| Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Portrait bySir William Beechey,c. 1831 | |||||
| Queen consort of the United Kingdom andHanover | |||||
| Tenure | 26 June 1830 – 20 June 1837 | ||||
| Coronation | 8 September 1831 | ||||
| Born | (1792-08-13)13 August 1792 Meiningen,Saxe-Meiningen,Holy Roman Empire | ||||
| Died | 2 December 1849(1849-12-02) (aged 57) Bentley Priory,Middlesex, England | ||||
| Burial | 13 December 1849 Royal Vault,St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle | ||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue Details | |||||
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| House | Saxe-Meiningen | ||||
| Father | Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen | ||||
| Mother | Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (Adelaide Amelia Louise Theresa Caroline; 13 August 1792 – 2 December 1849) wasQueen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland andQueen of Hanover from 26 June 1830 to 20 June 1837 as the wife ofKing William IV. Adelaide was the daughter ofGeorge I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, andLuise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.Adelaide, the capital city ofSouth Australia, is named after her.[1]
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Adelaide was born on 13 August 1792 inMeiningen,Thuringia,Germany, the eldest child ofGeorg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, andLuise Eleonore, daughter ofChristian Albrecht, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. She was baptised at the castle chapel on 19 August and was titledPrincess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Duchess in Saxony with the styleSerene Highness.[2] Her godparents numbered 21, including her mother, theHoly Roman Empress, theQueen of Naples and Sicily, theCrown Princess of Saxony, theDuchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, theDuchess of Saxe-Coburg, theDuchess of Saxe-Weimar, thePrince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and theLandgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld.[3]
Saxe-Meiningen was a small state, covering about 423 square miles (1,100 km2). It was the most liberal German state and, unlike its neighbours, permitted a free press and criticism of the ruler.[4] At the time no statute existed barring a female ruling over the small duchy and it was not until the birth of her brother,Bernhard, in 1800 that the law ofprimogeniture was introduced.[5]
By the end of 1811,King George III was incapacitated and, although he was still king in name, his heir-apparent and eldest son,Prince George, wasregent. On 6 November 1817, the Prince Regent's only legitimate child,Princess Charlotte, died in childbirth. Princess Charlotte was second in line to the throne: had she outlived her father and grandfather, she would have become queen. With her death, the King was left with twelve children and no legitimate grandchildren. The Prince Regent was estranged from his wife, who was 49 years old, thus there was little likelihood that he would have any further legitimate children. To secure the line of succession,Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, and the other sons of George IIIsought quick marriages with the intent of producing offspring who could inherit the throne.[6] William already had ten children by the popular actressDorothea Jordan, but, being illegitimate, they were barred from the succession.
Considerable allowances were likely to be voted by Parliament to anyroyal duke who married, and this acted as a further incentive for William to marry. While Adelaide was a princess from an unimportant German state, William had a limited choice of available princesses, and, after deals with other candidates fell through, a marriage to Adelaide was arranged. The allowance proposed was slashed by Parliament, and the outraged Duke considered calling off the marriage. However, Adelaide still seemed the ideal candidate for a wife: amiable, home-loving, and willing to accept William's illegitimate children as part of the family.[6] The arrangement was settled and William wrote to his eldest son, "She is doomed,poor dear innocent young creature, to be my wife."[7] William eventually accepted the reduced increase in his allowance voted by Parliament,[8] her dowry was set at 20,000 florins, with three additional separate annuities being promised by her future husband, the Prince Regent, and the state of Saxe-Meiningen.[a]
Adelaide married William in a double wedding with William's brother,Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and his brideVictoria, Dowager Princess of Leiningen, on 11 July 1818, atKew Palace inSurrey,England. They had met for the first time only a week earlier[10] on 4 July at Grillon's Hotel inAlbemarle Street.[11] Neither William nor Adelaide had been married before, and William was 27 years her senior. Despite these unromantic circumstances, the couple settled amicably inHanover, where the cost of living was much lower than in England, and by all accounts were devoted to each other throughout their marriage. Adelaide improved William's behaviour; he drank less, swore less, and became more tactful.[12] Observers thought them parsimonious, and their lifestyle simple.[13]
Adelaide soon became pregnant but in her seventh month of pregnancy she developedpleurisy and gave birth prematurely on 27 March 1819 at the Fürstenhof Palace in Hanover.[14] Her daughter, Charlotte Augusta Louise, lived only a few hours.[14] Another pregnancy in the same year caused William to move the household to England so his heir would be born on British soil; however Adelaide miscarried atCalais[15] orDunkirk[16] during the journey on 5 September 1819. Back in London they moved intoClarence House but preferred to stay atBushy House near Hampton Court, where William had already lived with Dorothea Jordan. Adelaide became pregnant again, and a second daughter,Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide, was born on 10 December 1820 atSt James's Palace.[14] Elizabeth seemed strong but died at less than three months old on 4 March 1821 of "inflammation in the Bowels".[17] Twin boys were stillborn on 8 April 1822 at Bushy Park[18] and a possible brief pregnancy may have occurred in the same year. Ultimately William and Adelaide had no surviving children.
