Prince Leopold was also present at the military engagement outside Paris on 31 March 1814 that saw the final defeat of Napoleon, an honour that brought him in the victors' parade into Paris itself and on to England that June with the allied sovereigns of Prussia and Russia. When he arrived in London, Leopold, who couldn't afford a hotel and was staying above a grocer's shop in Marylebone, was already pondering a game plan that had been sown in his mind by the tsar. Having had to abandon his 'fruitless passion' for Empress Josephine's 'pale, pensive and spirituelle' daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, he found himself now in pursuit of 'a ruddy buxom girl, more German, perhaps, in her appearance than Leopold could have wished'. For Alexander had apparently informed Leopold privately not long before they left for England that 'I intend for you to marry Princess Charlotte, the future Queen of England.' Alexander's clever widowed sister, Ekaterina Pavlovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, who was then staying in London, took the plan to the next level. She befriended Princess Charlotte and contrived a meeting between the classically tall and dark Leopold and the boisterously endearing eighteen-year-old princess. This unwished-for encounter, as far as he was concerned, would soon turn the Prince Regent's own dynastic ambitions for his daughter upside down, as well as providing Russia with an important influence at the British court in the person of Leopold.

Charlotte had recently broken off her engagement to her father's choice of husband, the affable but dull Prince Wilhelm of Orange. She had reluctantly agreed to the engagement in December 1813 in the cause of a strategic DutchBritish political alliance, but had then been distracted by a short-lived passion for Prince Friedrich of Prussia. When this fizzled out, attempts were made to steer Charlotte back in the direction of the Prince of Orange but she had resisted this on discovering that, as wife of the heir to the Dutch throne, she would have to live in the Netherlands for most of the time. In any case, by the summer of 1814 the ambitious Leopold—whom even Napoleon had remarked upon as being 'one of the handsomest young men I ever saw'—had arrived at court and had begun to work his charm on her.

By this time, Charlotte was growing increasingly rebellious, desperate for release from her father's stifling control; her liking for 'Der Leo', as she affectionately called him, soon turned to fascination and then to a very determined passion. By early 1815, and despite the Regent's stubborn opposition, she had become convinced that of all the many suitors for her most eligible hand, Leo was the one who 'from his situation & everything I have heard of him is the most elagible [sic] connexion for me now...I delight in Coburg because I am quite satisfied he is really, truly & sincerely attached to me & very much so desirous to the greatest degree to [do] all in his power to make me happy.' Charlotte, who was notoriously headstrong and called the shots as the only legitimate child in line to the throne at that time, refused to give him up.

Leopold's German ducal credentials might not have been grand enough for the English royals, but at least he was from a ruling family, and no one could doubt the good prince's moral and intellectual character, his 'dignified gravity and unusual moderation', though privately the Prince Regent found his putative son-in-law cautious and pedantic, and later nicknamed him 'Marquis Peu-à-Peu'.* But there was more to Leopold than initially met the eye: a cold intellect and logic lurking beneath the ingratiating façade, indicative of a determination to advance the interests and ascendancy of the Saxe-Coburgs in Europe. For her own part, Charlotte had no intention of allowing this unequal royal match to diminish her: 'Do not imagine that, in marrying Prince Leopold, I ever can or will sink to the rank of Mistress Coburg. Entertain no such idea, I beg of you.' She was already intimating her intention, when the time came, of seeing her German husband elevated beyond the role of mere consort, an aspiration nursed by Leopold himself. For, as the English diarist Henry Greville observed, he 'would do anything to be beking'd'.

 

When news broke on 10 February 1816 that 'notice ha[d] been sent to the Court of Coburg of an intended union between the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, third son of the reigning Duke', Leopold was so little known in England that even these basic facts were wrong. His father had died in 1806 and his brother Ernst was now on the throne. The British aristocracy were contemptuous: 'He is after all but a petty Prince for the heiress to the British throne,' sneered Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury. Yet for all that, the Coburg marriage was 'the only genteel Topic of Conversation' in London society at the time. It wasn't until November that anyone was the wiser, when Frederic Shoberl's Historical Account of the House of Saxony, containing a chapter on Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was brought out for public consumption, outlining the prince's illustrious genealogy and career.

======

* Marquess Little-by-Little.

Charlotte changed her tune later when she became so enamoured of her new husband that she took to signing herself as 'Charlotte de Saxe-Coburg'; it may also have reflected her desire to distance herself from her father, formerly Prince of Wales and now Prince Regent.

