Queen Victoria had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality. Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and
Grandchildren of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha 1883 – 3 January 1981). Just as Victoria and Albert shared one grandfather (Duke Francis of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) and one grandmother (Countess Augusta Reuss), two pairs of their grandchildren married each other. In 1888, Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, whose mother was Queen Victoria's daughter Alice, married Prince Henry of Prussia, a son of Victoria's daughter Victoria. Another of Alice's children, Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, married Princess Victoria Melita, a daughter of Alice's brother Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1894, but divorced in 1901. Prince Albert, the Prince Consort (26 August 1819 – 14 December