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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaronminkie. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only legitimate grandchild of King

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Speaker 1: George the Third of England, the woman who was directly

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Speaker 1: in line to become Queen of England herself, died in

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Speaker 1: the early hours of the morning on November sixth, eighteen seventeen,

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Speaker 1: and plunged the entire nation into mourning. She was the

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Speaker 1: beloved daughter of the country, the bright light of a

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Speaker 1: nation that had been battered down by war with Napoleon.

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Speaker 1: Her grandfather, George the Third, had gone mad, and her father,

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Speaker 1: the hedonistic and philandering Prince Regent future King George the Fourth,

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Speaker 1: was hated by the people. She alone, Charlotte had been

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Speaker 1: their hope for the future. The country had celebrated with

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Speaker 1: her when she married Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg selfeld

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Speaker 1: and eagerly placed bets on the sex of her infant.

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Speaker 1: When it was announced that she was pregnant, no one

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Speaker 1: was prepared to lose her. Charlotte was just twenty one

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Speaker 1: years old and she had been married to her husband

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Speaker 1: for only a year. She died just hours after giving

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Speaker 1: birth to a stillborn son, a child that, had he lived,

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Speaker 1: would have become a King of England. After her death,

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Speaker 1: stores closed for two weeks, and not just stores, the courts,

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Speaker 1: the Royal Exchange docs even gambling parlors closed. On the

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Speaker 1: day of her funeral, Linnen drapers ran out of black

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Speaker 1: cloth because frivolous decoration was forbidden during official morning at

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Speaker 1: a sir and point. Ribbon makers had to petition the

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Speaker 1: government to shorten the morning period to prevent them from

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Speaker 1: going bankrupt. Poets ranging from Felicia Harman, Letitia Elizabeth Langdon,

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Speaker 1: Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, they all wrote about Charlotte's death.

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Speaker 1: In Byron's poem, he wrote a stanza that goes scions

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Speaker 1: of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou fond hope of

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Speaker 1: many nations? Art thou dead, could not the grave, forget

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Speaker 1: thee and lay low some majestic less beloved head. The

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Speaker 1: physician who had been attending to Charlotte as she delivered

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Speaker 1: her child, and who had been treating her as she died,

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Speaker 1: was a man named Sir Richard Croft, a baron. Though

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Speaker 1: female midwives had traditionally delivered infants. At the turn of

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, it became fashionable to have male midwives,

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Speaker 1: sometimes called a coucher, deliver one's child. Three months after

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Speaker 1: Charlotte's death, her loss and the grief of the entire

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Speaker 1: nation continued to weigh heavily on Dr Croft. While he

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Speaker 1: was in the home of another patient, with the woman

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Speaker 1: delivering a child upstairs, Croft went down to their study,

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Speaker 1: sat in a high backed chair, and shot himself in

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Speaker 1: the head with a gun. For all of the extreme

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Speaker 1: heartache that Princess Charlotte's death caused at the time, today

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Speaker 1: she is rarely discussed. She's a historical footnote, eclipsed by

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Speaker 1: another bright, romantic young woman, the future Queen Victoria, Charlotte's cousin,

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Speaker 1: born two years after Charlotte's death, ironically to fill the

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Speaker 1: gap in succession that Charlotte left behind. Had Charlotte lived,

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Speaker 1: the course of history would have been irrevocably altered. But

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Speaker 1: history is all of miss Rhodes and false starts, And

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Speaker 1: the fascinating, maddening thing about monarchy is that the fates

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Speaker 1: of entire nations do change with the fates of individuals.

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Speaker 1: Princess Charlotte was progressive and adventurous and dreamed of becoming

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Speaker 1: queen and undermining the tired conservative Tory regime of her

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Speaker 1: father and grandfather. But instead she spent her entire short

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Speaker 1: life as a pawn, first upon under parents who loathed

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Speaker 1: each other, then by a government that wanted her to

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Speaker 1: be a tool of diplomacy, then by men who wanted

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Speaker 1: to marry her, and then by the political parties who

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Speaker 1: saw her popularity as a means to their own ends.

