Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817)

[Marengo]

why on earth would George IV want to annul his daughters right of succession?

--
I believe that the princess wasn't too impressed with Willem's skinny legs btw. .

 

[Vasillisos Markos]

why on earth would George IV want to annul his daughters right of succession?

--
I believe that the princess wasn't too impressed with Willem's skinny legs btw. .

Could this just be Caroline of Brunswick using any excuse, and a means of slamming her husband, to keep Charlotte in the country and out of a marriage Caroline opposed? History shows that Caroline and the Prince Regent were at loggerheads and I imagine they both leveled any accusation, true or false, at each other to exact revenge or to engage in petty spite.

 

[Grandduchess24]

She would have been Queen of England hadn't she died but Victoria was born and the British royal family continued from there
Imagine it would have been
Queen Charlotte of England and prince consort Leopold of Saxe Coburg ...

 

[hrhjmb]

Princess Charlotte of Wales

Looking for a good biography about Princess Charlotte of Wales. Anybody have any recommendations?

 

[DeLorean]

Charlotte's grandmother survived 15 pregnancies, unfortunately for Charlotte she did not have the same luck, even though she had much better luck at finding a happy marriage than her parents!

 

[sally1234]

This is really tragic! I hate hearing people dying at a young age :/

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

I personally feel more sympathy for Charlotte because of having to live through the war between her parents and being secluded by her father.

 

[Florencia]

The sadness of Charlotte
Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | Express Yourself :: The sadness of Charlotte

 

[Tiara66]

I've always been intruiged by the short and tragic life of Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of George IV and Caroline of Brunswick. Her story is not widely known. Charlotte was the best thing that came out of George's and Caroline's catastrophic marriage. But she suffered greatly as the pawn in her parent's never-ending battles and she was deprived of a normal family life until her happy marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the future King Leopold I of Belgium. But her joy was cut short when she gave birth to a stillborn son and died soon after of post-partum complications at the age of 21. Had Charlotte lived, she, not her cousin Victoria, would have become Queen.

I've only found one biography of Charlotte from the 1950's which is mystifying. With all the intrigue, drama, a love match marriage, and her sudden death mourned throughout Britain, Charlotte's life is rich and complex. I also think that Charlotte's story is ripe for a film adaptation. Were I the producer or writer, I would title it "The Lost Princess". How do my other Forum members feel about this forgotten Royal?

 

[Artemisia]

There is a thread dedicated to her - Princess Charlotte, tragic daughter of George IV.
I always thought hers is one of the greatest "what if" cases in British history. What if she or her child survived? That would change not only British but also Belgian history because Leopold would not, in that case, be among the candidates to become King of the newly-founded Belgian Kingdom (his candidacy would almost certainly be vetoed by France and the Netherlands).

Her death was mourned throughout the Kingdom. According to Henry Brougham, "It really was as though every household throughout Great Britain had lost a favourite child".

 

[Tiara66]

Another "what if" case involving Charlotte is the hemophilia question. If Charlotte had lived to become Queen and give birth to a healthy heir, would the dread disease have struck so many royal families? From what I've read, Queen Victoria is generally thought to be the source of hemophilia which she passed onto her son Prince Leopold, and her daughters Princesses Alice and Beatrice. Of course this would have tragic consequences for several royal houses, including Russia and Spain.

 

[Hayli]

I am very interested in the story of Princess Charlotte and although it's been a while since anyone posted on this topic I thought I would just add to it.

I doubt that Queen Victoria would actually have been conceived had Charlotte not died. She was the only legitimate heir of all King George's 13 surviving children. Once she died, the other sons were all offered money to pay off their debts if they provided an heir to the throne.

I also doubt that Leopold would have been elected King of the Belgians had Charlotte survived.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

When Prince Leopold was married to Princess Charlotte, did he have any English royal or nobility title?

 

[Mariel]

I am answering some questions way back in this thread, because I have never read it before, and because I know something about porphyria.
Charlotte should not have been on a strict diet if she had porphyria. If she did not show symptoms of this disease before she was pregnant, the diet the doctor put her on could have precipitated an "attack". Also, giving her phlebotomies for the same general purpose as the diet, to lose weight, is a hare-brained scheme at best. Phlebotomies today are given for specific medical needs--but in the past doctors may not have realized what these needs were, such as having Polycythemia Vera or Hemachromatosis (in the first case, too many red cells in the blood, in the latter case too great iron stores). So she was weakened for nothing, as was George Washington, who was given too many phlebotomies. Phlebotomy is today given for only one type of porphyria, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, which was not the typical royal weakness.

