bavarikon4UDawe, Henry Edward: Her Royal Higneß Princess Charlotte of Saxe Coburg [Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796–1817)]
A mentally ill King George III (1738–1820), a generation without male descendants and the tragic death of the heiress to the throne in childbed – at the beginning of the nineteenth century the House of Hanover did not enjoy good fortune in Great Britain. Charlotte Augusta (1796–1817), daughter of the Prince of Wales, was first in the succession to the throne. During a state visit of the Russian Tsar Alexander I, Charlotte fell in love with a handsome prince from his entourage: Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Contrary to her father’s intentions, the marriage took place on 2 May 1816. In the portrait dated to 1817, George Dawe expressed the self-confidence and waywardness of this young princess very well. In the same year Charlotte died on 5 November as a result of the stillbirth of her child. Only under her cousin Victoria, born 1819, the House of Hanover was going to be led to a final and epochal reign.