Royal Sang Froid

The extraordinary pictures of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall besieged in their limousine are shocking. Their faces show real fear – as any of us might if we were stuck in a car that was being hammered by an angry mob.

Similar attacks on royal personages are rare today, but were not so unusual in the 17th and 18th centuries. Charles II and his brother James Duke of York enjoyed a daily stroll through St James Park, and although Charles was relatively popular, his brother and heir was regarded as dour, charmless and overly ambitious. James was concerned for their safety, as, in the days before the royal protection squad, they were accompanied only by a couple of unarmed companions. Charles comforted his brother: ‘There is no danger,’ he assured him, ‘no man in England would do me harm to make you king’.

Lively Images

With all this talk of celebrated photographer Mario Testino being commissioned to take the official engagement snaps of Prince William and Kate Middleton, it’s easy to forget that In the days before mass media and photography, few people knew what their rulers looked like unless they actually saw them in the flesh (rather than in the flash, as is the case today). Diplomatic reports, letters and diaries often contain detailed descriptions of the great and good, because then, as now, readers had an insatiable desire to know everything about their lordly masters.

When it came to seeking out a bride for a royal prince, such descriptions were absolutely critical. The happy couple were not likely to see each other, let alone learn about much about each other’s characters, until days, or even hours before the wedding. Fortunately, the highest in the land could afford to despatch a portrait painter with the diplomatic party that negotiated the marriage deal. Decent artists were highly valued by royal marriage brokers, but they trod a fine line between flattery and honesty.

Henry VIII, Britain’s most-married king and an experienced prospector in the world of Renaissance princesses, employed the best. In 1539, after the death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, he despatched Hans Holbein to paint two German princesses, the daughters of the Duke of Cleves (in northern Germany), and instructed him to err on the side of accuracy. Henry, a connoisseur of the female, form, wanted no nasty surprises when he encountered his bride-to-be in the flesh.

Nicholas Wotton, the head of the English delegation, reported to Henry: "Your Grace's servant Hanze Albein hathe taken th'effigies of my lady Anne and the lady Amelye and hath expressed theyr images very lyvely".

Holbein’s portrait of Anne (left, courtesy WIkimedia Commons) showed an unassuming, thoughtful woman in an intricately decorated, rich red dress – indeed the gown is rather more memorable than the princess. Anne was clearly not a great beauty, but nor did she appear to be utterly unpleasing. When she arrived in England, Henry came to inspect her incognito, and introduced himself as one of the king’s nobles. Anne was polite, but clearly more interested in the bull-baiting that was taking place outside her window, and Henry, who was accustomed to being recognised, retreated with wounded pride. Either Henry’s disguise was impenetrable, or Anne had not seen a portrait of her husband-to-be. The bride’s opinion of her future husband was of little consequence to the marriage deal.

When Henry re-appeared as himself, the couple appeared to get on well, although Henry allegedly dismissed her as a ‘fat Flanders mare’ and muttered to Thomas Cromwell that he was only going through with the marriage for the sake of the country. Henry could not wriggle out of the marriage treaty and the couple married on 6 January 1540.

Holbein, formerly the king’s favourite artist and arguably the architect of Tudor visual propaganda, was temporarily disgraced.

Anne’s reaction on meeting the overweight, irascible Tudor monarch is not recorded. Their marriage was not consummated and was dissolved after only six months. At this point one wonders whether alarm bells rang in Anne’s head, given her husband’s habit of disposing of wives who displeased him. Anne did everything she could to cooperate with Henry’s plans for an annulment. In return she was given a handsome allowance of £4,000 a year and allowed to retire to the south coast, with the honorary title ‘King’s sister’, where she lived contentedly at Henry’s expense for the rest of her life. Just three months after their divorce, the French ambassador reported that the former queen was on excellent form:

‘Madame of Cleves has a more joyous countenance than ever. She wears a great variety of dresses and passes all her time in sports and recreations’.

Anne enjoyed far more freedom in England than she would have done if she returned to her brother’s court in Cleves, where she would have been disgraced. In England she was a woman of independent means who maintained her friendships with the royal family, and was the longest-lived of Henry’s wives, surviving them all.

Holbein’s lively likeness may not have impressed Henry, but it seems to have conveyed the truth about Anne: compliant, sensible and polite, she used these skills to survive.

The impropriety of marrying a countrywoman

How did one go about finding a royal bride 250 years ago? When George III came to the throne at the tender age of 22 in 1760, he was unmarried, but had proved he had an eye for the ladies. The year before his accession, he had fallen hopelessly in love with Lady Sarah Lennox, the engaging, self-assured 14–year-old daughter of the Duke of Richmond (and, as it happened, a distant cousin). George knew that he would be expected to make a strategic marriage with a European princess, but, as he put it, he endured a struggle between ‘the boiling youth of twenty-one years and prudence.’ George tried to make her acceptable to his advisors: ‘her voice is sweet, she seems sensible . . .In short she is everything I can form to myself lovely.’ The poor lovelorn prince paints a slightly tragic figure – he knew his love was doomed, but desperately hoped that it wasn’t.

