The Proposal

After Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, tradition dictated that no one could propose to a reigning monarch.

"There was love of course to begin with, and to end with.....First, they were almost exactly the same age. Secondly, they were married when very young. The Queen as bride was just over, the bridegroom just under, twenty-one years of age. Thirdly, the marriage was very fruitful, resulting in the birth of nine children in the space of eighteen years. Fourthly, they were never harassed by the spectre of Poverty, which so often when it enters the door causes love to fly out of the window. But all these things are true of many a pair who have begun their wedded life under auspices as propitious, although not so splendid, as those which attended the marriage of the Queen. For early marriages no doubt there is much to be said, although few parents would care to see their girls and boys married before they were two-and-twenty....In the case of the Queen, the severe discipline of her training and the steadying weight of a great responsibility made her older than her years. As for the Prince Consort, he seems to have been born with an old head upon his shoulders. Certainly he was older at twenty-one than many men are at twenty-five.

The marriage was a love match, but it was a love match diligently prepared in advance by the wise Stockmar and the sagacious Leopold. There was in this case no thought of allowing the young people to choose blindly. The matchmakers prepared the ground, having due regard to the temperament, character, and tastes of the parties. They did not arrogate to themselves the right to dictate. A strong dislike, or even the absence of any decided affection, would have brought all their plans to the ground. …... In this marriage it was the woman who, being able to escape from the enforced passivity of her sex by her Royal position, was not merely allowed, but compelled, to take the initiative........when Prince Albert appeared at Windsor in the radiance of his early manhood, the girl's heart went out to the handsome young prince. " Albert's beauty is most striking, and he is most amiable and unaffected, in short very fascinating." So fascinating indeed that all talk of twenty-five was forgotten, and on October 15th, 1839, the story goes, someone saw the Queen come out of the room where the fateful words had been spoken. With exultant smile the Queen exclaimed, "I have been doing the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I have proposed to Albert, and he has accepted me."

From: Her Majesty The Queen; Studies of the Sovereign and the Reign by W.T.Stead [1897]