The statue was commissioned in the 1850s, after Thornycroft made an equestrian statue of Queen Victoria which was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851. The statue was praised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and they were involved with Thornycroft's new project. Albert intended the monumental statue to be erected over the central arch of Decimus Burton's entrance to Hyde Park, and asked Thornycroft to make a "throne upon wheels".