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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 30 general entries.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 House of Hanover
| George I was the first Hanoverian king. At the time of his accession in 1714, he was already divorced from his wife, Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle. However, he had previously been suggested as a possible husband for whom? | The House of Hanover
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Queen Anne. George was considered as a husband for his distant cousin, the then Princess Anne of York, five years his junior. Nothing came of it though, and there was a rumour that George had snubbed Anne, and she never forgave him. Given how happy her marriage to Prince George of Denmark turned out to be, it's unlikely she gave George much thought.
| George's marriage to his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea, was by no means happy. How many children did the couple produce before divorcing in 1694? | The House of Hanover
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Two. The two children were the future George II (born on October 30 1683) and Princess Sophia Dorothea (born on March 26 1687). George I famously had his wife Sophia Dorothea incarcerated in the castle of Ahlden for decades for alleged adultery with a Swedish count, but thought nothing of having two mistresses himself - Sophia von Kielmansegge, Countess of Darlington (she was also George's illegitimate half-sister!) and Ermengarde Melusina von der Schulenberg, Duchess of Kendal. Both women were distinctly unappealing physically, one being extremely fat and the other extremeley thin, so that contemporary wags called them 'the Elephant and the Maypole.'
| George II became King of Great Britain and Ireland in 1727. He also became Elector of Hanover, and prior to his accession had been Prince of Wales. But what English title had Queen Anne conferred upon him in 1706? | The House of Hanover
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Duke of Cambridge. To be exact, Anne created him Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton and Baron of Tewkesbury. George's relationship with his father was never easy; some have speculated that George resented the treatment meted out to his mother, and one story says he tried to swim the moat at Ahlden Castle to see her, but was uncusccessful. His sister, Sophia Dorothea, married King Frederick William I of Prussia, and struck up a correspondance with her mother, no doubt a comfort to the lonely elder Sophia Dorothea, who died in 1726. George II's sister, the Queen of Prussia, died in 1757.
| George II's wife, whom he had married in 1705, was the pretty and intelligent Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, but what was her actual first name? | The House of Hanover
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Wilhelmina. Always known as Caroline, her third name (the other was Charlotte), she was a buxom, blond woman, by far the intellectual superior of her husband. Some people claimed that Caroline even personally selected her husband's mistresses, always ensuring that they were less intelligent than herself. She was a definite political presence in George's reign, and a popular rhyme said: 'You may strut, dapper George, but twill all be in vain. We know it is Queen Caroline, not you, that reign.' Caroline was a great supporter of the prominent politician Robert Walpole. Another popular saying said that if you wanted anything done, you should ask Walpole, who would ask the Queen, who would convince the King.
Nine. Their first child, Prince Frederick Louis (or Friedrich Ludwig, as he was known at the time of his birth) was born on January 20 1707. Eight more children followed - Princess Anne, later Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (1709-1759), Princess Amelia (1711-1786), Princess Caroline (1713-1757), a stillborn son (1716), Prince George William (1717-1718), Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765), Princess Mary, later Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel (1723-1772) and Princess Louise, later Queen of Denmark (1724-1751).
Among the children were some distinct personalities. Princess Anne was an intelligent but extremely bossy girl, unpopular even within the family. After marrying William IV, Prince of Orange, she was not encouraged to return to England! Princess Amelia, who never married, was something of a family flirt; Princess Caroline, also a spinster, was reclusive; Prince William was famous as 'Butcher Cumberland' who defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army at Culloden in 1745; Princess Mary was abandoned by her husband and raised her children alone, whereas Princess Louise was a popular Danish queen, who had inherited much of her mother's looks and intelligence. As for Prince Frederick, he had a terrible relationship with his parents. To his father, he was a 'cad' and his mother wished the ground would 'swallow him up'. Of course, the more of this kind of treatment Frederick got, the more he rebelled.
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. When Frederick married Augusta, he was twenty-eight; she was sixteen. She was a quiet, dutiful girl, but was soon caught up in one of the many rows between Frederick and his parents. When Augusta became pregnant, King George and Queen Caroline were determined that the baby be born under their noses in Hampton Court Palace. However, when Augusta went into labour with the King and Queen asleep, Frederick had her moved from her bed and driven half way across London to St James's Palace, just to defy his parents. In St James's, little Princess Augusta of Wales was born. She was swiftly followed by: the future King George III (1738-1820); Prince Edward, Duke of York (1739-1767); Princess Elizabeth (1740-1759); Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (1743-1805); Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland (1745-1790); Princess Louisa Anne (1749-1768); Prince Frederick William (1750-1765) and Princess Caroline Matilda (1751-1775). Caroline Matilda was in fact her father's posthumous child, since the Prince of Wales died on pleurisy on March 20 1751.