At the time of their marriage, William was not heir-presumptive to the throne, but became so when his brotherFrederick, Duke of York, died childless in 1827. Given the small likelihood of his older brothers producing heirs, and William's relative youth and good health, it had long been considered extremely likely that he would become king in due course. In 1830, on the death of his elder brother,George IV, William acceded to the throne.He and Adelaide were crowned on 8 September 1831 atWestminster Abbey. William despised the ceremony and acted throughout, it is presumed deliberately, as if he was "a character in a comic opera", making a mockery of what he thought to be a ridiculous charade.[19] In contrast, Adelaide took the service very seriously and, among those attending, received praise for her "dignity, repose and characteristic grace".[20]
One of King William's first acts was to confer the Rangership ofBushy Park (for 33 years held by himself) on Queen Adelaide,[21] which allowed her to remain atBushy House for her lifetime. In 1831 a dower annuity of £100,000 was set by Parliament to provide for her in the event of her husband predeceasing her.[22] A large portion of her household income was given to several charitable causes.[23] She refused to have women of questionable virtue attend her Court; the Clerk of thePrivy Council,Charles Greville, wrote, "The Queen is a prude and refuses to have the ladies comedécolletées to her parties. George the 4th, who liked ample expanses of that kind, would not let them be covered."[23] In any case, Adelaide was beloved by the British people for her piety, modesty, charity, and her tragic childbirth history.[23]
Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent (laterQueen Victoria) came to be acknowledged as William's heir presumptive, as Adelaide had no further pregnancies. While there were rumours of pregnancies well into William's reign (dismissed by the King as "damned stuff"), they seem to have been without basis.[24] Adelaide treated the young Princess Victoria with kindness, despite her inability to produce an heir and the open hostility between her husband and Victoria's mother,the Dowager Duchess of Kent.[23]
She and her husband were fond of their niece and wanted her to be closer to them, but their efforts were frustrated by the Duchess of Kent, who refused to acknowledge Adelaide's precedence, left letters from Adelaide unanswered, and commandeered space in the royal stables and apartments for her use. William, aggrieved at what he took to be disrespect from the Duchess to his wife, bluntly announced in the presence of Adelaide, the Duchess, Victoria, and many guests, that the Duchess was "incompetent to act with propriety", that he had been "grossly and continually insulted by that person", and that he hoped to have the satisfaction of living beyond Victoria's age of majority so that the Duchess of Kent would never be regent. Everyone was aghast at the vehemence of the speech, and all three ladies were deeply upset.[25]
The breach between the Duchess and the King and Queen was never fully healed, but Victoria always viewed both of them with kindness.[26]
Adelaide attempted, perhaps unsuccessfully, to influence William politically. She never spoke about politics in public; however, she was stronglyTory.[27] It is unclear how much of his attitudes during the passage of theReform Act 1832 were due to her influence. The Press, the public, and courtiers assumed that she was agitating behind the scenes against reform,[28][29] but she was careful to be non-committal in public.[30] As a result of her alleged partiality, she became unpopular with reformers.[31] False rumours circulated that she was having an affair with herLord Chamberlain, the ToryLord Howe, but almost everyone at court knew that Adelaide was inflexibly pious and was always faithful to her husband.[32] The Whig prime minister,Lord Grey, had Lord Howe removed from Adelaide's household, and the attempts to reinstate him after the Reform Bill had passed were not successful, as Lord Grey could not agree as to how independent Howe could be of the government.[33] In October 1834, a great fire destroyed much of thePalace of Westminster, which Adelaide considered divine retribution for the vagaries of reform.[34] When the King dismissed the Whig ministry ofLord Melbourne,The Times newspaper blamed the Queen's influence, though she seems to have had very little to do with it.[35][36] Influenced by her similarly reactionary brother-in-law, theDuke of Cumberland, however, she did write to her husband against reform of theChurch of Ireland.[37]
Queen Adelaide was dangerously ill in April 1837, at around the same time that she was present at her mother's deathbed in Meiningen, but she recovered. By June, it became evident that the King was fatally ill himself. Adelaide stayed beside William's deathbed devotedly, not going to bed herself for more than ten days.[38] William IV died fromheart failure in the early hours of the morning of 20 June 1837 atWindsor Castle, where he was buried. Victoria was proclaimed queen but subject to the rights of any issue that might be born to Adelaide on the remote chance that she was pregnant,[39] which it subsequently turned out she was not.
