Who Died and Made Alexandrina Queen?

While I was watching the first episode of Victoria  this week, it occurred to me that there's a lot of stuff going on in the background that's hinted at, but not clearly explained, especially with some of the characters, like the old duke with the gnarly scar. The show makes it clear that he's somehow related to Victoria and that he's not happy about her getting the throne.

So, first things first: Queen Victoria's name is actually Alexandrina Victoria. (British monarchs get to choose their regnal name and she opted to drop Alexandrina.) Now on to the murkier and more interesting topic: how'd she get to be the queen of England?

In 1817, George III was king and his eldest son, George IV, was Prince Regent. The Prince Regent's wife, Caroline, had been estranged from him for years. Their only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales, then died in childbirth that same year, leaving him without a legitimate heir.

This meant that his brother, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York and Albany, became his heir. However, Frederick and his wife also didn't have any children.

Several of George III's other children hurried to get married and produce heirs on the increasingly likely-chance that the succession came to them. William IV and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathern (George III's third and fifth children), both were married in 1818. Alexandrina Victoria was born the following year.

Both Prince Edward (Victoria's father) and George III (Victoria's grandfather) died in 1820. The Prince Regent became king.

In 1827, Prince Frederick, George IV's younger brother (George III's second child) and heir, died. Since Frederick never did have any children, their next brother, William (George III's third child) became George IV's new heir.

George IV died in 1830 and William IV became king. He was in his 60s by this point. William had several illegitimate children prior to his marriage to Princess Adelaide, but unfortunately they did not have any surviving children. Princess Charlotte (George III's fourth child) had died in 1828 without any living children, so as Prince Edward's daughter, Victoria became heiress presumptive to the crown.

And if you're still wondering about the old duke with the scar from the show? That's Ernest Augustus, George III's eighth child, making him Victoria's uncle. If it weren't for her, he would have been King of England. (He did, however, became King of Hanover* on William's death since they had a law preventing women from inheriting the throne.)

*This could be its own topic entirely, but essentially Hanover was a short-lived kingdom in the Prussia/Germany area created by the Congress of Vienna and given to George III.

The two wives of George IV

©By Cheryl Bolen

Before England's King George IV became prince regent (a title more identifiable with him than his eventual monarchy) at age 48 in 1811, he had taken two wives--and neither of the marriages were ever dissolved and neither woman ever truly shared his reign.

How can he have legally had two wives? He didn't. One of his wives was illegal. As a young man of 21, he fell madly in love with Maria Fitzherbert, a wealthy and beautiful widow six years his senior. The fact that she was a Catholic was not the only obstacle in their path of matrimonial harmony. There was also the Royal Marriage Act prohibiting any member of the royal family from marrying without the king's permission. As an act of Parliament, the Royal Marriage Act superseded any law of church; to violate it would be a crime.

 Maria Fitzherbert, the Prince Regent (later George IV)

For over a year the Prince of Wales courted Mrs. Fitzherbert and even resorted to a botched suicide attempt to gain her hand. Eventually she relented, and in 1785 they were secretly wed by an Anglican minister and fancied themselves married. But cognizant of the criminal act they had committed, the two never publicly acknowledged the marriage, nor did they ever live in the same residence. The prince was willing to let his brother Freddie (the Duke of York) sire children who would be heirs to the throne, and he planned to do away with the Royal Marriage Act when he became king. (Freddie, by the way, never had any children.)

Troubles precipitated by Mrs. Fitzherbert's hot temper, the prince's wandering eye, and--most of all--his vast debts sent the marriage into the skids less than a decade later. Prinny had decided to take Brunswick's Princess Caroline for his wife, an action that would increase his annual income and clear his exorbitant debts.

Caroline of Brunswick, later Princess Caroline

Though he had never met Caroline, a first cousin, the prince married her in 1795. He took such an instant dislike to her slovenly appearance he had to get himself excessively drunk in order to beget a child on her (Princess Charlotte, who died in childbirth in 1817). With that duty dispatched, he turned his back on his true wife, and they lived apart for the remainder of their lives.

Five years after his "legal" marriage, the prince persuaded Mrs. Fitzherbert to return to him. They stayed affectionate for almost a decade, parting ways because of his infidelity the year before he became regent.

Caroline died shortly after his coronation as King George IV, but he never remarried, and when he died ten years later in 1830 he wore about his neck a miniature portrait of Mrs. Fitzherbert. –Cheryl Bolen's newest release is the first in the Brazen Brides series, Counterfeit Countess. Fans of her Regent Mysteries can preorder the newest installment, An Egyptian Affair, only on iBooks.

A Regency Exhibit

Cheryl Bolen attended the exhibit to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the English Regency at California's Huntington Library.

©By Cheryl Bolen

As an author whose first Regency historical romance was published in 1998, I've long been a student of the period, and in 2011 I had the opportunity to visit a fabulous exhibit on the English Regency at the Huntington in Los Angeles County.

The Huntington (Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens) offered the exhibit to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of the Regency, which began in 1811 when George III was declared too mad to rule. His eldest son served as Prince Regent until his father died in 1820, whereupon the regent became King George IV.

I particularly enjoyed reading the era's newspapers. The following advertisement (these were intermingled with news stories) I think must be geared to men, but could also apply to women:

HAIR A new oil which gradually changes white, gray or red hair to a beautiful brown – gives softness, elasticity, curl and thickens – 7 shillings, 6 pence per bottle

A loan office, located at 2 Craven, Strand, advertised that it gave loans "to persons of fashion, promisary notes to persons of known credit and consequence." The office was open from 10-4.

The most well-known jewelry store of the era offered this advertisement: Rundell, Bridge, Rundell Goldsmiths & Jewelers to Their Majesties Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York and Royal Family Ludgate Hill

And the last advertisement I'm going to feature was for an on-premises auction by "Mr. Christie." Yes, that Christie's auction house! Valuable Library Richmond Surrey – By Mr. Christie on the premises by order of the Executors of Miss Hotham deceased, 6,000 volumes. Catalogues are preparing.

The Huntington Library and Art Museum itself is a treasure to visit. The former estate of rail magnate Henry Huntington, it's nestled on a few hundred acres of lush botanical gardens in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Huntington collections of rare manuscripts and old master paintings is particularly geared for English history. It houses Gainsborough's Blue Boy (as well as Pinkie), first editions of Jane Austen, and an original Chaucer manuscript. And almost half a million rare manuscripts.

This article was first published in The Regency Reader in September 2011.

 

Cheryl Bolen is pleased to announce the re-elease of her Counterfeit Countess, a book that has been out of print for more than a decade and which has never before been an eBook. This Daphne finalist for Best Historical Mystery is the first book in the lighthearted Brazen Brides series and releases on Sept. 1. It can be preordered everywhere now.

 

The Secret Wife of George IV

© Cheryl Bolen

Since there's such a scarcity of work on Maria Fitzherbert, I was eager to get my hands on this James Munson’s 2002 biography of her (Maria Fitzherbert: The Secret Wife of George IV), which I purchased in Great Britain. But after reading all 372 pages, I still don't feel all that well acquainted with the woman who secretly married the Prince of Wales (later to be prince regent, and later still, King George IV) in 1785.

One of the reasons for this scarcity is the absence of the lady's letters and diaries, which have enriched other biographies of Mrs. Fitzherbert's contemporaries, such as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. In fact, I felt somewhat cheated by Munson, who touted his work as the only one having the letters from Mrs. Fitzherbert's intimate friend, Lady Anne Lindsay. "Previous biographers knew nothing of these letters or of Lady Anne's journal," Munson tells us. Oh boy, I thought, new information!

Very few of Mrs. Fitzherbert's letters to Lady Anne are revealed in these pages. There are, however, snippets from Lady Anne's diaries which give some insight into Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Another disappointment was lack of details about the relationship between the prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert, a twice widowed Catholic he married in a secret, illegal Anglican ceremony. They acted as husband and wife for almost twenty years (non-consecutively), yet there is little information about this remarkable relationship. The first 150 pages of the book are background on the two; the last 50 pages deal with the years after the couple's final break. That leaves about a third of the book to deal with the 20 years they were together.

