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Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg- Strelitz, Duchess of Gloucester, George III, King George III of Great Britain, King George IV of the United Kingdom, Prince William Frederick of Great Britain, Princess Mary of Great Britain, Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Robert Walpole, The Prince Regent
Princess Mary was born on April 25, 1776, at Buckingham Palace, London. Her father was the reigning British monarch, George III. Her mother was Queen Charlotte, the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg (1708–1752) and of his wife Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1713–1761).
The King was a devoted father, finding time to regularly visit the royal nursery. Engaging in active play with his young children, he behaved quite informally in contrast to the dignified Queen Charlotte, who had more difficulty abandoning the formal behaviour expected of their class. Despite her outer reserve, however, Charlotte took a role as conscientious as her husband in their children’s upbringing. For the royal princesses, the Queen carefully oversaw their welfare, education, and development of moral values. Faced with less time due to her public duties and close marriage to the King, she appointed Lady Charlotte Finch to manage the royal nursery and administer her ideas.
According to Flora Fraser, Mary was considered to be the most beautiful daughter of George III; Fraser calls her a “bland beauty”. Mary danced a minuet for the first time in public at the age of sixteen in June 1791, during a court ball given for the king’s birthday. In the spring of 1792 she officially debuted at court. Around 1796 Mary fell in love with the Dutch Prince Frederik, while he and his family lived in exile in London. Frederik was a son of Willem V, Prince of Orange, the Dutch stadholder, and younger brother to the future King Willem I of the Netherlands. However Frederik and Mary never wed because George III stipulated that her elder sisters should marry first. In 1799 Prince Frederik died of an infection while serving in the army, and Mary was allowed to go into official mourning.
Prince William Frederick was born on January 15, 1776 at Palazzo Teodoli in via del Corso, Rome. His father was Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the third son of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (eldest son of King George II and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach), and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg the daughter Friedrich II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1676–1732) and Magdalena Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst (1679–1740).
Prince William Frederick’s mother, Maria Walpole was the illegitimate daughter of Edward Walpole and Dorothy Clement. Maria was a granddaughter of Robert Walpole, considered to be the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1721–41). As a great-grandson of George II he held the title of Prince of Great Britain with the style His Highness, not His Royal Highness, at birth. Today, a great grandchild in the male line descendant of a British sovereign will not have any princely title or style as this was limited by the Letters Patent issued in 1917.
On August 25, 1805, Prince William Frederick’s father died, and he inherited the titles Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught. From 1811 until his death he was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Prince William Frederick was offered the position of King of Sweden in 1812 by some members of the Swedish nobility, but the British government would not allow it.
Because of the unequal character of his parents’ marriage, he was excluded from membership in the German House of Hanover, being considered only a British prince. For instance, he and his sister were not listed in the genealogical listing of the electoral house of Hanover in the Königlicher Groß-Britannischer und Kurfürstlicher Braunschweig-Lüneburgscher Staats-Kalender. He was also not invited to sign the family compact of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1831, which means that he was not considered an agnate of the royal (electoral) house in Germany. The Hanoverian Dynasty was a collateral branch of the House of Brunswick, which in turn was a branch of the House of Guelph.
During Prince William Frederick’s stay in Stockholm in 1802–1803, his interest and rumoured affair with Aurora Wilhelmina Koskull attracted a lot of attention, and he reportedly had plans to marry her. Queen Charlotte recalled that William Frederick said of Koskull: “If she was your daughter, I would marry her!” He was admitted to the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in 1787, and granted his MA in 1790.
Princess Mary’s upbringing was very sheltered and she spent most of her time with her parents and sisters. King George III and Queen Charlotte were keen to shelter their children, particularly the girls. Prince William Frederick had been encouraged to stay single, so that there might be a suitable groom for Princess Charlotte of Wales, the heiress to the throne, even if no foreign match proved suitable; she had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg ten weeks earlier.
Princess Mary and Prince William Frederick were married on July 22, 1816. The marriage took place at St. James’s Palace, London. On their wedding day, Mary’s brother, The Prince Regent, (future King George IV) raised the bridegroom’s style from Highness to Royal Highness, an attribute to which Mary’s rank as daughter of the King already entitled her. As mentioned previously, Prince William Frederick, as a great-grandson of George II, he held the title of Prince of Great Britain with the style His Highness, not His Royal Highness. Legally, Princess Mary would have adopted her husbands style of Highness, despite it being a lower style than a Royal Highness. Since Princess Mary was a Royal Highness from birth, The Prince Regent merely elevated her husband to the higher style.
The new Duke and Duchess of Gloucester lived at Bagshot Park in Surrey. They had no children together; they had married when both were 40.
He was active in many walks of life, and on April 27, 1822 chaired the first Annual General Meeting of London’s new United University Club. Politics, however, was not among them; he entered the House of Lords rarely, and he voted on few of the great issues of his time. He did advocate the abolition of slavery, and he supported Caroline of Brunswick the wife of George IV and the Duke of Sussex against George IV when the king tried unsuccessfully tried to divorce her after succeeding to the throne.
As Duke of Gloucester, he kept more state than the King; he never permitted a gentleman to be seated in his presence (which King George did as an exceptional favour) and expected to be served coffee by the ladies of any party he attended, and that they would stand while he drank it. The general estimate of his capacity is given by his nickname, “Silly Billy”; he was also called “Slice of Gloucester” and “Cheese”, a reference to Gloucester cheese. The Duke died on November 30, 1834 at Bagshot Park, and was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Mary was the last surviving child of George III, and was said to be the favourite aunt of her niece, Queen Victoria. Princess Mary was quite close to her eldest brother, and she shared his dislike toward his wife, their cousin Caroline of Brunswick. When the latter left for Italy, Princess Mary congratulated her brother “on the prospect of a good riddance. Heaven grant that she may not return again and that we may never see more of her.” Princess Mary died on April 30, 1857 at Gloucester House, Weymouth, aged 81. At the time of her death, she was the last surviving child as well as the longest-lived child of King George III and Queen Charlotte.
European Royal History 