Which queen had the most children

However, Bertie wasn't precisely the heir his parents envisioned. He had inherited his mother's willfulness and was far from the logical academic Albert had hoped to raise as the future king of England. In fact, it wasn't until he was ten that Bertie came to realize that it was he, and not his more clever and beloved sister Vicky, who was set to inherit the throne. His mother complained of his "systematic idleness and laziness," which she deemed "enough to break one's heart. The true disappointment would come in another form, though, that of an actress named Nellie Clifton, with whom Bertie had a brief dalliance the first of many scandalous love affairs that would in the future king's life.

Upon learning of the romance, Albert became enraged, railing against his son for what he saw as a weakness of character and for bringing shame to the family. When Albert died just weeks after the confrontation, Victoria placed the blame for his sudden turn on Bertie. That boy I never can or shall look at him without a shudder," she wrote. On her decision to send Bertie away on a trip abroad which Albert had planned to complete his education, she added that, "Many wish to shake my resolution and to keep him here," but that to do so would "force a contact that is more than ever unbearable to me.

Though Victoria did continue to see Bertie throughout the rest of her life and allowed him to represent her at official events in her later years, Victoria never truly forgave him, and he was not allowed any political power or station until he became king after his mother's death, having spent 59 years as the heir apparent.

If Vicky was Albert's favorite, then Beatrice was Victoria's. The youngest of Victoria and Albert's brood, she was beautiful and precocious in her youth. But after Albert's passing, Beatrice became the vehicle for Victoria's focus, doting on her but also demanding all of her time and attention.

Even in the royal family, the youngest daughter was expected to hold to the traditions of the time and give up on marriage to spend her life as a caregiver and companion for her parents. By the time Beatrice came of age, Victoria dreaded the idea of her daughter leaving her so much she forbade the mention of weddings in Beatrice's presence and the young Princess became increasingly withdrawn and isolated.

It came as a particular blow to the Queen, then, when at the age of 27 Beatrice fell in love with Prince Henry, the third son of Alexander of Battenberg. The couple met at the wedding of one of Victoria's nieces and were swiftly engaged—without asking Victoria's permission beforehand. Victoria considered the entire affair a great deception and, according to Beatrice, did not speak to her youngest daughter from May of when the engagement was announced, to November of that year.

And remain at her side Beatrice did—after Henry died of malaria on a mission with the army in Africa ten years into their marriage, Beatrice further devoted herself to her mother, spending the remaining years of Victoria's life as her mother's unofficial secretary. Victoria was an enormously prolific writer of letters and diaries—she's said to have written over 2, words a day for the entirety of her adult life—and many of the Queen's decidedly unsaccharine sentiments about motherhood come directly from her own hand.

Critics often point to Victoria's seemingly all-consuming affection for Albert and her laments that their children failed to console her in his absence.

I only feel properly a mon aise and quite happy when Albert is with me. However, many of her most famous quotes on motherhood came well into her career as a mother, long past the blush of her children's babyhood when she would remark upon them with delight in her diaries. In a missive to Vicky, who was preparing for her own children she wrote , "I am no admirer of babies generally — there are exceptions — for instance your sisters Alice, and Beatrice were very pretty from the very first — yourself also-rather so — Arthur too Bertie and Leopold — too frightful.

Portraits of Elizabeth typically depict the queen with flaming red hair and an extremely white complexion. Earlier depictions of Elizabeth suggest that her red hair was natural; her ultra-white face was created through lead-based make-up that may have led to health issues in her later life. Elizabeth came under suspicion when the wife of her favourite, Robert Dudley, died under mysterious circumstances.

This story has become a favourite for writers of mysteries and thrillers to explore in their novels. Many misogynists and conspiracy theorists have argued that, due to her extraordinary leadership qualities, noted academic brilliance, and financial acumen, Elizabeth must have been a man.

An overwhelming amount of evidence declares this notion to be false and discriminatory. Philip apparently had less compunction about creating a parallel situation with Elizabeth. Elizabeth turned Philip down and eventually fought a war against him, the Spanish Armada. Find out more about the Spanish Armada. This argument often has classist origins — many scholars have been reluctant to ascribe some of the greatest works of literature of all time to the son of a glover from Stratford — and is almost certainly false.

Queen Elizabeth survived smallpox as a young woman, though none of the portraits of her show the scars she probably had from the disease. Understand the context, creation and significance of the Armada Portrait in our concise guide. Indulge in gifts inspired by its Elizabethan symbolism. Those few studies, which focused on the physical impact of masks on breathing, did not find any harmful effects.

But the debate around the wider pros and cons has been heated. Proponents of mask-wearing argue that masks protect the wearer and those around them from Covid, and that the risk factors of the disease for young children should not be overlooked.

Most countries do not vaccinate children under 12, or only in exceptional cases, which leaves them comparatively exposed. Serious cases of Covid in young children are still relatively rare — according to a large UK study published this July, roughly one in 50, children with Covid end up in intensive care, and two in a million die.

But the rapidly spreading Delta variant , which is at least twice as contagious compared with previous strains, is putting pressure on countries to contain and prevent outbreaks, including among children. The good news is that mask-wearing has been linked to lower rates of Covid in schools. For example, in the US state of North Carolina, where masking is compulsory for students above six, schools reported extremely low transmission rates — although more than 7, children and staff attended school while carrying the virus between March and June , only Covid cases were found to have been caused as a result.

Maurice, an assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Of course, masking may not solely be responsible for reducing transmission.

Other protective factors such as "personal hand hygiene, safe distancing, and whether an area is well-ventilated may play a part," says Mark Ng, the clinical lead of the infection prevention and infectious diseases workgroup at Singhealth Polyclinics in Singapore.

This article is part of Family Tree , a new series of features from the BBC that examine the issues and opportunities that parents, children and families face all over the world. It examines the role that families have in today's society and how they will be part of the world tomorrow. But masks are an efficient and effective preventive measure, which is probably why many parents of young children in Singapore still stuck to it even after the island state raised the legal mask-wearing age to six last September.

The initial ruling, imposed half a year earlier, required children over two to be masked. Read more about how face masks reduce transmission. For Mimi Zainal, mother to two children aged three and five years old, the change in ruling made no difference. The children struggled with wearing masks at first, Zainal admits, but she and her husband "hyped it up" into a fun activity that the family would do together before heading out.

She bought a variety of patterns — astronauts, unicorns, and other colourful prints — for the children to choose from. Within a matter of weeks, the kids got used to their masks, she says. Some argue that even the jolliest pattern can't change one fundamental problem with masks: they hide half the face, and may make it harder to decode people's moods and feelings.

Children begin to recognise basic emotions — happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and so on — from as early as 10 months of age, with development peaking around five or six years, says Kang Lee, a developmental psychologist at the University of Toronto.

Masks have been shown to help prevent Covid outbreaks, including among children Credit: Getty Images. Being able to see faces in their entirety is a key part of such development and masking can hinder that process, he says: "We learn emotions mostly through the face.

But other experts are skeptical of how much of an impediment masks really are. There are other vital signals too, she says, "things like tone of voice, body posture, and overall social situation".

A study found that children under the age of nine could still correctly pinpoint the emotions of the faces they were viewing, even if they couldn't see their mouths. And in an experiment conducted last year, Ruba and her colleague discovered that while masks slightly impaired children's ability to recognise sadness, anger, and fear, the overall effect was the same with sunglasses. After all, people usually don't worry about wearing sunglasses around kids.