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Speaker 1: In the aftermath of Sir Richard Croft's death by suicide,

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Speaker 1: investigators on the scene noticed that a book had fluttered

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Speaker 1: open nearby, purely out of coincidence. It was a copy

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Speaker 1: of the Shakespeare lay Love's Labor's Lost, and it was

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Speaker 1: open to Act five, Scene two. On the page, mere

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Speaker 1: feet from where the slumped body of the man whose

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Speaker 1: guilt had consumed him, were the words, fair, sir, God

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Speaker 1: save you. Where is the princess? I'm Danish Wartz and

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Speaker 1: this is noble blood. To call the marriage of Princess

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Speaker 1: Charlotte's parents an unhappy one would be a vast understatement,

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Speaker 1: almost to the point of being misleading. The union of

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Speaker 1: the future George the Fourth of England and Caroline of

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Speaker 1: Brunswick was nothing short of calamity. George the Fourth, the

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Speaker 1: oldest son of King George the Third, was a disastrously

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Speaker 1: unpopular figure in England at the time, routinely mocked in

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Speaker 1: the press with character chairs. The perception of him, and

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Speaker 1: not necessarily an incorrect one, was that he was an overindulged, irresponsible,

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Speaker 1: vain man and not too intelligent. He womanized frequently and

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Speaker 1: spent extravagantly. When having his portrait painted, he forced servants

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Speaker 1: to help squeeze him into a girdle several sizes too

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Speaker 1: small to try to cut a more fashionable figure. In

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Speaker 1: my estimation, George the Fourth suffered from the tragedy of

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Speaker 1: being a prince in an era when princes were no

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Speaker 1: longer considered God's vessels on earth. There was an irreconcilable

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Speaker 1: disconnect between his own sense of his importance and his

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Speaker 1: actual abilities, and this just happened to coincide with the

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Speaker 1: age when it was easier than ever for the population

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Speaker 1: to draw and distribute mean cartoons about him. The historian

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Speaker 1: James Chambers, in his book Charlotte and Leopold, describes the

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Speaker 1: then prince's failings. In almost poetic terms, quote, he longed

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Speaker 1: to be regarded as the leader of fashion, the nation's

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Speaker 1: foremost sportsman, and the most eminent connoisseur of art and architecture.

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Speaker 1: To that end, he had squandered absurd sums on clothes

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Speaker 1: and horses, and he had lavished fortunes on building and

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Speaker 1: embellishing his pavilion in Brighton and his home in London,

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Speaker 1: Carlton House, each of which he had crammed with an

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Speaker 1: indiscriminate clutter of both exquisite and tasteless pictures and furniture

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Speaker 1: end quote. As you might imagine, desperately trying to buy

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Speaker 1: his way into being respected and thought of as smart.

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Speaker 1: Didn't do much for George except rack up his debts.

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Speaker 1: By sevento his debt had reached over six hundred thousand pounds,

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Speaker 1: and his annual allowance from the Privy Purse of sixty

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Speaker 1: thousand pounds was barely enough to even cover the interest.

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Speaker 1: The government had already bailed him out once by this point,

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Speaker 1: and they would not happily do so again. George, who

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Speaker 1: at this point was Prince of Wales, only had one option.

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Speaker 1: He needed to get married. If the Prince made a

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Speaker 1: suitable marriage, the first step to him fulfilling his duty

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Speaker 1: of providing the kingdom with an air. His allowance would

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Speaker 1: be increased to one hundred thousand pounds annually in theory

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Speaker 1: to provide for a larger household. It was the money,

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Speaker 1: more than any sense of duty, certainly not love, that

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Speaker 1: motivated George, then in his mid thirties, to get married.

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Speaker 1: Well a brief but important side note here, technically, George

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Speaker 1: already was married, or at least he thought he was,

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Speaker 1: almost a decade before. When he was twenty three, he

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Speaker 1: had secretly, and without the permission of his father, the King,

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Speaker 1: had a private wedding with a woman named Maria fitz Herbert,

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Speaker 1: who just so happened to be Catholic. If that sounds

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Speaker 1: familiar to you or you're getting deja vu, I did

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Speaker 1: an episode all about this secret marriage years ago, a

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Speaker 1: very very early episode of this podcast called What I

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Speaker 1: Has Wept for George the Fourth. But to the vast

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Speaker 1: relief of the King's cabinet, the marriage between George and

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Speaker 1: Maria fitz Herbert was easily nullified. It broke a handful

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Speaker 1: of laws. First, any royal marriage needed the approval of

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Speaker 1: the King, but second, and more importantly, Maria fitz Herbert

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Speaker 1: being Catholic meant that the marriage was invalidated automatically by

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Speaker 1: both the Bill of Rights of sixty nine and the

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Speaker 1: Active Settlement of seventeen hundred, and so, needing to make

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Speaker 1: an appropriate and legal marriage, George selected from among the

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Speaker 1: small pool of eligible foreign princess is his first cousin, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: Duchess of Brunswick. The diplomat Lord Malmsbury, came to Brunswick

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Speaker 1: to escort Caroline to her new home in England, but

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Speaker 1: fairly quickly Malmsbury realized that the match might be troublesome

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Speaker 1: for the Prince. Allegedly, Caroline's behavior was rowdy and uncouth,

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Speaker 1: and Malmsbury reported that she didn't wash or change her

