Charlotte, Princess Royal

Charlotte of Great Britain
Princess Royal
Queen consort of Württemberg
Tenure	1 January 1806 – 30 October 1816
Spouse	Frederick of Württemberg
House	House of Hanover House of Württemberg
Father	George III of the United Kingdom
Mother	Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Born	29 September 1766(1766-09-29) Buckingham Palace
Died	5 October 1828(1828-10-05) (aged 62) Ludwigsburg Palace
Burial	Ludwigsburg Palace

British Royalty
House of Hanover
George III
George IV
Frederick, Duke of York
William IV
Charlotte, Queen of Württemberg
Edward, Duke of Kent
Princess Augusta Sophia
Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg
Ernest Augustus I of Hanover
Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex
Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
Mary, Duchess of Gloucester
Princess Sophia
Prince Octavius
Prince Alfred
Princess Amelia
Grandchildren
Charlotte, Princess Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Princess Charlotte of Clarence
Princess Elizabeth of Clarence
Victoria
George V, King of Hanover
George, Duke of Cambridge
Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck

The Princess Charlotte, Princess Royal (Charlotte Augusta Matilda; later Queen Charlotte of Württemberg; 29 September 1766 – 5 October 1828) was a member of the British Royal Family, the eldest daughter of George III. She was later the Queen Consort of Frederick of Württemberg. Charlotte was the third holder of the title Princess Royal.

Early life

The infant Charlotte, Princess Royal, in 1767 with her mother, Queen Charlotte

Princess Charlotte was born on 29 September 1766 at Buckingham Palace, London. Her father was the reigning British monarch, George III. Her mother was Queen Charlotte (née Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). She was christened on 27 October 1766 at St James's Palace, by The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Thomas Secker, and her godparents were The King and Queen of Denmark (her paternal aunt and her husband, for whom The Duke of Portland, Lord Chamberlain, and The Dowager Countess of Effingham, Lady of the Bedchamber to The Queen, stood proxy, respectively) and Princess Louisa (her paternal aunt).^[1]

As the daughter of the British monarch, Charlotte was styled HRH The Princess Charlotte at birth. She was styled HRH The Princess Royal from October 1766 and officially designated as such on 22 June 1789. After the birth of three sons in a row, her parents were delighted to have a Princess in the nursery. Until she was married, Charlotte was always called "Royal", instead of her given name. Like all of her siblings, Royal was inoculated in December 1768 along with her brother William. As the eldest daughter of the monarch, Royal was assumed to be destined for an important marriage on the Continent, and her education was considered to be of the utmost importance, beginning when she was only eighteen months old. Since French was the official language in every European Court, the little Princess was given a Frenchwoman to be her tutor, in order that she should have no accent. Her memory was another of her beginning subjects. She was taught to recite little verses and stories, and as a result had an almost uncanny ability to recall detail for the rest of her life. Her early childhood was not all scholarly pursuits. When she was almost three years old, she took place in her first tableau dressed like Columbine, where she danced with her seven-year-old brother the Prince of Wales. She was not a naturally musical child and later abhorred such displays of children, declaring that they made children vain and self-important. This did not stop her parents from continuing to show her off. In late 1769 she and the Prince of Wales were once again displayed, this time to the public in a "junior drawing room" in St. James' Palace. Royal was dressed in a Roman toga and lay on a sofa. Though this type of thing was common in German courts, it was considered vulgar in England, where in reaction a London mob drove a hearse into the Palace courtyard. Afterward, the Prince of Wales told Lady Mary Coke that the whole event had made little Royal "terribly tired." Wisely, the King and Queen decided to never repeat the experience.

Royal in 1769.

Though she was the oldest Princess, Royal was constantly compared to her sister Augusta Sophia, only two years younger than her. When Augusta was a month old, Lady Mary Coke called her "the most beautiful baby I have ever seen" while Royal was "very plain". Passing judgment once again three years later, Royal was now "the most sensible agreeable child I ever saw, but in my opinion far from pretty" while Augusta was still "rather pretty". Although Royal was never as beautiful as her younger sister, she did not share in Augusta's primary flaw: painful shyness, though Royal did suffer from a stammer that her attendant Miss Mary Dacres tried to help her young charge overcome. In 1770, the cluster of the three eldest Princesses was completed with the birth of Princess Elizabeth, the seventh child. For the time being the family remained comparatively small (there were fifteen royal children in all), and Royal was fortunate in having parents who preferred spending time with their numerous children to spending all their time at Court and took her education seriously. However, given the frequency with which children were being produced and the troubles that plagued George III's reign, Royal's childhood was not as utopian as her parents planned it to be.^[2]

Like her siblings, the Princess Royal was educated by tutors and spent most her childhood at Buckingham Palace, Kew Palace, and Windsor Castle, where her wet nurse was Frances wife of James Muttlebury.^[3]

Marriage

On 18 May 1797, the Princess Royal was married at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, London to The Hereditary Prince Frederick of Württemberg, the eldest son and heir apparent of Duke Frederick II Eugene of Württemberg and his wife, Margravine Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt.