If she had stomach pains during her pregnancy this would be a primary symptom of a porphyria attack, if nothing "else" was wrong with the digestive tract. Spasms in the digestive tract, caused by "poisoning" of the nerves by excess production of porphyrins, may be a primary cause of abdominal pain in porphyria. This is why it is hard to diagnose, like many disease which affect nerves.
Not all people who have porphyria have acute mental problems like George III. They are more likely to have subtle emotional problems, including depression. But yes, emotional upset+abdominal pain+tachycardia (fast pulse) are primary symptoms of most hepatic porphyria attacks, but this is not ALWAYS the case, so again the disease becomes elusive to diagnose. In more advanced cases of porphyria, there will usually be neuropathy from permanent nerve damage, causing spasticity (stiffness and pain) in muscles plus other neuropathy symptoms such as double vision, blurry vision. The patient may have bad nights from all of these things ganging up.

If Princess Charlotte had porphyria, the alcohol she was given would be another extreme porphyria trigger. It is no wonder that she developed a weak pulse from all of these triggers.

People who are properly diagnosed and treated (primarily treated by avoidance of triggers) may live almost normal lives--but unfortunately not enough is known by the general public or doctors.

 

[Ish]

When Prince Leopold was married to Princess Charlotte, did he have any English royal or nobility title?

I don't believe so, however he was elevated to being a Royal Highness in the UK during his marriage. On his own, he was just a Serene Highness until he became King of the Belgians.

 

[Mariel]

The Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father, lived at least twenty-three years with a woman who was called Julie St. Laurent. Her father was a French baron and her mother was a descendant of a noble Italian family, the Colonnas. She was a Catholic, however, an impediment which stopped more than one of George III's sons from having heir-giving marriages, and she is said to have had a daughter from a first marriage, who lived with Edward and Julie when they were in Canada, while he was the governor of a province there. In London, Julie lived apart from Edward and was not befriended by the royal women. She led a lonely life and was abandoned, perforce, when Edward had to marry a German cousin in order to produce an heir, after the passing of Princess Charlotte, the only remaining legitimate heir.
There were MANY heirs of George III if one took into account the illegitimate ones. There was even one illegitimate heir of one of George III's daughters who survived to adulthood.

Did Edward and Julie have children? It is claimed that they had one or more, the first one being Robert Woods, who was raised by Edward's aide Robert Woods (hence the name) in Kent. I had an ancestor Robert Woods in Kent, and looked into that genealogy through the Mormon genealogy register, but my Robert Woods was not of the same generation as Edward and Julie's son; besides this, the Mormon registry lists over a thousand Robert Woods, one of whom was the canon of the Chapel Royal at Windsor.

So Charlotte was a legitimate heir in a virtual sea of illegitimate ones--who were not even called heirs.

 

[Iluvbertie]

So Charlotte was a legitimate heir in a virtual sea of illegitimate ones--who were not even called heirs.

They weren't regarded as heirs as to be an heir one has to be legitimately born so George III had only one heir in the second generation until very late in his reign.

Had he had no legitimate grandchildren the throne would have passed down the line of his children and then to one of his brother's children as none of his illegitimate grandchildren were heirs to the throne or their father's titles.

Even today a claimant must be legitimately born.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

In January 1813 just after she had celebrated her seventeenth birthday, Princess Charlotte was told that her new governess was to be the Duchess of Leeds.
Charlotte was furious. No girl of seventeen had a governess. She was a Princess.
Princess Charlotte believed she ought to have ladies-in-waiting.
​

At dawn on the wedding day of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, May 2nd, 1816, crowds began to assemble outside Clarence House and all along the Mall between Carlton House and Buckingham House. The ceremony was not due to take place until nine o'clock in the evening.
​

 

[GracieGiraffe]

I often wonder what the BRF would be like had Charlotte not died. We will never know.

Victoria would never have been born; that is a given. I'm not sure we'd have had Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, mother of Queen Mary either.

 

[Iluvbertie]

None of the younger brothers of George IV would have felt compelled to marry in all likelihood although someone would possibly have realized that Charlotte couldn't inherit Hannover and so a son would be needed by one of them - maybe the Cambridge's although more likely the Cumberland's.

 

[Ish]

I often wonder what the BRF would be like had Charlotte not died. We will never know.

Victoria would never have been born; that is a given. I'm not sure we'd have had Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, mother of Queen Mary either.

You bring up an interesting point and have got me thinking.

