Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen proved a good influence on her husband William IV. The Australian capital Adelaide was founded in 1836 and named in her honour.
Princess Adelheid Amalia Luisa Theresa Carolina was born at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany on 13 August 1792. She was the eldest daughter of George I Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Louisa Eleanor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
Adelaide’s father died when she was eleven, leaving his duchy and three young children in his widow’s very capable hands.
She had a happy childhood and led a sheltered life whilst surviving the Napoleonic wars. She was close to her younger siblings Ida and Bernhard.
Britain’s Royal Family was thrown into a dynastic crisis when the heir Princess Charlotte died after giving birth to a stillborn in 1817. A frantic search began for suitable brides for four bachelor princes, including the Dukes of Clarence and Kent (Victoria’s father).
Queen Charlotte played a major role as the royal family rejected matches between William and wealthy heiresses.
Duchess Louise Eleonore accepted on her twenty-six-year-old daughter’s behalf. Adelaide’s future husband was 52—twice her age.
William was loud, vulgar and uncouth. He had joined the Navy, aged 13, and he had lived with actress Dorothea Jordan and fathered ten children, so he was hardly an ideal Prince Charming for a shy German princess.
Duchess of Clarence
A double wedding ceremony was held in the Queen’s drawing-room at Kew Palace on 11 July 1818, as Queen Charlotte was in poor health. Edward Duke of Kent married Victoria Dowager Princess of Leiningen.
William proved to be a devoted husband and their marriage a success. People noticed William changed from a rough sailor to a gentleman. Adelaide helped William to behave with dignity in public, and he became more sensitive towards others.
Society ladies considered Adelaide as “plain” and “too thin”, despite her good character, affection, morals, devotion to duty and loyalty. The fashionable set snubbed her regularly.
Adelaide’s bearing and deportment had a certain grace that compensated for her “plain” features.
The couple left for Hanover as they could no longer afford to live in England so they left for Hanover, as the cost of living on the continent was considerably lower. They were warmly welcomed by William’s brother and the Governor-General, Adolphus Duke of Cambridge.
Cambridge reported home William and Adelaide were already devoted to each other, and she was already pregnant.
Adelaide developed pleurisy but the bleeding prescribed by the doctors caused her daughter, Charlotte Augusta Louise, to be born prematurely on 27 March 1819 at the Fürstenhof Palace. Charlotte survived less than a day before her tiny corpse was buried beside King George I in Hanover.
She was again pregnant but William wanted the child to be born in England, so they returned home. They also visited relatives in Hess Homburg, Wurtenberg and Ghent, but Adelaide miscarried on 5 September 1819 at Calais, France.
Another daughter, Elizabeth Georgina Adelaide, was born 10 December 1820 at St James’s Palace, London. The little girl survived four months before she died from an inflammation of the bowel, leaving her parents inconsolable.
Adelaide’s other pregnancies produced stillborns, including twins in 1824.
So Adelaide directed her maternal instincts towards her stepchildren and grandchildren, her sister Ida’s children—Prince Edward and Princess Louise of Saxe-Weimar—and William’s niece Victoria, the future Queen. She established close and loving relationships which she maintained throughout her life.
Queen Adelaide
William inherited the throne in 1830 when the monarchy’s popularity was at its lowest ebb. The British had regarded George IV with loathing and contempt, especially his fast and extravagant life. His reign began a royal revival. He, unlike previous monarchs, was accessible with his honest geniality and unaffected good humour towards the people.
Princess Lieven, the Russian Ambassador’s wife, described the unpretentious atmosphere as boring due to the lack of informed conversation—“never a word of politics.”
Adelaide herself became unpopular during this time because of her Tory sympathies and unfounded allegations she had interfered in politics during the agitation surrounding the passing of the Reform Bill. Scurrilous rumours also circulated Adelaide was having an affair with her Chamberlain, Lord Howe.
William died in 1837, aged 72, so Adelaide retired from public life as the first Queen Dowager since Catherine of Braganza. She was given Marlborough House as her official residence, with an income of £100,000 a year.
Adelaide attended Queen Victoria’s wedding and appointed the Princess Royal’s godmother.
She was now immensely popular within the royal family and the people so she made a few public appearances.
However, Adelaide’s health was now extremely poor so she travelled abroad visiting Malta and Madiera during the winter months.
Adelaide died on 2 December 1849, aged 57, at Bentley Priory, Stanmore, Middlesex, and buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The royal family and the nation sincerely mourned her death.
Sources
Erickson, Carolly, Royal Panoply, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2003
Fraser, Antonia [Editor], The Lives of the Kings & Queens of England, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, (reprinted 2005)
Somerset, Anne, The Life and Times of William IV, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1980 (Reprinted 1993)
Weir, Alison, Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Vintage Books, London, 2008
Williamson, David, Debrett’s Kings and Queens of Britain, Webb & Bower (Publishers) Limited, London, 1986
© 2010 Carolyn M Cash
This article was originally published by Suite 101 on 6 February 2010.
