Baron Christian Friedrich von Stockmar

Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s marriage contract was signed, on the left-hand side, by a large number of English dignitaries. On the right-hand side, which was reserved for the House of Coburg, there was only one name: Stockmar.

Baron Christian Friedrich von Stockmar never held any official political office but was the one who pulled the strings in the background in preparation of the wedding. Albert and Victoria both regarded him as their friend and mentor. Especially for Albert he almost became a father figure and Stockmar wrote for his part: “I love him like a son”.

Stockmar was born in Coburg in 1787. As a young doctor he participated in the Napoleonic Wars and later settled, together with his family, in a town house in Coburg’s Webergasse. When he was old and no longer able to travel himself, he was visited there by Victoria and Albert as well as their daughter Vicky and her husband, the Prussian crown prince and later Emperor Frederick III.

Stockmar is said to have been an éminence grise one who worked hard behind the scenes conducting negotiations, preparing contracts and removing obstacles. He enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Prince Leopold, Albert’s uncle and later the King of the Belgians, whose physician he was. In reports and letters the Baron recorded how single-mindedly – albeit covertly – Leopold set about securing the marriage of Victoria and Albert.

In the beginning, Stockmar was reserved in his judgement of the young prince, whom he knew little. A joint trip to Italy brought them closer together, and they developed a lifelong friendship and trust to each other. In his position as Prince Consort, Albert regularly sought Stockmar’s advice and the Baron dropped his initial reserve and gained the utmost respect for the Prince’s abilities.

Stockmar, who had spent half his life advising between several European courts, died in Coburg in 1863. The four ruling houses of England, Belgium, Prussia and Coburg thanked him after his death with the decoration of a family crypt in Coburg and a commemorative plaque. Moreover, around 1876 a memorial cross was erected for him in Frogmore, the private royal park in Windsor, at the behest of princess Vicky.