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Speaker 1: clothes often enough. There were rumors about Caroline being unsuitable

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Speaker 1: even before the Prince had chosen her, but the prince's

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Speaker 1: mistress at the time, a woman named Lady Jersey, was

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Speaker 1: all too happy to encourage the match between her lover

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Speaker 1: and a woman who was considered unpleasant and undignified, where

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Speaker 1: there was no risk of him growing to love her

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Speaker 1: more than her. So George made his choice and then

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Speaker 1: appointed his mistress Lady Jersey as his new wife to

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Speaker 1: bes Lady in waiting. The alleged and oft repeated anecdote

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Speaker 1: about Prince George meeting his future wife Caroline in person

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Speaker 1: for the first time right before their wedding is that

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Speaker 1: after greeting her, he went pale as a ghost and

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Speaker 1: called out for his friend Harris. He said, I'm not

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Speaker 1: feeling well. Pray get me a glass of brandy. But

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Speaker 1: some of the English reports about Caroline being unladylike need

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Speaker 1: to be, in my opinion, given just a little bit

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Speaker 1: of indulgence. When Caroline first arrived in England after a

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Speaker 1: long and arduous journey through a Europe besieged by Napoleonic War,

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Speaker 1: her future husband was not at the port to greet her. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the only representative from her new home was Lady Jersey,

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Speaker 1: whom Caroline quickly and correctly gleaned was her fiance's mistress.

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Speaker 1: At her first dinner with George the Fourth, Caroline made

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Speaker 1: a number of jokes poking fun at her soon to

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Speaker 1: be husband, blatant in discretions which he and the rest

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Speaker 1: of the court were aghast at, but which I personally

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Speaker 1: feel Caroline was perfectly in her right to do, no doubt,

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Speaker 1: a tiny attempt at staking out a little bit of

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Speaker 1: power and a little humor in a very vulnerable and

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable situation. Meanwhile, Prince George was loudly mocking her to

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Speaker 1: his friends, calling her ugly and unhygienic, and speculating that

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Speaker 1: she wasn't a virgin. Not that it matters, but remember

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Speaker 1: George was most certainly not a virgin himself. And though

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Speaker 1: most people recount the story of the prince asking for

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Speaker 1: brandy after their first meeting, it should also be noted

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Speaker 1: that Caroline wasn't impressed with her future husband either. He's

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Speaker 1: nothing like as handsome as his portrait, she said as

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Speaker 1: she was leaving. It was a marriage doomed from the start,

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Speaker 1: and though on their wedding night the Prince was so

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Speaker 1: drunk that he slept on the floor, they did manage

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Speaker 1: to consummate the marriage very shortly after, and nine months

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Speaker 1: after the wedding and January seven, seventeen ninety six, Caroline

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Speaker 1: gave birth to a little girl, young Princess Charlotte. Three

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Speaker 1: days after that, George separated from his wife and declared

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Speaker 1: that their union was all but over. King George the third.

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Speaker 1: George's father, Hervard, hoped that the couple would eventually reconcile

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Speaker 1: and have a baby boy, but fairly quickly it became

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Speaker 1: apparent that would never happen. George and Caroline despised each

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Speaker 1: other and their only child, their daughter, Charlotte, was caught

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Speaker 1: in the middle. For a period during Charlotte's childhood, they

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Speaker 1: all lived in the same mansion, Carlton House in London,

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Speaker 1: albeit on different floors, but eventually Caroline moved to Blackheath,

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Speaker 1: an area of southeast London, and when Charlotte was eight

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Speaker 1: years old, she moved to another palace, Warwick House, and

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Speaker 1: was given her own household, and so from eight years

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Speaker 1: old on Charlotte was surrounded only by people who were

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Speaker 1: paid to be with her. Charlotte was in direct line

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Speaker 1: to be queen after her father, and as heir presumptive,

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Speaker 1: she was incredibly well educated. Although some historians remarked that

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Speaker 1: Charlotte was not particularly studious or a natural scholar, she

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Speaker 1: was bright and inquisitive and interested in poetry, politics, and literature.

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Speaker 1: When Jane Austen's novel Sentence Sensibility came out at the time,

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Speaker 1: published anonymously, authored only by quote a lady. Charlotte read

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Speaker 1: and enjoyed it, and even wrote to a friend that

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Speaker 1: she related to the character of Marianne. Because her father

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Speaker 1: was a royal prince and Charlotte was a ill air.

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Speaker 1: Her father had full custody of care. But when she

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Speaker 1: was young, Charlotte still saw her mother frequently and spent

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Speaker 1: her summers in Blackheath to spend even more time with her.