| Queen Caroline died in 1737, but King George II soldiered on for how many more years? | The House of Hanover
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Twenty-three. George piously remarked after Caroline's death that he had never known a woman good enough to buckle her shoe, and indeed the British court became more dour without her. The King's daughter-in-law, Augusta, herself a widow from 1751, was by no means equipped with the social skills to make a good first lady of the land, and King George's court was very masculine. He took part in the Battle of Dettingen aged sixty in 1743, the last reigning British monarch to take part in a battle. His thirty-three year reign was long, and it must occasionally have seemed to he was indestructible, but on October 25 1760, he died aged 76, which made his young grandson, Prince George, King George III.
| As a young man, George III had been in love with Lady Sarah Lennox. Who was her father? | The House of Hanover
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The Duke of Richmond. George was very much in love with Lady Sarah, but had to abandon the idea of marrying her, because she was related by marriage to political activist Henry Fox. George's mother Augusta, who had a lot of influence over him, urged him to 'be a king!' One of the principal duties of a king (or a queen regnant) is, of course, to marry and secure the succession, and George set about doing this without delay. He married the seventeen-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1761.
| George III, unlike his Hanoverian (and indeed his Stuart) predecessors, was enduringly faithful to Queen Charlotte throughout their fifty-seven year marriage. In return, she presented him with fifteen children, the eldest of whom was born on what day in 1762? | The House of Hanover
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August 12. The child was a boy, christened George Augustus Frederick, and created Prince of Wales soon after. Queen Charlotte was certainly a fertile woman - fourteen more children were born: Prince Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827); Prince William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV, 1765-1837); Princess Charlotte, later Princess Royal and Queen of Wurttemberg (1766-1828); Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820); Princess Augusta (1768-1840); Princess Elizabeth, later Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg (1770-1840); Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (later King of Hanover, 1771-1851); Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843); Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge (1774-1850); Princess Mary, later Duchess of Gloucester (1776-1857); Princess Sophia (1777-1848); Prince Octavius (1779-1783); Prince Alfred (1780-1782) and Princess Amelia (1783-1810). As it happens, the general public considered that Queen Charlotte only became a 'real mother' in 1782, when she lost one of her children - Prince Alfred.
| George III's brother, Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland, made what was considered an unsuitable marriage. Who was his bride? | The House of Hanover
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Anne Luttrel. Anne Luttrel married Prince Henry in 1771, to the horror of the royal family. Anne was never acknowleged as Duchess of Cumberland, and the marriage drove a wedge between Henry and his brother George. George was just as horrified when he found out that his other brother, the Duke of Gloucester, had been married to Maria Walpole, Dowager Countess Waldegrave, since 1766. A daughter, Sophia Matilda, was born in 1773 and follwed by a son, William Frederick, in 1776. Though George allowed the children to have royal status (they was styled 'His/Her Highness' as great-grandchildren of George II) he never acknowleged Maria as part of the family, and these marriages persuaded him to pass the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which stated that no descendant of King George II could marry without the permission of the monarch (excepting the descendants of princesses who had married into foreign royal houses) until they were 25, whereupon they could petition the privy council for permission to marry. The act, still in force in the 21st century, was to cause considerable angst among George III's children.
| Most people know that George III's youngest sister, Caroline Matilda, married Christian VII of Denmark (the son of her Aunt Louise) and was divorced by him for adultery with Count Struensee, but who did George's elder sister, Augusta, marry? | The House of Hanover
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The Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg. Augusta was a gossipy, mischief-making girl who used to tell tales about sharing a bed with her brother George III, and claiming he had wet it! Understandably, George wanted her married off as soon as possible. In 1764, at the comparatively old age of 26, she married Karl II, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg. Augusta always claimed that the marriage was happy, though others had their doubts - almost all of Augusta's children seemed to have some problem or other, be it physical or mental. In any case, she was one of the few relatives of George III to live to anything approaching his old age - the Napoleonic Wars forced her to leave Brunswick, and when she returned to England, she hadn't seen George for 36 years. She died in 1813, aged 75, the last of George's siblings to die. Their mother, the much hated Dowager Princess of Wales, had died in 1772, while the delicate princesses Elizabeth and Louisa had passed on in 1759 and 1768 respectively. George's brother Frederick died in 1765 aged only 15, Edward in 1767, Henry in 1790 and William in 1805. Caroline Matilda died in miserable exile in 1775. Throughout it all, George himself soldiered on, though at this stage, his children were beginning to be a source of worry.
