she was virtually destitute. The 15,000 pounds that the duke had received from his liberal political backers just a year earlier was all spent. Even at the exorbitant rates charged to profligate royal dukes, no further credit was available. There was no cash on hand to pay the embalmer’s and undertaker’s fees, to settle with the landlord, get the duke’s body transported to Windsor for burial in St. George’s Chapel, or to pay for the duchess and her household to get away from Devon.
From both her husbands, Marie Luise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld inherited debt rather than revenue, but at least Leiningen left her a home. Amorbach was an estate rather than a realm, but it had been hers, in trust for her son, Charles. The Duke of Kent and Strathearn, Earl of Dublin, by contrast, owned no domain and no town house—only a country estate near London that was mortgaged to the hilt, up for sale, and attracting no buyers. So the dowager Duchess of Kent found herself in England with the clothes she stood up in, the bedstead, and the little dog she had brought from Germany but very little else.
It was true that as a member of the royal family she could not be thrown into debtor’s prison. It was also true that she would have the six thousand pounds a year in dower income settled upon her by parliament at the time of her marriage, in addition to her own three hundred pounds a year. To any ordinary widow, such an income amounted to a fabulous fortune.However, if Edward, Duke of Kent, had taught his wife anything, it was that royal living in England was impossible on six thousand a year.
In her difficulties, the duchess turned to her eldest brother-in-law, the new King of England, expecting assistance on the magnificent English royal scale. It was not forthcoming. In the midst of all his coronation preparations, the irksome divorce proceedings, and the usual chores of governance, King George IV did not merely forget about his widowed sister-in-law the Duchess of Kent and her child. He actively snubbed and spurned them. Other members of the royal family followed the King’s lead. Edward Kent’s three sisters in England, Mary, Augusta, and Sophia, as well as his sister-in-law Adelaide Clarence, wrote notes, paid visits, and commiserated with the grieving widow in her native German, but paid no bills and offered no loans.
George IV was usually generous toward his female relatives, but he heartily disliked the Kents. From childhood, George IV had found his brother Edward a hypocritical bore, and he never took a fancy to Edward’s wife. She was a Coburg, and since the death of his daughter Charlotte, George IV had developed a strong dislike of Coburgs in general and in particular of Prince Leopold, Charlotte’s widower and Victoire’s youngest brother.
Given the King’s own vast mound of debt, the fabulous architectural projects he was intent on, and the eternal demands on his privy purse from extravagant brothers and needy sisters, George IV did not intend to waste precious resources on a sister-in-law he disliked. Let Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld-Leiningen-Dachburg-Hadenburg-Kent return to Germany where she belonged. In Germany one could live like a king on six thousand English parliamentary pounds.
As for the child Victoria, George IV had barely set eyes on her, and he absolutely refused to countenance the possibility that one day Victoria Kent might rule in England. The whole question of the succession to the throne put the King in a rage. George IV had once been the Prince Charming of all Europe, and his failure to sire an heir rankled. As the King saw it, from the moment of Victoria Kent’s birth, her father, her pushy mother, and her oleaginous uncle had been crowing that this child would be Queen of England. Edward Kent’s will, giving the guardianship of the Princess Victoria to her mother, and thus to her uncle Leopold, was the last straw.
So George IV washed his hands of the whole problem of his niece
From both her husbands, Marie Luise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld inherited debt rather than revenue, but at least Leiningen left her a home. Amorbach was an estate rather than a realm, but it had been hers, in trust for her son, Charles. The Duke of Kent and Strathearn, Earl of Dublin, by contrast, owned no domain and no town house—only a country estate near London that was mortgaged to the hilt, up for sale, and attracting no buyers. So the dowager Duchess of Kent found herself in England with the clothes she stood up in, the bedstead, and the little dog she had brought from Germany but very little else.
It was true that as a member of the royal family she could not be thrown into debtor’s prison. It was also true that she would have the six thousand pounds a year in dower income settled upon her by parliament at the time of her marriage, in addition to her own three hundred pounds a year. To any ordinary widow, such an income amounted to a fabulous fortune.However, if Edward, Duke of Kent, had taught his wife anything, it was that royal living in England was impossible on six thousand a year.
In her difficulties, the duchess turned to her eldest brother-in-law, the new King of England, expecting assistance on the magnificent English royal scale. It was not forthcoming. In the midst of all his coronation preparations, the irksome divorce proceedings, and the usual chores of governance, King George IV did not merely forget about his widowed sister-in-law the Duchess of Kent and her child. He actively snubbed and spurned them. Other members of the royal family followed the King’s lead. Edward Kent’s three sisters in England, Mary, Augusta, and Sophia, as well as his sister-in-law Adelaide Clarence, wrote notes, paid visits, and commiserated with the grieving widow in her native German, but paid no bills and offered no loans.
George IV was usually generous toward his female relatives, but he heartily disliked the Kents. From childhood, George IV had found his brother Edward a hypocritical bore, and he never took a fancy to Edward’s wife. She was a Coburg, and since the death of his daughter Charlotte, George IV had developed a strong dislike of Coburgs in general and in particular of Prince Leopold, Charlotte’s widower and Victoire’s youngest brother.
Given the King’s own vast mound of debt, the fabulous architectural projects he was intent on, and the eternal demands on his privy purse from extravagant brothers and needy sisters, George IV did not intend to waste precious resources on a sister-in-law he disliked. Let Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld-Leiningen-Dachburg-Hadenburg-Kent return to Germany where she belonged. In Germany one could live like a king on six thousand English parliamentary pounds.
As for the child Victoria, George IV had barely set eyes on her, and he absolutely refused to countenance the possibility that one day Victoria Kent might rule in England. The whole question of the succession to the throne put the King in a rage. George IV had once been the Prince Charming of all Europe, and his failure to sire an heir rankled. As the King saw it, from the moment of Victoria Kent’s birth, her father, her pushy mother, and her oleaginous uncle had been crowing that this child would be Queen of England. Edward Kent’s will, giving the guardianship of the Princess Victoria to her mother, and thus to her uncle Leopold, was the last straw.
So George IV washed his hands of the whole problem of his niece
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