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Speaker 1: But all of that changed after something that came to

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Speaker 1: be known as the Delicate investigation. Separation hadn't made Charlotte's

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Speaker 1: parents grow fonder, In fact, living their own separate lives,

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Speaker 1: each taking on their own extramarital flirtations, their mutual dislike

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Speaker 1: turned to loathing. Meanwhile, both of their reputations took a

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Speaker 1: turn for the worst. George was considered frivolous for his

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Speaker 1: overspending in the time of war against Napoleon, and while

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Speaker 1: Caroline was popular among the people, gaining sympathy and seen

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Speaker 1: as a jilted wife among the nobility, she was derided

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Speaker 1: for her informality and her suggestive and crude behavior. Living

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Speaker 1: on her own, separated from her daughter, Caroline informally adopted

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Speaker 1: around eight poor children paying for their education and their

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Speaker 1: room and board. The rumors started that one of the children,

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Speaker 1: a boy named William Austin, was actually Caroline's biological child,

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Speaker 1: an illegitimate son born out of wedlock. The rumor was

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Speaker 1: likely started by Caroline herself, who found it funny to

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Speaker 1: laugh at little William's antics and joke that the boy

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Speaker 1: was actually hers and George's. Of course, the scandal of

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Speaker 1: the wife of the future King of England bearing a

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Speaker 1: son can't be overstated. It would throw the entire line

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Speaker 1: of succession into question. The matter was so important that

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Speaker 1: the question as to whether or not Caroline had had

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Speaker 1: another child was actually given over to a commission that

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Speaker 1: included the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief

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Speaker 1: Justice of England and Wales, and the Home Secretary. Members

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Speaker 1: of Caroline's household staff confirmed that she was sometimes flirtatious

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Speaker 1: with visiting male suitors, but they had no actual evidence

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Speaker 1: that she was having an affair, let alone that she

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Speaker 1: had ever been pregnant or had another child. And there

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Speaker 1: was also the small matter of young William Austin actually

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Speaker 1: having a mother who came and visited him at the palace.

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Speaker 1: Often the delicate investigation was closed, and though the commission

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Speaker 1: remarked that some of Caroline's behavior might have been a

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Speaker 1: little less than seemly, there was no actual evidence of

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Speaker 1: an affair or an illegitimate child. With the end of

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Speaker 1: the investigation also came the end of the hope George

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Speaker 1: had no doubt been carrying that he would finally have

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Speaker 1: recourse to get an official divorce. Their poor daughter, Charlotte,

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Speaker 1: was caught in the middle of it all. Kept from

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Speaker 1: her mother during all of us by her father. She

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Speaker 1: would write George letters asking for permission to see her mother,

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Speaker 1: or at least to write to her. At one point

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Speaker 1: during the investigation, George was so intent on keeping his

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Speaker 1: wife away from their daughter that Caroline was forbidden from

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Speaker 1: acknowledging her daughter. When their carriages happened to pass in

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Speaker 1: the park one afternoon, Young Charlotte wrote about the event

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Speaker 1: to her father, recounting that she had seen but not

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Speaker 1: spoken to her mother, worried that if she didn't tell him,

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Speaker 1: he would be upset at her. Respectful as she was

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Speaker 1: of her father's wishes, it seemed that something of her

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Speaker 1: mother had inadvertently rubbed off on Charlotte. People noted that

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Speaker 1: though she was beautiful, her table manners didn't quite match,

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Speaker 1: and Charlotte wore ankle length drawers that showed at the

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00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:57,000
Speaker 1: hem of her dresses in a scandalous manner. And even

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00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 1: more scandalous, when Charlotte was a teenager, she began a

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Speaker 1: little romance with a man named Charles Hess, a captain

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Speaker 1: of the eighteenth Light Dragoons. Charles had a reputation as

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Speaker 1: a cad but Charlotte was captivated. He was her first love,

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Speaker 1: and they exchanged romantic letters back and forth. It likely

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Speaker 1: went no further than that, although at one point Charlotte

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00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,520
Speaker 1: was staying with her mother and Caroline. Ever, the joker

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00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,800
Speaker 1: locked the sixteen year old in her room with her

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Speaker 1: sweetheart and told the pair to amuse themselves. Still, like

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00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:39,359
Speaker 1: most childhood loves, this one faded into the background, and

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00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:43,440
Speaker 1: by the time Charlotte turned seventeen, talk turned in earnest

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Speaker 1: to finding her a husband. The front runner, at least

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Speaker 1: in her father's mind, was easy William, the Hereditary Prince

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Speaker 1: of Orange, son of the newly minted Sovereign Prince of

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Speaker 1: the Netherlands, a title that their family had reclaimed after

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Speaker 1: Napoleon's men were driven out of Holland. In George's mind,

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Speaker 1: tying his daughter, the future Queen of England, to the

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Speaker 1: future King of the Netherlands was a brilliant strategic move

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Speaker 1: to secure British influence in the northwest part of Europe.

