Although the social life of the court ended, Victoria was soon back in political harness, from 1867 with the assistance of a private secretary for the first time. Sir Charles Grey and his successor from 1870, Sir Henry Ponsonby, had the difficult task of advising the queen and carrying out her instructions, without the power to speak freely: unlike Albert, they were always subjects and servants of the queen, and had to tread softly around her prejudices and preferences. But although the queen resumed her reading of political dispatches and corresponded frequently and vigorously with her ministers on political, and particularly foreign, affairs, she declined absolutely to resume any of the ceremonial functions through which the monarchy was displayed to its subjects, which caused considerable agitation and public opposition.

The focus of the court had turned in on itself. Victoria's children were reaching marriageable age during the first years of her widowhood: only the eldest, Vicky, had married before Albert's death. Negotiating suitable marriages became one of the queen's chief preoccupations, and negotiating the tensions between different members of her family became one of the primary burdens of her courtiers. These were also the years in which squabbling among the household was at its peak - the isolation of the court engendered a hot-house atmosphere, in which affronts and slights took on immense significance, all inflamed by the dominant presence of the queen's abrasive Highland Servant, John Brown. Although closed to the wider world, Victoria's court was open to her growing family; six of her children were married by 1871. The weddings of her daughters were among the few events that could draw the queen into public view, and indeed it became notorious that she would open parliament only when she required a marriage settlement for one of her children, or an allowance on their coming of age. It was these widening dynastic connections with Europe, particularly with the German royal families, which, along with her growing pride in Britain's imperial possessions, especially that of India (she was made Empress of India in 1876), absorbed Victoria's interest and provided the stage for her apotheosis and the final transformation of her court in the last twenty years of her reign.