" Before the twentieth century, to be a widow was perhaps to be in the most potent of a woman's life stages. For the first time, a widow was answerable to no one. For the first time, she could own property. For all women other than the queen, a woman's worldly goods, and even her children, had up to that point been not hers but her father's or husband's. "

― Lucy Worsley , Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow