Britain awaited the birth of a child to the much-loved Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent (Prince of Wales), and wife of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She went into labor on November 5, and at 9 pm, she gave birth to a stillborn son. Five and one-half hours later, at 2:30 am, Princess Charlotte died. She was only 21 years old.
Following her birth on January 7, 1796, her grandfather wrote to his son, George, congratulating him and his wife, Caroline, on the birth. George III was not disappointed that his first grandchild was a girl, writing that he "always wished it should be of that sex. The king reassured his son that he and Caroline were young and would have "many children." The assumption that Caroline would give birth to a son, perhaps more than one, as the wife of the future George IV.
Unfortunately, for the country, Charlotte Augusta would be George and Caroline's only child, as her parents' marriage collapsed soon after her birth. She was expected to be the first queen consort since Queen Anne. And now in November 1817, the United Kingdom faced a succession crisis.
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| The Times, November 7, 1817 |
It was twelve minutes past two in the morning on June 20, 1837, when King William IV died at Windsor Castle. The King was 72 years old. As soon as the King was pronounced dead, the focus turned to an eighteen-year-old young woman asleep in her bedroom that she shared with her mother at Kensington Palace. Three men, all of whom were at the king’s bedside when he breathed his last, made the immediate decision to travel to London – to Kensington Palace – to greet the new Queen. William Howley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, and the late king’s doctor, called for a carriage to be driven to London.
The carriage arrived in front of the palace at 5:00 a.m. It took some time for a member of the palace staff to answer the bell. The carriage pulled into Clock Court, where Lord Conyngham was greeted by the Duchess of Kent, the mother of the young woman. She told the Lord Chamberlain that he would not be permitted into her daughter’s bedroom, as she was still asleep.
Not one to be deterred, Lord Conyngham looked straight at the Duchess and demanded to see the Queen. The Duchess understood and returned to the bedroom where she awoke her daughter with a kiss. The Duchess of Kent escorted her daughter, wearing a dressing gown that covered her nightgown. Her governess, Baroness Lehzen, followed them down the stairs, carrying a bottle of smelling salts. Did these women believe that the new queen was too frail and weak to understand and accept what she was about to be told? The three men were waiting in the sitting room when the young woman entered the room ‘Alone,’ as she would note in her diary hours later.
The Duchess of Kent, who had never permitted her daughter to walk down a staircase by herself, must have been dumbstruck by her daughter’s independent action. There would be no need for the smelling salts.
The three men bowed as the Lord Chamberlain made his announcement to the young woman who, only a few hours before, had been styled HRH Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, referring to her as the Queen.
Queen Victoria.
How did this young woman become the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland? Her birth on May 24, 1819, was the result of a royal race to marriage and children - a race that came about due to a death less than two years earlier.
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Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only child of George, the Prince of Wales, Prince Regent for his mentally ill father, King George III, was expecting her first child in November 1817. The Times’s editorial hoped that “we may have it in our power to announce the safe delivery of Princess Charlotte of Wales; but at 3 o’clock last evening we had received no tidings of the event. At 8 o’clock in the morning the attendant medical gentlemen had, with great propriety, issued an official bulletin on the subject, of which the following is a copy: ‘The labour of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte is going on very slowly, but, we trust, favourably.’”
The Times’ court newsman’s bulletin, which was considered of “less authority” than the medical bulletin, was released at 4 a.m, and noted that the Princess “is going in a much more favourable way.” But the bulletin was not favorable: “With great regret we have barely time to announce that Her Royal Highness has been delivered – we trust- safely, in relation to her Royal person – of a stillborn infant.”
One can only imagine how the editorial staff treated this report, unsure whether it was true, especially as Charlotte’s child would be third in line to the throne, thus assuring the succession.
The court reporter’s bulletin was confirmed six hours later with a bulletin from Claremont, where the Princess lived with her husband, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
“At 9 o’clock this evening Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte was delivered of a still-born male child; Her Royal Highness is doing extremely well.”
The combination of joy – knowing that Charlotte was doing well- with the sadness of the news that she gave birth to a stillborn son was brief.
The Princess who had “shown uncommon firmness and the utmost resignation” during her labor accepted the news that her son was stillborn. Her husband, Prince Leopold, was waiting in another room when he was told that his child was stillborn, but Charlotte was all right; he cried out: “Thank God, thank God! The Princess is safe.”
Charlotte was exhausted after her long labor. Shortly after midnight on November 6, Charlotte started to become “restless and uneasy,” ending the sense of calm that her medical staff had felt after she had given birth. She began to suffer convulsions, which “increased till nature and life were quite exhausted.”
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales died at 2:30 in the morning. She was 21 years old. Within the space of five hours - from giving birth to a stillborn son to Charlotte’s death- the British throne had lost two heirs. “It is our painful and unexpected duty to give an account of as melancholy an event as occurs in the annals of hereditary monarchy - the deaths of the only two presumptive heirs to the Crown in direct succession, the mother and her child.”
Direct succession. This was the issue. Charlotte was the only legitimate grandchild of King George III. She was an only child, a young woman caught between the acrimonious relationship between her parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, a couple who had been estranged even before Charlotte’s birth. Although George and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, lived separate lives, they were never divorced. Charlotte’s birth only nine months after her parents’ marriage did not bring about reconciliation between them, putting the burden of succession on her.
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The future George IV, a self-indulgent dandy, was a major concern to his parents. When he was 18, his mistress, an actress called Perdita Robinson, threatened to publish their letters. George III paid £5000 to obtain the letters from Perdita. The younger George wanted £100,000 a year from Parliament, but was granted only £50,000 a year, and another £60,000 to pay off his debts.
By 1784, he had run up another £150,000 in debts. The British royals did not undertake the myriad engagements modern royals do. The appanages were largely meant to cover their expenses, including the cost of running their households. The Prince of Wales and his younger brothers spent far more than what they received from Parliament. These young men showed scant regard for what the British taxpayer might have to say about their lavish lifestyles.
The Prince of Wales was expected to marry a Protestant German Princess, but he fell in love with Maria Fitzherbert, a twice-widowed woman six years his senior, and a Roman Catholic. He was warned against marrying Mrs. Fitzherbert, as it was in violation of the Act of Settlement and the Royal Marriages Act.
"He cried by the hour, rolling on the floor, striking his head, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing that he would abandon the country, forgo the Crown, sell his jewels and plate and scrape together a competence to fly with the object of his affections to America," was how Lord Holland described the Prince of Wales' behavior when he was told what the circumstances would be if he married Maria Fitzherbert.
Of course, the Prince of Wales paid no heed to the advice. On December 15, 1785, he married Maria in a secret ceremony conducted by a priest recently released from prison. The marriage was invalid because the Prince did not have the King's permission to marry. Furthermore, even if the marriage were legal, the Prince of Wales would have lost his succession rights because he married a Roman Catholic.
For obvious reasons, the wedding was never made public, although the couple lived together. The Prince of Wales continued to run up masses of debts. His Civil list allowance was increased to £60,000, but the debts continued to rise. By 1794, the Prince of Wales' debts surpassed £500,000. He had no legitimate wife or heir. So what did this self-absorbed heir to the throne do? George knew that if he had a proper wife, Parliament would grant him another increase in his allowance.
So he dumped Mrs. Fitzherbert, and he told his father he was now ready to enter "a more creditable line of life." This meant marriage to a suitable Protestant German princess. The Prince of Wales made up his mind to marry his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a princess who was said to have a "very loose" reputation. This was not a marriage based on love. George really did care who he married; a proper marriage meant his bills would be paid.
The British diplomat, the 1st Earl of Malmesbury, escorted the bride-to-be from her home to England. He was not impressed. In his diary he wrote that Caroline had “no judgment; caught by the first impression, led by the first impulse, turned away by appearances or enjouement, loving to talk and prone to confidence and make missish friendships that last twenty-four hours; some natural, but no acquired morality, and no strong innate notions of its value and necessity.” The Princess was “fond of gossiping.” Lord Malmesbury did not “mince matters” when he discussed her personal habits, noting that he had two conversations with the Princess “one on the toilet, on cleanliness, and on the delicacy of speaking. One of these points I endeavored, as far as was possible for a man, to inculcate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of dress – as well as to what was hid as to what was seen.” The earl was referring to the princess’ underclothes, which were “never well washed or changed often. He tried to instill in the princess that a “long toilet was necessary,” as Princess Caroline paid scant attention to her ablutions, something that would not endear her to her fastidious husband.
On seeing Caroline for the first time, George cried out: "I feel faint, pray get me a glass of brandy." The marriage took place on April 8, 1795. The wedding night was spent at Carlton House where, according to Caroline, who told a lady-in-waiting some years later, "judge what it was like to have a drunken husband on one's wedding day, and one who passed the greatest part of his bridal night under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him."
The couple's only child, Charlotte, was born in January 1796. The marriage was already in trouble - Caroline refused to employ his mistress, Lady Jersey, in her Household. Having provided the country with an heir, George saw no reason why he should not return to his old ways - spending money, having mistresses, drinking, and being irresponsible. George wrote to his wife in April 1796, desiring a separation. "We have unfortunately been oblig'd to acknowledge to each other that we cannot find happiness in our union. ... Let me therefore beg you to make the best of a situation unfortunate for us both.”
