Charlotte, Princess Royal

Charlotte Augusta Matilda was the eldest daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte and, from 1789, Princess Royal. She grew up within the unusually large royal household created by her parents, where the king’s recurrent illness and Queen Charlotte’s close supervision increasingly shaped the lives and marriage prospects of their daughters.

In 1797 Charlotte married Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Württemberg, who later became King Frederick I. She became queen consort of Württemberg in 1806 and remained there after his death. Her life connected the British Hanoverian family to the dynastic politics of German Europe during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.

In Laura Purcell’s Queen of Bedlam, Queen Charlotte has spent nearly three decades building a disciplined royal household around George III and their large family. In Laura Purcell’s God Save the King, in 1788 George III's sudden mental collapse throws Queen Charlotte and the royal household into fear and uncertainty.