We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals

by Gillian Gill

NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER

"[A] delectable double bio . . . Talk about Victoria’s secret. . . . A fascinating portrait of a genuine love match, but one in which the partners dealt with surprisingly modern issues.” 
—USA Today

It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth century—and one of history’ s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity, qualities neither had seen much of as children. The love affair that emerges is far more captivating, complex, and relevant than that depicted in any previous account. 

The epic relationship began poorly. The cousins first met as teenagers for a few brief, awkward, chaperoned weeks in 1836. At seventeen, charming rather than beautiful, Victoria already “showed signs of wanting her own way.” Albert, the boy who had been groomed for her since birth, was chubby, self-absorbed, and showed no interest in girls, let alone this princess. So when they met again in 1839 as queen and presumed prince-consort-to-be, neither had particularly high hopes. But the queen was delighted to discover a grown man, refined, accomplished, and whiskered. “Albert is beautiful!” Victoria wrote, and she proposed just three days later.

As Gill reveals, Victoria and Albert entered their marriage longing for intimate companionship, yet each was determined to be the ruler. This dynamic would continue through the years—each spouse, headstrong and impassioned, eager to lead the marriage on his or her own terms. For two decades, Victoria and Albert engaged in a very public contest for dominance. Against all odds, the marriage succeeded, but it was always a work in progress. And in the end, it was Albert’s early death that set the Queen free to create the myth of her marriage as a peaceful idyll and her husband as Galahad, pure and perfect. 

As Gill shows, the marriage of Victoria and Albert was great not because it was perfect but because it was passionate and complicated. Wonderfully nuanced, surprising, often acerbic—and informed by revealing excerpts from the pair’s journals and letters— We Two  is a revolutionary portrait of a queen and her prince, a fascinating modern perspective on a couple who have become a legend.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Royalty, Historical, British Literature, Biography Memoir

466 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2009

About the author

Gillian Gill, who holds a PhD in modern French literature from Cambridge University, has taught at Northeastern, Wellesley, Yale, and Harvard. She is the author of Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale, Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries, and Mary Baker Eddy. She lives in suburban Boston.

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any and everybody interested in the Victorian Era should read this book. Actually this time period and all that it stands for should be called the "Albertian Era”! The book explains why. It was so funny. I came to this conclusion and then the author said exactly that. She used the words "Albertian Era"; it is not me that invented the phrase. I feel this is the most important message of the entire book.

People who say they love Victorian literature, they simply have to be interested in the couple that created this life style - based on sexual morality, premarital chastity, conjugal fidelity and yes hypocrisy too. What are all the other adjectives associated with this era? How did these descriptions come to be tied to Victoria & Albert and why? Female submission? Double standards? Straight-laced behavior? Strict protocol? Morality or obsession with morality? And why exactly do we associate this all with hypocrisy and double-standards? Isn't morality good? Victoria and Albert must be viewed together. They had nine children! Look at this couple and you begin to see what the Victorian Era really means, but there are no easy answers. How their life exemplifies the era is extremely interesting. Their lives are interesting. To understand them you need to know of their childhood experiences. Then the reader can consider / debate to what extent we follow what our parents teach us and to what extent we rebel from all we are taught! These are the thoughts that went through my head.

The book is clear. History is made clear; it is simply presented, although occasionally all the details of who is who in this large families gets a bit too much. The events leading up to the Crimean War are fascinating and well explained. Great lines on Florence Nightingale too. Did you know that Albert was the one behind the first scientific world fair? He was the initiator and the man behind the first one - in 1851 in London, in Hyde Park.

The book ended too soon; I wish it had continued to tell more of what Victoria did after Albert's early death, but look at the title. It says clearly what is covered. The title aptly speaks of their relationship - rulers, partner and rivals!

I can also recommend George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I. Queen Victoria was the grandmother of all three.

Rosalyn Landor's narration of the audioboook is excellent.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

We Two has one of those tantalizing subtitles that nonfiction loves to plaster on covers: “Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals.” If Victoria and Albert had consciously considered themselves rivals, this concept for the book would have made for an extremely interesting study of two competing partners ruling the most powerful nation of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately for author Gillian Gill, Albert and Victoria seem to have left nothing in the way of their own writing or in others’ anecdotes to indicate that either of them saw their relationship as a competition, and that is a fundamental problem in the book’s organization.

Instead, Victoria erected lavish memorials to the Prince Consort, published hagiographic biographies of him, and wrote diary entries and letters that indicate she was bereft without him. Where, you might well ask, can this possibly leave a revisionist author, determined to showcase their marital battles? Logically, it leaves the corpus of letters that can be summarized to their most damning themes, as well as all the destroyed documents that obviously contained all the critical information the author can’t provide in the historical record.

The method of arguing from silence works in general because nobody can prove its conclusions wrong through evidence. Thus, Gill is irrefutably able to answer several key questions in Albert-Victoria biography debates. Why was Albert able to satisfy Victoria on their wedding night if he was as pure as he claims? Gill answers ex silentio: because Albert had had a lot of gay sex experiences at university. Next: did Victoria sleep with John Brown, her Highland Servant, after Albert’s death? “[T]he lack of hard evidence is in itself a proof of intimacy,” writes Gill. (The relevance of Victoria’s relationship with someone after Albert’s death in a book dedicated to the marriage of the two is, however, never made clear.)

Gill’s writing is so graceful at times that it masks her weaknesses as a biographer. The chief weakness is neither the peculiar absence of quotes from most of her chapters, nor her occasionally unclear timeline of narration, but rather her own confusion about her argument. I can’t tell if she approached her sources with the view that Victoria and Albert were prototypes of modern power couples, and then failed to find much evidence for that in the documents they left, or if she approached her sources with the idea that Albert was a foolish and oppressive husband, but Gill definitely approached the texts with some sort of hypothesis that fell apart the more she examined it. The result is that she vacillates between Albert-as-superman and Albert-as-weakling characterizations depending on the chapter. Such characterization is unfair to both the Prince Consort and Queen Victoria, who certainly deserves more credit for her own choices than she receives from Gill’s attacks on and defenses of the Prince.

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book somewhat on a whim but also because I thought it might give more insight into the lives of Victoria and Albert. I was not disappointed. This is a dissection of their lives, both personal and "professional" with even a little of their sex life tastefully thrown in. A marriage made in heaven?....probably not........but certainly one that was much happier than that of any other monarchs before or since. The book covers the early life of both individuals which gives the reader a basis for their behaviour once they married and ruled England. Make no mistake....Albert may have been Prince Consort but he had much to say about how Victoria's reign was shaped and led to the "Victorian age". He was basically a self pitying prude who early in his marriage molded his wife into his image. She flexed her muscles from time to time during their life together but basically followed his suggestions which set the tone of their private and public life.
Toward the end of the book, the relationship of the parents to their brood of nine children is discussed, especially with the two oldest children, Bertie the Prince of Wales, and Vicky the Princess Royal, who went on to the the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. The book ends with Albert's death which threw the Queen into decades of self imposed mourning.
This is a well researched, well written book which I would recommend to those interested in this period of British history.

[Maya Ganguly · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, I finished this a few months back and read this in conjunction with another biography on Albert (Stanley Wientrab's Uncrowned King). I found this book more compelling to read, but totally biased against Albert. Gillian Gill makes a lot of conclusions about Albert and his personality that I didn't quite sit well with me, for example, at one point she makes a statement about Albert being antisemitic, but doesn't back this up, and ignores the fact that Prince Albert was supporter/friend of the Rothschilds and an advocate for the bill which allowed Jews to serve in parliament (prior to him Jews were not allowed to sit in parliament, even if they won the office.) I also was frustrated by Ms. Gills constant reference to how great Queen Victoria was and I say this a person who has always been impressed by her as a young woman of strength and spirit surviving in a male dominated world. I feel like both these figures and their marriage deserved a more nuanced and better researched biography. If you plan on reading this, I would suggest reading it in conjunction with a less biased biography, or a biography that is biased in the other direction.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Since she had opted to marry and had chosen Albert of her free will, since custom decreed that a woman must look up to her husband, and since a queen regnant of England could not look up to an ordinary man, then Albert must, ipso facto, be extraordinary. The perfection of the Queen’s husband was an article of faith on which both she and Albert could build a marriage.”