The marriage was all but over by August 1797 when the Princess of Wales walked out and moved into a home of her own.
This was a couple who took great pleasure in tormenting each other. When George IV was crowned, he made sure his wife -- they had been separated for years, and neither was living an unblemished life -- was locked out of Westminster Abbey.
Charlotte's death brought about another succession crisis. George III was in the twilight of his life, and the Prince Regent was unlikely to divorce Caroline and marry another eligible princess, just to try for another child. Thus, the heir presumptive was Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, whose marriage to Princess Frederica of Prussia was childless. The couple had long been estranged and lived apart. Third in line was Prince William, the Duke of Clarence, who lived openly for years with the actress Dorothy Jordan and their ten children.
The fourth son, the Duke of Kent, was content to live with his mistress, Julie St. Laurent.
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| Frederica, Duchess of Cumberland (and on 6-20-1837, Queen Consort of Hanover) |
Prince Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, married Princess Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1815. Frederica was the niece of Queen Charlotte, as the Duchess’ father was the queen’s sister. Queen Charlotte was not in favor of this marriage largely due to Frederica’s scandalous past, which included two marriages, the second marriage in haste due to pregnancy, and lovers. Consent, however, was given by the Prince Regent, which allowed the newly-widowed Frederica (who had been in the process of divorcing her second husband when he died unexpectedly) to marry the Duke of Cumberland in Neustrelitz in May 1815. A second marriage was performed at Carlton House in London three months later on August 29.
Queen Charlotte never received her niece, who was also her daughter–in-law, to court.
The new Duchess had given birth to ten children in her first two marriages, but at her late 30s, another pregnancy was not expected. In the summer of 1816, the Duchess realized that she was going to have a baby, certainly good news for the royal family. This child would be George III's second legitimate grandchild. She went into labor on the morning of January 27 at St. James’s Palace. “Summons were presently forwarded” to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Lord Chancellor and the Cabinet Ministers. The Duke of Cumberland “sent his own chariot for the Lord Chancellor. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who “kept a carriage in readiness for the occasion,” arrived at the Cumberlands’ apartments within 20 minutes of receiving his summons. Shortly after the birth, a bulletin was released for “the satisfaction of the Public.”
“Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cumberland was delivered at one o’clock this day of a stillborn female child, and is well as can be expected.” The child was named for her mother.
For several days, the Duchess was in a “dangerous state.” The infant had been dead for at least a month, “occasioned, as it is conjectured, by excessive grief, on receiving the unexpected tidings of her beloved Father, the Duke of Mecklenburg’s death.”
Frederica celebrated her 40th birthday in March 1818. She was again pregnant, but in April – the exact date is not known – she gave birth to another stillborn daughter. The birth must have taken place before April 27, the day the Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who had recently married the Duke of Cumberland’s sister, Princess Elizabeth, visited the Duchess at her home.
The Cumberlands were not expected to have further issue due to the Duchess’ age. The Duke’s brother, Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex, was also a non-starter in the marriage-cum-heirs race. In 1793, he married Lady Augusta Murray, in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act. This meant that his marriage was not valid in England. His wife and two children, Augustus and Augusta, had no titles and were not eligible for the succession to the throne, nor could Augustus inherit his father’s dukedom.
George III’s seventh son, Prince Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge, was single as well. He was the youngest surviving son, which meant that his sisters and their descendants would follow in the succession. Suffice to say, the sisters had no issue, apart from Princess Charlotte, the Princess Royal, who was 30 when she married in 1897 to the future King Friedrich I of Württemberg. The following year she gave birth to a stillborn daughter. Princess Augusta was not permitted to marry her cousin, the Danish crown prince, or her lover, soldier Brent Spencer. Princess Elizabeth, known as Fatima in the family because “she was born fat, and through every illness, of which she had many, she never lost flesh,” was 48 years old when she married in 1818, in spite of her mother’s determination to keep her single, the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.
Princess Mary married her first cousin, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, in 1816, when both were already 40. The youngest daughter, Sophia, never married, although she was the mother of an illegitimate son, Thomas Garth, born in 1800, the result of her liaison with Captain Thomas Garth.
If none of George III's children had legitimate issue, the crown would eventually pass to the descendants of George III's sister, Augusta, who had married the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
It was an inauspicious time for the British royal family. Charlotte’s death brought the succession crisis into focus. Members of Parliament were tired and disappointed by the Princes' behavior and their rising debts. The rising revenues were of great concern. “To these expectations their application for a provision to the Princes upon certain mediated royal marriages is a very unpleasant answer, and will disappoint, in a great degree, the hopes which the nation had conceived of them. In making such demands upon the national purse, the ministers certainly appear to feel more for the court than the people. It has too much of the air of flattering the Prince Regent and Royal Family, at the public expense.”
