Queen Victoria After Albert

Few British monarchs have fit the time, the tone or the energy of an era quite the way Queen Victoria**xA0;mastered her reign.**xA0; From her ascension to the throne in 1837 to her death in 1901, her monarchy was one of spectacular**xA0;advances in the British Empire. Political, scientific, and industrial wonders were changing the world.**xA0;Britain's influence reached all corners of the earth.**xA0; But there was one area**xA0;that particularly intrigued the Queen. Men. Keenly aware of the opposite sex, her most trusted advisors were men. Lord Melbourne, her first prime**xA0;minister, was an avuncular presence. Then her beloved husband Prince Albert took the reins until his**xA0;death in 1861. In a widowhood of forty years, her ministers were a varied lot. She adored Disraeli, disliked Gladstone,**xA0;and found genuine friendship with Lord Salisbury. Then there was Mr. Brown, the Scottish ghillie who she**xA0;found wonderfully attractive. Later there was Abdul Karim, the Munshi, or teacher with whom she had a**xA0;motherly relationship. She adored her son-in-law, Prince Henry of Battenberg, the 'sunshine of their**xA0;lives' and was devastated when he died. She also loved her grandson-in-law, Prince Louis Battenberg,**xA0;who was one of the executors of her will. Those years without Albert were not barren loveless years, they were not without happiness and**xA0;pleasure, even if the queen herself might protest.