This book was excellent. I picked it up after being captivated by the Masterpiece series “Victoria” on PBS, and I found every bit of Victoria and Albert’s story portrayed in this volume intensely interesting.

There are so many fascinating stories within their story: a unique and unrepeatable love story, the creation and make up of family dynasties, the challenge of marriage and parenthood, Victorian medical approaches to pregnancy and hemophilia … and maybe the most interesting of all, a study of changes to the control of power in Britain and the wider world over the course of the nineteenth century, and how they came about.

The hugeness of Victoria and Albert’s story made this historical account engrossing on so many levels. But ultimately the success lies in the way it was told. Gill humanized the characters; she gave us insights into their personal struggles and possible regrets. It read like an epic novel.

We have the character of Victoria. She was one tough cookie (surviving seven assassination attempts, for example), but yielded almost completely to her husband’s will. She was passionate, melodramatic, and lacking in fashion sense. She really had the hots for Albert, so much so that she endured nine pregnancies even though she feared the risk and hated the confinement of the condition and wasn’t always crazy about her children even after they were born.

We have her partner Albert. He was a stickler for morality, and held his family (and basically everyone he met) to very high standards. He thought pretty highly of himself, and had a strong misogynistic streak. His work ethic and list of accomplishments was jaw dropping (and probably killed him). When he wasn’t being a hard taskmaster, it sounded like he was an incredibly active and fun dad whose children adored him.

At the end of the story, there is a kind of “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment, where the author speculates on the impact Albert might have had if he’d lived longer. She even makes a credible case that he could have prevented WWI. It really makes you think about the impact one individual can have in this world.

* * * * *
A few extensive quotes to show how the author digs beneath the story to convey the context in which it took place:

“The English in the nineteenth century liked to hear of female weakness and submission. They had seen Europe shaken to its foundations by a series of revolutions, and male hegemony was one ancient certainty that the vast majority of the population, male and female, was ready to defend at all costs. In 1840, the year that Victoria and Albert were married, no woman in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could vote, be elected to parliament or any other public office, attend the university, or enter a profession. If a woman married, her property, her earnings, her children, and her body legally belonged to her husband, to do with as he willed.”

“German rulers during Albert’s youth were feudal in their outlook and repressive in their methods. They viewed their states as private property, personal fiefs. They took their rank and their name from those fiefs, but they were constantly looking to trade up.”

“Albert could have succeeded as a professor, geologist, botanist, statistician, musician, engineer, or bureaucrat, and probably found satisfaction in his work. But the one thing that the younger son of a German prince could not do in the early nineteenth century was train, take up a profession, and earn money.”

“In the hearts of both the Queen and the prince, the seeds of the doctrine of the divine right of kings lay ready to sprout. Far from seeing the Queen as a figurehead, they believed that supreme authority in the nation was vested in her. They envied the personal power wielded by the rulers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia even as they affected to deplore the cruelty and injustice underpinning that power. They envisioned themselves as enlightened autocrats and were convinced that the British nation would be happier and more prosperous if they, not parliament, dictated national policy.”

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent double biography of the most important married couple of the 19th century.

Victoria was not a prig - until Albert came along.

Recommended without reservation.

For a further review: http://susannag.booklikes.com/post/12... .

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook #185

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who enjoy this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will enjoy. I love this sort of thing and I enjoyed it very much.