The firstqueen dowager for over a century (Charles II's widow,Catherine of Braganza, had died in 1705, andMary of Modena, wife of the deposedJames II, died in 1718), Adelaide survived her husband by twelve years. In early October 1838, for health reasons, Adelaide travelled toMalta aboardHMSHastings, stopping atGibraltar on the way and staying on Malta for three months. Lacking a Protestant church in Malta, the queen dowager paid for the construction ofSt Paul's Pro-Cathedral inValletta. In the summer of 1844 she paid her last visit to her native country, visitingAltenstein Palace and Meiningen.[40]
Adelaide had been given the use ofMarlborough House,Pall Mall in 1831, and held it until her death in 1849.[41] She also had the use ofBushy House andBushy Park atHampton Court.[42]
Suffering from chronic illness, she often moved her place of residence in a vain search for health, staying at the country houses of various British aristocracy. She became a tenant ofWilliam Ward and took up residence at his newly purchased house,Witley Court inWorcestershire, from 1842 until 1846. While at Witley Court she had two chaplains – Rev. John Ryle Wood, Canon of Worcester[43] and Rev. Thomas Pearson,Rector of Great Witley.[44] She financed the first village school in Great Witley.[45]
From 1846 to 1848 Adelaide rentedCassiobury House fromLord Essex. During her time there she played host to Victoria andAlbert. Within three years Adelaide had moved on again, rentingBentley Priory inStanmore fromLord Abercorn.[46][47]
Semi-invalid by 1847, Adelaide was advised to try the climate ofMadeira for the winter that year. She gave money to the poor of the island and paid for the construction of a road from Ribeiro Seco toCamara de Lobos.[48] Queen Adelaide's last public appearance was to lay the foundation stone of the church ofSt John the Evangelist,Great Stanmore. She gave the font and when the church was completed after her death, the east window was dedicated to her memory.[49] She died during the reign of her niece, Queen Victoria, on 2 December 1849 of natural causes at Bentley Priory inMiddlesex. She was interred in the Royal Vault atSt George's Chapel, Windsor.[50]
She wrote instructions for her funeral during an illness in 1841 atSudbury Hall:
I die in all humility … we are alike before the throne of God, and I request therefore that my mortal remains be conveyed to the grave without pomp or state … to have as private and quiet a funeral as possible. I particularly desire not to be laid out in state … I die in peace and wish to be carried to the fount in peace, and free from the vanities and pomp of this world.[51]
Queen Adelaide's name is probably best remembered in theAustralian state ofSouth Australia, founded during the brief reign of William IV. In 1836, the capital city ofAdelaide was named after her. TheQueen Adelaide Club for women is still active, and a bronze statue of Queen Adelaide stands in the foyer of the Town Hall. The Queen Adelaide Society was inaugurated in Adelaide in 1981 by the late Dorothy Howie with the twin objectives of promoting public awareness of Queen Adelaide and to provide an annual donation to a South Australian children's charity.[52]
There is a village namedQueen Adelaide inCambridgeshire, which takes its name from one of the many public houses named after her.[53]
There are Adelaide Streets, Adelaide Avenues, and Adelaide Roads throughout the former empire. There is alsoAdelaide Hospital (now the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Tallaght) inDublin, and an Adelaide railway station in Belfast. Australia has two Adelaide Rivers, in theNorthern Territory and Tasmania, and an Adelaide Reef in Queensland. The town ofAdelaide (originally Fort Adelaide) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, as well as Sir Benjamin D'Urban's short-lived colony in the same area,Queen Adelaide Province.Queen's Park, Brighton is also named in her honour, as isAdelheidsdorf inLower Saxony, Germany. The Citadel inPort Louis, capital of the Republic ofMauritius, is named Fort Adelaide, the building having been started during the reign of William in 1834. In 1832 Adelaide Township was surveyed in what became the western part of Middlesex County in Ontario (now part of the municipality of the Township ofAdelaide-Metcalfe). There is a small group of islands in southern Chile namedQueen Adelaide Archipelago andAdelaide Island in theBritish Antarctic Territory.[54]
