[Image: Engraving of Princess Caroline
from La Belle Assemblée (1806)] Much to the surprise and relief of George III’s England, his son George, Prince of Wales, fulfilled his duty by marrying Princess Caroline of Brunswick on 8 April 1795. Although they were first cousins (Caroline’s mother was George III’s sister), George and Caroline had never met before their marriage arrangement. Prince George was in his thirties when he took Caroline to wife.
Earlier, George had married the widowed Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert, but their marriage could not be recognized for the lady was a practicing Roman Catholic. The marriage was a poorly kept secret and many consider Mrs. Fitzherbert as Prince George’s “mistress.” The law at the time said that a marriage between any heir to the British throne to a Catholic removed said heir from the line of succession.
“In the context of royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband’s titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage. Now rare, it is also known as a left-handed marriage because in the wedding ceremony the groom held his bride’s hand with his left hand instead of his right.
“Generally, this is a marriage between a man of high birth (such as from a reigning, deposed or mediatised dynasty) and a woman of lesser status (such as a daughter of a low-ranked noble family or a commoner). Usually, neither the bride nor any children of the marriage have a claim on the bridegroom’s succession rights, titles, precedence, or entailed property. The children are considered legitimate for all other purposes and the prohibition against bigamy applies. In some countries, a woman could marry a man of lower rank morganatically.” (Morgantic Marriage)
Desperate for money to allay his debts, Prince George began to search for a bride that would secure his purse and his right to the throne upon his father’s death. He supposedly took the recommendation of one of his mistresses, Lady Jersey, and overtures were sent to Brunswick. When Caroline arrived in England in 1795, Prince George’s worst nightmare came true. Caroline’s non-regal appearance and her lack of hygiene when against everything Prince George considered essential in life.
Despite his distaste for his new bride, Prince George (with a lot of alcohol in his system) managed to perform his conjugal duties, the result begin a daughter, named Princess Charlotte (after his mother). Princess Charlotte was George IV’s only heir for he avoided his wife as if Princess Caroline had the plague. He abandoned Caroline after she conceived Charlotte, and Prince George’s wife never spent another night with her husband.
When Princess Charlotte came of age, she chose Leopold of Coburg as her husband. Leopold, the younger son of the reigning duke of a German duchy, had served in the Russian army during the Napoleonic War. Leopold and Charlotte were a picture in contrast. Princess Charlotte was known to be outspoken and a bit of a romantic, while Leopold was consider precise and somber. Nevertheless, they married in May 1816. Charlotte readily became pregnant only to miscarry their first child. She conceived a second time, and on 3 November 1817, Charlotte went into labor.
Charlotte’s delivery, literally, changed the world. Sir Richard Croft, her physician examined Charlotte and terming her in labor dutifully summoned the customary officers of state to observe the birth – a long-standing tradition to prevent the substitution of a baby into the royal line by those who wished to usurp the throne.
Unfortunately, Charlotte’s delivery was a difficult one. First, she was three weeks past her due date. She spent a whole day in labor, but still she was unable to deliver the child. For one thing, her physician had bled her several times leading up to the delivery. This would seem bizarre by today’s standards, but an accepted treatment during this time. Being medically induced anemic, Princess Charlotte was too weak to push the baby out.
Another four and twenty hours passed with the same results. Croft refused to apply forceps for there’s the line in Shakespeare’s Macbeth that says, “Despair thy charm, / And let the angel whom thou still hast served / Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped” (Act V, scene 8).
After fifty hours of labor, Princess Charlotte delivered a stillborn son. Charlotte’s excessive loss of blood left her weak. Princess Charlotte died from anemia and a likely pulmonary embolism. There are some also who think she suffered from a porphyria episode, like the madness that consumed her grandfather King George III. She passed in the night’s middle on 6 November 1817 and so ended the Hanoverian line of British succession.
Austen’s novels speak loudly with society’s obsession with money and connections. Money and status was obtained through marriage. What we soon come to accept as a reader of Jane Austen’s novels is that her heroines marry for love (and a bit money). It is not ironic that Austen’s heroines marry within their class. It was expected that a woman do so. Harriet Smith in Emma is criticized for she aspires to wed into the landed gentry. The hero gentlemen in Austen’s books have money, which they generally earn by being a the owner of an estate and collecting rents, as in Fitzwilliam Darcy’s case in Pride and Prejudice or Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, or from a living bestowed upon the man by a land owner, as in the case of Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility or Henry Tilney, in Northanger Abbey, who is comfortably placed as a beneficed clergyman on his father’s estate.
Austen’s feelings as applied to silly girls such as Lydia Bennet and Harriet Smith are obvious. She also disapproves of snobs and women who pursue rich men, as in the case of Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice, Lucy Steele in Sense and Sensibility, Elizabeth Elliot in Persuasion, Mrs. Elton in Emma, and Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park. Rakes are often found upon Austen’s page. Mr. George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice woos half of Meryton with his lies. He has no intention of marrying Lydia Bennet until his hand is forced by Mr. Darcy. Mr. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility is equally as vile. Frank Church plays Emma against Jane Fairfax. Tom Bertram in Mansfield Park has both his good points and his bad ones. He starts off the novel as Mary Crawford’s love interest, and he’s instrumental in getting the “Mansfield theatricals” off the ground. Tom is also responsible for a lot of the major plot points that dominate the start of the novel. His gambling debts are part of the reason why Sir Thomas has to go to Antigua to take care of his financial problems. Tom’s debts also mean that Edmund won’t be able to move into the Parsonage at Mansfield Park when he’s ordained, which of course results in the Grants and the Crawfords moving in. And Tom introduces Mr. Yates, Julia’s future husband, to the Bertrams. Mr. Elliot in Persuasion not only attempts to seduce Anne, but we discover he has much to do with the poor conditions in which Mrs. Smith must live. 
Austen’s heroines are intelligent females, as was she. Her family permitted Austen much latitude. She discussed politics and religion and society’s issues with her brothers and her father. One can easily imagine Austen arguing with her brothers over important issues in the same manner as her heroines do with the heroes of her books. The difference in Austen and her heroines is that she never married. Many take these “liberties” that she presents her characters as being a “women’s liberation” sort of thing. I beg to differ on that opinion. Although Austen may have hoped for more freedoms for women, she is accepting of what many thought could not be changed. She is no Mary Wollstonecraft writing A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Austen was writing fiction based on what she knew of society. In John Wiltshire’s essay (found in The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University, 14 February 2011), Wiltshire suggests that Emma and Knightley are the most compatible couple in Austen’s works, for the pair are comparable in intelligence, wit, empathy, and confidence. Darcy and Elizabeth trail in Wiltshire’s estimation, especially because of a lack of confidence in their relationship found in both Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. 
“[George Bryan Brummell] Brummell was born in London, the younger son of William Brummell, a politician, of Donnington Grove in Berkshire. The family was middle class, but the elder Brummell was ambitious for his son to become a gentleman, and young George was raised with that understanding. Brummell was educated at Eton and made his precocious mark on fashion when he not only modernised the white stock, or cravat, that was the mark of the Eton boy, but added a gold buckle to it He progressed to Oxford University, where, by his own example, he made cotton stockings and dingy cravats a thing of the past. He left the university after only a year, at the age of sixteen.” [John, Doran (1857), Miscellaneous Works, Volume I: Habits and Men, Beau Brummell, Great Britain: Richard Bentley, p. 379.]
Jane Austen:
One of my favorite love songs comes to us from the poet Ben Jonson. According to 
Every Woman Dreams... 