[Jamie Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engaging biography of Victoria and Albert which focuses tightly on their personalities and the dynamics of their marriage. It’s an easy read, and very accessible - the author includes only as much historical background as absolutely necessary to make the story coherent, and only discusses other people (such as their children) in the context of their relationship with Victoria and/or Albert.

I have read several books about Victoria and her family and I was very familiar with the basic story of their marriage, but I still found this an interesting and informative read. In particular I liked the analysis of Albert’s character. I liked the author’s prose style very much.

There are lots of endnotes, although they are not denoted in the text. There’s also an index.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was another book that I picked up 100% based on the cover. Something about the title in italics and being able to see it across the room. It was purely visual. But after reading the inside cover I was interested enough to check it out. And then after the first few pages I was hooked.

I totally thought this would be another "Seabiscuit" like "Woman and the Sea" was. Like full of drama and intrigue and royal politics. It was less Woman and the Sea and more "A&E Biography". But still it was sooo SOOO interesting.

This book is LOOOONG. And by long I mean that it took me more than 1 day to finish. It took me several. And it's complicated. It's not an easy skim read. And it's very difficult to keep all the people straight because they all name their kids the same things!! Leopold the 1st, 2nd. George III, George IV, Victoria (called Victoria) and Victoria (Called Vicky). So confusing.

But again, I was sucked in. It's so interesting. But maybe that's me. I find English history intriguing. Where the lineage comes from, and where it's going. How they all marry with one another. Albert and Victoria (the main subjects of the book) were first cousins. As in his father was her mother's brother. FULL ON BLOOD RELATED. And it didn't help the kids. Their youngest boy had "hemophilia" a blood disease, and almost all her daughters were carriers of the disease. And then they went out and married Prussians, Germans, Spaniards and Russians and then made THEIR kids sick. DON'T MARRY YOUR COUSINS ANYMORE, YOU CRAZY BRITISH.

But what I really liked was how this was a very good history lesson. A lesson in social aspects of the 1800's, lessons in disease, lessons in male/female/royalty relationships. The author gives a great background on all things. And like I said, you are sucked in.

I haven't talked much about the main story of Albert and Victoria. And that's because I still don't know how I feel about it. Albert was a HUGE misogynist. He was 100% assured that the fact that he was a man made him superior to all women, especially his wife. And yet, he married a woman with ALL the power, and who for the first few years of their marriage wouldn't even let him listen in when she talked to her prime minister or read letters that she wrote to parliament. But then she would defer to him and say he was her husband and leader and he was always right and beg his forgiveness when they fought.

I'm telling you, their relationship was so weird. Just weird. I don't know how to describe it. But there was love. Always love. I will say that. They loved each other passionately, completely and till the end. While the "Victorian" era gets its name from the Queen this book is about, in truth, Albert has lots to do with instituting and implementing the values that Victorians prized. i.e. frugality, chastity, morality, family. He was the one that cleaned up the castles from the stink and grime in the people and in the atmosphere.

Did you know he came to his wedding bed a virgin (UNHEARD OF for a prince in the 1840's)) and hence made sure that his wife didn't get a venereal disease and became barren. She thanked him for his virtue by giving him 9 kids (4 of them boys, which you know are WAY better than girls. Boys are like flesh and blood gold to monarchs) And those 9 kids came in like 17 years. In her first year of marriage she gave birth TWICE! That woman was a factory. Poor girl.

Ok, this is a long review. I wanted you all to know that I really REALLY liked this book. Make sure you dedicate several days to it. It's so interesting. But I'm still not sure how I feel about Victoria and Albert. . .I'll let you know if I make up my mind.

[Lady Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came across this one when The History Chicks (which as a side note is a fantastic podcast... it's pretty much girl talk about the life of a well known historical figure!) did a two-part podcast on Queen Victoria. They highly recommended the book and since I enjoy their podcast so much, I figured I would give it a try. I hate to admit it, but I didn't enjoy this one too much.