Not all of the blame for this vagueness rests on Munson's shoulders. Credit Mrs. Fitzherbert herself and her "husband" when he became George IV for ordering the destruction the evidence of their illegal marriage. Upon George IV's death he entrusted the Duke of Wellington, then prime minister, with the task of burning all correspondence between himself and Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Mrs. Fitzherbert complied, asking that only four documents be spared. The duke and Lord Albermarle met at her residence, she handed them packets of papers, then left. Her actions prompted Wellington to say she, "was the most honest woman he'd ever met." The two peers burned letters in her fireplace for many hours afterward. It is said her house smelled of burnt paper and sealing wax for many weeks, and the stain to her white mantel stayed for years. Five years later, Wellington was still burning the prince's love letters to Mrs. Fitzherbert.

The four documents she insisted on keeping were the mortgage on the Royal Pavilion at Brighton (which the prince claimed to have given her but which she never took possession of); her marriage certificate; a will the prince wrote when they were estranged in 1796 (a year after he legally married Caroline of Brunswick) in which he said Maria Fitzherbert was his true wife; and an affidavit from the clergyman who performed their marriage ceremony. These documents were deposited in Coutts bank, where they stayed until the early twentieth century when they were placed in the Royal Archives.

So why all the bloody secrecy? From the very beginning of their love affair both the prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert knew they could never legally marry, not just because of her Catholicism, but because the Royal Marriage Act adopted by Parliament at the behest of King George III forbade any member of the royal family from marrying without the king's permission.

Because an act of Parliament took precedence over any church law, this illegal marriage was a criminal act.

When the twenty-one year old prince met the twenty-seven-year old wealthy widow (how they met is not revealed in this book) he fell madly in love with her. She was flattered but not interested. Then he attempted to stab himself to death to show that if he couldn't have her, he did not wish to live. Drenched in his own blood, he summoned her. She did not come. Ever mindful of her unblemished reputation, she finally consented to come if the Duchess of Devonshire (who was close to the prince but not to Mrs. Fitzherbert) would accompany her. Thus, properly chaperoned, Mrs. Fitzherbert approached his bedside, the duchess produced a ring, Mrs. Fitzherbert agreed to take the ring as a symbol of being pledged to the prince, then she promptly fled the country with her friend, Lady Anne.

A constant flurry of letters from the prince besieged her wherever she went. When she returned a year and a half later, they wed in a secret ceremony. Within months all of London knew of the secret wedding, but neither party ever publicly admitted it, nor did they ever live together in the same house. For the next nine years, Mrs. Fitzherbert would be the chief woman in the prince's life. As time went by, his affairs with other women and her bad temper transpired to cool off the relationship, which terminated when Frances, Lady Jersey became his lover. Under Lady Jersey's influence, he agreed to legally marry Caroline of Brunswick in order to have his monstrous debts settled and to acquire a larger annual income.

Even before his marriage, he missed Mrs. Fitzherbert. Before he had been married a year, he rued his real marriage and hungered for the renewal of his sham marriage to Maria Fitzherbert. It took him another four years before he won her back. There is some evidence that when she returned to him in 1800 she stipulated that theirs be a non-sexual relationship.

This second time they were together also lasted just under a decade, at which time the prince took up with the married Lady Hertford and dropped Mrs. Fitzherbert. A year later, he was named regent.

He and Mrs. Fitzherbert would never speak again, but financial settlements to Mrs. Fitzherbert increased.

There is no evidence that Mrs. Fitzherbert ever bore a child, though she did adopt two daughters to whom she was very kind and who were devoted to her.

Shortly after he became king in 1820, his legal wife died, but he never remarried. When he died 10 years later, he wore about his neck a miniature of Mrs. Fitzherbert, the wife of his heart.

