On a Day Like Today ~ December 18, 1862.

On a Day Like Today ~ December 18, 1862.  HRH Prince Albert, The Prince Consort to HM Queen Victoria, was re-interred.

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, as he was known at the time of his birth, was born in late August 1819 at Schloss Rosenau, Coburg in Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, German Confederation as the 2nd child and 2nd son of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his wife Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.  He was baptized into the Lutheran Evangelical Church in September 1819 in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau with water taken from the local river, the Itz.

In his youth he was very close to his brother as they were scarred by their parents' turbulent marriage and eventual separation and divorce.  After their mother was exiled from court in 1824, she married her lover and she likely never saw her children again before dying of cancer at the age of 30 in 1831.  The following year, their father remarried.

Albert was educated privately by Christoph Florschütz and later studied in Brussels.  Like many other German Princes, Albert attended the University of Bonn as a young adult.  He studied law, political economy, philosophy, and art history.  He played music, and excelled in gymnastics, especially fencing and riding.

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 I of Belgium.  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 a baby, and her elderly uncle, King William IV, had no 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.  

Her uncle HM King William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favored 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.  Victoria 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 came to the throne aged eighteen in June 1837 and she proposed to Albert, as protocol meant that the Sovereign had to propose instead of accepting a proposal, in October 1839.  The couple married in February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.  Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalized by Act of Parliament, and granted the style of Royal Highness by an Order in Council and in June 1857 he was finally granted the Title of Prince Consort.  The marriage produced 9 children.

Albert 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 organization 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 Parliament—although he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary.

In August 1859, Albert fell seriously ill with stomach cramps.  Albert would later have an accidental brush with death during a trip to Coburg in October 1860, when he was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses that suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken, though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises.  He confided in his brother and eldest daughter that he had sensed his time had come.

Victoria's mother and Albert's aunt, the Duchess of Kent, died in March 1861, and Victoria was grief-stricken.  Albert took on most of the Queen's duties despite continuing to suffer with chronic stomach trouble.  The last public event over which he presided was the opening of the Royal Horticultural Gardens in June 1861.  In August, Victoria and Albert visited the Curragh Camp, Ireland, where the Prince of Wales was attending Army maneuvers.  At the Curragh, the Prince of Wales was introduced, by his fellow officers, to Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress.

By November, Victoria and Albert had returned to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales had returned to Cambridge, where he was a student.  Albert was informed that gossip was spreading in gentlemen's clubs and the foreign press that the Prince of Wales was involved with Nellie Clifden.   Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son's indiscretion, and feared blackmail, scandal or pregnancy.  Although Albert was ill and at a low ebb, he travelled to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales late November 1859 to discuss his son's indiscreet affair even though by now he was suffering from pains in his back and legs.

In early December 1861 Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever and died on this day in 1861, just 5 days after his diagnosis at 10:50 p.m. in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, in the presence of the Queen and five of their nine children.  The contemporary diagnosis was typhoid fever, but modern writers have pointed out that Albert's ongoing stomach pain, leaving him ill for at least two years before his death, may indicate that a chronic disease, such as Crohn's disease, kidney failure, or abdominal cancer could have likely been the real cause of death.

The Queen's grief was overwhelming, and the tepid feelings the public had felt previously for Albert were replaced by sympathy.  The widowed Victoria never recovered from Albert's death; she entered into a deep state of mourning and wore black for the rest of her life.  Albert's rooms in all his houses were kept as they had been, even with hot water brought in the morning and linen and towels changed daily. 

While HM Queen Victoria withdrew from public life, and her seclusion eroded some of Albert's work in attempting to re-model the monarchy as a national institution and setting a moral, if not political, example, the most pivotal of his ideas that endure to this day is introducing the principle that the British royal family should remain above politics.  

Albert's body was temporarily entombed in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.  A year after his death, on this day in 1862, his remains were deposited at Frogmore Mausoleum, which remained incomplete until 1871.  The sarcophagus, in which both he and the Queen were eventually laid, was carved from the largest block of granite that had ever been quarried in Britain.  Despite Albert's request that no effigies of him should be raised, many public monuments were erected all over the country and across the British Empire.  The most notable are the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial in London.