The Other Victoria: The Princess Victoria and the Great Game of Europe

Andrew Sinclair's excellent new book manages to combine a study of a very personal tragedy with a significant contribution to the general history of Bismarckian Germany and of Anglo-German relations. Like a number of other scholars, he has discovered that the Royal Archives at Windsor (and, to a lesser extent, the Kronberg Archives in Germany) are intensely political in their contents: this being due, of course, to the constant and strong interest which Queen Victoria showed towards foreign and imperial affairs and, in particular, towards the 'German question'. Her own background, and her marriage to Prince Albert, had created ties to that country which were only reinforced by the marriage of her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, to Prince Frederick of Prussia in 1858.