December 9, 1750: Death of Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

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Duke Franz of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Edward VII, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, House of Wettin, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Thuringian Dukes

Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (July 15, 1750 – December 9, 1806), was one of the ruling Thuringian dukes of the House of Wettin.

Biography

Franz was born on July 15, 1750. He is the eldest son of Ernst Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Sophia Antonia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the tenth of 17 children of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Antoinette Amalie Brunswick-Lüneburg (1696–1762), youngest daughter of his first cousin Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen.

Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg was the maternal grandfather of Empress Maria Theresa I, The Holy Roman Empress, Emperor Peter II of Russia and also Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

Franz received a private, careful and comprehensive education and became an art connoisseur. Franz initiated a major collection of books and illustrations for the duchy in 1775, which eventually expanded to a 300,000-picture collection of copperplate engravings currently housed in the Veste Coburg.

Franz was commissioned into the allied army in 1793 when his country was invaded by the Revolutionary armies of France. The allied forces included Hanoverians, Hessians, and the British. He fought in several actions against the French.

Franz succeeded his father as reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1800. In the discharge of his father’s debts the Schloss Rosenau had passed out of the family but in 1805 he bought back the property as a summer residence for the ducal family.

Emperor Franz II dissolved the Holy Roman Empire on August 6, 1806, after its defeat by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. Duke Franz died December 9, 1806. On December 15, 1806, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, along with the other Ernestine duchies, entered the Confederation of the Rhine as the Duke and his ministers planned.

First marriage

In Hildburghausen on March 6, 1776, Franz married Princess Sophie of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a daughter of his Ernestine kinsman, Duke Ernst Friedrich II and Princess Ernestine of Saxe-Weimar. She died on October 28, 1776, only seven months after her wedding. There were no children born from this marriage.

Second marriage and children

In Ebersdorf on June 13, 1777, Franz married Countess Augusta Reuss of Lobenstein-Ebersdorf, daughter of Heinrich XXIV, Count Reuss of Ebersdorf and his wife Countess Karoline Ernestine of Erbach-Schönberg. They had ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.

His male-line descendants established ruling houses in Belgium, United Kingdom, Portugal and Bulgaria, while retaining the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1918.

His son Leopold ruled as King Leopold I of the Belgians. A grandson reigned jure uxoris as King Ferdinand II of Portugal while a great-grandson named Ferdinand became the first modern king of Bulgaria.

One of his granddaughters was Empress Carlota of Mexico, while another was Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. The latter’s son, Edward VII, a patrilineal as well as matrilineal great-grandson of Franz, inaugurated upon his accession to the British throne in 1901 the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the name of the ruling dynasty of the United Kingdom until the house name was changed to Windsor by King George V in 1917.

Further, as progenitor of a line of Coburg princes who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, ascended the thrones of several European realms, he is a patrilineal ancestor of King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Albert, Prince Consort of the United Kingdom, Victoria, German Empress, Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Queen Maud of Norway, Queen Marie of Romania, Margaret, Crown Princess of Sweden, Queen Marie-José of Italy, King Philippe of Belgium, Empress Carlota of Mexico, King Simeon II of Bulgaria, Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte of Luxembourg and King Manuel II of Portugal.

The life of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Part II

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Albert-Edward Prince of Wales, Assassination Attempt, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Lord Chesterfield, Napoléon III of France, Queen Victoria, Typhoid fever

During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political influence and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties, and represented Britain on visits abroad.

His tours of North America in 1860 and of the Indian subcontinent in 1875 proved popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother.

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain was given a boost when the French emperor, Napoleon III, was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and the French Third Republic was declared. However, in the winter of 1871, a brush with death led to an improvement in both Edward’s popularity with the public and his relationship with his mother. While staying at Londesborough Lodge, near Scarborough, North Yorkshire,

Edward contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father. There was great national concern, and one of his fellow guests (Lord Chesterfield) died. Edward’s recovery was greeted with almost universal relief. Public celebrations included the composition of Arthur Sullivan’s Festival Te Deum. Edward cultivated politicians from all parties, including republicans, as his friends, and thereby largely dissipated any residual feelings against him.