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00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:23,040
Speaker 1: Charlotte was less convinced. For one, she wasn't too keen

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Speaker 1: on getting married at all. She was hoping to bide

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00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:30,080
Speaker 1: her time. When the rumors started swirling that she was

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Speaker 1: already engaged to William of Orange, Charlotte jokingly replied that

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00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 1: she actually favored another suitor, the Duke of Gloucester. The

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00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:43,000
Speaker 1: princess's marital prospects were such a hot topic of conversation

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00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,800
Speaker 1: that her off handed remark was spun the way a

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00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 1: celebrity's on the red carpet might be today. There was

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00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:54,879
Speaker 1: breathless coverage as to whether Charlotte would choose the Orange

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00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:59,880
Speaker 1: or the cheese, a reference to Gloucester cheese. The two

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00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,879
Speaker 1: and both named William, were dubbed by the popular press

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00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: slender Billy and silly Billy. But aside from charlotte antipathy

293
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,959
Speaker 1: towards marriage as a whole, there were some actual problems

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00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,520
Speaker 1: with William of Orange. For when he was sickly, pale,

295
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:22,600
Speaker 1: and not too attractive. A friend of Charlotte's went to

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00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:25,800
Speaker 1: scope him out when he arrived in England and reported

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00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: back an account that politely could be characterized as damning

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Speaker 1: with faint praise. Charlotte had attended a dinner with her

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Speaker 1: suitors father and he and the rest of the men

300
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:42,960
Speaker 1: in attendance got blackout, slipped down from the table, fall

301
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: onto the floor drunk, which didn't do much to ingratiate

302
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 1: her to the Orange clan. But all that aside her

303
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 1: mother hated the Oranges. There was old European family bad

304
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: blood there, and as much as George tried to persuade

305
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,440
Speaker 1: his her to marry William of Orange, Caroline was making

306
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:08,160
Speaker 1: herself clear on the position. In the other direction. There

307
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 1: was another small matter that worried Charlotte at this moment

308
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:15,160
Speaker 1: that isn't quite relevant to the larger story, but which

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00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 1: I find I just have to share because of how

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00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:23,199
Speaker 1: absolutely modern it feels. While Charlotte was weighing a possible engagement,

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00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:27,560
Speaker 1: she was preoccupied with terror about the letters she had

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00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: sent to her old flame, Captain Charles Hess back when

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00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 1: she was sixteen. She had burnt all of the letters

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00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: that he sent her, but he almost certainly had not

315
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: done the same. To make matters worse, Captain Has had

316
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 1: already departed for the continent with his regiment. Charlotte begged

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Speaker 1: her best friend, Mercer elephant Stone, which is incidentally just

318
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: a great name, to secure those letters, and Mercer wrote

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Speaker 1: to the Captain. Captain Has wrote back that no, Princess

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00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: Charlotte's letters were not destroyed, but they were safe in

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Speaker 1: a trunk back in England, and if he died in battle,

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00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: he had told a friend to put the trunk at

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the Thames. It never came to that,

324
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:16,680
Speaker 1: and ultimately Captain Has returned and did destroy the letters.

325
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 1: We assume, but I find something very relatable about Charlotte

326
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: desperately enlisting a friend to try to get an old

327
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: flame to destroy evidence of their possible impropriety. But back

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00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 1: to Charlotte's primary suitor, the Prince of Orange. On December twelfth,

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00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen, George arranged dinner for his daughter to sit

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Speaker 1: down and meet the Prince of Orange face to face

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00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: at a dinner party. Halfway through, the Prince Regent called

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Speaker 1: his daughter aside and asked if she had made a decision. Well,

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00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 1: his personality seems fine enough so far from the very

334
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: little I've seen of it, she said. Her father reacted

335
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:05,359
Speaker 1: with a resounding cheer and walked back in announcing that

336
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: Charlotte had agreed to the match. It took several more

337
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,880
Speaker 1: months for the actual marriage contract to be ironed out,

338
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: and I'll spare you the exceedingly boring details there, but

339
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: the big picture was that they decided that if Charlotte

340
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: had two sons, one would be the King of the

341
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: Netherlands and one would be King of England, and that

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00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 1: was the end of that. Charlotte, Princess of Wales future

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00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: Queen of England, was engaged, or rather that was supposed

344
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: to be the end of that. In the two years

345
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 1: that Charlotte was engaged to William of Orange, she grew

346
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 1: less and less excited by the idea of actually marrying him.

