As the Prince of Wales became increasingly desperate for a divorce, the Royal Family had to deal with the ill-health and apparent insanity of King George III, whose first episode in 1788 had been brief. If his father were to become incapacitated again, the Prince of Wales would become Regent; but if he died, he would become King and Caroline, who it was now charged had been adulterous and pregnant, would become Queen. Her father-in-law was sympathetic to his niece because he had chosen her; so, in 1806, he asked the Privy Council to confront the rumors about the Princess's lifestyle. He appointed a committee of four Lords: Grenville, Ellenborough, Erskine and Spencer to look into her private conduct (their confidential findings became public knowledge seven years later). But the "Delicate Investigation", as her first trial came to be called, was politically volatile.

To the Prince of Wales's dismay, the Lords cleared Caroline of charges of adultery and concealed birth: the boy whom she had adopted, William Austin, was proven to be the child of a Deptford woman, Nevertheless, they censured the Princess of Wales for committing certain "indiscretions" that, given her status in the Royal family, had fed the rumor mill, so to speak. Caroline felt that the identification of her "indiscretions" left her in limbo and as the news spread, court society would shun her -- a situation that she refused to accept.

Consequently, Princess Caroline asked King George III's permission to speak before the House of Lords; but if she were allowed, the Royal family would not be able to control what she said -- and she had a tendency to say whatever came into her head! News of the secret proceedings leaked out anyhow, causing a groundswell of sentiment in favor of the Princess of Wales and against her husband, whose own infidelity was obvious. To assuage both public opinion and Caroline, in 1807 (the year of Napoleon's triumph over the Fourth Coalition and his domination of most of continental Europe), King George III visited her at Blackheath, symbolically bringing his daughter-in-law back into the family. Caroline was escorted to the Opera and to the Court by the Duke of Cumberland.

The fears of the Royal family were realized in 1811 when the King's insanity worsened, and the Prince of Wales had to be declared Regent. But in his first appearance as virtual sovereign, in February 1812, a ceremonial occasion when he went in grand state to the Chapel Royal, the assembled crowd lining the streets from Carlton House to St. James Palace did not cheer him or even remove their hats. His unpopularity was not fleeting: four years later, both he and his mother were hissed by a crowd.

The Prince Regent took every opportunity to injure and isolate his wife. While King George III was lucid, he did not permit the Princess of Wales to be separated from her daughter; however, with the advent of the Regency, George IV put an end to her influence by permitting her to see her mother only once every fortnight. He went so far as to give orders that if their carriages passed in the street, the coachman was forbidden to stop. Thereafter Charlotte was surrounded only by her father's supporters who were supposed to educate her to one day become a proper Queen of England.

Nevertheless, Princess Charlotte was soon wise enough to observe that both of her parents were guilty of moral indiscretions; but in 1813, she leaned toward her mother: "My mother has led a bad life, but she would not have done so badly if my father had not led even a worse." The public sympathized with Caroline's loss of her daughter's company, which further increased the Prince's unpopularity.

When the Allied sovereigns visited London the following year, the Prince Regent prevented the Tsar from visiting Caroline. He also took great pains to see that she did not gain admittance to the victory balls, banquets and parties for the Allies celebrating Napoleon's defeat and (first) abdication. She knew that she was being watched but never one to be deterred, on 2 July, 1814, by sneaking out the rear entrance of Connaught House, the Princess of Wales and her party were able to attend a masquerade party undetected. But such a confined life was unsatisfactory to Caroline who soon left England to seek more personal freedom on the continent.

For the next six years, Caroline lived abroad. During her travels she met interesting people. Her reaction to meeting the King and Queen of Naples was that Joachim Murat was "all delightful" but Caroline Bonaparte was "false and furious". And she took an Italian lover, Bartolomeo Pergami, who left a vivid impression on Lady Charlotte Campbell who encountered him in Genoa in April 1815: "six foot high, a magnificent head of black hair, pale complexion, mustachios which reach from here to London...."

