Bibliograph

Queen Victoria's matchmaking, the royal marriages that shaped Europe, Deborah Cadbury

Type

Label

Queen Victoria's matchmaking, the royal marriages that shaped Europe, Deborah Cadbury

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-369) and index

resource.biographical

contains biographical information

Illustrations

genealogical tablesmapsplatesillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Queen Victoria's matchmaking

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Deborah Cadbury

Sub title

the royal marriages that shaped Europe

Summary

In the late nineteenth century, Queen Victoria had over thirty surviving grandchildren. To maintain and increase power in Europe, she hoped to manoeuvre them into dynastic marriages. In her sights was royalty from across the world. Yet for all their seeming obedience, her grandchildren often had plans of their own, plans fuelled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Her matchmaking plans were only further complicated by their coinciding with tumultuous international upheavals; revolution and war were in the air and after her death, her most carefully laid plans fell to ruin. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the most glittering, decadent palaces of Russia and Europe, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions, to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of the royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the power, love and duty that shaped the marriages that Queen Victoria arranged. At the heart of it all is Queen Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined manipulator the next

Classification