The year 1817 was a turning point for the House of Hanover. On November 6, Princess Charlotte,
the only legitimate child of George, Prince Regent, passed away. While his
younger brothers were not without offspring, all of them lacked legitimate heirs. Her surprising demise meant one thing - the House of Hanover was bent for extinction if her uncles did not take legitimate wives and father heirs to the throne.
On May 2, 1816, Princess Charlotte married Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, an occassion which was greeted with much to the excitement by the British public. After a
miscarriage shortly after their wedding, Princess Charlotte’s pregnancy was
announced in April 1817, rousing the interest of the Britons that even betting
shops set up books on what would be her child’s sex. Such was the impact of
Charlotte’s pregnancy that even economists predicted that giving birth to a
daughter would raise the stock market’s value by 2.5 percent while a son would
raise it to 6 percent.
She started labor on November 5, 1817. Baron Stockman,
Prince Leopold’s physician, noted how outdated was the British medical team who attended Charlotte. The boy born of Charlotte was stillborn. No sooner the
princess suffered from stomach pain and she started vomiting. She died soon after
midnight. While the postmortem was inconclusive as to what caused her death, many blamed her male midwife, Sir Richard Croft. The princess’ father,
the Prince Regent, nevertheless, did not blame him, although Croft committed suicide three months after while attending a childbirth.
The nation mourned the princess’ passing for
it had “lost a favorite child.” But the
effect of her death did not just took a heavy blow emotionally but also triggered a
succession crisis for the House of Hanover.
Since 1810, King George III had been suffering from porphyria. Charlotte's parents were already estranged from each other and there was no chance for the Prince Regent to father another heir. George III’s younger sons had illegitimate children but they were barred from inheriting the throne. As such, Parliament forced the brothers to look for suitable wives. Between 1817 and 1818, they willingly obliged. The Duke of Clarence married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen but the marriage failed to produce an heir; Adelaide suffered several miscarriages later on and their two surviving daughters died while they were young. The next son, the Duke of York also married but did not have a child. Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, left his mistress, Madame de Saint Laurent, and sought the hands of Leopold’s younger sister, Victoria Maria Louisa, the widow of the impoverished Prince Emich Carl of Leiningen. They were married in Coburg in 1818. They hurried back to London in 1819 shortly before the duchess was due for labor to make sure their baby would be born on the British soil. They named her Alexandrina Victoria. Alas, Edward died shortly afterwards. In 1820, King George III died and was succeeded by King George IV who reigned until 1830. He was succeeded by the Duke of Clarence who was crowned as William IV. She was succeeded by the eighteen-year-old Princess Victoria whose reign spanned from 1837 until 1901, an era that saw the United Kingdom at the zenith of its economic, political and military might.
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