Edward was regarded worldwide as an arbiter of men’s fashions. He made wearing tweed, Homburg hats and Norfolk jackets fashionable, and popularised the wearing of black ties with dinner jackets, instead of white tie and tails. He pioneered the pressing of trouser legs from side to side in preference to the now normal front and back creases, and was thought to have introduced the stand-up turn-down shirt collar, created for him by Charvet.

A stickler for proper dress, he is said to have admonished Lord Salisbury for wearing the trousers of an Elder Brother of Trinity House with a Privy Councillor’s coat. Deep in an international crisis, Salisbury informed the Prince that it had been a dark morning, and that “my mind must have been occupied by some subject of less importance.”

In 1891 Edward was embroiled in the royal baccarat scandal, when it was revealed he had played an illegal card game for money the previous year. The Prince was forced to appear as a witness in court for a second time when one of the participants unsuccessfully sued his fellow players for slander after being accused of cheating. In the same year Edward was involved in a personal conflict, when Lord Charles Beresford threatened to reveal details of Edward’s private life to the press, as a protest against Edward interfering with Beresford’s affair with Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick.

The friendship between the two men was irreversibly damaged, and their bitterness would last for the remainder of their lives. Usually, Edward’s outbursts of temper were short-lived, and “after he had let himself go … [he would] smooth matters by being especially nice”.

In late 1891, Edward’s eldest son, Albert Victor, was engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. Just a few weeks later, in early 1892, Albert Victor died of pneumonia. Edward was grief-stricken. “To lose our eldest son”, he wrote, “is one of those calamities one can never really get over”.

Edward told Queen Victoria, “[I would] have given my life for him, as I put no value on mine”. Albert Victor was the second of Edward’s children to die. In 1871, his youngest son, Alexander John, had died just 24 hours after being born. Edward had insisted on placing Alexander John in a coffin personally with “the tears rolling down his cheeks”.

On his way to Denmark through Belgium on April 4, 1900, Edward was the victim of an attempted assassination when fifteen-year-old Jean-Baptiste Sipido shot at him in protest over the Second Boer War. Sipido, though obviously guilty, was acquitted by a Belgian court because he was underage.

The perceived laxity of the Belgian authorities, combined with British disgust at Belgian atrocities in the Congo, worsened the already poor relations between the United Kingdom and the Continent. However, in the next ten years, Edward’s affability and popularity, as well as his use of family connections, assisted Britain in building European alliances.

November 9, 1841: Birth of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Part I

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Alexandra of Denmark, Christian IX of Denmark, Earl of Chester, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Louise of Hesse-Cassel, Prince Albert Edward, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria

Edward VII (Albert Edward; November 9, 1841 – May 6, 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India from January 22, 1901 until his death in 1910.

Edward was born at 10:48 in the morning on November 9, 1841 in Buckingham Palace. He was the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was christened Albert Edward at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on January 25, 1842.

He was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. He was known as Bertie to the royal family throughout his life. He was related to royalty throughout Europe.

As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth. As a son of Prince Albert, he also held the titles of Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony.

He was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on December 8 1841, Earl of Dublin on January 17, 1850, a Knight of the Garter on November 9, 1858, and a Knight of the Thistle on May 24, 1867. In 1863, he renounced his succession rights to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother Prince Alfred.

The Queen and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should have an education that would prepare him to be a model constitutional monarch. At age seven, Edward embarked on a rigorous educational programme devised by Albert, and supervised by several tutors. Unlike his elder sister Victoria, he did not excel in his studies.

He tried to meet the expectations of his parents, but to no avail. Although Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm, sociability and tact—Benjamin Disraeli described him as informed, intelligent and of sweet manner. After the completion of his secondary-level studies, his tutor was replaced by a personal governor, Robert Bruce.

