Part of the excitement over the royal birth was that, for the first time, boy or girl, the child would become a future monarch. Primogeniture – the succession of sons before daughters – has long been established, with Henry VIII and George III both succeeding ahead of their elder sisters. The Succession to the Crown Act, which received royal assent on 25 April 2013, changes this. When it is brought into force it will ensure that princesses born after 28 October 2011 will succeed before their younger brothers. As it turns out, haste was unnecessary and the baby born yesterday afternoon was a boy, but for his own daughters or granddaughters, the change will be significant.
Just under 172 years ago, there was a birth as highly anticipated as the current royal baby. Queen Victoria’s eldest child was born three weeks early on 21 November 1840, after a twelve hour labour, at which her husband, Prince Albert, was present. The baby, a girl named Victoria, was known as Vicky to her family.
The baby’s delicate health caused friction between her parents, who disagreed over her care. After one furious row, Albert pushed a note under Victoria’s door, declaring that “Doctor Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel and you have starved her. I shall have nothing more to do with it, take the child away and do as you like and if she dies you will have it on your conscience.” He won the battle and Vicky became the favourite of his nine children. Albert undertook her early education himself, ensuring that she was fluent in English, French and German by the age of three. She far outstripped her brother, Bertie (the future Edward VII), who supplanted her as heir to the throne with his birth on 9 November 1841.
It was never suggested that primogeniture should be abandoned in order to allow Vicky to succeed. In fact, Victoria was disappointed after the birth, declaring “never mind, the next will be a Prince”. If she had known the character of her eldest son, whom she disliked, would she have changed her mind? Vicky was certainly popular and considered to be “England’s daughter” by the people.
British monarchs notoriously often despised their heirs and Queen Victoria was no exception. She unfairly blamed Bertie for Albert’s death in December 1861 and thought him stupid and incapable of governing. Victoria and Vicky had a complicated relationship thanks to Albert’s favouritism, with the queen jealous of having to share her husband’s affections. Victoria did admit that her eldest daughter was “so clever (I may say wonderfully so), and so sensible” – an indication that she might have found her a more fitting heir.
If she had been Princess of Wales, Vicky would not have enjoyed the personal happiness that she found in her life when, at fifteen, she fell in love with Frederick ‘Fritz’, Crown Prince of Prussia. As heir to the throne, Vicky would never have been permitted to wed Fritz, with her marriage, in January 1858, requiring her to live in Germany. In 1888 she became Empress of Germany, although her husband, who was already ill with throat cancer, survived his accession by only 99 days. It was the thought that Vicky would become an empress and outrank her which prompted Victoria to seek her own Imperial title – that of Empress of India.
Victoria was not an easy mother to have. After Albert’s death she always wore black and relied heavily on her youngest daughter, Beatrice, refusing to allow her to marry until she had promised to continue to live with her. Vicky’s relationship with her mother improved with separation. In particular, the queen urged her daughter to avoid the frequent pregnancies that she had endured in her marriage. In spite of this, Vicky bore eight children, with her eldest, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, born on 27 January 1859. Whether mother and daughter would have been quite so close if Vicky had remained in England is questionable.
Queen Victoria II would have had a brief reign. She was already suffering from breast cancer when her mother died on 22 January 1901, after a reign of more than 63 years. For Vicky, the queen Britain never had, the ending of primogeniture would not have been welcome. Unable to marry the man she loved, she would have spent her life forced into uncomfortably close proximity to her mother. Vicky died on 5 August 1901 “alive and alert” until the end, less than seven months after her mother.
With increasing longevity, future monarchs will be elderly when they succeed to the throne. The ending of primogeniture would have meant a lifetime of waiting for Vicky. Will it be the same for this new royal prince or will he be permitted to make his own way in the world – something that would have been unthinkable to a mother as controlling as Queen Victoria?
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