347
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: It didn't help things that at a large banquet celebrating

348
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: the soldiers of the war against Napoleon, Charlotte saw her

349
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: well frail and underwhelming fiancee next to far more attractive

350
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: men in uniform. One of those men, Prince Frederick Augustus

351
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 1: of Prussia. Charlotte fell head over heels four, and she

352
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: often referred to her infatuation with the prince in her diaries,

353
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: anonymizing him as f Prince. August even called on Charlotte secretly,

354
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: of course, and it took her best friend Mercer, arriving

355
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: to Warwick House and bursting in on them to remind

356
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: Charlotte that this sort of meeting was not the appropriate

357
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: conduct for a princess. But Charlotte was well aware that

358
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: the real problem here wasn't her little indiscretions. It was

359
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: that she simply did not want to marry William of Orange.

360
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: When she and Williams sat together for the first time

361
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: after they had gotten engaged, William commented that Charlotte would

362
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: need to spend two or three months out of the

363
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,239
Speaker 1: year in Holland with him. Charlotte burst into tears and

364
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: fled from the room. She didn't want to go to Holland,

365
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: and there was a political angle to that as well. Politically,

366
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: Charlotte was a Whig, a young progressive. Her father had

367
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: been a Whig two in his youth until he became

368
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: regent for the mad King George the Third and transitioned

369
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: toward the more conservative Old school pro monarchy Tory party,

370
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 1: where Charlotte's father was incredibly unpopular. Charlotte and her mother

371
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: were beloved by the people, and the Whigs knew that

372
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: having Charlotte and Caroline in the country, the bright young

373
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: daughter and the discarded wife, was politically prudent. Wig politicians

374
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: whispered to Charlotte that some set her father was eager

375
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: to marry her off to a foreign prince because he

376
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: resented her popularity in the country, and once Charlotte was

377
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: gone it would be easier to get Caroline to move

378
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: abroad as well. The English population and began to view

379
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: the marriage as a choice Charlotte was making between her

380
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: two parents. People would shout at her in the streets,

381
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: telling her not to give in, not to abandon her

382
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: mother and Mary Orange. Eventually, Charlotte wrote to William of

383
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: Orange and told him no, she did not want to

384
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: leave England to live in the Netherlands for any period

385
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: of time, and she also put to him a question

386
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: that she already knew the answer to, would her mother

387
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:32,360
Speaker 1: Caroline always be welcome in their home at court. William

388
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: of Orange apologized, but told Charlotte no, given caroline scandals

389
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: and the fact that George, the Prince Regent of England,

390
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: hated her. He couldn't agree to that, and so Charlotte

391
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: made up her mind. She broke off the engagement with William.

392
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: Her father, George, was livid. He came to her London

393
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: house and berated her for her insubordination, and he declared

394
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: that all of her servants would be dismissed and that

395
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: she would be sent to live in the remote Cranborne

396
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: Lodge in Windsor, without permission for any visitors except her grandmother.

397
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: Charlotte was outraged right then and there she ran out

398
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: into the street. In architect, looking out the window in

399
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: one of the buildings next door, noticed this woman clearly

400
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: in distress, either crying or having recently been crying. He

401
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: went downstairs and asked the young woman if he could

402
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: help her. She asked him for help summoning a Hackney cab,

403
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: something she had never done before. The architect helped her

404
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: summon the cab, and when it came, he insisted on

405
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: escorting her to her destination. It wasn't until they arrived

406
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: at her mother's address, where the servants bowed deeply to

407
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: the princess, that the man realized who his fellow passenger

408
00:28:53,880 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: had been wouldever rescue Charlotte was expecting at her mother's house.

409
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: She didn't find it. She was miserable, disheveled, and angry.

410
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: Her mother wasn't home, and so she sent messengers to

411
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: summon her back, and she also had several other prominent

412
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: whigs joined them in the meeting. In the end, they

413
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: all decided that the prudent thing for Charlotte to do

414
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: was go back to her father's house and accept his punishment,

415
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: and so, miserably, the runaway princess returned, still unwilling to

416
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: marry William of Orange, but ready to accept her father's

417
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: terms of exile to Windsor. The stunt made the public

418
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: love her even more, and word of her father's cruelty

419
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: of keeping the princess under house arrest traveled widely. It

420
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 1: was even broached by one of the princess's allies in

421
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: the House of Commons, Caroline. The princess's mother wasn't allowed

422
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: to visit her, and Caroline soon decided that a life

423
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: on the continent would be far more amenable to the

424
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: tenth situa wation. With her husband in England, Caroline left

425
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: for Italy, never to see her daughter again, and Charlotte,

426
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: who had rejected the Prince of Orange at least in

427
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: part out of not wanting to abandon her mother, became

