Queen Victoria's Matchmaking : Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking : Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe
ISBN: 9781408852910
Publication Date: 4 March 2019

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted most international power and influence: her role as matchmaking grandmother

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.

About the Author

Deborah Cadbury is the author of seven acclaimed books including Chocolate Wars, The Dinosaur Hunters, The Lost King of France and The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, for which her accompanying BBC series received a BAFTA nomination. Before turning to writing full time she worked for thirty years as a BBC TV producer and executive producer and has won numerous international awards including an Emmy.