George III is most famous for being on the throne when England lost its American colonies,
and for eventually becoming mentally unstable in his later years. But also
notable was his marriage to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,
which resulted in 15 children. Did they all lead interesting lives? You bet.
Less than a year after they were married,
King George III and Queen Charlotte welcomed their first child. Since it was a boy,
they christened him George as well, and he would indeed go on to become George IV.
But young George would end up taking over long before his dad died in 1820. By 1811,
it was clear that the spells of mental instability that had come
and gone earlier in George III's life were becoming much more regular. His eldest son,
then the Prince of Wales, was appointed regent for the next decade.
George IV was nicknamed "Prinny," according to Westminster Abbey. He was obsessed with fashion,
food, women, and alcohol, and also liked spending money.
"How do you look soooo fabulous? George? You are worth it!"
It was only after living with a mistress for most of his adult
life and having many illegitimate children that he
agreed to marry someone appropriate… only so Parliament would pay off his huge debts.
Unfortunately, he and Princess Caroline of Brunswick hated each other from day one.
Their wedding night produced their only child, and they lived apart after that. George died in 1830.
The second son of the monarch is traditionally styled the Duke of York,
which is why that's Prince Andrew's title today. But while the modern Duke
of York was stripped of his honorary military titles for association with Jeffery Epstein,
Prince Frederick lost his role as Commander-in-Chief of the British
Army in 1809 because it was discovered his mistress was selling commissions.
What does that mean? In a nutshell, people paid her to make sure they got promoted. Frederick's
involvement was unclear, but officially, Parliament found he'd done nothing wrong.
Since Frederick's older brother George wasn't doing much to shore up the line
of succession with a bunch of kids, everyone was relying on George's only legitimate child,
Princess Charlotte. When she died in childbirth in 1817, Frederick became his brother's heir. All
Fredrick needed to do was outlive George and he'd be king — which he failed to do, dying in 1827.
Frederick had no children of his own since he didn't like his wife,
Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia,
either. The Royal Collection Trust says they lived separately soon after their marriage.
For most of his life, Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews,
would have never expected to get anywhere near the throne. But George and Frederick's
distaste for their wives meant they only had one legitimate child between them,
and when both his older brothers and his niece died before him, William became king in 1830.
Since he was considered very much a "spare" in the royal succession,
he had a bit more freedom: At just 13 years old,
William joined the Royal Navy. He traveled the world and even fought in the American Revolution.
The BBC says he loved being a sailor and was eventually promoted to Admiral of the Fleet.
After he retired in 1791, William came back to England and settled down with a mistress.
Twenty years later, he left her and their 10 illegitimate
children to marry Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. Despite four pregnancies,
none of their children lived longer than 3 months. This meant when William died in 1837,
he was succeeded by his niece, who would become the illustrious Queen Victoria.
After three sons, George III and Queen Charlotte finally had a daughter in 1766,
whom they named after her mother. According to Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, she
was unofficially given the title "Princess Royal" at birth, before it was made official in her 20s.
George III made sure she got an education, spoke multiple languages, and spent a lot of time
with him. However, his love for her (and for his subsequent daughters) would backfire on them:
the Royal Collection Trust says that George really didn't want them to get married,
ever. He'd seen his sisters' disastrous marriages
and couldn't bear to see his girls end up as scorned and hated wives.
The spinster Charlotte would finally end up getting married at the age of 31 – the
first of George III's daughters to do so – to the widowed Prince Friedrich of Württemberg.
They had no children of their own.
George III belonged to the House of Hanover, named after the electorate in modern-day
Germany, which George I left when he was elevated to the British throne in 1714.
"Ya, ich liebe Deutschland." "Yes, I know you love Germany,
some would say for an English king, you spend rather too much time there."
“Was?"
"Nothing!"
George III would even be crowned King of Hanover in 1814,
although he never actually went there. But some of his children did, including Prince Edward,
who moved there when he was 18 and enlisted as a cadet in the Hanoverian Foot Guards.
The following year, he returned home to England and joined the British Army.
Unfortunately, due to an incident of being absent without leave and his use of harsh discipline,
Edward was sent to Canada as punishment in 1791.
Perhaps unexpectedly for a royal, Edward was liberal for the time. His views that slavery
was bad, Catholics had a right to worship as they wished, and the American colonies should
have freedom if they wanted it were extremely radical. He married in 1818, and the couple became
the parents of the future Queen Victoria: Edward died in 1820 when she was less than a year old.
George III enjoyed having a daughter so much once Charlotte,
Princess Royal was born that he was disappointed when their fifth
child was another boy. Fortunately for him, Princess Augusta Sophia did not disappoint.
Augusta received an education like her older sister, although
she could be a bit of a terror to her tutors. She was reportedly a handful:
She once wrote an apology letter addressing her own behavior ... which she signed in blood.
Many people noted how beautiful Augusta was, and she received a handful of
proposals from men who were acceptably important enough to marry a princess.
But her father had to approve of any offers of marriage, and he never did.
Unlike her older sister, Augusta would remain single her whole life, although there is some
evidence she had a secret relationship with an army general. She died in 1840, aged 71.
All the daughters of George III and Queen Charlotte were attractive,
but Elizabeth — born in 1770 — was not considered the prettiest of the bunch,
something it seems she was reminded of quite often. Fortunately,
she had a "determined personality," according to Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III.
Princess Elizabeth was extremely artistic and found many ways to express this talent. She
gifted books of intricate paper cutouts to friends, designed decorative panels
for one of the royal residences, and published two series of engravings.
