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 to Prince Albert on 10 February 1840 by William Howley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace in Westminster (London). (Albert died fourteen-and-a-half years before Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on 1 May 1876.) Queen Victoria, at times, had contentious relations with her children. She had trouble relating to her children when they were young, some of this possibly owing to her own isolated childhood. She also, occasionally, resented that they interfered with time that she would prefer to spend with Albert. Both Victoria and Albert weren't above playing favourites with their children, and