Stay updated with breaking news from Elisabeth darby. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith look at the impact of the death of Victoria s consort. John Hobshouse, Lord Broughton, woke up in his quite country retreat on Monday, December 16th, 1861 to discover The Papers in mourning - The Prince Consort died about 11 o clock on Saturday night . It was a very great shock, to Lord Broughton and to the nation as a whole. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was only 42 and apparently had not been ill for long. Since his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840, he had become the mainstay of his wife and family and a respected and imaginative adviser to Government, although the people had mistrusted him as a foreigner and never really warmed to him. Lord Broughton noted sadly that the Prince was an excellent man in all the relations of life - but his merits were not generally acknowledged and he returned to the book he was currently reading. This was Thomas Carlyle s ....