428
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: the one feeling abandoned. George could only hold out against

429
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: the tide of public sympathy for so long. After a

430
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: few months of isolation, George allowed Charlotte to go visit

431
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: not fashionable Bristol, but at least somewhere Weymouth. Huge crowds

432
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: arrived to cheer her every leg of the way, with

433
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: people throwing their hats in the air and shouting Hail

434
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: Princess Charlotte, Europe's hope and Britain's glory. Her father, George,

435
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: still held out hope that she would come around and

436
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: marry William of Orange, but Charlotte held fast still she

437
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: would need to get married, and by the end of

438
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen, she herself had picked a front runner, not

439
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: a dashing prince f that she mooned over. He was

440
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: a cat scandalous, never a real choice to begin with,

441
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: and even more heartbreaking, Lee had seemingly moved on to

442
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: another woman. No, Charlotte made a pragmatic decision. She settled

443
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: on the dashing prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg. Charlotte had

444
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: actually met Prince Leopold before in a meat cute that

445
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: feels right out of a rom com, when she was

446
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: in the process of breaking up her engagement with the

447
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: Prince of Orange. She was meeting with the visiting Czar

448
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: of Russia at the Pultney Hotel in London. Worried that

449
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: she might actually run into Orange, and hoping to avoid

450
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: the awkward running, she snuck out towards a back staircase

451
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:51,959
Speaker 1: and ran, actually ran into a man in uniform, Prince Leopold.

452
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: He introduced himself and offered to escort her back to

453
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: her carriage. If you're a prince, Charlotte asked, why you

454
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: not called on me formally like all of the others.

455
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: Prince Leopold apologized and promised that he would rectify the error,

456
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: and he did formally, calling on the princess a few

457
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: days later and writing to her father to state his intentions.

458
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: All of it was very much above board. George wasn't

459
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: particularly moved by Leopold, who had few connections and less money,

460
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: and Leopold eventually left with his regiment for the continent,

461
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: but Charlotte's mind was made up. No arguments, no threats,

462
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: shall ever bend me to marry the detested Dutchman. She

463
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: wrote in a letter to a friend, she would marry Leopold, or,

464
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: as she called him, the Leo. Charlotte did the thing

465
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: that so many of us do when we have a

466
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,239
Speaker 1: crush on a new person. She began casually bringing him

467
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: up in conversation, inquiring about him to her friends and relatives.

468
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: What do you think of Prince Leopold, you know, just asking,

469
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: just curious. She kept telling her best friend Mercer, to

470
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: write him, passing hints along that she wanted him to

471
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: come back to England. Finally, her father, George yielded, and

472
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: in February eighteen sixteen, eighteen months after Charlotte and her

473
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: Prince's meet cute at the hotel, the Prince Regent invited

474
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: Leopold and Charlotte to invite him for dinner at his

475
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:32,959
Speaker 1: home in Brighton. During the dinner, everyone got along swimmingly.

476
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: It didn't hurt things that just a few weeks earlier,

477
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: William of Orange had finally moved on and married someone else,

478
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: which meant that George's favorite horse was out of the running.

479
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: He conceded that Prince Leopold was an appropriate match with

480
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: quote every qualification to make a woman happy. Charlotte was thrilled.

481
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: I find him charming and go to bed happier than

482
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: I have ever done yet in my life. I am

483
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: certainly a very fortunate creature and have to bless God.

484
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: She wrote, A princess never I believe set out in

485
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 1: life or married with such prospects of happiness, real domestic

486
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:20,479
Speaker 1: ones like other people. Charlotte and Leopold were married two

487
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: months later, May second, eighteen sixteen, during a dazzling ceremony

488
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,959
Speaker 1: in which Charlotte donned a silver gown that cost ten

489
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: thousand pounds. It's address you can still see today if

490
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: you go to visit the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at

491
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: Hampton Court Palace. The only part of the wedding ceremony

492
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: that didn't go exactly as scripted was during the ceremony itself,

493
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: when the groom was promising to endow his new wife

494
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: with all of his worldly goods, and Charlotte, knowing that

495
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: her husband was basically broke and she was the rich one,

496
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: couldn't help a giggle. They were a beloved couple, young

497
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: beautiful and in love. When they made public appearances at

498
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,240
Speaker 1: the opera or theater, people would burst out into spontaneous

499
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: applause or singing of God Save the King. They were

500
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: enough during a time when the rulers were the infirm,

501
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: mad King George the Third and his detested regent George

502
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: the Fourth to make people believe in the monarchy again.

503
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: When Charlotte announced less than a year later that she

504
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: was pregnant, it's impossible to overstate how delighted the public was.

