Caroline of Brunswick

Duchess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (17 May 1768 – 7 August 1821) as Queen Caroline was the Queen Consort of King George IV of the United Kingdom from 29 January 1820 to her death.

Early life, marriage to George IV

Caroline was born on 17 May 1768 at Brunswick (German:Braunschweig) in Germany, daughter of Karl William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Princess Augusta Charlotte of Wales, eldest sister of King George III.

She married the British king's eldest son, her first cousin, on 8 April 1795 at St. James's Palace in London. Her new husband, the future George IV then Prince of Wales, regarded Caroline as unattractive and unhygienic; he also suspected that she was not a virgin when they married.

For her part, she found him equally unattractive, and the prince's correspondence reveals that the couple only had sexual intercourse three times during their marriage. Princess Charlotte Augusta, George's only legitimate child, was born from one of these unions on 7 January 1796. The Prince and Princess of Wales never lived together afterwards, and appeared separately in public, both becoming involved in affairs with other lovers.

It was alleged that her marriage was made uncomfortable by George IV's affair with royal courtesan Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey. However, it is more likely that Caroline had little interest in her husband, and thus little interest in who he might be involved with romantically.

Life as Queen Consort, affairs

Caroline was prevented from seeing her daughter on a day-to-day basis, and was eventually banished in 1799 to a private residence ('The Pagoda') in Blackheath, where she allegedly had affairs with the politician George Canning and the admiral Sir Sidney Smith.

Following an investigation into her personal affairs by her husband, she left the country and went to live abroad, running up large debts throughout Europe and taking other lovers. During this period, the couple's daughter, who had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, died after giving birth to her only child, a stillborn son.

Her estranged husband's accession to the Throne in 1820 brought Caroline back to Britain in 1820 for appearances only, whereupon he began divorce proceedings against her. The Pains and Penalties Bill 1820 was introduced in Parliament in order to strip Caroline of the title of Queen and dissolve her marriage to the King. The bill was defeated, but Caroline was still in exile, and she was turned away from the coronation at the doors of Westminster Abbey. Despite the King's best attempts, Caroline retained a very strong popularity amongst the masses, and therefore wielded considerable power in spite of his disliking her.

Styles of Queen Caroline

Reference style	Her Majesty
Spoken style	Your Majesty
Alternative style	Ma'am

On the night of the coronation, Caroline fell ill, vomiting, with an erratic pulse. She died three weeks later. The exact cause of her death has never been ascertained, not least because Caroline herself, knowing she would die, had said that no autopsy was to be carried out.

Even up till her last moments, she was being reported on by a man named Stephen Lushington, who conveyed his insights to the King’s loyal supporter, the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. Exactly why this deathbed surveillance was carried out remains unclear, and the surviving documentation is patchy in the extreme. Her death at age 53 took place on 7 August 1821. She legally remained Queen of the United Kingdom, but she was buried in her native Brunswick.

She was the last Queen Consort not to survive her royal husband.

Preceded by: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz	Queen Consort of the United Kingdom 1820–1821	Succeeded by: Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen

Princesses of Wales
dates they were Princess of Wales in brackets

* Camilla does not use the Princess of Wales title, but instead uses her subsidiary title, Duchess of Cornwall.