I wasn't too keen on how much explanation and emphasis was placed on the fact that Albert really only ever enjoyed male company, and how that, in connection with some of the expectataions/morals/etc. of the day point to him probably having some homosexual liasons. Possible? Yes, but he was reared from the get-go with the idea that he would probably be Victoria's husband, and as such had to be as chaste as possible. It seems a little off to me that a man that is so well-documented as being the ultimate prude (interesting isn't it how history remembers Victoria as the prudish one?) would have spent his (well chaperoned) youth exploring such venues.

My biggest "complaint" however isn't really about the book, but the shattering of my own preconceived notions. I have always read and been told that Victoria and Albert had one of those 'romance for the ages', and were head-over-heels in love. This book however, points out that while Victoria certainly was head-over-heels (and hence why we think of their relationship the way we do), Albert definitely was not. He probably loved Victoria in some fashion, but more often than not he felt constrained by her, exasperated with her, and was frustrated by his subordinate position in life. Victoria had trouble carrying on without him after he died, but if positions had been reversed, he would have had no trouble carrying on without her. In many ways I wasn't surprised to find this out, but I so wanted their relationship to have actually been the ultimate love story. I wanted it all to work out the way Young Victoria portrays it!

Overall, this was a well-written piece of biography... it just wasn't one that satisfied me.

[Candace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gillian Gill's "We Two" is an excellent history that, yes, sorry for the cliche, reads like fiction. There's a lot of interesting stuff to learn from this book. I had always wondered how princes and princesses from these tiny German duchies ended up marrying into nearly all the royal houses of Europe and the answer is easy--there were a lot of them! Since royals can only marry royals, preunited Germany offered lots of royalty even if they were from teeny debt-ridden countries. Who cared if the palaces were firetraps and the country the size of a city block--they were royal and Protestant. With no other way to support themselves, Saxe-Coburg and similar places became shopping centers for royal spouses. They tended to be quite good looking and raised to rule, even if they were the first cousins of nearly every royal house.

It is amazing that two people raised in loveless households could have a pretty successful marriage and create an unusually happy childhood for most of their nine children. This was Albert's realm--Victoria hated being pregnant and did not really like children--but because this was important to her beloved husband, she did her best. Little Vic enjoyed dancing, music, lively conversation, and ruling. Albert seems to have been somewhat depressed for much of his marriage. He had planned to rule in Victoria's place, and that certainly didn't happen.

If you enjoyed the film "Young Victoria" this is a great follow-up, placing the story in an acutely-observed historical context. Highly recommended.

[Trina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I put this biography on hold after watching the movie, Young Victoria. It was a delightful movie and I wanted to get a sense of how real it really was. I found that by doing so, I stumbled upon a delightful biography in its own right. While obviously nonfiction, it flows and captivates as if it were fiction. It feels similar to historical fiction in that these characters connect so many parts of history that I've read or known about from other sources such as the Great Exhibition of 1851 (this was included in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South), the Civil War (Albert played a hand in keeping Great Britain out of it (much to the the relief of the North)), the hemophilia of Alexi Romanov (that started the whole Rasputin thing), the instigator of WWI (the Kaiser was Queen Elizabeth's great-grandson) to name just a few. Her character portrayals are alive and vibrant. My only complaint is that I feel that the author was too hard on Albert. As an obvious feminist, Gill tends to dismiss Victoria's faults more readily than Albert's. In an environment of dissolution, immorality and corruption, Albert was honorable and faithful. I came away with an appreciation for these two as remarkable individuals as well as an entirely new understanding of the trials of being born into royalty.

[Merry Farmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, I enjoyed this intimate look into the lives of Victoria & Albert. On the other, I found the author to be horrifically biased against Albert. Her obvious 21st century feminist attitudes repeatedly came out when she made accusations that Albert was self-absorbed, dictatorial at home, and misogynist, then quoted primary sources to back up her claims that painted him as nothing more than your average 19th century husband who thought he knew what was best based on the world he lived in and the way he was raised. I also found the authors utter lack of sympathy for the obvious and deep depression suffered by both Albert and Victoria at various points in their lives--particularly Victoria's grief at Albert's death--callous in the extreme. I'm sorry, but whether you're a 19th century royal or a 21st century average Joe, it is not selfish and petty to feel the loss of a loved one to your core. Neither is clinical depression--which other books I've read as well as primary source material seem to indicate Albert suffered from--a lack of character or sign of a manipulative nature.