Edward had hoped to pursue a career in the British Army, but his mother vetoed an active military career. He had been gazetted colonel on November 9, 1858—to his disappointment, as he had wanted to earn his commission by examination.

In September 1861, Edward was sent to Germany, supposedly to watch military manoeuvres, but actually in order to engineer a meeting between him and Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark and his wife Louise of Hesse-Cassel. The Queen and Prince Albert had already decided that Edward and Alexandra should marry.

They met at Speyer on September 24 under the auspices of his elder sister, Victoria, who had married Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia in 1858. Edward’s sister, acting upon instructions from their mother, had met Alexandra at Strelitz in June; the young Danish princess made a very favourable impression.

Edward and Alexandra were friendly from the start; the meeting went well for both sides, and marriage plans advanced.

Edward gained a reputation as a playboy. Determined to get some army experience, he attended manoeuvres in Ireland, during which he spent three nights with an actress, Nellie Clifden, who was hidden in the camp by his fellow officers.

Prince Albert, though ill, was appalled and visited Edward at Cambridge to issue a reprimand. Albert died in December 1861 just two weeks after the visit. Queen Victoria was inconsolable, wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life and blamed Edward for his father’s death. At first, she regarded her son with distaste as frivolous, indiscreet and irresponsible. She wrote to her eldest daughter, “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder.”

Marriage

Once widowed, Queen Victoria effectively withdrew from public life. Shortly after Prince Albert’s death, she arranged for Edward to embark on an extensive tour of the Middle East, visiting Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut and Istanbul.

As soon as Edward returned to Britain, preparations were made for his engagement, which was sealed at Laeken in Belgium on September 9, 1862. Edward married Alexandra of Denmark at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on March 10, 1863. He was 21; she was 18.

The couple established Marlborough House as their London residence and Sandringham House in Norfolk as their country retreat. They entertained on a lavish scale. Their marriage met with disapproval in certain circles because most of Queen Victoria’s relations were German, and Denmark was at loggerheads with Germany over the territories of Schleswig and Holstein.

When Alexandra’s father inherited the throne of Denmark in November 1863, as King Christian IX, the German Confederation took the opportunity to invade and annex Schleswig-Holstein. The Queen was of two minds as to whether it was a suitable match, given the political climate. After the marriage, she expressed anxiety about their socialite lifestyle and attempted to dictate to them on various matters, including the names of their children.

Happy Birthday HRH Prince George of Cambridge.

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Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Charles, Prince George of Cambridge, Prince William, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria, the prince of Wales

Prince George of Cambridge (George Alexander Louis; born July 22, 2013) is a member of the British royal family. He is the eldest child of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and third in the line of succession to the British throne behind his grandfather Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales and his father. As he is expected to become king one day, his birth was widely celebrated across the Commonwealth realms. George occasionally accompanies his parents on royal tours and engagements.

George was born in the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, London, at 16:24 BST (15:24 UTC) on July 22, 2013. The birth was uncustomarily announced by press conference instead of through an easel outside Buckingham Palace, though an easel was placed following the birth. The newborn was widely hailed as a future king in the majority of British newspapers. 21-gun salutes signalled the birth in the capitals of Bermuda and New Zealand; the bells of Westminster Abbey and many other churches were rung; and landmarks in the Commonwealth realms were illuminated in various colours, mostly blue to signify the birth of a boy. On 24 July, his name was announced as George Alexander Louis.

George’s father, the Duke of Cambridge, is the elder son of the Prince of Wales, who is the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, placing George third in the line of succession to the British throne. Speculation ensued during the pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge that the birth would boost the British national economy and provide a focus for national pride.

