36. Queen Victoria worried about her son so much she banned him from pursuing a career in the British Army
Like many royals before and after him, as a young man, Edward had dreams of a glorious military career. His mother, the Queen, had different ideas, however. According to some scholars, Victoria didn’t just mollycoddle her son; she believed he wasn’t fit or strong enough to survive in the British Army, so she effectively banned him from joining. Instead, she pushed him towards higher education. At first, he resented this. However, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge in the 1860s, the Prince of Wales started enjoying education for the first time in his life and he became an adept and engaged student.