and he merely a prince from a little German state, it was her choice) And to all outward appearances it was a very successful marriage -- there were nine children born, Albert knew that in public he would have to play second fiddle to his wife, and in private, Victoria happily turned over what duties she could to him.
And that is, in a nutshell, the myth.
Using the personal letters that Albert wrote, and tracking his behaviour, Gill shows that Prince Albert wasn't quite the smitten, would-be boy toy of his wife. His writings reveal a man who viewed women -- including his wife -- as inferior and of little intellect compared to men, and he wasn't adverse to manipulating his wife to get what he wanted by constant scolding, put-downs (he always called her his 'dear little wife'), and made his eldest son's life -- the future Edward VII -- a living hell. He also never hid his feelings of German superiority to the English aristocracy, thereby cutting off what would have been valuable support. On the positive side, he was hardworking, had an innate grasp of politics and when he had to, he could put on the charm.
Victoria, for her part, was always the needier partner in the marriage, playing the devoted spouse to Albert's sulks, not adverse to a few yelling sprees of her own, and deploring her nearly constant state of pregnancy. She viewed being pregnant as the 'shadow side' of marriage, and when her doctors informed her that it would be wise not to have any more children, it's reported that she exclaimed, Oh doctor, am I not to have any fun in bed? When Albert died in 1861, she was emotionally devastated, and went through what was probably a mental breakdown for several years.
In the process of reading this book, I found many of my notions about this literal power couple to be shattered. There were quite a few 'aha!' moments for me, and I was left with a better idea of why this marriage worked so well, with two very polar opposites who managed to restore respectability and a sense of duty to the English monarchy. No doubt this quality was passed down onto the generations that followed, and contributed to how the current Queen of the United Kingdom has managed to rule for nearly as long as her great-great-great-grandmother.
In addition to the narrative, there are very extensive footnotes and bibliography as well as an index. Included are a collection of reproductions of paintings and etchings of the various players in the story. But what is interesting are the genealogies of both Victoria and Albert's families as well as charting the tragic legacy of hemophilia that would devastate several of the ruling families of Europe before WWI.
Summing up, this was an excellent read, and a book that is going to be finding its way onto my keeper shelves. Five stars overall, and recommended for anyone with an interest in royalty or English politics in the nineteenth century.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed--I really wanted to like this book!, July 28, 2010
This review is from: We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals (Paperback)
I started out liking this book very much--Ms. Gill has a very readable and entertaining writing style. However, the farther I got into it, the less I liked it. As other reviewers have mentioned, Gill does not use primary source documents very often, so we are really getting a third-hand rehash of someone else's work. Secondly, after checking her notes for certain chapters, I discovered that Gill states certain things as facts, and then when you look for her sources for these facts in the related notes, no source is given.
Thirdly, (and I know this is probably difficult to avoid in biography), Gill makes conjectures based on a twenty-first century mindset. She decides that since Albert and Victoria's wedding night was such a success and that Albert's close male relatives were outstandingly promiscuous, that Albert probably had had previous sexual experience and that it was with other men. She herself admits that there is no evidence for this.
Isn't it just possible that Albert really did reach his marriage bed sexually chaste? The fact that many men did share beds while traveling in nineteenth-century Europe does not mean that they were all having sex--inns in foreign countries were notable for limited/spartan accommodations and nobody had a second thought about two people of the same sex sharing a bed or assumed something fishy was going on.
The point is, no one except Albert knows in what condition he reached his first night with Victoria. To conjecture one way or the other is rather misleading to the reader. So I ended up wondering what else I was being sold on . . .
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When I was growing up in South Wales, the part of Great Britain best known for coal mines, people like me did not write about royalty. We left that to “nobs” like Countess Longford (alias Elizabeth Longford) who were actually invited to coronations or to people like Cecil Woodham-Smith whose double-barrelled surname and weird given name proclaimed her membership of the elite public (i.e. private) school set. My family was the kind that lined the route on a rare royal visit to our provincial city, waving tiny union jacks.