George was christened by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace on October 23, 2013, with Oliver Baker, Emilia Jardine-Paterson, Earl Grosvenor, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, Julia Samuel, William van Cutsem and Zara Tindall serving as godparents. The font used at the ceremony was made for Queen Victoria’s first child and the water was taken from the River Jordan. Commemorative coins were issued by the Royal Mint and the Royal Canadian Mint; the first time a royal birth had been marked that way. Prince George’s birth marked the second time that three generations in direct line of succession to the throne have been alive at the same time, a situation that last occurred between 1894 and 1901, in the last seven years of the reign of Queen Victoria.

History of Male British Consorts Part XIII

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Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Crimean War, Prince Consort, Queen Victoria, stomach cancer, The Trent Affair, Typhoid fever, Victoria the Princess Royal

In 1852, John Camden Neild, an eccentric miser, left Victoria an unexpected legacy, which Albert used to obtain the freehold of Balmoral. As usual, he embarked on an extensive programme of improvements. The same year, he was appointed to several of the offices left vacant by the death of the Duke of Wellington, including the mastership of Trinity House and the colonelcy of the Grenadier Guards. With Wellington’s passing, Albert was able to propose and campaign for modernisation of the army, which was long overdue.

Thinking that the military was unready for war, and that Christian rule was preferable to Islamic rule, Albert counselled a diplomatic solution to conflict between the Russian and Ottoman empires. Palmerston was more bellicose, and favoured a policy that would prevent further Russian expansion. Palmerston was manoeuvred out of the cabinet in December 1853, but at about the same time a Russian fleet attacked the Ottoman fleet at anchor at Sinop. The London press depicted the attack as a criminal massacre, and Palmerston’s popularity surged as Albert’s fell. Within two weeks, Palmerston was re-appointed as a minister. As public outrage at the Russian action continued, false rumours circulated that Albert had been arrested for treason and was being held prisoner in the Tower of London.

By March 1854, Britain and Russia were embroiled in the Crimean War. Albert devised a master plan for winning the war by laying siege to Sevastopol while starving Russia economically, which became the Allied strategy after the Tsar decided to fight a purely defensive war. Early British optimism soon faded as the press reported that British troops were ill-equipped and mismanaged by aged generals using out-of-date tactics and strategy.

The conflict dragged on as the Russians were as poorly prepared as their opponents. The Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, resigned and Palmerston succeeded him. A negotiated settlement eventually put an end to the war with the Treaty of Paris. During the war, Albert arranged the marriage of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, to Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia, though Albert delayed the marriage until Victoria was seventeen. Albert hoped that his daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging but very conservative Prussian state.

Albert promoted many public educational institutions. Chiefly at meetings in connection with these he spoke of the need for better schooling. A collection of his speeches was published in 1857. Recognised as a supporter of education and technological progress, he was invited to speak at scientific meetings, such as the memorable address he delivered as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science when it met at Aberdeen in 1859. His espousal of science met with clerical opposition; he and Palmerston unsuccessfully recommended a knighthood for Charles Darwin, after the publication of On the Origin of Species, which was opposed by the Bishop of Oxford.

In August 1859, Albert fell seriously ill with stomach cramps. His steadily worsening medical condition led to a sense of despair. He lost the will to live, says biographer Robert Rhodes James. He had an accidental brush with death during a trip to Coburg in October 1860, when he was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses that suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken, though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises. He confided in his brother and eldest daughter that he had sensed his time had come.

Victoria’s mother and Albert’s aunt, the Duchess of Kent, died in March 1861, and Victoria was grief-stricken. Albert took on most of the Queen’s duties despite continuing to suffer with chronic stomach trouble. The last public event over which he presided was the opening of the Royal Horticultural Gardens on June 5, 1861. In August, Victoria and Albert visited the Curragh Camp, Ireland, where the Prince of Wales was attending army manoeuvres. At the Curragh, the Prince of Wales was introduced, by his fellow officers, to Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress.

