Queen Charlotte's Nunnery
You've heard of the Princes in the Tower, now meet the princesses who were locked up in the palace.
Anyone familiar with the Netflix spin-off series Queen Charlotte, will know that King George III’s marriage to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz produced 15 children, 13 of who survived until adulthood. In the TV show, Queen Charlotte’s daughters are seen trapped and unmarried at the English court but how close is this interpretation to the truth? Let’s find out…
Charlotte (1766-1828)
The King and Queen had been blessed with three sons before Charlotte, the Princess Royal was born on 29 September 1766 at Buckingham House (which would be enlarged to become Buckingham Palace in the 19thC). There were high hopes for the little girl from the beginning. Charlotte was to make a fine marriage that would strengthen ties with European royalty. To prepare her, she was given a rigorous education and etiquette lessons on how to behave at court.
However, when a new sister Augusta arrived, Charlotte was no longer the golden child The two were constantly compared with Charlotte described as ‘plain’, while Augusta was ‘beautiful’.
‘The princess was so violently in love with him that everyone saw it. She could not contain herself in his presence.’
Despite these unfavourable comparisons, as the eldest daughter Charlotte was expected to find a husband first. In 1797 Charlotte was married to Frederick, Prince of Wurttemberg and a year later gave birth to a daughter who was still born. She was the only child the couple would have.
Meanwhile, life in Wurttemberg was politically fraught and in 1800 the state was occupied by the French army, forcing Charlotte and Frederick to flee to Vienna. After signing a treaty, the couple were allowed to return and Frederick was crowned King in 1805 when Wurttemburg agreed to join Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine. This agreement essentially made the territory an enemy of King George III and relations soured between the monarch and his eldest daughter. Things did not improve until Frederick changed sides again and pledged his support to Britain.
In 1816 Frederick died and Charlotte remained in Wurttemberg where she hosted her collection of siblings for long visits. She made one final trip back to England in 1827, which was dominated by illness, as the now overweight Princess struggled with her mobility and dropsy (swelling in her feet and legs). She died the following year at Ludwigsburg Palace in Germany.
Augusta (1768-1840)
Princess Augusta was born on 8 November 1768 and was the King and Queen’s second daughter.
Known in royal circles as a beauty, Augusta was also incredibly shy and struggled to deal with the attention that came with life at court. In 1782, Augusta was presented into society at the King’s birthday celebrations. It was an overwhelming occasion for someone who had spent most of her life closeted from the world and her mother, knowing how Augusta loathed attention, did not tell her that she was making her debut until two days before the occasion. What should have been a happy event for the princess instead marked the beginning of a difficult period in her life.
Later that year, Augusta’s younger brother Alfred died after an adverse reaction to the small pox inoculation and eight months later, she lost another brother, Octavius, in exactly the same way. When Augusta saw a portrait of them both at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition she broke down in tears. Her sensitive nature was further tested when political divisions opened up between her elder brothers and her parents, causing a family rift. Augusta attempted to heal relations by writing diligently to her siblings but the relationships would continue to be problematic.
Augusta proved a loyal companion to her mother, however as she approached marriageable age it was expected that she would marry. The Queen, it seemed, had other ideas. There was a proposal from the Crown Prince of Denmark, which was turned down and other interest from foreign princes was quickly squashed. Augusta began to believe that she would never have a romantic life.
That was all to change in 1800 when Augusta met a senior officer of the British Army, Sir Brent Spencer and they quickly entered into a relationship. In 1812 Augusta asked for permission to marry Spencer from her brother, the Prince Regent, who was acting on behalf of the King after his final mental health collapse. It is not clear whether this was ever granted, however when Spencer died in 1828 he had a locket with Augusta’s picture on his person. Augusta died in 1840 at Clarence House.
Elizabeth (1770-1840)
Elizabeth known as ‘Eliza’ was the third daughter of King George and Queen Charlotte. Ever the optimist, she was known for her wit and sense of humour, as well as her artistic talents, which saw her strike up friendships with prominent painters such as Thomas Gainsborough. She was the only child of King George, whose nickname was ‘Farmer George’, who shared his love of agriculture and even ran her own model farm in Windsor producing eggs, milk and butter from her livestock.
Like her sisters, Elizabeth longed to get married and escape the stifling atmosphere at court. Deprived of the chance to meet suitable gentlemen of her own age she began a relationship with diplomat, Alleyne Fitzherbert, who was 17 old years older than her. She said: ‘There is no man I love so well, and his tenderness to me has never varied and that is a thing I never forget,’ and commissioned a portrait of him from noted enamelist Henry Pierce Bone. However, her mother was resolute in opposing the relationship and the years continued without any sign of a suitable marriage.
In 1814 Prince Frederick of Hesse Hamburg came to visit Britain and although Elizabeth was not physically attracted to him, she was by this point desperate to marry. When an offer came in 1818, Elizabeth lobbied her mother to accept. Charlotte was reluctant, fearing that her daughter would inevitably move to Germany and delayed her permission for weeks, however Elizabeth prevailed and the two married at Buckingham Palace on the 7th of April.