| George III's second son, Frederick, was forced to resign as Commander-in-Chief of the army because his mistress was selling military secrets. What was her name? | The House of Hanover
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Mary Ann Clarke. Frederick, who was Duke of York, had been George's favourite son, and it was a bitter blow. Previously, George had been devoted to his son Octavius. When Alfred died in 1782, George said he was sorry, but if it had been Octavius, he would have died too. Sadly, the boy died in 1783, but that same year Princess Amelia was born, and she became her father's pet. Unfortunately, the King's other sons were scarecely less troublesome. The eldest, the Prince of Wales, set up a rival court and fraternised with radical politicians like Charles James Fox (the nephew of Lady Sarah Lennox, George's erstwhile love). William, the Duke of Clarence, was a loud, tactless boy swiftly sent off to the navy, where he threw himself with gusto into a life of 'excess'. Edward, the Duke of Kent, was a strict disciplinarian, and was put in charge of the garrison in Gibraltar. He was extremely unpopular with the men. The younger sons, Ernest, Augustus and Adolphus, were all sent to Hanover to be educated.
| The King's daughters led what they considered a miserable life. Devoted to them, the King kept them as close to him as he could. After his attack of madness in 1788, he became even more reluctant to part with them, and Queen Charlotte agreed. Which three daughters did the King fondly refer to as his 'three Cordelias'? | The House of Hanover
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Charlotte, Augusta and Elizabeth. Charlotte, Princess Royal, was always known as 'Royal' in the family. Together with her sisters Augusta and Elizabeth (all born in a space of four years) they were the King's elder daughters - the next daughter down the line, Mary, was not born until 1776, and with Sophia and Amelia made up part of a sort of 'second family'. The King, after his attack of madness in 1788, said that unlike King Lear, he had not had a Goneril or a Regan, only 'three Cordelias'. But the girls were miserable. Though the life they led was more or less the same as the life of any unmarried noblewoman of the time, they were bored and depressed by it. Royal, the eldest, was a gauche, shy girl, not at all pretty. Nevertheless, she was determined to escape the 'Nunnery' and as the King's eldest daughter, she was bound to attract suitors. Her father could not refuse all of them, and she accepted the suit of Prince Frederick of Wurttemberg and married him in 1797. Sadly, the only child produced was a stillborn daughter.
Lady Augusta Murray. Augustus, a delicate prince who suffered from chronic asthma, married Augusta, the Earl of Dunmore's daughter, in Rome in 1793. The marriage was in direct contravention of the Royal Marriages Act, and was thus invalid from the start. Nevertheless, two children were born, given the surname d'Este - Augustus Frederick and Augusta Emma. Meanwhile, some years earlier, the Prince of Wales had secretly married his Catholic mistress, Maria Fitzherbert, in 1785. In 1795, he was under increasing pressure to find a wife (an acceptable one) and the offer of payment of his debts and an increased allowance reconciled him to the idea. With the idea that 'one damned German frau is as good as any other' the Prince chose his bride at random - Princess Caroline of Brunswick, daughter of his Aunt Augusta. The marriage was a disaster from beginning to end. Upon seeing his bride (with an amazing lack of tact, he had sent his mistress, Lady Jersey, to receive her) the Prince gasped that he was unwell, and needed a glass of brandy. Caroline for her part sniffed that the Prince was not as handsome as his portrait. It was not a good start!
George's brothers also led what were considered scandalous lives. His brother Edward was ensconced with a long standing mistress, Madame Julie de St Laurent, while the Duke of Clarence was living with an actress, Mrs Jordan, and had fathered ten children by her, given the surname 'Fitzclarence'. It seemed to only Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was untainted by scandal.
1800. Sophia had been having an affair with a man some years her senior, General Thomas Garth, and in 1800, aged 23, she became pregnant by him. It was decided that her father need not be told - in increasingly bad health, he was merely told that Sophie had to go to Weymouth for a while due to her health. It was here that the child, also called Thomas, was born. She saw him from time to time, but for the most part they did not have a proper mother-son relationship. Sophia suffered greatly with health problems, and resented the (apparently unsympathetic) attitude of her mother, Queen Charlotte. The Queen had changed a lot. During the King's illness in 1788, her hair had turned from soft brown to completely white, and she was never the same woman again. She lived in fear that her husband would have a relapse, and worried that any suggestions of her daughters leaving him would provoke when. When they had finally had enough, Princess Augusta - the eldest daughter resident in England - drafted a letter, which they all signed, in which they asked for their own establishments. The Queen flew into a rage, and said she had never felt so insulted and hurt in her life. She hid behind the excuse of the King's illness, claiming that they were selfish to think of themselves at such a time. So their miserable lives continued.