It's not just the BRF that would be different, but roughly half the thrones of Europe, and even potentially the whole world.

If Charlotte hadn't died there would have been no reason for her uncles William, Edward, or Adolphus to get married and have children (her uncle Ernest Augustus was already married and likely would have still had children).

There aren't huge implications for William not having married as he didn't have any children in his marriage, but Adolphus' line continues to exist today, and not just through the descendants of Mary of Teck (although without her we wouldn't have the current BRF).

Even bigger though is what the world would be like without Victoria. No Edward VII or any of his descendants. Which means no modern BRF and no modern Norweigan Royals (who descend from Edward's daughter, Maud).

No Victoria, and then there's no Wilhelm II of Germany - and thus potentially no World War I. You have to wonder how the world would be shaped without that one. Furthermore, Wilhelm's sister married Constantine I of Greece, so the shape of the modern Greek Royal Family would be changed - three of her sons became King of Greece, and her grandson was the last king/current pretender. One of her daughters married into the Romanian Royal Family and was the mother of the last king/current pretender.

Another one of Victoria's daughters, Alice, was the mother of another Victoria, who married into the Battenberg-turned-Mountbatten family, meaning no Lord Mountbatten, no Prince Phillip, and no Louise Mounbatten, Queen Consort of Sweden. Alice was also the mother of Alix of Hesse who married Nicholas II of Russia and introduced hemophilia to the Romanovs. Gotta wonder how history would have been different had Nicholas married someone else.

Victoria's son, Alfred, had a daughter, Marie, who gave birth to a King of Romania (Carol II), a Queen of Greece (Helen), and a Queen of Yugoslavia (Maria). The modern Romanian and Yugoslavian Royal Families descend from her. Another of Alfred's daughters married Cyril Vladimirovich and is the grandmother of everyone's favourite claimant to the throne of Russia, Maria Vladimirovna.


Another son of Victoria, Arthur, fathered a daughter (Margaret) who married the King of Sweden, and the modern SRF descends from them. Also descending from them is Margrethe II of Denmark and Anne-Marie, Queen Consort to Constantine II of Greece.

Victoria's youngest child, Beatrice, was the mother of Victoria Eugenie, Queen Consort of Spain and wife of Alfonso XIII. Juan Carlos I is their grandson, so there goes the current Spanish Royal Family.

But there are other implications too. The Belgium Royal Family is not descended from Queen Victoria, but they are descended from Leopold I of Belgium. Leopold was Charlotte's husband, and likely would have never became King of Belgium had Charlotte lived - and certainly wouldn't have fathered any of his children, including the son from whom the Royal Family descends, as they were all born to his second wife.

The other interesting aspect is the Kingdom of Hanover itself. If Charlotte had survived then she would have been the first woman in a position to inherit the throne - as history went, no Hanoverian monarch had only a daughter to inherit his titles. The only woman to come close (at that point) was Victoria - but it wasn't really in her uncle's interest to change the law of succession so that his niece could inherit all his titles over his brother. Had Charlotte lived into her father's reign, however, it may have been more in George's interest to have that changed - he surely would have preferred his child, even a daughter, to inherit his throne in Hanover over his brother.

If the Hanoverian throne hadn't been separated from the British one then you have to wonder would German unification have happened under a Prussian dominance? And if it hadn't happened under the Prussians, who would it have happened, or would it have happened at all? How would 20th century history have turned out had it not happened?

 

[Ish]

None of the younger brothers of George IV would have felt compelled to marry in all likelihood although someone would possibly have realized that Charlotte couldn't inherit Hannover and so a son would be needed by one of them - maybe the Cambridge's although more likely the Cumberland's.

Three of George's younger brothers wouldn't have been compelled to marry - William, Edward, and Adolphus.

Two of George's younger brothers had married before Charlotte's death - Frederick in 1791 and Ernest Augustus in 1815. Ernest Augustus likely would have still ensured the future of the Hanoverian throne had Charlotte lived and George not taken moves to allow his daughter to inherit over his brother.

 

[Tarlita]

You are quite right Ish; The 20th century would have had a very different history if Charlotte had lived. Also there may not have been a Russian revolution as the last Tsarina Alexandra was the daughter of Alice a daughter of Queen Victoria.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Before he married Princess Charlotte, in Brighton Prince Leopold spent several hours each day learning English, at which his vocabulary and grammar were soon much better than his pronunciation.
​

Princess Charlotte asked her Aunt Mary what she thought of Prince Leopold.
Princess Mary remarked: "From what I saw of him, he was good looking. A very gentlemanlike young man."
​

Princess Charlotte's aunt, Princess Sophia felt that Prince Leopold would not do as a husband for Charlotte.
Princess Sophia's reason was that Leopold, according to her, did not have any money.
​

 

[casualfan]

You are quite right Ish; The 20th century would have had a very different history if Charlotte had lived. Also there may not have been a Russian revolution as the last Tsarina Alexandra was the daughter of Alice a daughter of Queen Victoria.