***

Prince Leopold was also present at the military engagement outside Paris on 31 March 1814 that saw the final defeat of Napoleon, an honour that brought him in the victors' parade into Paris itself and on to England that June with the allied sovereigns of Prussia and Russia. When he arrived in London, Leopold, who couldn't afford a hotel and was staying above a grocer's shop in Marylebone, was already pondering a game plan that had been sown in his mind by the tsar. Having had to abandon his 'fruitless passion' for Empress Josephine's 'pale, pensive and spirituelle' daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, he found himself now in pursuit of 'a ruddy buxom girl, more German, perhaps, in her appearance than Leopold could have wished'. For Alexander had apparently informed Leopold privately not long before they left for England that 'I intend for you to marry Princess Charlotte, the future Queen of England.' Alexander's clever widowed sister, Ekaterina Pavlovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, who was then staying in London, took the plan to the next level. She befriended Princess Charlotte and contrived a meeting between the classically tall and dark Leopold and the boisterously endearing eighteen-year-old princess. This unwished-for encounter, as far as he was concerned, would soon turn the Prince Regent's own dynastic ambitions for his daughter upside down, as well as providing Russia with an important influence at the British court in the person of Leopold.

Charlotte had recently broken off her engagement to her father's choice of husband, the affable but dull Prince Wilhelm of Orange. She had reluctantly agreed to the engagement in December 1813 in the cause of a strategic DutchBritish political alliance, but had then been distracted by a short-lived passion for Prince Friedrich of Prussia. When this fizzled out, attempts were made to steer Charlotte back in the direction of the Prince of Orange but she had resisted this on discovering that, as wife of the heir to the Dutch throne, she would have to live in the Netherlands for most of the time. In any case, by the summer of 1814 the ambitious Leopold—whom even Napoleon had remarked upon as being 'one of the handsomest young men I ever saw'—had arrived at court and had begun to work his charm on her.

By this time, Charlotte was growing increasingly rebellious, desperate for release from her father's stifling control; her liking for 'Der Leo', as she affectionately called him, soon turned to fascination and then to a very determined passion. By early 1815, and despite the Regent's stubborn opposition, she had become convinced that of all the many suitors for her most eligible hand, Leo was the one who 'from his situation & everything I have heard of him is the most elagible [sic] connexion for me now...I delight in Coburg because I am quite satisfied he is really, truly & sincerely attached to me & very much so desirous to the greatest degree to [do] all in his power to make me happy.' Charlotte, who was notoriously headstrong and called the shots as the only legitimate child in line to the throne at that time, refused to give him up.

Leopold's German ducal credentials might not have been grand enough for the English royals, but at least he was from a ruling family, and no one could doubt the good prince's moral and intellectual character, his 'dignified gravity and unusual moderation', though privately the Prince Regent found his putative son-in-law cautious and pedantic, and later nicknamed him 'Marquis Peu-à-Peu'.* But there was more to Leopold than initially met the eye: a cold intellect and logic lurking beneath the ingratiating façade, indicative of a determination to advance the interests and ascendancy of the Saxe-Coburgs in Europe. For her own part, Charlotte had no intention of allowing this unequal royal match to diminish her: 'Do not imagine that, in marrying Prince Leopold, I ever can or will sink to the rank of Mistress Coburg. Entertain no such idea, I beg of you.' She was already intimating her intention, when the time came, of seeing her German husband elevated beyond the role of mere consort, an aspiration nursed by Leopold himself. For, as the English diarist Henry Greville observed, he 'would do anything to be beking'd'.

 

When news broke on 10 February 1816 that 'notice ha[d] been sent to the Court of Coburg of an intended union between the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, third son of the reigning Duke', Leopold was so little known in England that even these basic facts were wrong. His father had died in 1806 and his brother Ernst was now on the throne. The British aristocracy were contemptuous: 'He is after all but a petty Prince for the heiress to the British throne,' sneered Lady Charlotte Campbell Bury. Yet for all that, the Coburg marriage was 'the only genteel Topic of Conversation' in London society at the time. It wasn't until November that anyone was the wiser, when Frederic Shoberl's Historical Account of the House of Saxony, containing a chapter on Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was brought out for public consumption, outlining the prince's illustrious genealogy and career.

======

* Marquess Little-by-Little.

Charlotte changed her tune later when she became so enamoured of her new husband that she took to signing herself as 'Charlotte de Saxe-Coburg'; it may also have reflected her desire to distance herself from her father, formerly Prince of Wales and now Prince Regent.

***