505
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: There was betting in halls about the sex of the child,

506
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:41,240
Speaker 1: and economists at the time predicted that the stock market

507
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: would raise by two point five percent if she gave

508
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: birth to a princess and six percent if it was

509
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: a prince. November three, eighteen seventeen, Charlotte went into labor

510
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: overdue at forty two weeks. The baby was lying horizontal

511
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: in the womb, and the physician, attending, a trendy male

512
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: midwife named Sir Richard Croft, made the decision, in line

513
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: with the popular school of thought at the time, that

514
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: using forceps would be more harm than good. Doctor Croft

515
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: also determined that a cesarean section would be too dangerous,

516
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: whether or not he made the right or wrong medical decision,

517
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: it's impossible to know. After being in labor for two days,

518
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:35,919
Speaker 1: Charlotte gave birth to a stillborn boy, nine pounds by

519
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: all accounts, the baby was beautiful and looked just like

520
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,760
Speaker 1: his royal parents. The doctor tried chest compressions and water

521
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: baths on the baby and mustard rubs, but the baby

522
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: never breathed. Charlotte seemed to recover, at least well enough

523
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 1: that her frantic husband, who had been by her side

524
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: for the entire ordeal, was willing to take an opiate

525
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: to get some sleep but side her. But just five

526
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: hours later, Charlotte began bleeding heavily. She was cold to

527
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: the touch and whispered of pain in her abdomen. Before

528
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 1: her husband could even be woken up. Charlotte was dead.

529
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: My Charlotte is gone from the country. It has lost her.

530
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: Leopold cried when he saw his wife's body, gone cold

531
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 1: and white. Two generations lost in an instant. The nation

532
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: mourned with him. Charlotte's father, the Prince Regent George, was

533
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: so distraught that he couldn't even bring himself to attend

534
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: her funeral. Charlotte's mother Caroline, who had been out of

535
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: the country and hadn't seen her daughter since eighteen fourteen,

536
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: passed out when she heard the news. Though Leopold and

537
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: George had both assured that doctor Croft that he had

538
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: made the correct medical decisions. A few months later, doctor

539
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 1: Croft shot himself in an armed share, unable to shake

540
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:08,720
Speaker 1: the grief of an entire nation from his shoulders. Even

541
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: though King George the Third had had incredibly fifteen children,

542
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 1: thirteen of whom had reached adulthood, he had no more

543
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: legitimate grandchildren. His younger sons had seemed happy just to

544
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: enjoy the company of their mistresses, but with Princess Charlotte's

545
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: death there was a succession crisis. George the Third's middle

546
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: aged children were now in a frantic race to be

547
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: the first to have a legitimate heir. The winner was

548
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: his fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, who married a

549
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: young German princess in May eighteen eighteen, the year after

550
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: Princess Charlotte's death. The year after that, the German princess

551
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: gave birth to a baby girl at Kensington Palace, whom

552
00:38:56,560 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 1: they named Alexandrina Victoria, Although she's better known by the

553
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:03,720
Speaker 1: name she would have when she ascended to the throne

554
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: at age eighteen, Queen Victoria. That's the story of Princess

555
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: Charlotte of Wales, her marriage, and her death. But keep

556
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little

557
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 1: bit more about the men in her life after she

558
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: was gone. Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg had only been

559
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: married to Princess Charlotte, the woman who had fought and

560
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: advocated to marry him, for a short time, but he

561
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: never forgot her. He would eventually become King of Belgium

562
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,720
Speaker 1: and he would marry again, and he and his second

563
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 1: wife would have living heirs. Leopold would insist on naming

564
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 1: their only daughter, Charlott It in honor of the woman

565
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 1: he once loved. Unfortunately, Little Charlotte has a slightly tragic end.

566
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: She would marry a man named Maximilian and they would

567
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: go to Mexico as Emperor and Empress, where she would

568
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 1: change her name to Carlotta. If you want to hear

569
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,800
Speaker 1: more about her, you can listen to another very early

570
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,800
Speaker 1: episode of this podcast called Today we Leave for Mexico.

571
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 1: Princess Charlotte of Wales's other former Paramore. William, Prince of Orange,

572
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: also went on to live a fascinating life. He was

573
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: allegedly bisexual, and he was blackmailed about it in eighteen nineteen.

574
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: Now I want to be on the record blackmail is

575
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 1: always bad, but there are actually theories that he was

576
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: blackmailed into signing constitutional reforms that actually led to Netherlands

577
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: becoming a parliamentary democracy. So what can we say except

578
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: history truly is a rich tapestry. Noble Blood is a

579
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:14,879
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from

580
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: Aaron Minky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz.

581
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 1: Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

582
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: The show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.

583
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,

584
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the show over at

585
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I

586
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

587
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M