I don't understand-the revolution in Russia was due to a lot of factors other than the Tsarina being a descendant of Victoria.

 

[Ish]

I don't understand-the revolution in Russia was due to a lot of factors other than the Tsarina being a descendant of Victoria.

The revolution would have changed in a lot of ways without Victoria.

If memory serves - and it's been awhile since I read up on the matter - a big part of what pushed Britain and Russia into allying with France in the early 20th century was the German Kaiser - himself a grandson of Queen Victoria. He and his policies weren't well liked.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand would likely have happened without Victoria's existence, as would the reprisal situation between Austria and Serbia. But, if Wilhelm II hadn't been on the German throne it's possible that the situation wouldn't have exploded as it did, preventing World War One.

While a revolution in Russia was inevitable - Russia and its monarchy weren't modernizing fast enough to keep up with the rest of the world, necessitating revolution - and Nicholas II really wasn't suited for his task, there are a lot of what-ifs that occur here.

Without the War, a big push for the revolution - Russia's military failures under the leadership of the Tsar - would have been removed. This would have drastically altered the revolution, and likely could have prevented the second, Bolshevik revolution. Without the Bolshevik revolution, the USSR would have never been formed and the Romanovs wouldn't have been executed.

But there's more. By marrying Alix, Nicholas found himself a wife who encouraged him to not change the way he ruled - at a time when he needed to be changing. He found a wife who was associated with people, like Rasputin, who did the monarchy a disservice simply through association. He found a wife who carried within her genes an incurable disease that was passed on to his only son and heir.

 

[Beberoyal]

I finished reading "Princesses" today, a book about the daughters of George III (Charlotte's grandfather.) What a sad life most of them lived...he would not permit them to marry. Finally the eldest, known as Royal, was allowed, at age thirty, but she was the only one who married until many years later, when past child-bearing age. At least two of the daughters fell in love with men they never would be allowed to marry, and these two remained single their entire lives. And then once their father had his first episode of illness, their mother the queen changed completely, from a charming, busy loving mother to a short-tempered mean-spirited and spiteful woman. This atmosphere last for decades.

Hard to imagine that if Charlotte had lived, Victoria would never have existed. Or even if Charlotte had lived a few more years, since Victoria's father died less than a year after her birth.

 

[sarahedwards2]

Princess Charlotte, tragic daughter of George IV (1796-1817)

Almost four years ago, one of the girls on my school's volleyball team, Rachel, was killed in a tragic car accident at the same age, 21, and she was seven months pregnant with a baby girl whom she had named Kaylee Elaine (Elaine after her mother). She had just finished her fourth and final year with the team that March, and they won a bronze medal at provincials. They retired her number 5 jersey, had it framed, and displayed it at every home game the next season. Her sister Kristin just finished her four years at age 22 this February, along with the other three rookies that started the season after Rachel died (they didn't make the playoffs this year).

In memory of Rachel Marie (and unborn Kaylee Elaine) VanHartingsveldt; December 19, 1988 - May 3, 2010

Never Alone

 

[Mirabel]

I finished reading "Princesses" today, a book about the daughters of George III (Charlotte's grandfather.) What a sad life most of them lived...

Ironic, isn't it? The King and Queen always attempted to display themselves as such a perfect family, but the sons became dissolute rakes and the daughters embittered spinsters.
You have to wonder what George III was thinking!

(Perhaps it was a case of the dog in the manger, since he himself was not allowed to marry his first love, Sarah Lennox).

 

[Ish]

I always thought that the way his children were treated in respects to prospective marriages was owing more to a combination of the less than favourable results of the marriages of George's siblings (particularly Caroline Matilda) and George's own mental instability.

Under the Royal Marriages Act, George's children couldn't marry without his permission. He didn't want to ship his daughters off to foreign courts to be mistreated, and I don't think his sons really cared about marrying the "right" women. As such, the sons took mistresses and the daughters remained unmarried (at least for the most part). Whatever desire to seek out appropriate marriages that wouldn't result in his daughters becoming like his sisters that George had was negated by his mental instability - he couldn't find them brides while insane.