The Hanovers 1714-1901

[LouisFerdinand]

The Children of King William IV   

[LouisFerdinand]

William IV had an open-air banquet for 3,000 impoverished   
locals to mark his birthday on August 21, 1830.     
King William sat with his people to eat from a menu of veal, ham, beef, and plum pudding.

[LouisFerdinand]

The unmarried life of Princess Augusta Sophia   

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Charlotte had a zebra that grazed outside of Buckingham Palace.
  She had an elephant which resided with the horses in the stables.

[Curryong]

Queen Charlotte had a zebra that grazed outside of Buckingham Palace.
  She had an elephant which resided with the horses in the stables.

I find the elephant story very hard to believe, actually, especially as many horses are easily spooked. Admittedly there were several private zoos and exotic animals held on the estates of noble families in Britain and Europe before the mid 19th century when municipal zoos started to become popular. I believe the Duchess of York, the estranged wife of George and Charlotte's second son, had quite a menagerie at her estate, Bushey Park, but the Duke couldn't stand the mess and noise, one of the reasons he moved out.  The Tower of London had a menagerie for centuries until the idea of animals being kept in unsuitable conditions became of concern.

[PrincessOfPeace]

King George IV's sword made for his historic visit to Edinburgh in 1822 and jacket the monarch wore for iconic portrait go on display alongside baby shoes worn by his only child -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13227607/Sword-King-George-IV-baby-shoes.html

[LouisFerdinand]

At one point it was assumed that Princess Charlotte of Wales would become engaged to Prince William of Orange and that they would be married.
   http://www.baldwin.co.uk/product/george-iii-princess-charlotte-of-wales-betrothal-to-prince-william-of-orange-ae-medal-1814

[Curryong]

At one point it was assumed that Princess Charlotte of Wales would become engaged to Prince William of Orange and that they would be married.
  http://www.baldwin.co.uk/product/george-iii-princess-charlotte-of-wales-betrothal-to-prince-william-of-orange-ae-medal-1814

She didn't fancy him is the long and short of it. He wasn't her to her taste, to the annoyance of that moral arbiter of lawful marriage her father, King George IV. As William turned out to be a bit of a yobbo on his visit to London George didn't press it.

[LouisFerdinand]

Princess Sophia, the daughter of King George III, was blackmailed by her own illegitimate son.   

[LouisFerdinand]

The reign of King William IV saw several reforms:   
the Poor Law was updated, child labor restricted, slavery abolished   
in nearly all of the British Empire, and the electoral system refashioned by the Reform Acts of 1832.

[Curryong]

The reign of King William IV saw several reforms: 
the Poor Law was updated, child labor restricted, slavery abolished 
in nearly all of the British Empire, and the electoral system refashioned by the Reform Acts of 1832.

Yes, King William IV is often disregarded and thought of as a 'Silly Billy'(one of his nicknames) but the Parliaments of his reign (often dominated by reforming Whigs) certainly weren't. Some movements predated his reign of course. The British move to abolish the international slave trade for example was largely due to William Wilberforce and his circle fighting for legislation to be passed in Parliament in the 1820s. And it was, there's a story of a dying Wilberforce being carried into the House of Commons to see it pass which apparently isn't true, but he certainly heard about it from Thomas Clarkson, a leader in the campaign to abolish the slave trade within the then British Empire.

[LouisFerdinand]

King William IV dismissed his brother George IV's French chefs and German band, replacing them with English ones to public approval.

[LouisFerdinand]

Why did Queen Charlotte of England hate a portrait of herself?
 

[Curryong]

Lots of people, including royals dislike portraits of themselves. Most of the time in the modern era these are commissioned by Guilds, military organisations, to commemorate a significant royal event etc, so the royal stays quiet, discreet and sucks it up if they dislike the portrayal.

In those days such portraits were all private commissions from the royal him/her self or their spouse, and what they wanted was paramount. Obviously Charlotte had disliked being asked to take a favourite hat off to be painted and so took a dislike to the very young artist Tom Lawrence. He wasn't paid for this commission but got his revenge later when he exhibited it and it was highly praised, even by his fellow artists. So that was some compensation I guess.