By November, Victoria and Albert had returned to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales had returned to Cambridge, where he was a student. Two of Albert’s young cousins, brothers King Pedro V of Portugal and Prince Ferdinand, died of typhoid fever within five days of each other in early November. On top of this news, Albert was informed that gossip was spreading in gentlemen’s clubs and the foreign press that the Prince of Wales was still involved with Nellie Clifden. Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son’s indiscretion, and feared blackmail, scandal or pregnancy.

Although Albert was ill and at a low ebb, he travelled to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales on November 25 to discuss his son’s indiscreet affair. In his final weeks Albert suffered from pains in his back and legs.

Also in November 1861, the Trent affair—the forcible removal of Confederate envoys from a British ship by Union forces during the American Civil War—threatened war between the United States and Britain. The British government prepared an ultimatum and readied a military response. Albert was gravely ill but intervened to defuse the crisis. In a few hours, he revised the British demands in a manner that allowed the Lincoln administration to surrender the Confederate commissioners who had been seized from the Trent and to issue a public apology to London without losing face. The key idea, based on a suggestion from The Times, was to give Washington the opportunity to deny it had officially authorised the seizure and thereby apologise for the captain’s mistake.

On December 9, one of Albert’s doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed him with typhoid fever. Albert died at 10:50 p.m. on December14, 1861 in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, in the presence of the Queen and five of their nine children. The contemporary diagnosis was typhoid fever, but modern writers have pointed out that Albert’s ongoing stomach pain, leaving him ill for at least two years before his death, may indicate that a chronic disease, such as Crohn’s disease, kidney failure, or abdominal cancer, was the actual cause of death.

The History of the Title of Duke of Edinburgh.

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Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Earl of Wessex, Frederik Louis, King George II, King George III, Peerage, Peerage of Great Britain, Prince Alfred, Prince Charles, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Queen Victoria

Duke of Edinburgh: Dukedom in the Peerage of Great Britain and the United Kingdom

The Dukedom of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, is a substantive title that has been created three times for members of the British royal family since 1726. A substantive title is a title of nobility or royalty acquired either by individual grant By the sovereign or inheritance. It is to be distinguished from a title shared among cadets, borne as a courtesy title by a peer’s relatives, or acquired through marriage.

The title of Duke of Edinburgh has been created three times and has been borne by five princes of the Royal Family. The current holder of the title, Duke of Edinburgh, is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales who inherited the title on the death of his father Prince Philip on April 9th 2021.

The title was first created in the Peerage of Great Britain on 26 July 26, 1726 by King George I of Great Britain who bestowed it on his grandson Prince Frederick Louis, the eldest son of the future King George II and his wife Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (from the collateral branch of the Prussian royal House of Hohenzollern)

At the time King George I created Prince Frederick Louis Duke of Edinburgh, Frederick Louis’s parents were the Prince and Princess of Wales. King George I died the very next year and Frederick Louis’s parents became King George II and Queen Caroline and Prince Frederick Louis was created Prince of Wales.

The subsidiary titles of the dukedom were Baron of Snowdon, in the County of Caernarvon, Viscount of Launceston, in the County of Cornwall, Earl of Eltham, in the County of Kent, and Marquess of the Isle of Ely. These titles were also in the Peerage of Great Britain. The marquessate was apparently erroneously gazetted as Marquess of the Isle of Wight although Marquess of the Isle of Ely was the intended title. In later editions of the London Gazette the Duke is referred to as the Marquess of the Isle of Ely.

Upon Frederick Louis’s death in 1751 the title Duke of Edinburgh and it’s subsidiary titles of the dukedom were inherited by his son Prince George. When Prince George became King George III in 1760, the titles “merged into the Crown”, and ceased to exist.

1866 Creation

Queen Victoria re-created the title, this time in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, on May 24, 1866 (her 47th birthday) for her second son Prince Alfred. Creating him Duke of Edinburgh was a departure from the long held tradition of creating the title Duke of York for the second son of the Monarch.

