Following Prince Albert's death in 1861, Osborne became an effective mausoleum in his memory. Queen Victoria used the house as a retreat away from public life. She died there on 22 January 1901, and her son, King Edward VII, gave the house to the nation. It was used as a naval training school, and then a convalescent home for officers. During the Second World War, Adolf Hitler ordered that the estate was not to be bombed because he wanted to use it as a post-war retreat. 