Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, vol 1 | Page 4

waters lay, Though the stream of time kept
flowing When they spoke of our King, 'twas but to say That the old
man's strength was going.
At intervals thus the waves disgorge, By weakness rent asunder, A
piece of the wreck of the Royal George For the people's pity and
wonder.
Lady Sarah, too, became blind in her age, and, alas! she had trodden
darker paths than any prepared for her feet by the visitation of God.
Queen Charlotte had come with her sense and spirit, and ruled for more
than fifty years over a pure Court in England. The German princess of
sixteen, with her spare little person and large mouth which prevented
her from being comely, and her solitary accomplishment of playing on
the harpsichord with as much correctness and taste as if she had been
taught by Mr. Handel himself, had identified herself with the nation, so
that no suspicion of foreign proclivities ever attached to her. Queen
Charlotte bore her trials gravely; while those who came nearest to her
could tell that she was not only a fierce little dragon of virtue, as she
has been described, but a loving woman, full of love's wounds and
scars.
The family of George III. and Queen Charlotte consisted of seven sons
and his daughters, besides two sons who died in infancy.
George, Prince of Wales, married, 1795, his cousin, Princess Caroline
of Brunswick, daughter of the reigning Duke and of Princess Augusta,
sister of George III. The Prince and Princess of Wales separated soon
after their marriage. Their only child was Princess Charlotte of Wales.
Frederick, Duke of York, married, 1791, Princess Frederica, daughter
of the reigning King of Prussia. The couple were childless.
William, Duke of Clarence, married, 1818, Princess Adelaide, of
Saxe-Meiningen. Two daughters were born to them, but both died in
infancy.
Edward, Duke of Kent, married, 1818, Princess Victoria of
Saxe-Coburg, widow of the Prince of Leiningen. Their only child is
QUEEN VICTORIA.
Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, married, 1815, Princess Frederica of

Mecklenburg-Strelitz, widow, first of Prince Frederick Louis of Prussia,
and second, of the Prince of Saliris-Braunfels. Their only child was
George V., King of Hanover.
Augustus, Duke of Sussex, married morganatically.
Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, married, 1818, Princess Augusta of
Hesse-Cassel, daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. They had
three children--George, Duke of Cambridge; Princess Augusta,
Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; and Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck.
The daughters of King George and Queen Charlotte were:--
The Princess Royal, married, 1797, the Prince, afterwards King, of
Wurtemberg. Childless.
Princess Augusta, unmarried.
Princess Elizabeth, married, 1818, the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg.
Childless.
Princess Mary, married, 1816, her cousin, William, Duke of Gloucester.
Childless.
Princess Sophia, unmarried.
Princess Amelia, unmarried.
In 1817 the pathetic idyl, wrought out amidst harsh discord, had found
its earthly close in the family vault at Windsor, amidst the lamentations
of the whole nation. Princess Charlotte, the candid, fearless,
affectionate girl, whose youth had been clouded by the sins and follies
of others, but to whom the country had turned as to a stay for the
future--fragile, indeed, yet still full of hope--had wedded well, known a
year of blissful companionship, and then died in giving birth to a dead
heir. It is sixty-five years since that November day, when the bonfires,
ready to be lit at every town "cross," on every hill-side, remained dark
and cold. Men looked at each other in blank dismay; women wept for
the blushing, smiling bride, who had driven with her grandmother
through the park on her way to be married not so many months before.
There are comparatively few people alive who had come to man's or
woman's estate when the shock was experienced; but we have all heard
from our predecessors the story which has lent to Claremont a tender,
pensive grace, especially for royal young pairs.
Old Queen Charlotte nerved herself to make a last public appearance on
the 11th of July, 1818, four months before her death. It was in her
presence, at Kew, that a royal marriage and re-marriage were

celebrated that day. The Duke of Clarence was married to Princess
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, and the Duke of Kent was re-married, in
strict accordance with the English Royal Marriage Act, to Princess
Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, the widowed Princess of Leiningen. The last
couple had been already united at Coburg in the month of May. The
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London officiated at the
double ceremony. The brides were given away by the Prince Regent.
The Queen retired immediately afterwards. But a grand banquet, at
which the Prince Regent presided, was given at six o'clock in the
evening. An hour later the Duke and Duchess of Kent drove off in her
brother, Prince Leopold's, carriage to Claremont.
Of the two bridegrooms we