The subsidiary titles of the creation of this dukedom were Earl of Kent and Earl of Ulster, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. When Alfred became the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1893, he retained his British titles. His only son Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, committed suicide in 1899, so the Dukedom of Edinburgh and subsidiary titles became extinct upon the elder Alfred’s death in 1900.

1947 Creation

The title was created for a third time on November 19, 1947 by King George VI, who bestowed it on his son-in-law Philip Mountbatten, when he married his eldest daughter and heir, The Princess Elizabeth. Philip was born a Prince of Greece and Denmark, being a male-line grandson of King George I of the Hellenes and male-line great-grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark).

Subsequently, Princess Elizabeth was styled “HRH The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh” until her accession to the throne in 1952. The subsidiary titles of this creation of the dukedom are Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, of Greenwich in the County of London.

Like the dukedom, these subsidiary titles are also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Earlier that year, Philip had renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles along with his rights to the Greek throne. In 1957, Philip became a Prince of the United Kingdom in his own right.

Upon Philip’s death on April 9, 2021, his eldest son Charles, Prince of Wales, succeeded to all of his hereditary titles. The current heir apparent to the dukedom is Charles’ eldest son Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.

When Prince Charles succeeds to the throne as king this third creation of the title Duke of Edinburgh will merge with the crown and cease to exist. The plan, set forth in 1999, is to create the title for a fourth time for Prince Charles’s youngest brother, Prince Edward the Earl of Wessex.

The Duchess of Kent: Part III. The Duchess vs the King

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coronation, Duchess of Kent, Fitzclarence, John Conroy, Queen Adelaide, Queen Victoria, Regency, Regent, The Kensington System, Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, William IV of the United Kingdom

Together in a hostile environment, John Conroy’s relationship with the Duchess was very close, with him serving as her comptroller and private secretary for the next nineteen years, as well as holding the unofficial roles of public relations officer, counsellor, confidant and political agent.

While it is not clear which of the two was more responsible for devising the Kensington System, it was created to govern young Victoria’s upbringing. The goal they both had was for the Duchess to be appointed regent upon Victoria’s ascension which they assumed would take place prior to her turning eighteen. Once established as recent the Duchess would have Conroy created Victoria’s private secretary and given a peerage. This would established Conroy as the true power behind the throne.

The Duchess and Conroy continued to be unpopular with the royal family and, in 1829, the Duke of Cumberland spread rumours that they were lovers in an attempt to discredit them. The Duke of Clarence referred to Conroy as “King John”, while the Duchess of Clarence wrote to the Duchess of Kent to advise that she was increasingly isolating herself from the royal family and that she must not grant Conroy too much power.

Victoria was raised under the “Kensington System” and the extremely protective Duchess of Kent kept her daughter largely isolated from other children. The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of Britain’s Royal Family), and was designed to keep her weak and dependent upon them.

The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King William IV’s illegitimate children, and perhaps prompted the emergence of Victorian morality by insisting that her daughter avoid any appearance of sexual impropriety. Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash.

Due to Conroy’s continual influence, the relationship between the Duchess’s household and King William IV increasingly soured, with the Duchess regarding the King as an oversexed oaf. As far as she dared, the Duchess denied the King access to his niece. She prevented her daughter from attending William’s coronation out of a disagreement of precedence, a decision attributed by the Duke of Wellington to Conroy.

In 1831, the year of William’s coronation, Conroy and the Duchess embarked on a series of royal tours with Victoria to expose her to the people and solidify their status as potential joint regents. Their efforts were ultimately successful and, in November 1831, it was declared that the Duchess would be sole regent in the event of Victoria’s youthful accession to the crown.The Duchess further offended the King by taking rooms in Kensington Palace without the King’s permission. These were rooms that the King had reserved for himself.

Both before and during William’s reign, she snubbed his illegitimate children, the FitzClarences. Both the King and his wife Queen Adelaide were fond of their niece, Princess Victoria of Kent. Their attempts to forge a close relationship with the girl were frustrated by the conflict between the King and the Duchess of Kent.

