Charlotte & Leopold: The True Story of the Original People's Princess

by James Chambers

Overview

This is the story of the doomed romance between Charlotte, heir to the English throne, and Leopold, uncle of Queen Victoria and first King of the Belgians. Charlotte was the only legitimate royal child of her generation, and her death in childbirth was followed by an unseemly scramble to produce a substitute heir. Queen Victoria was the product. Chambers brilliantly demonstrates how the personal and the political collide in scheming post-Napoleonic Europe, offering a vivid and sympathetic portrait of a couple whose lives are in many ways not their own. Charlotte & Leopold is a moving and always entertaining royal biography with an alluring contemporary resonance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910400326
Publisher:	Old Street Publishing, Ltd
Publication date:	05/15/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	541,549
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James Chambers was born in Northern Ireland and educated at Oxford. His books include Palmerston: The People’s Darling, The Daily Telegraph History of the British Empire and The Devil’s Horsemen. He has written for and appeared in numerous TV and radio programmes.

Table of Contents

Prologue: 'Daughter of England'     1
'The Brunswick Bride'     5
Warwick House     17
'The Delicate Investigation'     25
First Love     33
The Radical Princess     43
'Protracted Childhood'     51
'Infamous Insinuations'     57
'Slender Billy'     67
Making the Best of it     79
'The Summer of the Tsars'     87
The Pulteney Hotel     93
The Officer at the Foot of the Stairs     101
'I Have Run Off'     109
State Prisoner     117
'Princess Charlotte Is Made of Ginger-bread'     125
A Crisis at Christmas     133
Waterloo     143
Waiting in Weymouth     149
An Inappropriate Relationship     157
'Bless Me, What a Crowd'     163
'The Perfection of a Lover'     169
'The House that Never Prospered'     177
'A Brunswick Heart'     185
'A Serious Misfortune'     197
Out of Favour     207
The Hottentot     217
Epilogue: King of the Belgians     225
Bibliography, Plates     233
Index     236

Editorial Reviews

Granddaughter of King George III and daughter of the dissolute Prince Regent (later George IV), Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales was the only popular member of the British royal family in 1817. Her death in childbed after the birth of a stillborn son plunged the country into unprecedented mourning. Sir Richard Croft, the fashionable accoucheurwhose incompetence as an obstetrician led to the princess's death, killed himself three months later. Prince Leopold, her husband of little more than a year, never fully recovered from the loss. His final utterance at the end of his life 50 years later was her name. Oxford-educated author Chambers (The Devil's Horsemen) has written a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining biography of a little-known (to Americans) royal princess. Her short life provides a compelling glimpse into the Regency world. Recommended for public libraries where biographies of royalty and historical figures-not to mention Jane Austen and Regency romances!-are popular.
—Elizabeth Mellett

Library Journal