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

by Gillian Gill

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345484053
• ISBN13: 9780345484055
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 460 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

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

After watching the PBS series, Victoria, this book gave me more information on the Queen and her Consort Albert. Loved the book and gave my son a copy.

terrific biography

This is a fascinating biography that turns upside down the love story of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert as they cherished one another while battling for dominance of their relationship, which denoted dominance of the British Empire. In other words the early period until Albert's death could easily be labeled Albertan-Victorian age. Prince Albert was a classic example of employing a defense mechanism of being everything his family was not and not being anything they were. Thus he came across as prim, proper and starched, which ironically set the future's look back at the Victorian Age are his belief on how a ruler should behave. He kept his Queen seemingly pregnant all the time and was a major supporter of science and technology. When he died in 1861, Victoria grieved her loss for several years. However, when she finally moved on, the Victorian Age blossomed as if the student had learned from her late master while she described his virtues and buried with him his faults. This is a terrific biography of the nineteenth century's most powerful "power couple" as each thrived in their love and rivalry, especially Victoria. Gillian Gill makes a strong case that Albert was in some ways her mentor as much as her partner. With numerous illustrations and letters included, fans will relish this profound fresh look at We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals. Harriet Klausner

Exceptional

I love history, mystery, and psychology and have continued a study of each for more then 50 years. I'm also a member of several books clubs and will highly recommend this book. I found it new and yet old in that the story is old but the telling refreshing to the mind and spirit, here, a young girl overcoming the rule of a mother who was engaged in tactic to support her own gains and little asssitance to the new Queen and a lover who taught in a kind fashion and yet might not have been the best father. This is a good read, well done, 5 stars.

Seen the Movie? Now Read the Book

Seen the movie "The Young Victoria"? Now read the book, if you've had the misfortune to miss it so far. Historical anachronisms in the film highlight fascinating principal themes in the masterful "We Two" portrait of Victoria and Albert. The film develops features of their interests and relationship that did not actually evolve as early as the film portrays, but which are key elements of their lives and historical contributions. Never mind Lord Melbourne's charm and loving diplomacy toward her, Victoria comes to realize that she, with Albert, wants to improve her subjects' welfare and needs to leave Lord M's reactionary views behind. Albert's intervention in Victoria's relationships to her government counselors (e.g. new Prime Minister Peel's token ladies-in-waiting requests) may not have taken place so early as in the film, but V & A's argument about it nicely illustrates how his advice to her developed overall. Despite the obtuse brutality of Victoria's mother's household consort Sir John Conroy (never mind what the relationship may or may not have been in private), Victoria's successful struggle to put him in his place paved the way for her determination to keep all ministers and intimates, including Albert, under her control. The book is replete with gems like the film's Duke of Wellington's apt, amusing comment on William III's 'reality-show' tantrum about Victoria's mother and Conroy - "Families!" Again, enjoy the movie as a 'trailer' - then (re)read the book.

Fun and enlightening

This was a genuinely fun read. For the academician there might be some slight historical errors here and there (and some of these, I think, were probably done in editing, not by the author, i.e., the family picture where Vicky is mistakenly identified as Alice), but having read a tonage of books on the Victorian era, I'd say that this is an historically accurate book that takes a realistic approach to a relationship that has always been depicted in sentimental hyperbole. "We Two" opened my eyes to the one-sidedness that has always pervaded such issues as Victoria's jealousy of Albert and Vicky's relationship, Albert's stoic behavor during one of Victoria's hysterical fits and the Queen's so-called hypochondria. For once, Albert's feelings of jealousy over his wife's and daughter's growing intimacy is addressed, as is Albert's total lack of understanding and sympathy with the many post-partum depressions Victoria experienced (honestly, if I had NINE children I'd be having hysterical fits too). This biography looks at two people, flawed people, who managed a life together that wasn't the bed of roses Victoria would have us believe it was (a guilt-ridden reaction to Albert's death no doubt). And while many biographies of Victoria touched on her relationship with John Brown, I never learned when he actually first came to her attention. Most biographies would have us believe it was after her husband's death but Ms. Gill makes it quite clear to us that she noticed (and was comforted by) him before Albert departed. Ms. Gill has an easy, fluent writing style that makes this enjoyable and engaging reading.

Dissection of a relationship

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, h