The King, angered at what he took to be disrespect from the Duchess to his wife, took the opportunity at what proved to be his final birthday banquet in August 1836 to settle the score. Speaking to those assembled at the banquet, who included the Duchess and Princess Victoria, William expressed his hope that he would survive until Princess Victoria was 18 so that the Duchess of Kent would never be regent.

He said,”I trust to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer … I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady, heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed.”

The breach between the Duchess and the King and Queen was never fully healed, but Victoria always viewed both of them with kindness.

March 21, 1871: Marriage of Princess Louise of the United Kingdom and John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne.

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9th Duke of Argyll, Albert Edward, John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Princess Louise of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria, Royal Marriage, the prince of Wales

Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, (March 18, 1848 – December 3, 1939) was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In her public life, she was a strong proponent of the arts and higher education and of the feminist cause. Her early life was spent moving among the various royal residences in the company of her family. When her father, the prince consort, died on December 14, 1861, the court went into a long period of mourning, to which with time Louise became unsympathetic. Louise was an able sculptor and artist, and several of her sculptures remain today. She was also a supporter of the feminist movement, corresponding with Josephine Butler, and visiting Elizabeth Garrett.

Before her marriage, from 1866 to 1871, Louise served as an unofficial secretary to her mother, the Queen. The question of Louise’s marriage was discussed in the late 1860s. Suitors from the royal houses of Prussia and Denmark were suggested, but Victoria did not want her to marry a foreign prince, and therefore suggested a high-ranking member of the British aristocracy.

Suitors

As a daughter of the queen, Louise was a desirable bride; more so as she is regarded as the queen’s most beautiful daughter by both contemporary and modern biographers. However, she was accused by the press, without substantiation, of romantic affairs. This, coupled with her liberalism and feminism, prompted the queen to find her a husband. The choice had to suit Victoria as well as Louise, and the queen insisted that her daughter’s husband should live near her, a promise which had also been extracted from the husband of Helena, Louise’s sister. Various suitors were proposed by the leading royal houses of Europe: Princess Alexandra proposed her brother, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, but the queen was strongly opposed to another Danish marriage that could antagonise Prussia at a time of diplomatic tension over the Schleswig-Holstein question.

Victoria, Louise’s eldest sister, proposed the tall and rich Prince Albert of Prussia, but Queen Victoria disapproved of another Prussian marriage that would have been unpopular in England. Prince Albert was also reluctant to settle in England as required. Willem, Prince of Orange, was also considered a suitor, but because of his extravagant lifestyle in Paris, where he lived openly with a lover, the queen quickly vetoed the idea.

Louise viewed marriage to any foreign prince as undesirable, and she fell in love with John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, the heir of the Duke of Argyll. Louise announced that she wished to marry the Marquess of Lorne, despite opposition from members of the royal family.

No marriage between a daughter of a monarch and a British subject had been given official recognition since 1515, when Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, married King Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Louise’s brother, the Prince of Wales, was strongly opposed to a marriage with a non-mediatized noble.

Furthermore, Lorne’s father, George Campbell, was an ardent supporter of William Ewart Gladstone, and the Prince of Wales was worried that he would drag the royal family into political disputes. Nevertheless, the opposition was crushed by the queen, who wrote to the Prince of Wales in 1869:

That which you object to [that Louise should marry a subject] I feel certain will be for Louise’s happiness and for the peace and quiet of the family … Times have changed; great foreign alliances are looked on as causes of trouble and anxiety, and are of no good. What could be more painful than the position in which our family were placed during the wars with Denmark, and between Prussia and Austria? … You may not be aware, as I am, with what dislike the marriages of Princesses of the Royal Family with small German Princes (German beggars as they most insultingly were called) … As to position, I see no difficulty whatever; Louise remains what she is, and her husband keeps his rank … only being treated in the family as a relation when we are together …

The queen averred that Louise’s marriage to a subject would bring “new blood” into the family, while all European princes were related to each other. She was convinced that this would strengthen the royal family morally and physically.