Overall, this book strongly gave me the sense that both Victoria & Albert would have been happier if they'd been born to the middle class. Certainly Albert would have.

[MAP · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just need to give up and admit to myself that this is not an era of British history that I have too much interest in. I found the chapters surrounding Victoria and Albert's childhoods very interesting, but as soon as they marry, the author switches into "chapters by theme" mode, which means keeping anything in your head chronologically is very difficult. Although I enjoyed the chapters on their personal lives, the political chapters I found to be serious snoozefests. Finally, the 3 stars are bumped down to 2 because the author, at least twice, uses non-evidence and her own wishes about what happened to support her theory for something. She even states once that non-evidence IS evidence for something, and another time uses very indirect, not even authenticated circumstantial evidence as evidence for another. One got the sense that she very much filled in evidence gaps with her own wishful thinking.

[Rebecca Huston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This time it is a reread, and it is an excellent look at the marriage between Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The author does digress at times, but the at-times stormy relationship between the two is very well explored, blowing apart the more accepted myths and there's quite a few surprises in store for the reader who perserveres. Five stars from me.

For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.mylot.com/post/3023921/rev...

[Amanda Wiseman · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF...I felt like the author disliked Albert and was trying to make him look bad. Then it seemed like she didn't like Victoria and was trying to make her look bad too. What made me quit reading this book was after she (the author) tried to prove that Albert must have been gay because he was faithful to his wife and then started complaining about how they had 9 children and how terrible that was. Dissappointing!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are so utterly amused. This book is just really delightful (there are two colons in the title; how can it go wrong?). For a couple of days I stalked around the house deeply, even maritally, irritated at Prince Albert. Best part: Victoria hates being pregnant but JUST CAN'T STOP boffing the prince.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 2 out of 5]

With such tiny print on the pages I would have ordinarily put this one aside for reading at a later date (if at all). I have previously read some books about Queen Victoria as well as watched the television drama series and several documentaries so I felt that I knew her and Prince Albert’s story. As with any non-fiction I learnt some new things from this book, but overall I can say that it just came down to the right timing for me to read it.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two reasonably unattractive people come together and try to work both sides of the royal street. Despite all of the "common touch" nonsense Gill drops about their middle class tastes, etc., and Albert's interest in technology, it is also painfully obvious that both of them really believed in the divine right of kings as much as Louis XIV. Gill switches back and forth between their marital battles --- Albert wants more power to run things, sort of the way Prince Charles wants people to listen to him about architecture and homeopathy, Vicky wants more alone time with her man --- and their combined strenuous efforts to get the people actually in charge of the government to pay attention to them. I'm not sure that the impression one gets from this book was Gill's goal in writing it. The best monarchy is no monarchy unless it exists purely as a tourist attraction. The moment a system incorporates accident of birth into the way it runs, things will go south pretty quickly. At its best, the British monarchy since 1700 has given us Edward VII and Elizabeth II. At its worst, Edward VIII, George III, George IV, William IV, the demented run of royal dukes fathered by George III, the looming nuttiness of Charles III unless his mother cannily outlives him and the nonentities George V and George VI (although points to the latter for getting Colin Firth to play him. Not since Cary Grant took a whack at Cole Porter . . . ). The fact is that once the King of England loses (1) actual power or (2) the ability to lead in battle, they become about as interesting as the Governor of Nebraska. No offence to Nebraska.

[Kaitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this book definitely put a damper on my naive idea that Victoria and Albert had this great romantic love story. What I learned is that, although they definitely cared for one another, there was a lot that stood in the way of their being truly happy.
I was disappointed that, while the book is entitled We Two: Victoria and Albert, most of the book seemed to be about Albert and his struggle to be taken seriously as the prince consort. Victoria was a major presence in the beginning and in the end, but the middle was almost entirely Albert. Perhaps this is art reflecting life, since the author asserts that Albert pretty much took over the heavy lifting of governing for Victoria as she settled into the role of mother. However, I wish that there had been more time given to their relationship.
Also, who knew that Queen Victoria was such a cold, distant mother? There's a lot to admire about her, but her motherly sensibilities left a lot to be desired. And I certainly felt for the Prince of Wales, who just couldn't get anyone's respect.
Overall, this was a very informative, but not a particularly satisfying read.

[Camzilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good introduction to the lives of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. It is detailed without being oppressive, entertaining while still being informative, and well-researched in addition to being well-written. Pictures and handy family trees scattered through the chapters help the reader understand Gill's points while the informative end notes are an un-looked for but gratifying treat.

My only criticism is that a double biography such as this often has trouble deciding how to lay out the narrative. Gill focuses first on Victoria's life, then Albert's, and finally their marriage. This technique is handy in examining their lives apart in contrast to their lives together, but once they are married events start to become jumbled as Gill completely disregards a liner timeline and instead uses the chapters to explain certain aspects/events in their marriage. While this is acceptable when only dealing with one person (and, admittedly, Gill does this throughout the book), when trying to discuss two people things become confusing. For example, a letter from Robert Peel to Prince Albert is quoted and explained as just having been written, yet chapters before Gill described Peel's death. Victoria's successive pregnancies are first described in a sentence full of dates, and later Gill uses them as hallmarks for such-and-such event, i.e. "The Queen was in her third pregnancy at this time..." which forces the reader to go back and look up when, exactly, that was. While I admit it is nice that the reader is not submitted to a year-by-year account of their marriage, always jumping from event to event forces Gill to remind her audience when said event is occuring.

Other than the criticisms described above, We Two is a very good look at the Royal Marriage of two very different but still very sympathetic people. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in Victoria and Albert regardless of their experience with History.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of this book was extremely fascinating as Gillian Gill describes the conditions of Victoria's early life, her relationship to her mother, and her family life as an adult. The great romance between Victoria and Albert worked because they both worked at it. All was not sweetness and light in the family home, but when they disagreed or struggled over power, they made sacrifices for the other.

I was unaware how hard Albert struggled to become King in everything but name and how hard he worked to improve his adopted country, introducing important things like sanitation. The royal castles and London, itself, dumped waste directly into drinking water and promoted disease. In order to make his family's life better, Albert designed two family homes, Balmoral and Osborne, giving them indoor plumbing and proper facilities for waste disposal.

Fairly early on were some boring bits to slog through as Gill introduced every minor royal across Europe who was even remotely related to either of them and mostly just says they were unprincipled rakes, their wives and children had terrible lives and several ran away from home. By contrast, Albert was virtuous, faithful, and a caring and loving father.

Both Victoria and Albert were committed to fiduciary responsibility, paying off the debts incurred by her mother, living within their budget, and improving the financial health of their country. A rather refreshing attitude given today's financial climate.

[Alanna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was well written, well researched, and fascinating to read. The only reason I didn't give it the full five stars was just because I was slightly sad to see how difficult Victoria and Albert's marriage was (which really isn't the author's fault, but it still left a shadow on my reading!). While their marriage was very happy and successful, both had their fair share of disappointments-- Victoria hated and feared being pregnant, which is pretty awful considering she had 9 children (although she was terribly fortunate in that she always recovered well from each delivery and never lost a child). And Albert was never able to wield the power he felt was rightfully his nor receive much love or credit for all his hard work from the British people.

Gill does a great job of explaining the motives behind each person and also of not trying to judge them by our standards. So for example, yes, she explains that Albert was a misogynist, but so were pretty much all German men; this isn't so much a fault of his as it is a factor in how their marriage worked, which needs to be teased out in order to understand them both.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Queen Victoria!

