31 years old when she married the English Duke, a pretty woman with dark hair, with a fine figure and lively ways. She had been married once before to Emich Charles who died in 1814, leaving his widow with two small children and the many demands of nobility which forced to test her wits and strength. Her marriage with the Duke of Kent seemed to promise Victoire a brighter future, taking her away from her narrow existence in the village of Amorbach, into one of the leading Courts of Europe, with the chance of one day becoming a queen. In the summer of 1818, Edward brought his bride to England, but then, after a few months in London "society", it was back to Amorbach and the familiar daily round, for the Duke was so burdened with debts that he could not afford to keep up appearances as a royal individual in England. But he was determined that his child should be born in his native land, and by borrowing from his long-suffering friends, he managed to bring his wife back to England in time for the baby's birth. Edward was not disappointed that the baby was a girl and not the long-hoped-for male heir: "I am decidedly of the opinion that the decrees of Providence are at all times the wisest and the best," he wrote to a friend. A month after her birth, the Kent baby was baptized. After much debate in the royal family she was named "Alexandrina Victoria", after her chief godfather, the Russian Tsar Alexander, and her mother. The name "Victoria: was then completely unknown in England, though it had long been in use in the forms "Victoire" and "Victoria" on the Continent. For the first few years the child was known as "Drina", but in one of her first copy-books is the name "Victoria" by which she came to be known in later childhood. Despite the fact that the Kents had married "for convenience" their union proved remarkably happy. Edward had never known the comforts of a settled home in England, nor had he ever enjoyed so much approval from his fa...
