Queen Victoria is one of the most famous monarchs in history. Her reign of 63 years was the longest in the history of the United Kingdom until Queen Elizabeth II surpassed her, reigning 68 years and counting. Her name is synonymous with an entire time period. Surely there was never an individual that made such an impact on a country, if not the world.
But what if that had never happened? What if she never came to the throne? What if the original heir presumptive had lived to take the throne? And most importantly, how would the world have been different? This is an examination of those scenarios and how one death changed the entire world.
Denise Tubbs starts this series by telling us of the tragic death of Princess Charlotte of Wales.
Princess Charlotte of Wales and her husband Prince Leopold. By George Dawe.
Her name was Charlotte. Princess Charlotte to be formal. She was the only daughter of King George IV and his wife Caroline of Brunswick. To say that her parents were in a loveless marriage didn’t quite cover the whole story. Prior to George’s ascension to the throne, he had been a party boy. He despised his father and used any chance he could get to live and spend his money. But as George III got older, he pressured his son to marry and have an heir. With him being the Prince of Wales, it was his duty. He was forced to marry Princess Caroline, Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel; a woman he found utterly undesirable in every way. Now there is a rumor that George had already been married and that his new marriage to Caroline was invalid. You see George had a love and her name was Maria Fitzherbert. The two of them had been in a torrid affair long before Caroline entered the picture. But there was a problem with Maria. She was a Catholic. And for those unfamiliar with English history, that’s not a good thing. The Church of England is a Protestant church; and its head is the reigning monarch. There were rules that forbade Protestants and Catholics from marrying. After a time of being together, it is suspected that the two were married in a Catholic ceremony held in secret. If it were true it would have thrown the succession and the state of the country into question. There has never been any confirmation of this, but his treatment of Caroline was downright horrible. Caroline’s story is a sad one, and she wouldn’t live long enough to see the events that later transpired.
The feeling was mutual on Caroline’s part. She hated George. After the wedding night, the two never found each other in the same bed. But at least one thing came of the wedding night. Charlotte was born just after the new year in 1796. Now that he had an heir, George felt his duty was fulfilled. Little did he know or realize that his father George III would eventually descend into madness. His madness was called “the madness of King George.” At the time, no one understood what caused the old king to lose all his faculties. His illness would later be a fear to all those descended from him. Every monarch after him feared that they too would get the madness. Later on, the theory was that his madness was based on the disease of Porphyria. Whether or not there is any truth is still debated to this day.
George became more and more involved in the day-to-day responsibilities for his father until the old King died in 1820. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. So much happened in the five years before the old king passed away that changed the history of the world.
Charlotte grows up
As Charlotte became older, naturally she was told she would be wed to someone of equal stature. She had many suitors to choose from. She was introduced to William, Hereditary Prince of Orange, who did not make the best impression on her. There was a rumor that her father got a hold too that Charlotte wanted to marry Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. This would be problematic since they were closely related. Prince William Frederick and Charlotte were both grandchildren of George III. This would make them first cousins, a bit too close in the bloodline. Her father was against this and berated her for even thinking of the notion.
She eventually settled on a young Prince, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. He was a German who had fought with Russia against Napoleon. They married in 1816, and she became pregnant with their first child soon after. On November 3, 1817 she went into labor. Up until that moment, Charlotte had what seemed to be a normal pregnancy. But it became apparent soon after that not all was right. She was having trouble pushing the child out, and time was passing quickly. On November 5 she finally gave birth to a stillborn son. Charlotte was exhausted after the ordeal and her doctors confirmed that the Princess was doing well.
Tragedy
However, the situation was far from ok. On November 6, Charlotte woke up to sickness. She vomited and held her abdomen in pain. The doctors were recalled to her bedside, while others rushed to wake Prince Leopold. The Prince, who had stayed with his wife throughout the previous days, was given opium and had gone to bed to rest. The doctor noticed she was clammy, cold, and bleeding. He could not stop the bleeding despite his efforts. By now Charlotte was having difficulty breathing, and they were having trouble waking the Prince. Sir Christian Stockmar, who was the primary doctor of Prince Leopold, had run into the room to see the Princess. She said the words “they have made me tipsy.” Sir Richard turned to go back to the Prince when the Princess shouted at him “Stocky, Stocky!” He returned to the room to find that the Princess was dead.
Charlotte’s death sent shockwaves across the country. Only during the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, some 180 years later had there been this amount of grief in the nation. You could say that she was the Diana of her day. Adored by all, and a loss of not just to the Royal Family but the country too. Shops were closed for days, commemorative trinkets were produced in her memory, and windows and doors were draped in black. Her father was distraught with grief. So distraught, he could not even go to her funeral. They say her death changed him forever; he was never the same after. She is buried with her son in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
But there was one more thing that her death caused. A vacuum had been opened. And soon it would be large enough to have all of George III’s sons scrambling to find wives. Now that Charlotte was gone, there was no heir. She had been the only legitimate child of the Hanover dynasty. When George became King in 1820, a race began to see which of George III’s sons would have a legitimate child.
Next up, we’ll discuss the other sons of George III and just how weak Charlotte’s death made the monarchy.
Now, read part 2 here: What if Queen Victoria never made it to the Throne? Part 2 - The Many Sons of George III
What do you think the legacy is of Princess Charlotte of Wales? Let us know below.