Louise became engaged to the Marquess of Lorne on October 3, 1870 while they were visiting Balmoral. Lorne was invited to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and accompanied Louise, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hatherley and Queen Victoria’s lady-in-waiting Lady Ely on a drive. Later that day, Louise returned and announced to the queen that Lorne had “spoken of his devotion” to Louise, and she accepted his proposal in the knowledge of the queen’s approval. The queen later gave Lady Ely a bracelet to mark the occasion.

The Queen found it difficult to let go of her daughter, confiding in her journal that she “felt painfully the thought of losing her”. The new breach in royal tradition caused surprise, especially in Germany, and Queen Victoria wrote to the Queen of Prussia that princes of small impoverished German houses were “very unpopular” in Britain and that Lord Lorne, a “person of distinction at home” with “an independent fortune” was “really no lower in rank than minor German Royalty”.

Victoria settled an annuity on Louise shortly before her marriage. The ceremony was conducted at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on March 21, 1871, and the crowd outside was so large that, for the first time, policemen had to form chain barriers to keep control. Louise wore a wedding veil of Honiton lace that she designed herself, and was escorted into the chapel by her mother, and her two eldest brothers, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. On this occasion, the usually severe black of the queen’s mourning dress was relieved by the crimson rubies and blues of the Garter star. Following the ceremony, the queen kissed Louise, and Lorne – now a member of the royal family, but still a subject – kissed the queen’s hand.

The couple then journeyed to Claremont in Surrey for the honeymoon, but the presence of attendants on the journey, and at meal times, made it impossible for them to talk privately. The short four-day visit did not pass without an interruption from the queen, who was curious about her daughter’s thoughts on married life. Among their wedding gifts was a maplewood desk from Queen Victoria, now at Inveraray Castle.

The Duchess of Kent: Part II. Widowhood

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Coburg, George III of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria, The Duchess of Kent, The Duke of Kent, The Prince Regent

Widowhood

The Duke of Kent died suddenly of pneumonia in January 1820, six days before his father, King George III. His widow the Duchess had little cause to remain in the United Kingdom, since she did not speak the language and had a palace at home in Coburg where she could live cheaply on the revenues of her first husband.

However, the British succession at this time was far from assured – of the three brothers older than Edward, the new king, George IV, and the Duke of York were both estranged from their wives, who were in any case past childbearing age. The third brother, the Duke of Clarence, had yet to produce any surviving children with his wife.

The Duchess of Kent decided that she would do better by gambling on her daughter’s accession than by living quietly in Coburg and, having inherited her second husband’s debts, sought support from the British government. After the death of Edward and his father, the young Princess Victoria was still only third in line for the throne, and Parliament was not inclined to support yet more impoverished royalty.

The provision made for the Duchess of Kent was mean: she resided in a suite of rooms in the dilapidated Kensington Palace, along with several other impoverished members of the royal family, and received little financial support from the Civil List, since Parliament had vivid memories of the late Duke’s extravagance. In practice, a main source of support for her was her brother, Leopold.

The latter had a huge income of fifty thousand pounds per annum for life, representing an annuity allotted to him by the British Parliament on his marriage to Princess Charlotte, which had made him seem likely to become in due course the consort of the monarch. Even after Charlotte’s death, Leopold’s annuity was not revoked by Parliament.

In 1831, with George IV dead and the new king William IV (formerly the Duke of Clarence) being over 60 without any surviving legitimate issue, and whose nearly 40-year-old wife was considered to be at the end of childbearing age, the young princess’s status as heir presumptive and the Duchess’s prospective place as regent led to major increases in British state income for the Kents. A contributing factor was Leopold’s designation as King of the Belgians, upon which he surrendered his British income.

The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester: The OTHER William & Mary.

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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.