In the end, his chief advisor, Lord Bute, convinced him of ‘the impropriety of marrying a countrywoman,’ and the royal advisors sent out a search party to Europe to find a suitable German bride for the young king. And Lady Sarah found that being passed over was a blow to her pride, rather than her heart.

They produced 17-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a young woman of undoubted intelligence, good sense and plainness. Horace Walpole described her on her arrival in England: ‘She is not tall, nor a beauty; pale, and very thin; but looks sensible; and is genteel. Her hair is darkish and fine; her forehead low, her nose very well, except the nostrils spreading too wide; her mouth has the same fault, but her teeth are good.’

Charlotte arrived in Harwich on Monday morning, met the king on Tuesday afternoon, and was married to him later that day. The chief bridesmaid at her wedding was none other than the beautiful Lady Sarah, and according to Walpole, ‘nothing ever looked so charming as Lady Sarah Lennox; she has all the glow of beauty peculiar to her family’.

One might have expected Princess Charlotte, effectively a girl from the sticks thrown headfirst into the sophistication and intrigue of the English court, to be overwhelmed by the occasion. It is clear, however, that she was confident and articulate. ‘As supper was not ready, the Queen sat down, sung, and played on the harpsichord to the Royal Family, who all supped with her in private. They talked of the different German dialects; the King asked if the Hanoverian was not pure—"Oh, no, Sir," said the Queen; "it is the worst of all."’

‘She will not be unpopular’ reported Walpole waspishly. In fact, Charlotte proved to be a remarkably successful queen, producing 15 children and retaining the King's devotion for the rest of their lives.

Marital overload, 1818

If you've already had enough of royal wedding fever, be glad that we are only expecting one wedding next April. In 1818, there was no less than three, as the unmarried sons of George III rushed to the altar in an effort to produce a legitimate heir.

On 1st June the 44-year –old Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge celebrated his nuptials to the 21-year-old Princess Augusta of Hesse. ‘'Immediately after the conclusion of the marriages, the Park and Tower guns were fired, and the evening concluded with other public demonstrations of joy in the metropolis’, reported the London Gazette.

Six weeks later, his elder brothers, the 53-year-old Duke of Clarence and the 51-year-old Duke of Kent shared a double wedding on 11th July. Once again, sighed the London Gazette, ‘the Park and Tower guns were fired, and the evening concluded with other public demonstations of joy in the metropolis.'

In a time of economic crisis, when the government had a war debt of some £800 million and the Corn Laws contributed to large rises in the price of food, national celebration was muted, and even newspaper reporters couldn’t be bothered to appear pleased.

Where the marriage should take place . . .

There can't be many families who have embarked on wedding planning without having, at the very least, a heated debate about some aspect of the Big Day. The venue is often the trickiest decision, simply because it is often hard to book the place of your dreams. This is obviously not such a problem if you are marrying into the royal family.

In 1858 Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Vicky, the Princess Royal, married Prince Frederick William of Prussia. They had been engaged for two years, since the princess was 14, a relationship cemented in the heather at Balmoral where the 24 year-old Fritz had proposed. Victoria was delighted because the young couple obviously cared for each other (and we must brush aside modern concerns about the wisdom of encouraging your 14-year-old’s relationship with a man ten years her senior). Conveniently, their union also fulfilled a useful political purpose in the wake of the Crimean War, uniting Britain and Prussia against misplaced Russian ambitions in Europe.

Punch Magazine composed a patriotic ode to the happy couple.

Victoria and Albert were determined that the wedding could not take place before Vicky was 17, so their engagement was a long, and for a while, secret one. Early in 1856, rumours of the union appeared in the press, however, and neither English nor Prussian commentators were overwhelmed with happiness at the prospect. The Times sniffly dismissed the Prussian royal family as ‘a paltry German dynasty’. The official announcement did not occur until May 1857, at which point the Prussians issued the ultimate insult, by suggesting that the marriage take place in Berlin. Lytton Strachey, the Queen’s biographer, noted that the Queen was ‘speechless with indignation.’

On paper, however, she let rip, emphatically, imperiously, and slightly hysterically. She asked the Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, to inform the German Ambassador

‘not to ENTERTAIN the POSSIBILITY of such a question . . . The Queen NEVER could consent to it, both for public and for private reasons, and the assumption of its being TOO MUCH for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry the Princess Royal of Great Britain IN England is too ABSURD to say the least. The Queen must say that there never was even the shadow of a doubt on Prince Frederick William's part, as to where the marriage should take place. . . .Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian Princes, it is not EVERY day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The question must be considered as settled and closed.’

And that was that. The wedding took place on 25th January 1858 in the comparatively small Chapel Royal of St James Palace, but it was accompanied by great public festivities – illuminations, state concerts, immense crowds and general rejoicings. Incidentally, the bride and bridegroom left the church to a glorious, but then little-known recessional, Opus 61, by the German composer Felix Mendelssohn. Since Vicky’s nuptials, it has become known as the ‘Wedding March’ and few weddings are complete without it.