Posted by Damian on 21/1/2011, 23:23:18, in reply to "The race for an heir"
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: When Charlotte died in 1817, George was 55,
: William of Clarence 52, Edward of Kent 50,
: Ernest of Cumberland 46 (already married but
: still childless), Augustus of Sussex was a
: divorced 44 y.old and Adolphus of Cambridge
: was 42.
Augustus of Sussex was never legally divorced because he was never legally married according to British law.Both his marriages contravened the Royal Marriages Act and were therefore deemed illegal.Consequently neither of his wives could share his ducal title and his son could not inherit it.However Queen Victoria created his second wife,Duchess of Inverness in her own right.
: Did George -or his ministers- ever consider
: embarking (him) on the marriage race or was
: he too lazy/traumatised by his own marriage
: to bother and left the task to his younger
: brothers ?
By the time of Charlotte's death,her father was middle-aged and obese and unlikely to be able to father any more children.Besides which he was still unhappily married to her mother although they had been separated for many years.The fact that Queen Charlotte was still alive at the time may also have been a factor as the scandal of a divorce would probably have been fatal to her (she was almost fanatically rigid in her views) and George was devoted to his mother.By the time she died exactly a year later,four of his younger brothers (Clarence,Kent,Cumberland and Cambridge) were all expectant fathers by legitimate wives and their wives all duly gave birth a few months later.With the exception of the Clarences' child,all the others survived and one was to become Queen Victoria.George's wife Caroline died a year after he became king but he never made any move to re-marry.Mistresses were sufficient. There were three young heirs by that time and two more would be added by the end of his reign so the succession,one way or the other,had been secured.
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