The duchess of Kent with her daughter, the future queen Victoria by Henry Bone, 1825 Victoria was born on May 24, 1819, and christened Alexandrina after Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria after her mother. Whether or not the alliance of the Duke of Kent and his spouse Princess Victoria would have taken place under less urgent circumstances, it created the longest-reigning monarch in British history-Queen Victoria-surpassed only by the present Queen Elizabeth II. This completely overshadowed Mary Louisa Victoria’s birth, which from that day forward would be a day of mourning for Fritz instead of a celebration of her arrival. So enamored were the Prussian people with their king that they nicknamed him “Old Fritz”. Her birth coincided with the death of Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. Mary Louisa Victoria’s life was clouded by superstitions from the moment she was born. Portrait of Victoria, Duchess of Kent by Richard Rothwell, 1832 She was the youngest of eight children of Francis Frederick Antony, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld. His bride was the 32-year-old widow Mary Louisa Victoria, commonly known as Victoria. The third son, William, Duke of Clarence, was 52 years old the fourth son Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, was 50 and Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge was 43.Īt age 36 and without employment, he retired for a time to the leafy London suburb of Ealing.Īs a boy, his German tutor kept him so short of pocket-money that he developed a lifelong habit of accumulating debt.įor a time, he even had to seek asylum in Belgium from an army of creditors.īut all that changed with the succession crisis. Three of his five daughters were married with no children and two were elderly spinsters.Īnd so the succession spotlight fell on the three unmarried sons. Of his seven sons who survived into adulthood, three were middle-aged bachelors, and the four who were married were childless. Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, heiress presumptive of the British crown, 1817 The Marriage MissionĪt the time, George III’s reign was the longest in English history. In a period called the British Regency (1810 – 1820), the King’s son George, the Prince of Wales, ruled in his proxy.Īnd in 1817, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, the only child of the Prince Regent died giving birth to a stillborn son, creating a succession crisis. ![]() The Succession Crisis George, Prince Regent and Prince of Wales later George IV by Thomas Lawrence, 1816įollowing recurrent mental illness in 1810, King George III was deemed unfit to rule.
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