Queen Albia of England

Little is known about Albia, Her Undying Majesty, Her Britannic Majesty, the current Queen of England. She is apparently a powerful spark, possibly immortal. A rough portrait of Albia which Phil Foglio sketched for a fan depicts a scantily-clad but human-seeming woman. (Except for her possibly literally flaming hair.)

She is not beholden to Baron Wulfenbach, and powerful enough to resist him. While the issue is yet to be discussed in the comic, according to the Girl Genius print novels, when the newly-reappeared Baron was securing Europa against the Revenants and various battling Sparks, he was often assisted by Britain and Queen Albia, but as his empire grew, his and Albia's commercial and imperial interests began to butt heads (not to mention the strong Sparkish tendency to seek hierarchical control), leading eventually to an estrangement. Knowing how devastating a war between the two empires would be, the diplomatic corps of both countries are reported to have strained mightily to keep this from deteriorating into open conflict.

According to eyewitness Gil, Albia has strong control over England, perhaps even extending to mind-control.

Ardsley Wooster is an intelligence agent who may or may not directly report to her, as is adventure-book heroine Trelawney Thorpe.

Countess Marie claims to be a third cousin of the Queen, "many times removed, of course." Taken very literally, this could imply that Albia is several generations older than Marie; a by the long-lived Master of Paris (who is at least two hundred years old himself) revealed that she is the only person in Europa he knows of who is older than he is, and even he does not know the source of her longevity.

She is recorded as having given "The Platonic Solid" to the Storm King, although that claim has now been disputed.

Possibly relevant outside information

 * Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom celebrated the 60th anniversary of her accession to the British throne in 2012, while the ocean liner that shares her name was retired in 2008 after forty years of service. Elizabeth II is now the longest-reigning British monarch in history. In January of 2020 hers would surpass the reign of, and in May 2024 that of —also known as the Sun King— the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history.
 * Victoria of the United Kingdom, from whom term "Victorian" is derived, was famously the longest reiging monarch in English history (until recently when the length of her reign was surpassed by that of Elizabeth II), from 1837 to her death in 1901. Twenty-six of Queen Victoria's grandchildren became rulers in Europe, therefore she became known as The Grandmother of Europe.
 * May also be a Steampunk version of 'Gloriana' (Edmund Spenser's 'Faerie Queen' and a tribute to Elizabeth I) updated for Victoria.

Gallo-Latin Albiōn (cf. Middle Irish Albbu) derives from the Proto-Celtic * Alb-i̯en-, sharing the same stem as Welsh elfydd "earth, world". Together with other toponyms such as Alpes it derives from a Proto-Indo-European root *albh- "white". It is often hypothesised that the Romans took it as connected with albus (white), in reference to the white cliffs of Dover and Alfred Holder's Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz (1896) unhesitatingly translates it Weissland ("white-land").
 * "Albion" (Greek: Ἀλβιών) is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. It is the basis of the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba.