Regency History’s guide to Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace (2017)

Where is it?

Kensington Palace is situated in Kensington Gardens in London.

History

Kensington Palace started life as a Jacobean mansion built around 1605. It was bought by William III and Mary II in 1689 and was transformed into a royal palace by Sir Christopher Wren so that the King and Queen could live away from the London air.

The palace is now in the care of Historic Royal Palaces.

Georgian connections

Kensington Palace
from The History of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

George I and George II both used Kensington Palace as one of their principal residences, but after the death of Queen Caroline in 1737, much of the palace fell into disrepair.

Neither George III, George IV nor William IV chose to live at Kensington Palace. They granted “Grace and Favour” apartments to courtiers and members of the royal family. These included:

• George IV's estranged wife, Caroline, Princess of Wales
• Princess Sophia
• Augustus, Duke of Sussex
• Queen Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent

Kensington Palace through the Gold Gates (2017)

Kensington Palace from Kensington Gardens (2017)

Kensington Palace as a tourist attraction

Visiting royal palaces is not a new entertainment. Although not opened to the public until 1899, it was possible to see inside Kensington Palace during the Regency period.

According to Feltham's Picture of London for 1818:

The palace is a large and splendid edifice of brick, and has a set of very handsome state apartments, and some beautiful staircases and ceilings, painted by Verrio and others. He continued: The whole may be seen any day except Sundays, by applying to the housekeeper, for a trifling douceur.1

The State Apartments

The King's Staircase

The King's Staircase, Kensington Palace (2012)

The Great Staircase, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

Queen Caroline's Drawing Room

Queen Caroline's Drawing Room, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Queen's Bedchamber

The Queen's Bedchamber, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Queen's Dining Room

The Queen's Dining Room, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Queen's Gallery

The Queen's Gallery, Kensington Palace (2017)

The Queen's Gallery, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Presence Chamber

The Prescence Chamber, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Admirals' Gallery

The Admirals' Gallery, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The Cupola Room

The Cupola Room, Kensington Palace (2017)

The ceiling of the Cupola Room, Kensington Palace (2017)

The Cupola Room, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The King's Drawing Room

The King's Drawing Room, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

Learning to play Hazard
in the King's Drawing Room, Kensington Palace (2017)

The King's Closet

The King's Closet, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

Queen Caroline's Closet

Queen Caroline's Closet, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

The King's Gallery

The King's Gallery, Kensington Palace (2017)

The King's Gallery, Kensington Palace, from The History
of the Royal Residences by WH Pyne (1819)

Victoria Revealed

Queen Victoria was born in Kensington Palace on 24 May 1819. It is believed that she was born in the North Drawing Room of her parents’ apartments.

Room where Queen Victoria was born , Kensington Palace (2014)

Victoria: A Royal Childhood

Victoria’s father, Edward, Duke of Kent, died suddenly less than a year after her birth, and Victoria and her mother were left virtually penniless. They returned to their apartments at Kensington Palace where Victoria was brought up in relative seclusion.

When William IV visited the palace in August 1836, he discovered that the Duchess of Kent had adopted some of the state rooms and altered them to suit herself. William was furious and publicly complained about the liberties his sister-in-law had taken and announced his wish that he would live long enough for Victoria to reach her 18th birthday, thereby preventing the Duchess from becoming regent. His wish was granted; he died just four weeks after Victoria turned 18.

This post was last updated 7 October 2019.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy my guides to Kensington Gardens and Kew Palace.

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian Regency era romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage me and help me to keep making my research freely available, please buy me a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Note
1. From Feltham, John, The Picture of London for 1818 (1818)

Sources used:
Feltham, John, The Picture of London for 1818 (1818)
Humphrys, Julian, The private life of palaces (Historic Royal Palaces, 2006)
Pyne, WH, The history of the Royal Residences of Windsor Castle, St James's Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham House and Frogmore (1819)

Kensington Palace official website

Photographs © RegencyHistory.net

The christening of Queen Victoria - 24 June 1819

Queen Victoria
  by Dalton after F Winterhalter
from The Girlhood of Queen Victoria (1912)

The birth of Queen Victoria

With the death of Princess Charlotte, George IV's daughter, in 1817, the prospects for the monarchy were bleak. Although 12 of George III's 15 children were still living, not a single one of them had a legitimate child. The Duke of Sussex's marriage had been declared illegal whilst the Duke of York's was childless. The Duke of Cumberland had married in 1815, but was yet to produce a child. The race was on to provide an heir to the throne.

In 1818, the Dukes of Clarence, Kent and Cambridge all got married. The Duke of Clarence's marriage sadly produced no surviving children, but the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge both had sons in 1819 whom they named George. But any child of the Duke of Kent would stand before them in the line for the throne. On 24 May 1819, a daughter was born to the Duke of Kent and his wife, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

Edward, Duke of Kent
from A Biographical Memoir of Frederick,
 Duke of York and Albany
by John Watkins (1827)

Choosing the names for a future monarch

As a matter of form, the Duke and Duchess of Kent proposed various names to the Regent for him to approve: Victoire or Victoria after her mother, Georgiana after the Regent, Alexandrina after the Tsar and Charlotte and Augusta, after her aunts, or possibly after her grandmother and great grandmother.

The Regent chooses to be difficult

George chose to be awkward. He announced that he did not like to put his own name before the Tsar’s, but neither did he wish his name to appear after it. He would not contemplate the baby being given the name of his poor dead daughter and declared that Augusta was “too majestic”.

George, Prince Regent,
from Memoirs of her late
royal highness Charlotte Augusta
by Robert Huish (1818)

The christening of Queen Victoria

The Regent insisted that the christening should be a strictly private affair to be held in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace on 24 June 1819 at 3pm. The baby's godparents were the Prince Regent, Tsar Alexander, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg (the baby's grandmother) and the Princess Royal, widow of the King of Württemberg. However, only the Prince Regent was at the christening - the others were represented by the Duke of York, Princess Augusta and Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester. The only other guests were the Duke of Gloucester, the Duchess of York and Prince Leopold, Princess Charlotte's bereaved husband.

When the christening service began, nobody knew what names the baby was to be given. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, with the baby in his arms, sought enlightenment from the parents and then the Regent. At length, the Regent declared that the baby was to be called Alexandrina. The Duke of Kent proposed Elizabeth, but the Regent dismissed that suggestion and reluctantly agreed to the baby being given her mother’s name, though he insisted that it had to follow the name of Tsar. So the baby was named Alexandrina Victoria and as a small girl, she was often called Drina.

"The English like Queens"

The Dowager Duchess of Coburg, the Duchess of Kent’s mother, wrote to her daughter that she hoped she was happy with a girl. “The English like Queens,” she wrote. The Duke of Kent was delighted, referring to his daughter as his "pocket Hercules". He proudly showed her off, urging people to “look at her well, for she will be Queen of England.” And he was right.

Sources used include:
Hibbert, Christopher, George IV (1972, Longmans, 1973, Allen Lane, London)
Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria (HarperCollins, 2000, London)
Victoria, Queen, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, A Selection from Her Majesty's Diaries between the years 1832 and 1840, edited Viscount Esher 2 Volumes (1912)

Naming the royal baby – advice from 3 Georgian royals

Naming a royal baby is a huge responsibility. Other parents can choose whatever names they like, but William and Kate have to select those that are suitable for a future monarch and meet the approval of the royal family.

So what advice would the Georgian royals have given to William and Kate?

The nine sons of George III

George III and Queen Charlotte had fifteen children. The eldest was born “at twenty-four minutes past seven” on 12 August 1762 after a hard labour. Lord Huntingdon, the Groom of the Stole, pre-empted the Queen’s Vice-Chamberlain and announced to the King that the Queen had given birth to a baby girl.

Queen Charlotte
from Memoirs of her most
excellent majesty Sophia-Charlotte
Queen of Great Britain
by John Watkins (1819)

The King replied that he was “but little anxious as to the sex of the child” so long as the Queen was safe. It was just as well. The Queen had, in fact, given birth to a “strong, large and pretty boy”! The baby was christened George Augustus Frederick – the names of his father and his paternal grandparents, Augusta and Frederick. After his father’s death, he became King George IV.

George III’s other sons were named Frederick, William Henry, Edward Augustus, Ernest Augustus, Augustus Frederick, Adolphus Frederick, Octavius and Alfred. Clearly George III was very fond of the name Augustus.

The five daughters of George III

George III’s first daughter, born on 29 September 1766, was similarly given family names. She
was christened Charlotte Augusta Matilda – the names of her mother, her paternal grandmother and her aunt, George III’s youngest sister. But Princess Charlotte did not get to use her names; she was always referred to by her title, Princess Royal.

George III’s other daughters were named Augusta Sophia, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia and Amelia. Note the recurrence of Augusta – the second name of the Princess Royal and the first of her next youngest sister.

George III’s advice for William and Kate

George III
 from Memoirs of Queen Charlotte
by WC Oulton (1819)

For a boy, William Charles Augustus – for the child’s father and grandfather and because George really liked the name Augustus.

For a girl, Catherine Charlotte Diana Augusta – for the child’s mother, father and grandmother and because George really liked the name Augusta.

The birth of Princess Charlotte Augusta

Princess Charlotte
from La Belle Assemblée (1816)

The marriage of the future George IV to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick was a complete disaster. Amazingly, in the short time that they lived together before their separation, Caroline conceived. George stayed up for two whole nights waiting for news of the birth. On 7 January 1796 he was able to tell the Queen: “The Princess, after a terrible hard labour for above twelve hours, is this instant brought to bed of an immense girl, and I assure you notwithstanding we might have wished for a boy, I receive her with all the affection possible.”

The new baby was not given her hated mother’s name, but was christened Charlotte Augusta, the names of her two grandmothers.

George IV’s advice to William and Kate

George, Prince of Wales
from Memoirs of her late
royal highness Charlotte Augusta
by Robert Huish (1818)

For a boy: George William – for himself and the child’s father - George liked himself too much to choose anyone else’s name above his own!

For a girl: Elizabeth Mary – for the child’s great grandmother and George’s favourite sister. He would not use the child’s mother’s name because he hated his own wife and would not use her grandmother’s name because it would remind him of his own failed marriage.

The birth of Queen Victoria

After the death of Princess Charlotte, the race was on to provide an heir to the throne. In 1819, the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge both had sons whom they named George, but the child of the Duke of Kent stood before them in line for the throne. On 24 May 1819, a daughter was born to the Duke of Kent and his wife, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

Queen Victoria
  by Dalton after F Winterhalter
from The Girlhood of Queen Victoria (1912)

The Duke and Duchess of Kent proposed to name their daughter Victoire or Victoria after her mother, Georgiana after the Regent, Alexandrina after the Tsar and Charlotte and Augusta, after her aunts, or possibly after her grandmother and great grandmother. As a matter of form, they submitted the names to the Regent for approval. George chose to be difficult. He declared that he did not like to put his own name before the Tsar’s, but neither did he wish it to appear after it. He would not countenance the baby being given the name of his poor dead daughter and decreed that Augusta was “too majestic”.

When the christening service began, nobody knew what the baby was to be named. The Regent stated that the baby was to be called Alexandrina; the Duke of Kent proposed Elizabeth. The Regent dismissed that suggestion and finally agreed to the baby receiving her mother’s name, though he insisted that it had to follow the name of Tsar. So the baby was named Alexandrina Victoria and as a small girl, she was often called Drina.

The Duchess of Kent’s mother wrote to her daughter that she hoped she was happy with a girl. “The English like Queens,” she wrote. The Duke of Kent was delighted and proudly showed her off, telling people to “look at her well, for she will be Queen of England.” And he was right.


The Duke of Kent’s advice to William and Kate

Edward, Duke of Kent
from A Biographical Memoir of Frederick,
 Duke of York and Albany
by John Watkins (1827)

For a boy: William Charles – for the child’s father and grandfather.

For a girl: Catherine Diana Elizabeth – for the child’s mother and grandmother and great grandmother, the Queen.

What names do you think the Georgians would have chosen?

My choice? William Charles Augustus for a boy and Charlotte Catherine Diana for a girl.

Postscript

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first baby was a boy and has been named George Alexander Louis. George IV would have approved. The christening is to be held on Wednesday 23 October at 3pm in the Chapel Royal in St James' Palace.
 

St James' Palace
from Leigh's New Picture of London (1827)

Sources used include:
Hibbert, Christopher, George III (1998, Viking, Great Britain)
Hibbert, Christopher, George IV (1972, Longmans, 1973, Allen Lane, London)
Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria (HarperCollins, 2000, London)
Huish, Robert, Memoirs of her late royal highness Charlotte Augusta (1818)
Oulton, Walley Chamberlain, Authentic and Impartial Memoirs of Her Late Majesty Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1819, London)
Victoria, Queen, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, A Selection from Her Majesty's Diaries between the years 1832 and 1840, edited Viscount Esher 2 Volumes (1912)
Watkins, John, A Biographical Memoir of Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1827, London)

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820)

HRH Edward, Duke of Kent
from A Biographical Memoir of Frederick,
 Duke of York and Albany by John Watkins (1827)

Profile

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, (2 November 1767 - 23 January 1820) was the the fourth son of George III and Queen Charlotte and a younger brother of George IV.

Early years

Prince Edward Augustus was born at Buckingham House on 2 November 1767, the fifth child of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He was named after George III’s brother Edward, Duke of York, who died shortly before the new Prince’s birth. He was tutored by John Fisher who later became Bishop of Salisbury.

Army career

In 1785, Edward was sent to Luneburg to begin his career in the army as a cadet in the Hanoverian foot guards. He completed his military training under Lieutenant Colonel Baron Von Wangenheim, a strict military tutor whom Edward described as “a mercenary tyrant”.

He served in Hanover, Geneva, Gibraltar, the West Indies and Canada. He was gazetted brevet Colonel in the British army and elected a Knight of the Garter in 1786, subsequently rising to Major General (1793), General (1794) and Field Marshal (1805).

Harsh disciplinarian or respected leader?

Edward gained the reputation of a stern disciplinarian, making him unpopular with his men. This was brought to a head in 1802, when he was made Governor of Gibraltar and asked to bring the garrison back into order. His harsh actions resulted in a mutiny, but having successfully quelled it, he was recalled to England.

The Duke of York condemned Edward’s behaviour as “from first to last as marked by cruelty and oppression”. His brother allowed him no opportunity to defend himself and they quarrelled violently.

Prince Frederick, Duke of York
from La Belle Assemblée (1827)

However, it would appear that Edward’s leadership was respected by the officers at Gibraltar who gave a fete in his honour in May 1791 before he was transferred to Quebec. He was also commended for helping to repress St Lucia and Martinique whilst serving under Sir Charles Grey in the West Indies in 1794.

The least worthy of sons

George III seemed to have little interest in Edward and yet was very quick to criticise him. Edward received very few letters from home and was spied on by his valet, Rhymers.

George III
 from Memoirs of Queen Charlotte
by WC Oulton(1819)

Wangenheim gave Edward a very meagre sum out of the £6,000 a year he was paid for his maintenance, forcing him to borrow in order to equip himself in the manner befitting a Prince. When his father learned that he was in debt, he was sent to Geneva in disgrace, but he was still not given an adequate allowance and his debts continued to amass.

Desperate for contact with home, in 1790 Edward escaped from his mentor and travelled to England. His father was furious. The King afforded Edward only a very short interview before effectively banishing him to Gibraltar. He was not allowed home on leave until he suffered a fall from his horse in October 1798.

Edward was created Duke of Kent and Strathearn on 24 April 1799 and parliament finally voted him an income of £12,000 a year. However, his monetary problems continued to haunt him throughout the rest of his life.

Character

Despite his reputation for harsh military discipline, Edward was popular with his servants and Princess Charlotte’s favourite uncle, actively promoting the match between the Princess and Prince Leopold. He helped negotiate Mrs Fitzherbert’s return to the Prince of Wales in 1799 but also remained on friendly terms with Princess Caroline.

Princess Charlotte
from Huish's Memoirs of her late
royal highness Charlotte Augusta (1818)

His habits were remarkably similar to those of his father – he rose early, ate and drank sparingly and liked to spend time outside. He was very polite and attentive to women and placed a high value on his time. His conversation was intelligent and informed and he had a gift for public speaking. He was also a prolific correspondent.

He supported charitable works, such as the Literary Fund, and introduced regimental schools for the children of his men. He was interested in Robert Owen’s social experiments, supported anti-slavery and was in favour of Catholic emancipation, which may explain some of his father’s enmity towards him.

Madame de Saint-Laurent

Whilst serving in Gibraltar, Therese-Bernadine Mongenet became Edward’s mistress. She was known as Madame de Saint-Laurent and stayed with the Prince for almost 28 years, until the death of Princess Charlotte in 1817 prompted the royal Dukes to marry in order to secure the succession.

Marriage

On 29 May 1818, Edward married Princess Victoria Mary Louisa of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in Coburg. She was the widow of Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen and Prince Leopold’s sister. The ceremony was repeated in the Queen's drawing room in Kew Palace on 11 July 1818, at the same time as his brother William, Duke of Clarence, married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.

Victoria, Duchess of Kent
from La Belle Assemblée (1825)

Parliament refused to grant an additional sum for the maintenance of his enlarged household, and so the couple lived mainly at Amorbach Castle, Leiningen, Victoria’s dower house, in order to economise.

The birth of Princess Victoria

The couple lived abroad until shortly before the birth of Queen Victoria. Despite the Regent’s refusal to fund the trip, they travelled to England in April 1819 so that their baby could be born in Kensington Palace.

Alexandrina Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 and christened a month later, on 24 June. “Look at her well,” her proud father said, “for she will be Queen of England.”

 

You can read about Queen Victoria's christening here.

Queen Victoria
  by Dalton after F Winterhalter
from The Girlhood of Queen Victoria (1912)

Death

After the Princess’s birth, it was necessary for the Duke and Duchess once again to retrench. Bishop Fisher advised a sojourn in Devon for the sake of economy and health and they leased Woobrook Cottage in Sidmouth.

Woolbrook Cottage, Sidmouth
from The Life of Field-Marshal His Royal 
Highness, Edward, Duke of Kent
by Erskine Neale (1850)

Edward caught a cold, and subsequently became ill with pneumonia. He died in Sidmouth on 23 January 1820 and was buried on 12 February in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in a huge coffin almost 7½ feet long and 3 foot wide.

Rachel Knowles writes clean/Christian Regency era romance and historical non-fiction. She has been sharing her research on this blog since 2011. Rachel lives in the beautiful Georgian seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, on the south coast of England, with her husband, Andrew.

Find out more about Rachel's books and sign up for her newsletter here.

If you have enjoyed this blog and want to encourage me and help me to keep making my research freely available, please buy me a virtual cup of coffee by clicking the button below.

 

Sources used include:

Hibbert, Christopher, George III (1998, Viking, Great Britain)

Hibbert, Christopher, George IV (1972, Longmans, 1973, Allen Lane, London)

Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria (HarperCollins, 2000, London)

Huish, Robert, Memoirs of her late royal highness Charlotte Augusta (1818)

Longford, Elizabeth, Edward, Prince, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (1767-1820), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004, online edn, May 2009, accessed 10 Feb 2012)

Neale, Erskine, The Life of Field-Marshal His Royal Highness, Edward, Duke of Kent (Richard Bentley, 1850, London)

Oulton, Walley Chamberlain, Authentic and Impartial Memoirs of Her Late Majesty Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1819, London)

Watkins, John, A Biographical Memoir of Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1827, London)

The Six Princesses: Princess Sophia (1777-1848)

Princess Sophia
from A Biographical Memoir of Frederick,
 Duke of York and Albany by John Watkins (1827)

Profile

Princess Sophia (3 November 1777 - 27 May 1848) was the fifth daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte. She never married, but was rumoured to have had an illegitimate son in Weymouth in 1800.

Birth of a fifth daughter

Princess Sophia was born at Windsor Castle on 3 November 1777, the twelfth child of George III and Queen Charlotte. She was christened on 1 December in the grand council room at St James’ by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sophia was given into the care of a wet nurse, the wife of a Lieutenant Williams, who applied for the position after dreaming that she had been given it! She was appointed when none of the three preferred applicants was able to take up the role.

Princess Sophia from La Belle Assemblée (1807)

A royal upbringing

Sophia was educated with her sisters by various governesses and tutors under the supervision of Lady Charlotte Finch. Her lessons included English, French, German, geography, history, music, art and needlework.

The Princesses were brought up under the austere eye of their watchful mother, constantly chaperoned and allowed very little freedom to develop relationships outside of their family group. In Court, they were expected to stand in the presence of the King and Queen, often for hours at a time.

Character

Sophia was a pretty girl with a fiercely passionate nature, which made her somewhat unruly and inclined to be moody. She was the favourite sister of the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent, who called her his “dear little angel”. The Duke of Cumberland watched over her with an intensity that was not considered entirely healthy.

Duke of Kent
from A Biographical Memoir of Frederick,
 Duke of York and Albany by John Watkins (1827)

The Nunnery 

George III was very fond of his daughters, but was in no hurry to see them grow up. He had strong views on what was a suitable match for his beloved daughters; he was vehemently opposed them marrying beneath them or marrying Catholics. This severely limited the options for suitable husbands.

In addition, Queen Charlotte liked to have her daughters in attendance on her, and became particularly reliant on their company as the King’s illness progressed. The Princess Royal finally got married in 1797, but matches for her sisters were not forthcoming. Perhaps if the King had remained well he would have secured them the husbands that they so desperately wanted, but in the event, the younger five Princesses continued unwed.

Sophia was not happy and in 1812, she wrote to her brother, the Prince of Wales, in her tiny writing, mourning the lot of her unmarried sisters and herself, and thanking him for his kindness to the “four old cats” in the “Nunnery” at Windsor.

Sophia received an offer of marriage from a German prince in 1801, but this was not accepted by her parents and she never married.

Windsor Castle from the Thames
from Memoirs of Her Late Majesty Charlotte by WC Oulton (1819)

Forbidden love

Deprived of marriage, the passionate Sophia seems to have fallen in love with one of the few gentlemen she was allowed to meet. General Thomas Garth was one of the King’s equerries, a small man over thirty years her senior, whose face was disfigured by a large purple birthmark over his forehead and around one eye.

Although an unlikely choice for the young Princess, her sister Mary’s teasing gives some credence to the relationship; she referred to Garth’s birthmark as “the purple light of love”. It has been suggested that they may have gone through some kind of secret marriage ceremony, but they never lived together openly, and this remains conjecture.

An illegitimate son

There is evidence, however, to suggest that in August 1800, Sophia gave birth to an illegitimate child whilst staying in Weymouth. It would appear that Garth had the opportunity to be alone with Sophia one evening when the King and Queen were in London. Sophia had been ill for some time and was living in the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor, where her bedroom was beneath Garth’s.

Weymouth beach

Nine months later, Sophia was “brought to bed”, so Lady Bath told Greville. Lady Bath claimed to have the news on the authority of Lady Caroline Thynne who was Mistress of the Robes to the Queen at the time, an honest woman who would have been in a position to know the truth.

It was feared that this distressing news might have a detrimental effect on the King and so he was told that Sophia had dropsy and was then miraculously cured by eating roast beef. The King was almost blind by this time and it is possible that he was unaware of the real state of affairs. Regardless, he seemed to accept what he was told and repeated the story of the miracle cure, saying that it was a “very extraordinary thing”.

Rumours

The boy believed to be Princess Sophia’s son was christened Thomas and left in Weymouth at the home of Major Herbert Taylor, the Private Secretary to the Duke of York and afterwards to the King. Garth accepted paternity of the boy, and remained in favour at Court, receiving promotion and being appointed to a responsible position in the household of Princess Charlotte. According to Lord Glenbervie, Sophia occasionally visited Thomas.

There was an alternative, far more alarming, story that arose after the original scandal broke in 1829, which suggested that the child was in fact fathered by Sophia’s brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, who had always seemed to have an unnatural interest in his sister. The rumour may have been started by the Princess of Wales, and it appears that some, including the Duke of Kent, believed it. Others have disputed whether Thomas was Sophia’s son at all.

Ernest, Duke of Cumberland
from The Lady's Magazine (1793)

A permanent invalid

Throughout her life, Sophia was subject to indifferent health, suffering from spasms and fits of depression that were indicative of her father’s illness. As she grew older, she was inclined to indulge in her invalidism, enjoying the attentions of her brothers who pampered her. The Duke of Kent referred to her as “poor little Barnacles” and the Prince of Wales sent her gifts and visited her.

The influence of Sir John Conroy

On the Queen’s death in 1818, Sophia inherited the Lower Lodge at Windsor, but she chose to live at Kensington, close to the Duchess of Kent and the young Princess Victoria. Both Sophia and the Duchess fell under the influence of the handsome, imposing and ambitious John Conroy. Sophia was charmed by Conroy’s easy confidence, and his efficiency in protecting her from the impositions of her supposed son, Thomas Garth. Conroy took control of her finances which he proceeded to expend on his own advancement.

Duchess of Kent
from La Belle Assemblée (1825)

Such was Conroy’s influence over her that Sophia was persuaded to speak to her brother on his behalf, gaining him the title of Knight Commander of the Hanoverian Order. Unfortunately, her susceptibility to Conroy’s influence alienated her from the young Victoria who hated Conroy’s position in her mother’s household.

Death of a Princess

Notwithstanding her indifferent health, Sophia lived until she was seventy. She died at her house in Vicarage Place, Kensington, on 27 May 1848, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

Sources used include:
Bell, John, La Belle Assemblée, various (1806-1831, London)
Chedzoy, Alan, Seaside Sovereign - King George III at Weymouth, (Dovecote Press, 2003, Dorset)
Hall, Mrs Matthew, The Royal Princesses of England (1871, London)
Hibbert, Christopher, George IV (Longmans,1972, Allen Lane, 1973, London)
Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria (HarperCollins, 2000, London)
Hodge, Jane Aiken, Passion and Principle (John Murray,1996, London)
Oulton, Walley Chamberlain, Authentic and Impartial Memoirs of Her Late Majesty Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1819, London)
Papendiek, Mrs, Court and private life in the time of Queen Charlotte: being the journals of Mrs Papendiek assistant keeper of the wardrobe and reader to her Majesty, edited by her granddaughter, Mrs Vernon Delves Broughton (1887, London)
Purdue, AW, George III, daughters of (act.1766-1857), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004, online edn, May 2009, accessed 10 Feb 2012)
Watkins, John, A Biographical Memoir of Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1827, London)

All photographs © Andrew Knowles - www.flickr.com/photos/dragontomato