Mrs. Fitzherbert died in 1837 and was buried in Brighton.—Cheryl Bolen’s Countess by Coincidence, a sequel to Duchess by Mistake, releases this summer.

Princesses: the 6 Daughters of George III

Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III
Flora Fraser
Anchor Books, 2006
478 pages; $16.95

Review © Cheryl Bolen

In the century and half since the last princess died, no one has ever before had the fortitude to chronicle the lives of the six daughters of George III (1738-1820) and his wife Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818). Until Flora Fraser.

One of England’s premier biographers of the late Georgian era, Fraser (Beloved Emma) first became acquainted with the princesses when doing archival research for her biography (Unruly Queen) of their sister-in-law, the Prince Regent’s wife.

"Given other circumstances, the letters of these six royal sisters might have been filled only with Court gossip, pomp and fashion," Fraser writes. "Instead their correspondence makes harrowing reading, revealing the humility with which they met pain and horror, the tenacity with which they pursued their individual dreams, and the stratagems they devised to endure years of submission and indignity."

The circumstances which catapulted their lives onto a sorrowful trajectory, of course, were the intermittent bouts of the king’s insanity which terminated in a nine-year regency after he was declared incompetent to rule.

King George III

His first occurrence of the illness was in 1788; it was another 23 years before the regency became official. Sadly, it was during those years the princesses came of age, only to be denied the opportunities for gaiety and marriage. The king’s illness turned a concerned mother into a domineering tyrant who deprived the princesses of any hopes for happiness.

During those years, the princesses were forced to forgo personal pleasures or aspirations for matrimony for fear it would incite another relapse in the father who was so excessively fond of his daughters.

To a one, all the princesses wished to marry, to have their own homes, to have children. Most of them would be denied these simple pleasures.

The king himself said in 1805 — when the Princess Royal was 39 and the youngest princess, Amelia, 22 — "I cannot deny that I have never wished to see any of them marry: I am happy in their company, and do not in the least want a separation."

When he spoke those words, "Royal," as the eldest sister was always called, was the only sister to have married. Her father had refused many offers for her hand, a fact that embittered her. She finally succeeded in marrying a widower, the Hereditary Prince of Wuttemberg, when she was thirty.

She was thrilled to escape "The Nunnery," a title the princesses themselves dubbed their residences at Kew Palace and Windsor Castle. She never regretted the decision to marry. While she never bore a live child, she was an indulgent mother and grandmother to her step-children and may have been the happiest of the sisters.

 

Princess Sophia

None of the sisters would ever become a mother, though the fourth princess, Sophia (1777-1848), gave birth secretly to an illegitimate child sired by her father’s equerry, who was more than thirty years older than she. She never married.

Amelia died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-seven, which many think contributed to her father’s final fall into hopeless insanity. Even on her deathbed, her family would not allow Amelia to marry the young officer she had been in love with for eight years.

Her sister, Princess Augusta (1768-1840), also fell in love with a military man, Gen. Sir Brent Spencer. When she was 43 she wrote a letter to the regent that begged to be allowed to marry the man who had shared her "mutual affection" for twelve years. Request refused, she died a spinster.

Princess Mary had more luck. She demanded the regent allow her to wed her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, whose father was her father’s brother. The regent reluctantly agreed. At age forty, she finally married. While it is doubtful she was in love with her husband, she relished the first liberty she had ever tasted.

The sister who had most wanted to marry and had dreamed of bearing a child, Princess Elizabeth, finally was granted one of her wishes. At age forty-eight and well past child-bearing years, she married the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg and had a happy marriage for eleven years.

Fraser’s research is meticulous, right down to the names of the royal wet nurses and the salary paid to them. Almost all of the research is original, delving into letters in collections, archives, and libraries across the globe, a feat that had to have taken several years.

For the casual reader, there are a few problems. First, it is difficult to chronicle six lives at once chronologically. We get a snippet of one sister, but the narrative thread drops while there is an awkward transition to another sister because of chronological constraints. Therefore, the book makes for dry reading and lacks dramatic structure.

For the historian, this work is a gem.