In other words, Parliament was tightening the purse strings. The Members had to see more action and less gambling if they were to consider providing more funds to the princes. At this time, however, Parliament did not have an issue with providing an allowance to the Duchess of Cumberland as this “originated in a just and honorable feeling of the House, and the country will concur in it.” This vote must have been taken soon after the second stillbirth.
In 1811, the Duke of Clarence, who was deep in debt, dumped Mrs. Dorothy Jordan -- the mother of his ten children in order to find a more suitable wife. He proposed six times to heiress Catherine Tylney-Long, and six times she said no. Catherine was the daughter of Sir James Tylney-Long, 7th Baronet, and was known as the “Wiltshire heiress.” It was her inheritance (worth the modern equivalent of £two million) that interested the deeply in debt Duke.
Princess Anne of Denmark and Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg also rebuffed him. The Duke of Clarence was a desperate man in need of a royal dating service. So near the throne, yet no woman wanted to marry him.
In his book, Royal Dukes, Roger Fulford wrote that in 1805 all of the younger Royal Dukes, including the Dukes of Kent, Cumberland, Cambridge and Sussex, were given a lump of £20,000 from the “droits of the Admiralty.” A year later, Parliament raised their grants to £18,000 a year. The Duke of Kent was able to supplement this grant with income from “his post as Governor-General of Gibraltar, his military pay and the rangership of Hampton Court.” His annual income was £24,000, but by 1807, the Duke of Kent was in debt for more than £200,000.
Although he would never admit it, the Duke of Kent’s lifestyle was extravagant. He “pestered” Parliament to give him the same preferential treatment that Parliament gave to the Dukes of York and Clarence when they wanted their debts to be paid. Naturally, Parliament would not budge. The Duke of Kent was forced to use half his income to pay interest on his loans. He also had to cut his mistress, Julie St. Laurent's, income from £1000 to £400 per year.
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Perhaps the most eligible of all the royal dukes was the Duke of Cambridge, as he did not have a mistress or illegitimate children. He fell in love with Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, whom he had picked out as the perfect choice for Clarence. The second cousins were married first at Kassel in Hesse on May 7, 1818, and then again, on June 1, at Buckingham Palace.
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Prince Adolphus, however, was not seen as a primary player in the marriage/succession race as he was George III’s seventh son.
A Cambridge line would certainly add to the succession dynamics.
Not long after Charlotte’s death, the Duke of Kent and Julie St. Laurent – known as Madame – were having breakfast when Madame became agitated, pointing to an article in the newspaper she was reading. Focusing on the succession crisis, the editorial called for the Duke of Kent to marry.
Edward was aware of the situation. He knew that neither the Prince Regent nor the Duke of York and Albany were estranged from their wives, and if the Duke of Clarence did not marry, he was next in the line of succession. “God only knows
what sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall think it is my duty to become a married man.” His relationship with Julie St. Laurent had lasted for nearly 28 years, but now duty came before pleasure. Madame agreed to end the relationship and enter a convent.
The Duke already had a wife in mind. As early as October 1816, Edward had considered Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg and Saafeld, the sister of Prince Leopold, as his wife. But she could not make up her mind. In January 1818, the Duke of Kent wrote to Victoire and her brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Saafeld, making clear “his intention of asking for her hand.” Victoire’s mother wrote in her diary that Victoire had not been able to make up her mind, “ but now she is much inclined to accept and looks forward calmly to a new life.”
Victoire was 31 years old, the widow of Carl, Prince of Leiningen, and the mother of two young children, Carl, the Prince of Leiningen, and Princess Feodora, when she accepted the Duke of Kent’s proposal. Family connections proved important. No longer the consort of the heiress presumptive, Leopold had the opportunity to perhaps be the uncle of a future sovereign.
Edward and Victoria were married in a Lutheran ceremony on May 29, 1818, at Schloss Ehrenburg in Coburg. This marriage was followed by an Anglican service on July 11 at Kew Palace in the presence of Queen Charlotte.
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The hunt for a suitable bride who would be of childbearing age – and accept that the Duke of Clarence was the father of nine surviving illegitimate children, several of whom were still minors. William was quite surprised when Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen accepted his proposal of marriage. She was already 25 years old, and suitors were few and far between. A marriage with a British prince, 27 years her senior, whose reputation was known throughout the Continent, was better than no marriage at all.
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