A ‘chronological table’ (family tree) was placed conveniently inside Victoria’s history schoolbook for her to find.

This accident was arranged to take place the very next day. She claimed she had been hoping Victoria would ‘come to the knowledge by accident, in pursuing her education’. In a meeting between the Duchess of Kent and Dr Blomfield on the 10th of March 1830, the Duchess confessed that she was at crossroads on how to break the news to Victoria. As Victoria grew older, and less of a child however, the need to gently inform her of her great future became much discussed and pressured on Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. Until she was eleven years old, Victoria had never been told that she was going to become Queen, although she might have guessed. It’s nice to see this little homage in a painting for his eye’s only.

This is likely her glass, heart-shaped locket that contained a lock of Albert’s hair, which she was supposed to have worn ‘ day and night’ before her marriage to Albert. One thing I would like to note about this painting is that although the central focus here is Victoria and she is dressed very simply, she is wearing a heart-shaped pendant. Today the painting resides at Kensington Palace, where Victoria was born, grew up and meet Albert. The painting was then hung in Prince Albert’s Writing Room at Windsor Castle, deep within their private apartments.

I felt so happy & proud to have found something that gave him so much pleasure’ ‘he thought it so like, & so beautifully painted. Prince Albert’s ‘ favourite picture’ of Queen Victoria, 1843 by Winterhalter. In her diary, Victoria wrote about this ‘secret picture’ she was having painted for Albert’s 24th birthday as a surprise.

The Young Victoria by Alison Plowden