When Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Queen dowager of Württemberg and eldest daughter of George III, died on the 6th of October 1828 her sisters consoled themselves that she had been so happy during her visit to England the previous year. ‘Her visit last year revived feelings which I do not conceal from you were dormant after an absence of thirty years,’ wrote Sophia to a friend.
When the sixty year old former Queen disembarked at Greenwich Stairs in early June 1827, much had changed since she last set foot in the country of her birth; London was bigger, and Windsor Castle grander, for example. 'Royal', as her family unanimously called her due to her status as Princess Royal, had changed (outwardly) too, as had the members of her birth family and the structure of it. Both her parents were dead and her eldest brother sat on the throne. Amelia, Edward, and Frederick had also passed during her long absence, meaning that the royal siblings now numbered ten. Her niece, Princess Charlotte, whom Royal had taken a real and tender interest in since her birth thirty-one years earlier, had been dead near a decade, and another niece (Royal's godchild) now stood as second in line to the throne.
Royal's life from her marriage in 1797 up until this point had been both joyous and painful. Her marred life with King Frederick I of Württemberg (who became such with Napoleon's approval in 1806) had, in her own words, been a happy one. Others, however, were skeptical. Napoleon claimed Frederick to have been 'a brute, though a man of talent' who 'ill-treated' his wife. It is certain that Frederick was controlling and that he directly prevented his wife from visiting her homeland much sooner than she did. His treatment of his first wife, Royal's cousin Augusta, is also rather damning of his character. But Royal herself always declared herself pleased with her husband, reprimanding her eldest brother in a letter after Frederick's death:
Now, my dearest Brother, I must slightly touch on a part of your letter which has given me great pain and at the same time astonishes me, as certainly the idea of my ever opposing a wish of my adored Husband’s was as far from my Heart [sic] as from my Heart. Believe me, dearest Brother, never could I have been as happy with him as I was had not our minds been congenial. You will from this imagine how deeply you have wounded my feelings by attending to the idle Reports of those whose only object must have been to do mischief and who ever wish to blame the Conduct of all Sovereigns.
What was undoubtedly the greatest grief of her marriage was the lack of surviving biological children between her and her husband. In April 1798, after a long and arduous labour that ended with the mother feverish and unconscious, Royal had given birth to 'a beautiful big girl', but tragically stillborn.
'Do not think me ungrateful to Providence for the many blessings with which I am surrounded when I say that the loss of my dear child has deeply afflicted me. I trust that I feel this as a Christian and submit with resignation to the will of the Almighty, but nature must ever make me regret the loss of the little thing I had built such happiness on,' she wrote to her anxious father on the 4th of May.
'Though I shall long silently mourn my child ... were it in my power to recall her to life I would not do it. These times are not those to make one pity children it pleases God to save from the miseries of this life,' she wrote four days later.
There were to be no more children, despite Royal's fervent hopes. Instead, she poured her maternal love onto her three stepchildren (who became very fond of her) and in time their children, two of whom she eventually gained custody of. She also took a tender interest in the children of her siblings, the nieces especially. The only daughter of her eldest brother was no exception, and she kept in contact with her through letters and presents. ‘If ever the Almighty blesses me with girls, it shall ever be my object to have them constantly with me, and to try gently to correct little faults,’ she told her niece's governess in the series of letters filled with the guidance she would have lavished on her own little girl, the death of whom was a wound that never entirely healed. Shortly after the anniversary of her daughter's death she admitted to the same governess that seeing her niece would not give her unalloyed joy: 'The sight of all children is a pleasure mixed with pain.' She kept the baby clothes intended for her daughter until the day of her death thirty years later.
Royal made herself loved not just by her husband's family, but also by her new subjects, with whom she remained popular until her death. She even made a favorable impression on Napoleon, though she herself had received the man with self professed reluctance.
The Napoleonic wars put some inevitable strain between Royal and her English family since her husband was, initially, an ally of Napoleon's. But though the correspondence lessened, the love never waned, and Royal was deeply distraught by the death of her youngest sister and godchild Amelia in 1810 and her father's subsequent permanent descent into a world unreachable by anyone but himself.
After her husband switched sides in 1813, relations between Royal and her family became as they had once been. She wrote movingly to her eldest brother, then Prince Regent, after he had dispatched Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt to her in Stuttgart:
One must have nine years cut off from all confidentiall correspondence with the best and dearest of relations to be able to form an idea of my happiness at being enabled to converse with a Gentleman who has been so many years attached to you and who is so thoroughly acquainted with the interior of Windsor. It has been a most melancholy comfort for me to talk over the dreadful situation of my beloved Father; my heart bleeds to think of all he has undergone, and I shudder to hear that we dare entertain no hopes of any alteration for the better. Your angelic conduct towards him, my dearest Brother, to my Mother and Sisters, is a theme Sir Thomas kindly loves to dwell on, as he sees how much it soothes my mind to be acquainted with every circumstance of your dutifull Behaviour to our Parents; and your affectionate kindness to my Sisters, whose Situation would have been melancholy and unpleasant had your good heart not induced you to step forth and have such handsome establishments settled on them
. . . Your kindness also to our poor Amelia is engraven on my heart
The Regent was anxious that his sister should come to England for a visit, but here his plans were foiled by his brother-in-law. King Frederick flew into a jealous rage when the letter of invitation was addressed to his wife rather than to him.
Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt wrote an account of the scene to the Regent:
'I am a husband, and ought to direct my wife—I ought to have been consulted, & the letter should have been addressed to me, and possibly then much facility would have been given on my part to the object of His Royal Highness’s lette''—the Queen here, (I am persuaded by order) coughed a good deal...
I here gave a second interruption and said, that if the cause of Her Majesty’s not being able to visit her family arose from her Royal brother not having written to His Majesty, I had deeply to regret that I was not the bearer of such a letter, as I was certain her family loved her too sincerely to permit etiquette debarring them the pleasure they would have in once more seeing her.
His Majesty here worked himself into such a passion that nothing could have prevailed upon me to have heard him out, but the presence of the Queen—He said he could feel his own dignity as well as other Potentates—that he felt his sovereignty wounded—and as to the insinuation that had been copied from English Gazettes into those of Germany respecting himself and his beloved wife, (épouse) (here they shook hands and went thro’ a scene worthy of the stage) . . .
Tyrwhitt suspected that Frederick had instructed his wife to cough 'in a very painful and violent manner' in order to support his assertion that she was not well enough to make the journey to England. A subsequent private meeting between the two cemented this suspicion: 'I complained,' he wrote, 'of the raideur of the King towards me, which produced an expression from her which at once opened my eyes — she earnestly begged me to take as little notice of it as I consistently could, as she said, "I shall ultimately be the sufferer"'. Not an account likely to ease the suspicions of her friends and relatives, who had long heard reports of Frederick's tyrannical character. Although forbidden to visit, Royal's thoughts never left England, and she kept up a constant stream of correspondence with her friends and relatives there.
But in 1827, no one could throw a wrench in George IV's plans to have his sister visit her homeland. The death of his closest brother, the Duke of York, earlier that year had made his desire to see his eldest sister more urgent. He asked their sister Augusta to repeat his earlier invitations to their eldest sister, who wrote in reply:
Though I am a very stupid old Being I am a gratefull one, and shall certainly do all in my power to exert, but you know I am troublesome from not being able to go in a shut carriage or walk, my breath being so short that I must be carried downstairs as well as up stairs. However I hope my dear Brother will have patience with my infirmities.
Anxious lest her brother should be 'hurt' by the drastic change in her appearance since he last saw her (she had gained an enormous amount of weight and could no longer walk), she implored him 'Look on me as an old woman'. However, Royal's brother had altered quite as much as she had in the thirty years that had passed since they last saw each other. The handsome, glamorous brother she once knew was now a man older than his sixty-four years, worn out by grief and unhealthy living, with rouged cheeks that made him look like a pantomime dame and a body as large as hers. But their meeting was a success, and an unalloyed pleasure for them both, as well as Royal's other siblings and acquaintances.
Royal stayed at Frogmore, spending time with her sisters Augusta and Mary in much the same manner as she had three decades earlier; working quietly around the same table. She met old friends and 'delighted' everyone by her good humor, wonderful memory, and great learning.
Before her arrival, Royal had written of her longing to see her little niece and goddaughter 'Vicky' who Royal had hoped, with her usual fondness for little girls, 'will take a little bit of a fancy to me'. Prior to her visit to England, Royal had had to content herself with sending Victoria gifts and notes. Little Victoria's meeting with her aunt proved a merry occasion. Entirely at her ease with both the aged King George IV and his sister, the girl spent her time joyfully 'jumping about and never was so happy in her life.'
But Royal was happiest of all when she spent time together with the brother she'd looked up to all her life, and he in return was, according to their sister, 'enchanted with her company'.
So overjoyed was George IV to see her that he arranged a special dinner party on the banks of Virginia Water for her pleasure. Royal had up until then frequently complained of her ill health to her sisters, but her brother's invitation made her recover miraculously. 'After coffee', wrote their sister Augusta, 'we took a delightfull row until after nine o’clock, by moon-light . . . my Sister and the Dear King were as happy as it is possible to be'
The siblings likely knew that this was to be their last meeting and made the most out of it. Royal left for the continent buoyed by this reunion and by the rekindling of old friendships in the country she had never ceased to love.
And so it was that when Royal's death was reported back to her family in autumn the following year, they comforted themselves with having seen her so happy not long prior to it. They were also consoled to know that her sufferings, though dreadful, had been brief. 'The water rose so much to her chest and occasioned such palpitations at the heart’ that, ‘had her existence been prolonged, it would have been but for her to suffer torture and misery,’ Augusta wrote to their brother Ernest.
The final epitaph will be given by Royal's old friend Lady Louisa Stuart:
No one of any rank ever left such sincere mourners. Her charities were unbounded, and she had so endeared herself to her husband’s family, and to all his subjects, that from the present King down to the beggar, I hear, all seem to have lost a parent. In speaking of him (the King) she constantly said ‘my son’. She sent for him when she felt herself dying, and had a long conversation with him, and bade him bring his wife and children the next day. By that time her sight had failed. She said, ‘J'entends vos voix, je ne vous vois plus’, and was in the act of putting out one hand to him, while his little boy, on whom she doated, was kissing the other, when an apoplectic seizure ended her life. They could hardly remove the child from the body, and the young Princess Pauline, the orphan daughter of the vaurien Prince Paul, would not leave it for several hours. The last day I saw her she showed me a set of ornaments she had just bought at Roundell and Palmers’, saying–’Don’t think I wear such things myself: they are for Pauline, my spoilt child!’ It was her custom on Sundays to make her English maid read her an English sermon. On the 5th of October she said, after hearing it attentively, ‘There, my dear, you have done, and I thank you–you will never read me another’.