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that perhaps I should have read a biography of Victoria by herself before getting into a dual biography of Victoria and Albert. I am much more interested in Victoria; Albert's narcissism and contempt for the female sex was very frustrating, and made more so because Victoria worshiped Albert and joyfully subjugated herself to him. It was hard to reconcile Albert's bad qualities with his love of family, work ethic, and progressive ideals. However, it seems that as long as he was completely in charge and given recognition as a perfect specimen of morals and manhood, he could be fair to his underlings (including Victoria).

And, because it was a dual biography, it ended when Albert died. There was an epilogue about how his death affected each member of his family and inner circle, but I wanted to know more about Victoria's 42 years of widowhood (half of her life). The epilogue included an interesting bit of conjecture about how, if Albert had lived another year, WWI might have been avoided because he could have intervened in the affairs of the Prussian royal family by advising his daughter and son-in-law (who was the crown prince).

I really enjoyed the book and the author really seemed to know her stuff. I just should have started elsewhere and done this book later.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for those that are fans of the Victorian era. I had to do this one in chunks because it can be very dense, but I was glad that I read it. People usually fawn all over themselves about how in love Victoria and Albert were, how he was satisfied to let her rule while being the perfect royal consort. What you probably don't realize is that the British hated Albert to their bones and while the pair were very much in love, Albert was always uncomfortable with his consort role, and sought to establish little enclaves in places like Osbern House and Balmoral where he could be the head of the household and she the little wife that he wanted. Sheltered and in need of love and friendship, Victoria fully supported Albert's efforts to alleviate her of her duty...most of the time. Their marriage, filled with true love and devotion, was also a political alliance. And far from being the perfect picture of connubial bliss, every day they were together they were engaged in a constant negotiation of their roles, vis a vis both the country they ruled, and each other.

[V.R. Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is truly one of the best non fiction books I've ever read. Granted, I'm particularly infatuated with the Victorian era, but I was pleasantly surprised in this to find it both accessible and concise. Much background history is discussed, which might ordinarily bog down the narrative, but in this case it is all presented in the clearest and most insightful of ways. That Victoria was fated for the throne is perhaps evidenced by the complexity of circumstances that surround her history and upbringing. Her influence was magnificent, and is still felt today. I'm grateful for this re-examination of the couple and what they did for England and the Western world. The last several decades have judged them unduly harshly, in my opinion. It's a pleasant read throughout. I read it slowly, since there was so much information to digest, but it was certainly no difficult book to read, and even managed to evoke a little of the flavour of the era. I'm glad I found this book. I found it both informative and inspiring.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical exploration of the fascinating relationship between Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort Albert. A must-read for historical readers who like royalty.

Details: Gill explores the long and complex lives of Victoria and Albert. This is a comprehensive review of their relationship starting from their first brief meetings and how their courtship was supported by influential family members. We learn how their marriage altered over time and feel Victoria's sadness when Albert dies.

This was no ordinary husband and wife relationship, even for the 19th Century. They were under the media spotlight and impacted by local and foreign politics. We are fortunate that so many of their letters remain to track their thoughts and feelings.

The Takeaway: A fabulous book. Gill brings the deep complex relationship of to life with a vividness and authenticity that is so enjoyable. Victoria and Albert are revealed as real human beings with strengths and weaknesses and Gill does a wonderful job introducing them to us.

[L'aura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy or a short read but still a great one if you're patient enough. The book deconstructs the fairytale myth of V&A while still aknowledging the love and complicity that kept them together by telling the story of two human beings whose deeply different backgrounds and mindsets somehow made a functional, if not perfect, relationship. Many aspects of their reign and relationship are thoroughly analyzed and while Gill probably favours Victoria, finding Albert perhaps too ambitious and haughty, she's quick to credit him when he's owed. Which is often.

[Mariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read, devoid of the romantic or idealized version of these two historical figures that seem to populate literature. It made me open my eyes and have a new appreciation for this period (which I wasn't very fond of on the first part).