‘There is no man I love so well, and his tenderness to me has never varied and that is a thing I never forget,’
The marriage turned out to be a success for Elizabeth. Even though she was by this point past childbearing age, she revelled in her newfound freedom and the partnership with Frederick was based on mutual respect. It lasted for 11 years before Frederick suddenly died in 1829. Elizabeth remained in Germany for the rest of her life and died in 1840.
Mary (1776-1857)
As the fourth daughter of the King and Queen, Mary enjoyed a childhood where her father was healthy and devoted and regularly visited the royal nursery. This was the period when the royal family was at its happiest. Charlotte and George both worked hard to provide a close family environment for their children, even though they were bound by strict rules and etiquette.
However, all of the royal children’s lives would change radically when King George’s mental illness progressed and he became increasingly absent from their lives. When the King was well the family could be together, however his bouts of ill health became more frequent and Queen Charlotte relied on her daughters to fill the gap. It became a stifling environment for the girls, who had very little company and were sheltered from the outside world.
Mary was said to be one of the most beautiful of the daughters and in 1792 made her debut in society. Four years later she fell in love with the Dutch Prince Frederick, however George III would not give the couple permission to marry, as he was determined that Mary’s elder sisters should marry first. When Frederick died in 1799 Mary was distraught and went into official mourning. A decade later she would once more be consumed by grief when her younger sister Amelia, who she had nursed through her illness, also died.
It was 1816 when Mary finally married. She was 40 years old and accepted her first cousin the Duke of Gloucester as her husband. It wasn’t a love match but one born out of necessity for Mary as a means to escape her mother. Mary was 81 when she died and was the last surviving child of George and Charlotte.
‘I wonder you do not vote for putting us in a sack and drowning us in the Thames’.
Sophia (1777-1848)
Princess Sophia was born in 1777 and like her older sisters found herself severely restricted by the Queen’s strict rules and desire to keep her children away from bad influences. She was close to her father King George, however as his health deteriorated, so too did the hopes of his daughters to find good marriages to eligible princes. Sophia and her sisters were isolated at Kew Palace which they called ‘The Nunnery’. Here, they led a dull life, as companions to their mother who was afraid that any talk of marriage would upset the King. Their days consisted of listening to sermons from their mother and exploring the grounds around the Palace, as well as perfecting skills such as embroidery. They rarely met anybody and certainly no young men apart from servants and their brothers.
In 1800 rumours began to spread about Princess Sophia. She had fallen in love with her father’s Chief Equerry, Thomas Garth, who was 33 years her senior. Garth had a purple birthmark on his face causing Sophia’s sister Mary to call him the ‘purple light of love’. The young princess was passionately in love for the first time and it did not go unnoticed. A lady in waiting wrote ‘the princess was so violently in love with him that everyone saw it. She could not contain herself in his presence.’ Soon rumours began circulating that Sophia had given birth to an illegitimate child. These rumours were never substantiated and some historians even suggest that it was not Garth that fathered Sophia‘s child but her brother the Duke of Cumberland.
During the Regency, Prince George tried to help his sisters either to marry or gain more independence. For years his siblings had wrote to him expressing their desire to have families of their own and to escape ‘The Nunnery’. Sophia once wrote to him on the subject saying, ‘I wonder you do not vote for putting us in a sack and drowning us in the Thames’.
However, it was too late for Sophia and instead she lived a quiet life at Kensington Palace, keeping a watchful eye on Princess Victoria, the future queen.
Amelia (1783-1810)
In 1783, the final and 15th child of King George and Queen Charlotte was born. Princess Amelia was said to be her father‘s favourite and was nicknamed ‘Emily’. It is possible that this was because she was born straight after the deaths of his two sons Octavius and Alfred, which had a huge effect on George and may have added to his mental health problems. From the beginning Amelia was supposed to fill the huge gap left by her siblings and was doted on by all around her. Called ‘the little idol’ by the writer Fanny Burney, Amelia was said to be conscious of her rank as a princess and full of self importance.
Given more freedom than her elder sisters, Amelia lived a free life not bound by the strict education they had endured. This may have been due to her father’s first serious bout of madness, which occurred when Amelia was just five years old. This turn of events meant that Amelia and her two closest sisters in age spent very little time with the King and Queen, communicating mainly by letter. The closeness of the royal family that her other siblings had experienced during their childhood had disappeared by the time Amelia was growing up.
Throughout her younger years Amelia suffered with her health and by the time she was 15 she was starting to show signs of tuberculosis. She was sent to Weymouth to recover, as it was thought the sea air would help her symptoms. It was here that she too fell in love with an equerry, Charles Fitzroy, who was 21 years older.
In 1808 Amelia contracted measles and her health deteriorated. She recovered but two years later came down with Saint Anthony’s fire, a form of cellulitis and was confined to her bed. The King summoned his doctors three times a day to check on Amelia’s condition but it was no use, as Amelia died soon afterwards. In her will she left all her possessions to Charles Fitzroy.
Charlotte, Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia and Amelia, the daughters of King George III and Queen Charlotte, all lived isolated and unhappy lives as their mother’s companions while their father battled mental illness. Those who eventually married, did so late in life and were unable to have families of their own. Digging into their stories feels like a desperately sad chapter of royal history.
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