Elizabeth, like her sisters, suffered from the king's wish that they not get married. In 1818,
two years before her father died and long after he lost the mental capacity to refuse,
her brother the Prince Regent gave the then 48-year-old Elizabeth permission
to marry Prince Friedrich of Hesse-Homburg.
Unlike England, The Kingdom of Hanover had laws requiring that their monarch be male.
That meant that in 1837 when William IV – also the then-King of Hanover – died,
his successor Queen Victoria could not also ascend to the dynasty's Germanic throne.
With his three other older brothers long dead, this meant Prince Ernest Augustus,
Duke of Cumberland, got the crown and moved to Hanover.
No one in England missed him. Called "the most hated man" in the country,
a review of Queen Victoria: A Portrait, in the Los Angeles Times addresses stories that
he murdered his valet and raped one of his sisters. It's worth mentioning that while
there is no solid proof, both these accusations are extremely credible.
It's not surprising then that the National Portrait Gallery reports
someone tried to assassinate the duke in 1810,
or that he left England for an entire decade from 1818 to 1828. He died in 1851.
Prince Augustus was openly for the abolition of slavery, but instead of just supporting the
religious rights of Catholics, Augustus was even more controversially a supporter of the Jewish
faith. He spoke in favor of lifting legal restrictions placed on Jewish people living
in England and became the patron of a hospital dedicated to helping Jewish children and families.
Augustus was well educated, with a massive library, an active interest in science,
and such a strong passion for theology that he considered getting ordained.
The duke got married not once but twice without asking the monarch's permission.
That made the unions illegal for a royal, which he was very aware of. While his first
marriage ended in an annulment, the second in 1831 held strong until his death in 1843.
Queen Victoria never knew her father, as he died when she was an infant,
but Prince Augustus played a fatherly role. The pair were very close, and he even gave Victoria
away at her marriage to Prince Albert.
According to the Royal Collection Trust, Prince Adolphus was the favorite son. Despite this,
he was sent away to Hanover when he was just 12 years old. He studied at a university there,
and at 16 joined the Hanoverian military. He saw real action while England was fighting a
post-revolution France at the end of the 18th century. During a battle in 1793,
he was wounded, captured, and then rescued.
A review of Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge–Steadfast Son of King George III,
1774-1850 hammers home the point that while most of the sons of George III were profligate,
Adolphus was the middle-of-the-road, level-headed guy you wanted in a crisis.
His ability to get people – from his family members to politicians – to maintain cooler heads
may have even stopped a rebellion in Hanover when he was viceroy there later in his life.
Every family has that member who takes on the "caregiver" role whenever a loved
one is sick or injured. In George III and Queen Charlotte's family,
that was Princess Mary. She was nurse to multiple members of the large brood,
including as the main caretaker for her younger sister Princess Amelia, who contracted
tuberculosis as a teenager. She also cared for her father after he became mentally unstable,
and stayed with him at Windsor Castle for years during the last decade of his life.
"Please, His Majesty must see that he's not well." "I suppose I have been a bit off-color."
Mary finally married in 1816, when she was 40. The groom was her cousin, Prince William Frederick,
Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. He turned out to be a terrible husband though,
often abandoning her for long periods. After he died, Mary seemed to come into her own, and she
enjoyed her life until 1857 when she became the last of George and Charlotte's children to die.
Princess Sophia was educated like her sisters but was much more sheltered than most of them.
According to the Royal Collection Trust, she was primarily Queen Charlotte's companion,
and never really saw people outside of the family and servants. Once her mother
died in 1818, Sophia got a little more freedom, but she never married.
There is, however, some evidence she got pregnant around 1800. The
father was said to be a servant in the employment of her father,
but there were rumors that Prince Ernest Augustus did rape one of his sisters,
and that it was Sophia who was the survivor of his assault. This has led to speculation
that if she gave birth to an illegitimate secret baby, it might have been a product of that rape.
Sophia died in 1848. Both she and Prince Augustus Frederick declined a burial with the rest of
their family. Instead, they were interred in the public Kensal Green Cemetery in London.
Born 19 months apart, sadly Prince Octavius and Prince Alfred would die just 8 months apart,
from the same cause. At a time when smallpox was rampant and could mean a death sentence
or disfigurement, Queen Charlotte insisted her children be inoculated. But inoculations
are not vaccines, and there was a small but real risk the patient could die.
Alfred, who had a heart defect, sadly passed away after his inoculation,
just a month shy of his second birthday. The next year, Octavius and Sophia were
also inoculated against smallpox. Sophia had no complications but sadly,
Octavius also became unwell and died within days, at the age of four.
They commissioned a painter to depict Alfred welcoming Octavius to heaven. The king hung it
in his dressing room at Windsor Castle, where he would have seen it every day.
George III and Queen Charlotte's 15th and last child, Princess Amelia was born after
her older brothers Princes Octavius and Alfred died. This meant she was
more than five years younger than the next oldest, Princess Sophia.
Amelia started showing symptoms of tuberculosis when she was 15 and went away to a seaside resort,
one of the few attempts at a cure that was available at the time.
While there, she fell in love with her chaperone,
Colonel Charles Fitzroy, and told one of her brothers that as far as she was concerned,
they were basically married, although she did want to marry him officially one day.
Unfortunately, that day would never come. Amelia was the king and queen's third child and first
daughter to die, aged 27, in 1810. Her father was at her death bed, although his mental state was
already disturbed, and her passing may have pushed him over the edge into his final bout of madness.
After her death, the king often spoke about her as if she was still alive.
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