Royal births should be happy events, a cause for proclamations and national celebrations. However, more than 200 years ago this month, a highly anticipated royal birth in Regency England ended in a tragedy that rocked the nation and set off a race to produce a legitimate heir to the crown.
Before we get into that, though, we have to start with a royal wedding.
In May of 1816, Princess Charlotte, daughter and only child of the Prince Regent, cajoled her father into allowing her to marry the man of her own choosing, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. It was a joyous occasion that led to what was by all accounts a happy marriage, though it was all too brief.
There was more good news for the royal couple soon after their marriage. By the fall of 1817 Charlotte and Leopold were expecting a child.
Charlotte went into labor on November 5. But then something went terribly wrong. The baby, a boy, was stillborn. And several hours later, at 2:30 a.m. on November 6, Charlotte herself died. She was only 21 years old.
This event shocked not only the Prince Regent but the kingdom as well, plunging the whole country into mourning. Everyone grieved for the young princess; linen drapers sold out of their stock of black cloth and even the poor wore black armbands.
The Lord Chamberlain ordered widespread mourning attire for the court, decreeing that ladies were to wear black bombazine and muslin, with black crepe accessories. Gentlemen had to wear black clothes and plain cravats, with black accessories all the way down to their shoe buckles.
Two months of deepest mourning were observed before ladies of the court were permitted to transition to half-mourning, which included black silk garments with white accessories and grey dresses. It took several more months before these mourning rules were lifted and bright colors and luxurious fabrics could be worn once again.
However, the deaths of Princess Charlotte and her son were more than a tragedy for those who loved her; it meant that the line of succession was broken, which became a serious problem for the future of the monarchy.
The Prince Regent was 55 when his daughter died and he had no other heirs. He was unhappily married to Caroline of Brunswick and could barely tolerate the sight of his wife. The odds of their union producing another royal heir were nil.
To make matters worse, none of his equally middle-aged brothers had legitimate heirs, though some of them had sired plenty of illegitimate children. This situation propelled a rush to produce a suitable royal heir, preferably male.
The Prince Regent had fourteen brothers and sisters; the ones most involved in the race to beget an heir were the Prince’s eldest brothers: Frederick, William and Edward.
Frederick, who’d been married since 1791, had no children.
The other two men did their best to answer the royal call of duty and secure the succession. In 1818 William and Edward dismissed their respective mistresses and got married.
Only Edward’s marriage produced a child, but the baby born in 1819 was a girl. However, as time went on, it became clear that she would have to suffice.
When the Prince Regent became King George IV in 1820 and later died in 1830, he was succeeded by his brother William, the former Duke of Clarence, who was 64 years old. (The next in line to the throne, Frederick, had died three years earlier in 1827.)
And since William IV had no legitimate heirs (although he had 10 illegitimate children with his mistress, the actress Dorothea Jordan) when he died in 1837 the only legitimate heir that could be scrounged up was that girl, Edward’s daughter, now 18 years old. Edward himself had died in 1820.
You may have heard of her. Her name was Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, and as Queen Victoria she went on to reign longer than any previous British monarch. Victoria’s reign lasted 63 years, a record that remained unbroken until 2022 when her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, accumulated 70 years on the throne.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert produced nine children, 42 grandchildren and 87 great-grandchildren. Victoria and Albert (while he was alive) arranged marriages for their nine children to various offspring of European royalty, and those children went on to bear royal children of their own, who in turn also found titled spouses on the Continent.
As a result of Queen Victoria’s matchmaking efforts, by the end of the 19th century most of the royal families of Europe and Great Britain were related in some way to each other, earning Queen Victoria the nickname “Grandmother of Europe.”
Today, one of Queen Victoria’s descendants is Prince George of Wales, who is her fifth great-grandson. He is the grandson of King Charles III (Victoria’s third great-grandson) and the son of Charles’s son and heir, Prince William (who is Victoria’s fourth great-grandson).
Someday 10-year-old Prince George may crowned as yet another King George, just like his ancestor the Prince Regent. And that honor will come to him largely because of a double royal tragedy two centuries ago that led to a teenager being crowned Queen of England and the creation of an enduring legacy.
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Sources for this post include:
- Laudermilk, Sharon and Hamlin, Teresa L., The Regency Companion, Garland Publishing Inc., New York & London, 1989.
- Priestley, J.B., The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency 1811-20, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, 1969.
Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Great article.