How did Prince Albert die?

Presumably of typhoid. From the beginning of December 1861 Albert was bedridden with fever, weakness and gastrointestinal symptoms. The contemporary diagnosis was typhoid - probably contracted from contaminated drinking or bathing water at Windsor Castle. Modern studies in medical history suggest Crohn's disease or another chronic gastrointestinal illness as an alternative. Albert was 42 years old; his death came entirely unexpectedly for the Queen and the court.

What role did Albert play at the English court?

An unusually political and culturally active one. As Queen Victoria's consort he officially had no political role at first, but in practice took on many advisory and representative duties. He was the chief organiser of the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace; he promoted the modernisation of English industry, scientific education and the royal collections. He is regarded as the cultural-political architect of the early Victorian era.

Where was Albert buried?

In the Frogmore Mausoleum on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Queen Victoria had work on the mausoleum begun immediately after Albert's death; it was completed in 1862 and is one of the central royal burial sites in England. The Queen visited the mausoleum regularly - often daily in the first years - and was herself buried there after her death in 1901, in the same sarcophagus as Albert.

What memorials to Albert exist?

Numerous. The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens (London, completed 1872) - the central public commemorative statue. The Royal Albert Hall (London, 1871) - England's most important concert hall, dedicated to Albert. Albert necklaces and pendants in the Royal Collection - mourning pieces worn by Queen Victoria herself. Albert coins bearing his profile. And countless middle-class imitation mourning pieces made among the wider population after Albert's death.

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861)

Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, was in his lifetime a central cultural and political figure of the English court - his early death on 14 December 1861 set off his wife's forty years of widow's mourning and thereby shaped the whole Victorian mourning-jewellery system more lastingly than any other single death of the nineteenth century.

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