What if Queen Victoria dies in 1861?

BigDave1967

Banned
What would be the impact on British Society had Queen Victoria died of typhoid shortly after Albert in late 1861 or early 1862? I'm thinking Edward VII would become King He would be 20 at the time. I wonder if Edward would have taken sides in the American Civil War? I think Edward would have been a very good long term King.
 
What would be the impact on British Society had Queen Victoria died of typhoid shortly after Albert in late 1861 or early 1862? I'm thinking Edward VII would become King He would be 20 at the time. I wonder if Edward would have taken sides in the American Civil War? I think Edward would have been a very good long term King.

I think he would probably be a good king too, but why would he have taken a side in the ACW? And even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered much. British monarchs have no power to influence foreign policy.
 

BigDave1967

Banned
I think he would probably be a good king too, but why would he have taken a side in the ACW? And even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered much. British monarchs have no power to influence foreign policy.

I just figured he might since Victoria had for the most part sided with the Confederacy(Albert told her to stay out of it). Queen Victoria had been pissed off at him for siding with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war when she sided with France.
 
I just figured he might since Victoria had for the most part sided with the Confederacy(Albert told her to stay out of it). Queen Victoria had been pissed off at him for siding with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war when she sided with France.

Well even if he did, it wouldn't matter much. The king wouldn't have had much influence on foreign policy, especially at that young age. It wasn't until he was quite experienced, late in his life, that he exercised more influence.
 
Unlike his mother he wouldn't have sought the Indian Imperial Crown. IOTL he was less than extatic when his mother did so with the sole purpose to not be outranked by her daughter, the Princess Royal.
 
Not possible for Vicky to be "pissed off" with her Albert over that

I just figured he might since Victoria had for the most part sided with the Confederacy(Albert told her to stay out of it). Queen Victoria had been pissed off at him for siding with Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war when she sided with France.

ACW in the 1860s
FPW not till 1870 when Albert long dead
.. and VR in very deep mourning .. "The Widow of Windsor" period
 
I think he would probably be a good king too, but why would he have taken a side in the ACW? And even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered much. British monarchs have no power to influence foreign policy.

Was this definitively the case by 1861, or was it just that Victoria elected not to involve herself in foreign policy?
 

BigDave1967

Banned
Was this definitively the case by 1861, or was it just that Victoria elected not to involve herself in foreign policy?

I think Victoria wanted Great Britain to get involved in the American Civil War but Albert got her to stay out of it. Albert was a good man and a steadying influence for Victoria.
 
I think Victoria wanted Great Britain to get involved in the American Civil War but Albert got her to stay out of it. Albert was a good man and a steadying influence for Victoria.

It doesn't matter even if she did want intervention. It made no sense from a domestic or geopolitical perspective. The government would not have sanctioned it.
 
Victoria was significantly less racist than the average white person of her era. I do not think she would have been happy to see Britain assisting the CSA
 
IIRC Britain goverment was pro French and Victoria had symphaties for Prussia. This, but more the speed of the1 German Victory kept Britain out of the war. But lets assume that Victoria is dead and Britain sides with France (Bismarck would have known) it means that the war of 1870/71 is butterflied away (and German unification delayed). France would still be considered the strongest nation ON the continent, so France might even look for allies against Germany - Maybe they can persuade Austria and Italy (the latter might be baited by the Papal state) Give France 2-3 years and Austria might have recovered enough from the German war to think of a "revenge" Venice might be gone, but what about Silesia ;)
 
It doesn't matter even if she did want intervention. It made no sense from a domestic or geopolitical perspective. The government would not have sanctioned it.

Yes, I think this is a point most people tend to miss. The Crown could certainly lend influence to government policy- but not to the extent where it could make the government do something it did not already want to do. It's essentially just one among many power brokers and far from the most important or influential one.
 
IIRC Britain goverment was pro French and Victoria had symphaties for Prussia. This, but more the speed of the1 German Victory kept Britain out of the war. But lets assume that Victoria is dead and Britain sides with France (Bismarck would have known) it means that the war of 1870/71 is butterflied away (and German unification delayed). France would still be considered the strongest nation ON the continent, so France might even look for allies against Germany - Maybe they can persuade Austria and Italy (the latter might be baited by the Papal state) Give France 2-3 years and Austria might have recovered enough from the German war to think of a "revenge" Venice might be gone, but what about Silesia ;)

A Gladstone ministry would not have supported a French aggressive war; the internal difficulties of the Bonapartist regime were pretty clear by the end of 1860s, and Nappy's obsessive search for territorial gains was not an endearing trait, not to the British nor to any other country in Europe. France and Prussia had been on the brink of war every year since 1867 onward and in a way the surprise in 1870 was not that the war finally came but that it was declared so late in the summer. Nappy does not have the leisure of "a few years" to wait: the results of the elections in 1869 had not been good news for the government and even the referendum of May 1870 (a typical Nappy's ploy) returned a majority far below the expectations. The casus belli was laughable (the prince of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen had already renounced his claim to the Spanish throne) but Nappy wanted Prussia to be not just compliant, but humiliated too. A war in 1870 was eminently suitable for Bismarck too (he also wanted a war for internal reasons - the conservatives were against a tax increase and the liberal-nationals were unhappy for the lack of progress in the matter of Germany's unification as well as for the conservative parliamentarian structure set up by Bismarck). Since both the bride and the groom :D wanted to consummate their marriage the war came.

Victoria's preferences were irrelevant (although it is true that she had sympathies for the Prussian at least since the Princess Imperial was married to the heir).
 
I think a lot of it was that the US South was the main supplier of cotton to Great Britain at the time.

The British very quickly found alternate sources of cotton in Egypt and India. They did not need Southern cotton.

Furthermore, the working and middle classes were decisively against the slaveholding Confederacy.
 
Top