The younger Frederick succeeded his father as the reigning Duke of Württemberg on 22 December 1797. Duke Frederick II had two sons and two daughters by his first marriage to the late Princess Augusta (3 December 1764 – 27 September 1788), the daughter of Duke Karl II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Princess Augusta of Great Britain (the elder sister of George III) and the elder sister of Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of the future George IV (then Prince of Wales). The marriage between Duke Frederick and the Princess Royal produced one child: a stillborn daughter on 27 April 1798.

Württemberg

In 1800, the French army occupied Württemberg and the Duke and Duchess fled to Vienna. The following year, Duke Frederick concluded a private treaty ceding Montbeliard to France and receiving Ellwanger in exchange two years later. He assumed the title Elector of Württemberg on 25 February 1803. In exchange for providing France with a large auxiliary force, Napoleon recognized the Elector as King of Württemberg on 26 December 1805. Electress Charlotte became Queen when her husband formally ascended the throne on 1 January 1806 and was crowned as such on the same day at Stuttgart, Germany. Württemberg seceded from the Holy Roman Empire and joined Napoleon's short-lived Confederation of the Rhine. However, the new elevated king's alliance with France technically made him the enemy of his father-in-law, George III. George III, incensed by his son-in-law's assumption of the title and his role of one of Napoleon's most devoted vassals, accordingly refused to address his daughter as "Queen of Württemberg" in correspondence. In 1813, King Frederick changed sides and went over the Allies, where his status as the brother-in-law of The Prince Regent (later George IV) helped his standing. After the fall of Napoleon, he attended the Congress of Vienna and was confirmed as King. He died in October 1816.

Dowager Queen

The Dowager Queen of Württemberg continued to live at the Ludwigsburg Palace, Stuttgart and received visits from her younger siblings, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Cambridge, the Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, and Princess Augusta Sophia. She was a godmother (by proxy) at the christening of her niece, Princess Victoria of Kent (the future Queen Victoria), in 1819. In 1827, she returned to Britain for the first time since her wedding in 1797 in order to have surgery for dropsy. She died at Ludwigsburg Palace the following year and is buried there in the royal vault.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 29 September 1766 – 22 June 1789: Her Royal Highness The Princess Charlotte
• 22 June 1789 – 18 May 1797: Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal

• In use practically from birth October 1766

• 18 May 1797 – 22 December 1797: Her Royal Highness The Hereditary Princess of Württemberg^[4]
• 22 December 1797 – 25 February 1803: Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Württemberg
• 25 February 1803 – 1 January 1806: Her Royal Highness The Electress of Württemberg
• 1 January 1806 – 30 October 1816: Her Majesty The Queen of Württemberg
• 30 October 1816 – 5 October 1828: Her Majesty Queen Dowager Charlotte of Württemberg

Arms

As a daughter of the sovereign, Charlotte had use of the arms of the kingdom, differenced by a label argent of three points, the centre point bearing a rose gules, the outer points each bearing a cross gules.^[5]

Ancestors

References

1. ^ Yvonne's Royalty Home Page: Royal Christenings
2. ^ Fraser, Flora (2005). Princesses: the six daughters of George III (1st American ed.). New York: Knopf. p. ^{[page needed]}. ISBN 978-0-679-45118-1. 
3. ^ Charlotte Louise Henrietta Papendiek (1887). Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte: Being the Journals of Charlotte Louise Henrietta Papendiek. London: R. Bentley & Son. p. 69. OL7150076M.  Available online from the Internet Archive.
4. ^ The London Gazette 23 May 1797
5. ^ Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family

Charlotte, Princess Royal House of Hanover Cadet branch of the House of Welf Born: 29 September 1766 Died: 5 October 1828
British royalty
Vacant Title last held by Princess Anne	Princess Royal 1766–1828	Vacant Title next held by Princess Victoria
German royalty
Preceded by Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt	Duchess Consort of Württemberg 1797–1803	Succeeded by Herself as Electress of Württemberg
Preceded by Herself as Duchess of Württemberg	Electress of Württemberg 1803–1805	Succeeded by Herself as Queen of Württemberg
Preceded by Herself as Electress of Württemberg	Queen Consort of Württemberg 1805–1816	Succeeded by Catherine Pavlovna of Russia

Persondata
Name	Charlotte, Princess Royal
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	29 September 1766
Place of birth	Buckingham Palace
Date of death	5 October 1828
Place of death	Ludwigsburg Palace