[LouisFerdinand]

King William IV suggested Buckingham House (Palace) be turned over to Parliament after the old Palace of Westminster burned in 1834.

[Curryong]

King William IV suggested Buckingham House (Palace) be turned over to Parliament after the old Palace of Westminster burned in 1834.

Well, Silly Billy hated the place (as virtually every sovereign and their families have done since. Edward VII was a possible exception and even he was not in residence that often.) Billy thought it was a splendid opportunity to offload the cold, inconvenient and draughty place on to the Govt. However, the politicians said 'Thanks but no thanks' so he was lumbered with it.

Billy wasn't a great one for ceremony or lavishness in any way, the opposite of his brother George IV. He refused to agree to the banquet following his Coronation, which had turned into a chaotic bunfight in 1820, and really didn't want a crowning at all. He had asked if he could just swear allegiance (like Leopold of the Belgians) but that wasn't allowed.

[LouisFerdinand]

When Princess Caroline of Brunswick first arrived in England,   
Prince George, The Prince of Wales appointed her a lady-in-waiting Frances Villiers.

[LouisFerdinand]

Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta in 1736   
http://www.alamy.com/frederick-prince-of-wales-and-the-princess-augusta-image262746341.html

[LouisFerdinand]

The British government was interested for William, Duke of Clarence to marry someone. They offered generous allowances to the prince for making a match. When they found out his bride was going to be Princess Adelaide, they greatly decreased the allowance they had given to William.

[Curryong]

The British government was interested for William, Duke of Clarence to marry someone. They offered generous allowances to the prince for making a match. When they found out his bride was going to be Princess Adelaide, they greatly decreased the allowance they had given to William.

It wasn't just William that the British Govt wished to see a married man. It was all the surviving sons of the ancient King and Queen. They had produced an enormous family but after the death of the heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte, in childbirth in 1817 there were no legitimate grandchildren. The Prince Regent and his wife Caroline had loathed each other for years, were estranged and separated and Caroline was nearly 50, so no hope there.

Parliament offered all the single middle aged Princes generous allowances to wed, but William, later heir to his brother, had been domiciled with Dora Jordan, the actress, for many years and they had ten growing children together. The Duke of Kent was happily settled with his longterm mistress Julie St Laurent.

 However, money motivated all these Princes, who were heavily in debt. Parliament probably did not expect the rush of these men plus Prince Adolphus Duke of Cambridge to the altar in the same year, and, faced with huge payouts to settle debts, quickly slashed them. William, who had disengaged himself from Mrs Jordan, was outraged but bore up.

Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was William's bride after other options fell through. She was the Princess of an unimportant little German territory, but she was young enough to have children. William had a double ceremony in Germany with his brother Edward Duke of Kent and his widow bride Victoire, and the race to produce an heir was on. Ultimately Edward won as all Adelaide's children died in infancy.

 

[LouisFerdinand]

The Charitable Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen   

[LouisFerdinand]

Were there better options than George I?     

[Curryong]

Oh yes, and what 'better' options were available to the British Parliament after King William II died childless and Queen Anne's only surviving child, the Duke of Gloucester, died in childhood? Great Britain was, by the early 18th century solidly Protestant, (with the significant exception of Ireland)  so choosing the direct Jacobite heir, the Old Pretender (the son of James II) who was a devout Roman Catholic, was not an option.

Sophia of Hanover was later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland (later Great Britain) and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701, as a granddaughter of King James VI and I. She was Protestant and also a direct link back to James I via her mother Elizabeth of Palatine, who was James's daughter. Sophia had married the Elector of Hanover, who headed a Protestant dynasty. She and her eldest son George, who became George I of GB, were thoroughly German and George, a stolid hypocrite who had divorced and imprisoned his wife for being unfaithful though he had several mistresses, was a dispiriting choice, but, after his mother Sophia died, (she was then an old lady) shortly before her second cousin Queen Anne, the only one who could have possibly succeeded. Britain would never have gone back to having RC monarchs.

[LouisFerdinand]

King William IV got revenge after several years   

[LouisFerdinand]

Why did King George I have all documents concerning his and Sophia Dorothea's divorce destroyed?