Her character appears to have been decidedly admirable. By the people of Wirtemberg she was regarded with the utmost affection and respect; and the children of her husband, by his first wife, loved and honoured her as though she had been their own mother. EDWARD AND VICTORIA, DUKE AND DUCHESS OF KENT. EDWARD, the fourth son of George the Third, was born on the 2nd of November, 1767. His education was commenced in this country, and completed at Hanover. He entered the army at an early age, and soon became an enthusiastic admirer of military discipline. Having attained the rank of colonel, he served during the years 1790 and 1791, under General O'Hara, at Gibraltar, where he rendered himself so unpopular by his strictness, that his regiment repeatedly mutinied, and his life is stated to have been, on more than one occasion, in considerable peril. On quitting Gibraltar, he was sent out as commander of the forces in Canada. In 1794, he received orders to join the expedition under Sir Charles Grey, against the French West India islands; and, during the campaign that ensued, his impetuous bravery procured him the general admiration of his companions in arms. He headed the flank division at the storming of several strong and important forts in Martinique and Guadaloupe; and so brilliant were its exploits, that, "The Flank Corps" became a standing toast, as well at the admiral's table, as at that of the commander-in-chief. The prince was subsequently appointed governor of Gibraltar, where the rigorous measures which he adopted for the purpose of repressing various abuses in the garrison, produced such excitement and insubordination, that it was deemed prudent to recal him. In 1799, he was created Duke of Kent, and obtained a parliamentary grant of £12,000 per annum. A large portion of this allowance he set apart for the liquidation of his debts; and, in the year 1816, he went abroad in order to abridge his expences. On the 29th of May, 1818, he was united to Victoria Maria Louisa, widow of the late Prince of Leinengen, (by whom she had had two children), and sister to the Prince of Saxe Cobourg, who was then in the thirtieth year of her age, having been born in 1788. The duke and his amiable bride, whose character has been most highly and deservedly eulogized, shortly afterwards arrived in this country, and were re-married according to the rites of the church of England. In 1819, the duchess gave birth to a daughter, (the Princess Victoria); and, in the latter part of the year, with a view to the reestablishment of her health, which had been materially affected by her confinement, she proceeded to Sidmouth, in Devonshire, where the duke, who had accompanied her royal highness, was attacked by an inflammation of the lungs, and died, after a brief illness, on the 23rd of January, 1820. His person was tall and athletic; his appearance dignified; his understanding strong; his deportment affable, and his bravery chivalrous. The course which he pursued in politics, appears to have been almost invariably tolerant, liberal, and conciliatory. Towards the latter part of his life, he had become exceedingly popular, and his death was deeply regretted by the nation. ERNEST AUGUSTUS AND FREDERICA, DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CUMBERLAND. ERNEST AUGUSTUS, fifth son of George the Third, was born on the 5th of June, 1771. He received his educa tion at the university of Gottingen, where he was entered, July 6, 1786, with his two younger brothers; each being accompanied by a governor, a preceptor, and a gentleman. They were lodged in one house, and had their table fixed at six hundred crowns a week, including two grand institution dinners, to which the professors and some students were invited. They were taught German by Professor Meyer; Latin by Heyne; religion by Less, ecclesiastical counsellor; and morality by counsellor Feder; for which duties, each received an appointment of one thousand crowns per annum. On the 23rd of April, 1798, his royal highness was created Duke of Cumberland and Tiviotdale, and obtained a parliamentary income of £12,000, which was increased in 1819, to £18,000 per annum. In 1815, he married Frederica Sophia Charlotte, of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, widow of the Prince of Salms, (born on the 20th of May, 1778,) with whom the duke remained on the continent for a very considerable period. The duchess visited this country, for the first time, in 1829, during which year she appeared at a drawingroom held by George the Fourth. AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, DUKE OF SUSSEX. On THIS prince, the sixth son of George the Third, was born on the 27th of January, 1773. He received his education on the continent, where he formed an union, which was solemnized according to the forms of the church of Rome, with Lady Augusta Murray, a daughter of the Earl of Dunmore. "Lady Augusta," ludicrously observes a cotemporary writer, "soon became pregnant, and returned to England; his royal highness did the same." their arrival in this country, they were again married by banns, in St. George's church, Hanover square, and the duke proposed to resign whatever claims he might possess as a member of the royal family, on condition that his marriage should not be disturbed: it was, however, some time afterwards declared illegal and invalid by the ecclesiastical court, as being contrary to the provisions of the royal marriage act. No sooner was the sentence published than | Lady Augusta, who had become the mother of two children, separated from his royal highness, and the remainder of her life was passed in dignified retirement. The prince was created Earl of Inverness and Duke of Sussex, in 1801, when he obtained a parliamentary grant of £12,000 per annum, to which a yearly addition of £9,000 was subsequently made. His attachment to the Whigs, the frankness with which he avowed his political sentiments, and the course which he adopted with regard to the differences in the family of the king, his brother, rendered him a stranger at court during the reign of George the Fourth; with whom, however, during his majesty's last illness, the duke was cordially reconciled. As a speaker, he possesses considerable facility: his opinions are decidedly liberal, and his manners frank and condescending. ADOLPHUS FREDERICK AND AUGUSTA WILHELMINA, DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE. ADOLPHUS FREDERICK, the seventh son of George the Third, (by whom he was much beloved,) was born on the 24th of February, 1774. He received a military education, and entered the army at an early age. In 1793, he served with the British forces before Dunkirk, and on the 13th of September, in that year, he is stated to have returned to England, wearing a coat that exhibited several sabre marks, and a helmet, through which he had been wounded in the eye. In 1794, he attained the rank of colonel: in the following year he was raised to the dukedom of Cambridge, and parliament granted him a yearly allowance of £12,000, which was subsequently raised to £27,000 per annum. In 1803, he was placed at the head of an army of 14,000 men, destined for the defence of Hanover: but, finding on his arrival in the electorate, that its inhabitants evinced but little inclination to aid him against the enemy, he soon solicited his recal, and after some delay, procured permission to return to England, leaving the army under the command of Count Walmoden, who was shortly afterwards compelled to surrender. The duke gradually rose to the rank of field-marshal, and on the restoration of Hanover, he was appointed its governor-general. On the 7th of May, 1818, he married Augusta Wilhelmina Louisa, niece of the Landgrave of Hesse. This amiable and accomplished lady was born on the 25th of July, 1797: her education is said to have been conducted with remarkable care, and her union with his royal highness is stated to have been attended with the decided approval of the whole of their respective relatives. The private conduct of the duke appears to have been always unexceptionable: his public career can scarcely be said to have been brilliant; but although it may have procured him little applause, it has decidedly entitled him to public esteem. His political opinions have rarely been censurable; as an orator, he may be pronounced acute, well-informed, correct, but not altogether eloquent. His habits are said to be studious, and his acquirements as a scholar are reputed to be much more considerable than is generally supposed. On the whole, the duke, who has never courted notoriety, appears to be deserving even of a larger share of admiration and respect than he actually enjoys. WILLIAM FREDERICK AND MARY, DUKE AND WILLIAM FREDERICK, son of The public conduct: he, accordingly, con- PRINCESS AMELIA. AMELIA, youngest daughter of George the Third, was born on the 7th of August, 1783. In childhood and youth, although delicate, she possessed great vivacity: her talents were good, and her temper excellent. Unfortunately, she was afflicted with a glandular disease, which, even in its incipient state, occasioned her considerable suffering; and shortly after she had entered her twenty-fourth year, it assumed a hopeless form; but she lingered, in great agony, which she bore with the most admirable resignation, until the latter end of 1810. Her death took place on the 2nd of November in that year. George the Third appears to have been particularly fond of her royal highness; and it is even asserted, that his last mental aberration was materially accelerated by the deep grief with which he contemplated the prospect of her approaching decease. PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF SAXE COBOURG. THE only child of George the Fourth by his consort, Caroline of Brunswick, was born on the 7th of January, 1796, and baptized Charlotte Caroline Augusta, on the 11th of the following month. Bishop Porteus describes her, in 1801, as having been "a most captivating and engaging child. She repeated," continues he, "several of her hymns with great correctness and propriety; and being told, when she went to Southend, in Essex, she would then be in my diocese, she fell down on her knees, and begged my blessing.' Her education was conducted, first under the superintendence of the Countess of Elgin, and subsequently under that of the Baroness de Clifford. She was removed from the immediate guardianship of her mother, about the period when the delicate investigation of the charges made by Sir John and Lady Douglas against the Princess of