| The ill-fated marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales produced only one child, born in 1796. What was the girl's name? | The House of Hanover
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Charlotte. Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, as she was styled, was the only child of a marriage that broke up virtually as soon as she was born. Very worried about the effect such a bad atmosphere would have on Charlotte, King George became her official guardian, and left her in the care of her grandmother and her maiden aunts. Princess Charlotte often found herself bored by them, and thought that some - especially Princesses Elizabeth and Mary - delighted in reporting her misdemeanors to her father, their brother the Prince of Wales, whom they adored. Charlotte was something of a rambunctious, tomboyish girl, which her father, an admirer of conventional feminine airs, took a dim view of.
| It was the death of which of his children that finally plunged George III into the madness from which he was never to emerge? | The House of Hanover
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Princess Amelia. Prior to her death, Amelia had been having an affair with Captain Charles Fitzroy, with whom she was completely besotted. She was, however, a delicate, tubercular girl. When she fell ill in 1810 aged 27, it was her sister, Princess Mary, who was her constant nurse and companion. The King visited Amelia as often as he could, looking for signs of improvement through his nearly blind eyes, but in spite of everything, she died. Mary was with her to the last, firmly refusing a doctor's suggestion that she 'retire'. After Amelia's death, the King began to say that she was merely in Hanover, where she would never grow old and always be healthy. Diagnosed as unfit to rule, the King was confined to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales was sworn in triumphantly as Prince Regent. He was, however, extremely unpopular not only with his subjects, but also with his wife and occasionally his daughter, especially after his abortive attempt to force her to marry the Prince of Orange, which resulted in Charlotte running away from home. Princess Caroline, however, was not always in Charlotte's good books either, especially after she went to Italy, and began to live a life of increasing debauchery.
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Leopold, though more or less penniless, was intelligent and culutred, and Charlotte was delighted with him. The Prince Regent graciously gave the marriage his blessing, and so did parliament, which granted the couple an astounding 50,000 pounds a year, which Leopold was to retain even if Charlotte died. The couple went to live in marital contentment in Claremont House, Surrey.
The same year that Charlotte married Leopold, another princess escaped the 'Nunnery'; Princess Mary was married, at the age of 40, to her cousin William, Duke of Gloucester, son of that ill received union between George III's brother and Maria Walpole. The marriage was unhappy, since most of Mary's family detested William, and he returned the feeling.
At the time though, the nation was happy to await the death of the despised Prince Regent and his insane father (who was still quite popular) in anticipation of the accession of Princess Charlotte of Wales, who fell pregnant in 1817 after two miscarriages. Tragically, Charlotte gave birth to a dead child after about 50 hours in labour. To cap it all, she herself died soon after. National mourning was extensive; some have compared it to the mourning that followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. Leopold, distraught, lived on in Claremont (he was later to be elected King of the Belgians), but Charlotte's death had an even greater significance - now aged 79, mad King George III could not boast a single legitimate grandchild. Three of his sons were legally married - the Prince of Wales (though his marriage could be considered over), the Duke of York (married to a childless Prussia princess since 1791) and the Duke of Cumberland (married to Princess Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz since 1815; though Frederica was Queen Charlotte's niece, the old woman refused to receive her on the grounds that some years before Frederica had rejected the suit of Prince Adolphus, who himself held no grudge). Not one of them had a legitimate child. Of the King's surviving daughters, the youngest was Sophia, who was forty, and only two others were married - the childless Royal, who had since become Queen of Wurttemberg, and the Duchess of Gloucester, who at the age of 41 could scarecely be expected to produce children. To solve this problem, three of the King's sons - the Dukes of Clarence, Kent and Cambridge - rushed to the altar in 1818.
Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel. Augusta of Hesse was 23 years Adolphus's junior, but that certainly didn't stop him. The same year, the Dukes of Clarence and Kent (who had both abandoned their mistresses) married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen and the Dowager Princess of Leiningen respectively. Prior to her first marriage, the Dowager Princess had been Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, sister of Prince Leopold, husband of the late Charlotte. She had two children by her first marriage, Karl and Feodore, so she was certainly fertile. As for Adelaide, she was 26, and though not pretty, she was at least dignified and sweet natured, and accepted the brood of Fitzclarences into her life, something that most women would have been reluctant to do.
The same year, Princess Elizabeth, who was 48, accepted the proposal of Prince Frederick of Hesse-Homburg, and married him. She went with him to Homburg and in due course became it's Landgravine. The marriage was happy, though of course childless.