The Royal Adelaide Hotel in Windsor, Berkshire is named after Queen Adelaide and is rumoured to have been built for her.[55]
In honour of the Queen's many visits, several places in Leicestershire were named after Queen Adelaide. They include Queen Street in Measham and the Queen Adelaide Inn (now demolished) inAppleby Magna. There is also the Queen Adelaide Oak inBradgate Park (once home toLady Jane Grey), under which Queen Adelaide had picnicked on venison and crayfish from the estate.[56]
Asteroid525 Adelaide is also named in her honour.[57]
In 1849, there was a cholera epidemic in the East End of London. The following year, Queen Adelaide's dispensary opened in Warner Place,Bethnal Green. It moved to William Street in 1866 and by 1899 was treating 10,000 medical and dental patients a year.[58] In 1963 the funds that had set up the dispensary became Queen Adelaide's Charity, which still operates today.[59]
Queen Victoria's firstborn child,Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, was named after her great-aunt, who was also the child's godmother.[60]
Delena Kidd portrayed Queen Adelaide in the 2001 television serialVictoria & Albert. She was played byHarriet Walter in the 2009 filmThe Young Victoria, as a kindly but practical counsellor to the inexperienced queen.[61]
Kingdom of Portugal: Dame of theOrder of Queen Saint Isabel, 23 February 1836[62]
Russian Empire: Dame Grand Cross of theOrder of Saint Catherine, 1830[63]
TheRoyal coat of arms of the United Kingdom areimpaled with her father's arms asDuke of Saxe-Meiningen. The arms wereQuarterly of nineteen, 1st,Azure, a lionbarryArgent andGules (Landgrave of Thuringia); 2nd, Gules, anescarbuncleOr and a shield at the centre point Argent (Cleves); 3rd, Or, a lionrampantSable (Meissen); 4th, Or, a lion rampant Sable (Jülich); 5th, Argent, a lion rampant Gules crowned Azure (Berg); 6th, Azure, an eagle displayed Or (Palatinate of Saxony); 7th, Or, twopales Azure (Landsberg); 8th, Sable, an eagle displayed Or (Palatinate of Thuringia); 9th, Or,semé of hearts Gules a lion rampant Sable crowned of the second (Orlamünde); 10th, Argent, three bars Azure (Eisenberg); 11th, Azure, a lion passant perfess Or and Argent (Tonna in Gleichen); 12th, Argent, a rose Gules barbed and seeded Proper (Burgraviate of Altenburg); 13th, Gules plain (Sovereign rights); 14th, Argent, three beetles' pincers Gules (Engern); 15th, Or a fesschequy Gules and Argent (Marck); 16th, Per pale,dexter, Gules, a column Argent crowned Or (Roemhild), sinister, Or, on a mount Vert, a cock Sable, wattled Gules (Hannenberg); 17th, Argent three chevronels Gules (Ravensberg); and over all aninescutcheon barry Or and Sable, a crown of rue (or a crancelin) inbend Vert (Saxony).[64][65][66]
As theDuchess of Clarence and St Andrews, she used the arms of her husband (the royal arms with alabel of three points Argent, the centre point bearing a cross Gules, the outer points each bearing an anchor Azure) impaled with those of her father, the whole surmounted by a coronet of a child of the sovereign.
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Princess Charlotte of Clarence | 27 March 1819 | Died a few hours after being baptised, inHanover.[14] | |
| Stillborn child | 5 September 1819 | Born dead atCalais[67] orDunkirk.[14] | |
| Princess Elizabeth of Clarence | 10 December 1820 | 4 March 1821 | Born and died atSt James's Palace.[14] |
| Stillborn twin boys | 8 April 1822 | Born dead atBushy Park.[68] | |
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Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen Cadet branch of theHouse of Wettin Born: 13 August 1792 Died: 2 December 1849 | ||
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| Queen consort of Hanover 1830–1837 | Succeeded by | |
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