"R_y_l Condescension" 1817 (at right). Princess Caroline in ludicrous eastern costume introducing members of the suite. From the Anne S. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library

In the years immediately preceding and during Caroline's period of self-imposed Italian exile, the Prince Regent also made their daughter's life miserable. As Charlotte approached the age of majority (eighteen), he insisted that she remain virtually his prisoner, under the care of governesses he chose for her, until she married and became subjected to her husband. Her father and the government thought that she should have an early, arranged marriage with a Protestant prince. Their first candidate was young William of Orange.

However, at the last minute Charlotte discovered that the marriage contract her father and "Slender Billy" were negotiating stipulated that she had to spend several months each year at The Hague. She recoiled, suspecting that this was a plot by her father to get her out of the country so that he might divorce her mother, remarry, and produce a son who would exclude her from the throne. Her rejection made the Regent angry enough to continue his plan of protracted childhood by sending her to Windsor for family visits and refusing to give her any freedom to enjoy London's high life.

Finally, Princess Charlotte shrewdly selected a husband from among the princes she had met: an impoverished but impressive-looking, politically astute, and well-mannered soldier in the Russian army, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg Saalfeld (later King of the Belgians). "Leo" came by diplomatic invitation to England to woo her, which he did successfully. In May 1816 she was married at her father's residence, Carlton House. During the ceremony Charlotte could not suppress a giggle when the priest made her husband endow her with all his worldly goods. During the next eighteen months Charlotte and "Leo" were practically inseparable and became very popular with the crowds who gathered to watch their fashionable public appearances at London theaters and the Opera.

Charlotte had two miscarriages and a full-term pregnancy, but after giving birth to a perfectly-formed but still-born son after protracted labor, she died from post-partum hemorrhage on 5 November, 1817. "Leo" was absolutely devastated because they had grown to love each other in their ecstatic year-and-a-half together.

The British people, who hated George IV, had placed all their hope for the future of the monarchy in Princess Charlotte and her offspring. When she was buried at Windsor, her husband and the men of the family walked behind her coffin from St. George's Chapel to the Hanover tombs while the women stayed secluded inside the castle for safety. According to diaries and letters of contemporaries, this event was the greatest genuine outpouring of public grief and sorrow ever felt by the British people. Charlotte's accoucheur [male midwife] committed suicide three weeks later although he had consulted the Regent's physician as well as a famous expert on forceps (who had decided they ought not be used).

News of Princess Charlotte's untimely death stunned the whole world, reaching to such remote places as St. Helena where upon learning of it, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked that her agonizing death could have been prevented if only her young husband had summoned older, experienced women to be present to offer advice to the doctors during her labor.

Ironically, the death of Princess Charlotte and her baby left George IV without an heir apparent -- the thing for which he had made Caroline of Brunswick a living sacrifice.

Prior to the death of the kindly George III, which occurred on 29 January, 1820, an unremorseful George IV moved swiftly against his wife: first by instructing all his ambassadors to prevent foreign courts from recognizing Caroline officially as Queen and second, by insisting on February 14th (against the advice of his ministers) that her name be removed from the liturgical prayers of Anglican Church services. Furthermore, he offered to pay Caroline a pension to stay on the continent and keep silent. Remaining true to herself, she refused to be bought off. Interestingly, on leaving Rome for England, her passport was not made out to Queen Caroline of England but to Princess Caroline of Brunswick, an unmarried woman.

Queen Caroline arrived back in England in June, where she was greeted as the persecuted consort of a king totally devoid of character himself. Within a month of her return, the government introduced a bill to dissolve her marriage and deprive her of her title on the grounds of adultery. The hearing was lengthy, lasting from 17 August to 10 November.

Political satirists latched onto the fact that George IV's imported foreign witnesses to prosecute Caroline arrived on the day of the mad King's funeral procession, which did not sit well with the people either. Gradually, the opposition to her diminished and the majority became so slim on the third vote, that the government decided to withdraw the bill altogether.