3. Queen Victoria Blamed Her Dissolute Son For the Death of His Father
Albert Edward (1841 – 1910), who went on to reign as King Edward VII of the United Kingdom from 1901 until his death, was mediocre as both a man and as a monarch. However, as a libertine and all-around royal party animal, Edward VII shone, standing in stark contrast to his notoriously straitlaced mother, Queen Victoria, whose name became synonymous with prudery and uptightness. Indeed, from early on, Prince Albert, or “Bertie”, was a disappointment to his prim and proper parents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.
At age 16, Bertie had his first sex scandal with a prostitute, while observing army exercises. It was hushed up, but the queen was not amused, and Bertie’s father, although ill, went to see and reprimand his reprobate son. On the way back home, his father caught pneumonia, which did him in. For the next four decades, Queen Victoria blamed Bertie for killing her beloved husband. She decided that he was unfit to reign, and tried to keep him from following her on the throne. The queen even tried to get an Act of Parliament passed to remove Bertie from the line of succession, but was thwarted.