Meanwhile, in England, on November 17 1818, old Queen Charlotte passed away, the Prince Regent at her side. She had been increasingly cantankerous in her later years, but had been a dutiful Queen consort for 57 years.
| Which couple - the Clarences, the Kents, the Cumberlands and the Cambridges - won the race to give George III a legitimate grandchild? | The House of Hanover
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The Cambridges. Prince George of Cambridge was born on March 26 1819. But because Prince Adolphus was a younger son, George was some way down the line. He was followed by Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent on May 24, and then by Prince George of Cumberland three days later. The Cambridges went on to have two more children - Augusta (born 1822) and Mary Adelaide (born 1833) who later became the mother of Mary of Teck, who married King George V.
The Duke of Kent died unexpectedly on January 23 1820 - his blind, deranged father followed him six days later. His death brought the Prince Regent to the throne as George IV. Increasingly fat, gouty and unpopular, George IV's early reign was taken up with his desire to free himself from his estranged wife, who returned to England to claim her rights as Queen. When he was told of the death of Napoleon in 1821, the King was told that his 'greatest enemy' was dead. He replied 'Is she by God?' He attempted to divorce Caroline, and when that failed, barred her from his coronation. She died, humiliated and broken, in 1821. George soldiered on. He was fond of his niece, Princess 'Drina' of Kent, as she was known, though was of course saddened that the Duke and Duchess of Clarence were unable to produce a living child. Meanwhile, many old branches were dropping off the family tree. Frederick, Duke of York, died in 1827 (his duchess had already died in 1820). Royal, the Queen of Wurttemberg, followed him a year later. Princess Elizabeth became a widow in 1829. George IV himself, crippled by gout and various other ailments, died in 1830, which brought his 64 year old brother William to the throne as William IV.
William triumphantly opened his first privy council meeting with the words 'Who is Silly Billy now?' However, the influence of Adelaide, his gentle Queen, was a good one; the King's manners improved and his general demeanor became less 'salty'. William and Adelaide were fond of Drina, and it was a great sadness to them that her mother, the Duchess of Kent, kept her away from court and what she saw as the 'malign' influence of the Fitzclarences. In fact, Williamd and the Duchess cordially detested each other. William's reign also saw several family deaths. Princess Mary became a widow in 1834, and after Lady Augusta Murray's death in 1830, the Duke of Sussex married Cecilia Underwood, again in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act.
The death of William IV, on June 20 1837, brought the 18 year old Princess Drina to the throne. She reigned under the name Victoria. Fifty years later, on the day of her Golden Jubilee, she was to remember June 20 humbly as the day 'dear Uncle William died'. During Victoria's reign, there was a Hanoverian twilight, as the last people associated with George III and his family passed on. Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth died in 1840; the Duchess of Cumberland (who became Queen of Hanover since her husband aceded to the throne after William's death) died in 1841; the Duke of Sussex passed on in 1843; Princess Sophia in 1848; the Duke of Cambridge in 1850 and the Duke of Cumberland in 1851. Princess Mary proved to be the last surviving child of George III. She enjoyed an active old age, and died aged 81 in 1857. Two of her sisters-in-law remained alive - Cecilia Underwood, created Duchess of Inverness by Queen Victoria, died in 1873, and the old Duchess of Cambridge died in 1889, aged 92, a relic of bygone 'Georgian' days.
George I. William and Henry reigned in the House of Normandy 648 years before George I. John reigned after the death of Richard I "the Lionheart" in the House of Plantagenet 560 years before George I.
| Queen Victoria, the last of the House of Hanover, reigned for how long? | House of Hanover
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64 Years. Longetivity seems to run in the family. Beatrice (her youngest died in her 80s). The current Queen Elizabeth II turned 80 in 2006. The Queen's son Charles Prince of Wales is going to be 60 in 2008.
William IV. William IV (then Duke of Clarence) lived with Dorethea Jordan (nee Bland) for a little over twenty years. In that time she bore him ten (!) illegitimate children. To get more money from Parliament he married Adelaide, who he grew close to.
| Whose death prompted all of George III's surviving children to marry in order to produce legitimate children? | House of Hanover
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Charlotte. Charlotte was the only child of George IV and his hated wife Caroline of Brunswick. Charlotte had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (the future Leopold King of the Belgians) and died after giving birth to a stillborn son.
George IV. George IV had married Maria while he was Prince of Wales without the King's permission and thus against the Royal Marriage Act. George III refused to acknowledge the marriage. As part of a deal with Parliament, which paid off his debts, George IV married Caroline of Brunswick.
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