Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817)
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (January 7, 1796 - November 6, 1817) was the only child of the ill-fated marriage between George IV (at that time the Prince of Wales) and Caroline of Brunswick.
She was born at Carlton House in London, her birth being something of a miracle as George IV later claimed that he and his wife had sex no more than three times in the whole of their marriage. By the time she was a few months old, her parents were effectively separated, and her mother's time with her was severely restricted by her father, who doted on the child. She grew into a headstrong and difficult teenager, and fell out with her mother when Caroline decided to go into continental exile.
Charlotte married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg on May 2 1816, also at Carlton House. After a miscarriage in the early months of their marriage, she delivered a stillborn son on November 5, 1817, dying of post-partum complications the next day. She is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor with her son at her feet.
Her death was mourned nationally,on a scale similar to that which followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, although in An Address to the People on The Death of the Princess Charlotte (1817), Percy Bysshe Shelley made the point that while her death was very sad, the execution the following day of three men incited to lead the Pentrich Rising was the greater tragedy.
Charlotte's death left the Prince of Wales without any direct heirs, and resulted in a mad dash towards matrimony by most of her bachelor uncles (the marriage of her uncle Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, produced an heir —Victoria of the United Kingdom). Her father, even after the death of his wife, made no attempt to remarry or father any more children.
The Royal Berkshire Regiment (amalgamated in 1994, but to be de-amalgamated and merged along with the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment in the Prince of Wales Division announced in restructuring plans on December 16 2004), was titled the Princess Charlotte of Wales’s Regiment. In 1815,on their return to England from service in Canada, the 49th (Hertfordshire) Regiment were assigned to guard the royal family in residence. Princess Charlotte, on seeing these polished men in their new uniforms, with scarlet coats and white breeches, pleaded that the regiment be made "hers", and later the title was officially granted.
References
- [http://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/historyto1881.php3 The Wardrobe, the Museum of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment (Salisbury)
- The Percy Bysshe Shelley Resource Page]