princess victoria + prince albert | historic couples

princess victoria: do you ever feel like a chess piece yourself?
in a game being played against your will?
prince albert: do you?
princess victoria: constantly.
prince albert: then you had better master the rules of the game
until you play it better than they can.
princess victoria: you don't recommend i find a husband to play it for me?
prince albert: i should find one to play it with you, not for you.
princess victoria: but plenty of people will expect me to fail.

prince albert: then, they don't know you like i do.
young victoria

queen victoria wrote to her uncle, king leopold of belgium, in the fall of 1839 after having a conversation where she proposed to prince albert:

"my mind is quite made up, and I told Albert this morning of it.
the warm affection he showed me on learning this gave me great pleasure.
he seems perfection,
and i think that i have the prospect of very great happiness before me.
i love him more than i can say,
and shall do everything in my power to render this sacrifice
(for such in my opinion it is)
as small as i can.
these last few days have passed like a dream to me,
and i am so much bewildered by it all that i know hardly how to write;
but i do feel very happy."

prince albert wrote to his grandmother, to share his feelings:

"the subject which has occupied us so much of late is at last settled.
the queen sent for me alone to her room a few days ago,
and declared to me in a genuine outburst of love and affection
that i had gained her whole heart,
and would make her intensely happy
if i would make her the sacrifice of sharing her life with her,
for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice.
the only thing which troubled her was that
she did not think that she was worthy of me.
the joyous openness of manner in which she told me this quite enchanted me,
and i was quite carried away by it."

when i studied history in school, i sometimes forgot that these were real people.
with real feelings, fears, sacrifices and emotions.
thanks to the movie "young victoria" i have a soft spot in my heart for the love between
queen victoria and her husband, albert.