Wales took place, and was placed at Warwick house, by command of George the Third, who had claimed the privilege of bringing her up under his own protection, as she was a child of the state. Queen Charlotte, whom the young princess appears to have hated, exercised, it is said, a secret interference as to her studies, and employed Hannah More to write an elementary work for her use. In 1809, Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, became her preceptor, and Doctors Nott and Short his assistants. At an early period of her life, she had displayed much waywardness and caprice; and although she at length became sufficiently tractable and diligent to pass through her studies in a manner decidedly brilliant, yet, her naturally high and irritable spirit was still unsubdued. When in her thirteenth year, the bishop, her tutor, having deemed it expedient mildly to rebuke her for some inattention, she snatched off his wig, dashed it on the floor, and indignantly quitted the room. At another time, Queen Charlotte, who had previously sent her a handsome shawl, having reminded her that she had not yet acknowledged the gift, the princess took the present alluded to from her shoulders, and thrust it into the fire. As, however, she advanced towards womanhood, her pride and violence of temper subsided, and she became, on the whole, of a decidedly amiable, but still lofty and uncompromising character. To her mother, who was rarely permitted to see her, she displayed great affection; and the coolness with which the Princess of Wales was treated by most of the royal family, appears to have occasioned her considerable pain. In 1814, her attempts to indulge in a closer correspondence with her mother than had previously been permitted, excited the anger of the prince regent, who intimated, in rather harsh terms, his intention of removing her, without delay, to his own residence. The young princess, however, contrived to quit Warwick house unperceived, stepped into a hackney coach, and drove off to her mother's house at Blackheath. After some negotiation, and on receiving an assurance that she should not be immured, nor treated with severity, she was eventually prevailed upon to trust herself to the regent's protection. The Princess of Wales soon afterwards went to Italy, and all restraint upon her royal daughter was then removed. In the following summer, during an excursion to the coast, the young princess accepted an invitation to go on board the Leviathan man-of-war; on reaching which, she said to the lieutenant who escorted her party, "I resign the accommodation-chair, provided to hoist us on deck, to the bishop and the ladies: do you, sir, take care of my clothes, and I will go up the ladder." The young Prince of Orange was long considered her accepted lover; but in 1814, Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg began to be honoured with her especial notice; and, on the 2nd of May, 1816, she was united to him at Carlton house. Parliament, on this occasion, voted £60,000 as an outfit to the royal couple; £10,000 per annum as pin money for the bride; and £50,000 a year during their joint and several lives. Previously to her marriage, one of the ministers waited on her, for the purpose of settling some details, relative to her income; but not deeming his propositions sufficiently liberal, she addressed him in the following terms: -"My lord, I am heiress to the throne of Great Britain, and my mind has risen to a level with the exalted station I am to fill: therefore, I must be provided for accordingly. Do not imagine that, in marrying Prince Leopold, I ever can, or will, sink to the rank of Mistress Cobourg.-Entertain no such idea, I beg of you." 66 to The princess and her husband, soon after their marriage, retired to Claremont, where they enjoyed much domestic happiness, until the fatal accouchement of her royal highness, in November, 1817. On the 5th of that month, she gave birth to a still-born male child. On the following morning, although she had been supposed, be doing extremely well," she was attacked, first with faintness, and soon afterwards with convulsions. Her medical attendants, on being summoned, found her at the point of death. She received the announcement of her approaching dissolution with extraordinary calmness, and continued to express her affection to Prince Leopold by the most eloquent signs, even up to the moment when she expired. The grief exhibited by the people for her loss, was entirely without a parallel: her death being almost as deeply and generally lamented, as though she had been a member of every family in the kingdom. In person, she was of the middle stature, stout, but of elegant proportions: her eyes were blue, large, and intelligent; her complexion was unusually fair; the expression of her features dignified; and her whole appearance prepossessing. Her spirit was high, her temper irritable, and her inclination somewhat despotic; but, on the other hand, her affections were warm, her mind was cultivated, and her benevolence boundless. She had been brought up in sound moral, religious, and constitutional principles; and, had she lived to ascend the throne, it seems probable that, with many of the frailties, she would have displayed all the better qualities of an Elizabeth. |