Their marriage was passionate - she wrote in her diary that “Without him everything loses its interest” - and produced nine children. Victoria enjoyed Albert’s company from the beginning, and with Leopold’s encouragement she proposed to Albert (as she was the queen, he could not propose to her) on October 15, 1839, five days after he arrived at Windsor on a trip to the English court. He was her first cousin, the son of her mother’s brother their mutual uncle, the ambitious Leopold, engineered the meeting with the idea that the two should marry. Victoria first met her future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, when she was 16.

She proposed to her husband, Prince Albert, and not vice versa. Some accounts claim she had a 50-inch waist by the end of her life, a conclusion supported by the impressive size of a nightgown and pair of bloomers (underwear) belonging to Victoria that were auctioned off in 2009. In her later years, she also grew to an impressive girth.

Queen Victoria’s outspoken nature and imposing reputation belied her tiny stature–the monarch was no more than five feet tall.